PS'd War Photos

[ShutteredEye]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/07/reuters.photog.reut/index.html

Interesting...

 

[Arch]

yea i'v seen this....... there is a section of a building which is accidently cloned to another part of the image...... the idea was to make it look like there's more smoke........ but a real amature ps job...... very strange.

 

[Digital Matt]

I heard about that on NPR this morning on my way to work. I don't know why he would do that. The original is dramatic enough. He did such a poor job of trying to enhance it. It's really embarassing.

 

[rmh159]

Yeah I looked at the two pics and didn't see a reason for PS'ing them either. It's slightly different... but not enough of an improvement to say the "work" was worthwhile. Weird.

On a side note... do photojournalists never touch-up their pics (Levels / Curves)? I could see where it would make the authenticity questionable but neither of those two actually change the content.

 

[hot shot]

how long did it take them to work out it was ps??
what a bad job.

 

[Digital Matt]

On a side note... do photojournalists never touch-up their pics (Levels / Curves)? I could see where it would make the authenticity questionable but neither of those two actually change the content.

They do. If you watch "War Photographer", the documentary about James Natchwey, you'll see a guy doing extensive dodging and burning of one of his pictures to make it more dramatic.

I heard an interview with a senior photo editor from Reuters and he said that they draw the line at adding or removing things in a photo. He mentioned color balancing for good skin tones, and adjusting contrast and what not, as things that are commonly done.

 

[Jeff Canes]

He added height to the smoke clouds that seem different than dodging, burning and cropping to me. And he did a poor job at too.

 

[ksmattfish]

The interesting thing is that I think he could have created a similar dramatic effect with burning the smoke in darker in places (and I'm positive it's been done before), and completely gotten away with it. His cloning attempts were pathetic. Just goes to show that "professional" only means that they are getting paid for their photography, it doesn't always reflect quality.

 

[omeletteman]

Wow that guy did a TERRIBLE job PS'ing the smoke. I'd say the original was dramatic enough anyways, definately not worth losing your career over.

 

[LWW]

If you follow the story that was only the tip of the iceberg.

LWW

 

[964]

I have never met the photographer in person but some of my colleagues have and they say they are really surprised that he would do that. Needless to say, as Reuters prides itself on total neutrality and reporting only 'what is', Hajj has been fired.

 

[Glen C]

This is an interesting article relating to this issue:

The Real Problem with Reality

 

[ksmattfish]

Good link, Glen C. The act of converting "reality" to 2 dimensions, stopping time, and cropping out the rest of the world is way more manipulation than cloning in some dark smoke.

 

[AprilRamone]

Good link, Glen C. The act of converting "reality" to 2 dimensions, stopping time, and cropping out the rest of the world is way more manipulation than cloning in some dark smoke.

I completely agree with Matt on this.

However, I just can't believe someone would do such a poor job of it and risk their job!

The article said that they pulled his work from their database. Does that mean it was pulled before it was printed or shown anywhere? Or did this altered picture get published in some way? And, if it did? WTH? how could that happen? lol

 

[ksmattfish]

I just picked up a book about Walker Evans. He gave instructions to his printer to burn in the furrowed brows and wrinkles of the people in his "Tenant Farmer" series (Burroughs family) to make them look more down and out and worried. So this has been going on since at least 1936.

Dorthea Lange was known to carry a trunk full of cow skulls and bones to make her dustbowl photos more dramatic.