I don't know about many of you, but I manipulate almost every image I shoot, i.e., those that I decide are keepers. Often, my image manipulations aren't very dramatic. Sometimes, they are. Most of the images I publish fall somewhere between subtle manipulations and heavy manipulations.
Fortunately, pretty girl shooting doesn't require adhering to the same code of ethics as photo-journalism requires. If it did, most all of us would be guilty of routine and multiple violations.
North Carolina's The Charlotte Observer maintains strict policies regarding image manipulation. So strict, in fact, the paper recently fired one of its photographers for altering the color in an image. That's right. He altered some color values. The shooter, it seems, made color enhancements to an image of firefighters at work; not to the firefighters themselves, but to the sky behind them. You can read about it HERE.
Personally, I'm an advocate of truth-in-journalism. But I can't help but wonder whether this newspaper's ethics policies have been carefully re-examined since the digital revolution forever changed the ways in which we take pictures and process them.
According to the newspaper, the shooter was fired because he manipulated the color of the sky in the background of the image. According to the shooter, he made color adjustments to the sky, while post-processing, because of an exposure problem which incorrectly rendered the colors of the sky in his image.
Hmmmm....
I suppose the first thing that comes to my mind is how important the actual color of the sky was to the sanctity of honest news reporting. It isn't as if the photographer snapped the image on a rainy, overcast, day and later replaced that sky with azure blue.
Do the editors at this newspaper realize that most all digital images need some adjusting? Especially in terms of luminescence levels and color saturation? (Nevermind sharpening and other adjustments.) Heck, most film images required chemical (and other) forms of adjustments. Do the paper's managers also realize that almost any adjustment made to luminescence, for instance, will alter the color values in an image? Is there a policy regarding how much manipulation is okay and at what point the paper's ethical policies are violated? Was the shooter truly intending to decieve the public with his post-processing manipulations or was he simply enhancing the technical and photographic qualities of the image?
More than likely, the true answers to these questions will never be made public. Truth and reality don't actually exist in anyone's mind. Only each person's version or perception of truth and reality exists. The same holds true for images captured by photographers.
From left-to-right, Stefani, Tera, and Kelle are featured in the image at the top. I manipulated the colors of this image by converting to B&W. If this image were part of a news story, would I be guilty of an ethics violation for manipulating the original colors (and a few other elements) of this image?
5 comments:
It just solidifies the fact that most newspapers have lost touch with the real world.
Having owned a commercial photo lab I can tell you that EVERY image printed is color and exposure corrected. My lab was used exclusively by local arson investigators because of our ability to accurately read negatives and print them to match the original scene. As we all know camera meters are easily fooled by an abundance of light or dark.
Mr. Rich Thames should be the on fired for being incompetent.
Actually Schneider has a history of manipulating photos and lost some awards for heavily altering photos a couple years ago for both publication and contests. Here's some more info.
http://poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=47867
and
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=45119
I also think that the paper over reacted in firing him, but then that last incident may have just been the latest in a string of other alterations after he was told to stop.
Also, newspapers and photojournalists are now having to deal with "photoshop-itis" which is what I call the general knowledge by the common, non-photographer population that photos can be easily and heavily altered with a program called photoshop. Newspapers are taking a hard line on what they will and will not allow as far as manipulation goes these days.
:) Ernie
Actually, as a former employee of Thames', I can guarantee that Thames is making an example of this man for something other than image manipulation. Thames knows all about manipulation. He's getting rid of resistance in his newsroom.
Schneider's "history" of image manipulation is just as much bull as this incident.
Anyone who worked in newsroom photography before the use of Photoshop (as I did) knows that these "manipulations" are exactly the sort of thing that can and was done when printing photos. Hell, your choice in film can greatly alter the color of a scene. The temperature of the chemicals used to process the film (or the print) can greatly alter a scene. When you take a picture with a digital camera, the sensor picks up on some things better than others; the software in the camera alters what the sensor sees and adjusts the colors to what is "correct" instead of what is there. And using manual overrides on the scene, you can take photos that look like these "manipulated" photos regardless of shooting film or digital. The only difference about this is that the photographer decided to mess with things back at the office instead of in the street. Big deal. It's not like newspaper printing is so accurate that it won't wind up completely changing all the colors somewhat randomly anyway.
If the paper was actually worried about image manipulation, it would just change its workflow so that the photogs just didn't edit their shots ... dump the images out of the camera in RAW and make the photo editor (or an under paid photo tech) do all the changes. This was about pulling someone's pants down in public -- or nailing someone up to a tree on a hill in front of the town so everyone can see what happens when you cross Rick Thames.
Kind of reminds me of a contest our newspaper/museum had earlier this year. Images had to be taken on the day of my city's 117 birthday and 117 would be selected to run in a display at the museum. Sort of "A Day in the Life of Saginaw." I went out and took some shots, but parts of the rules later frustrated me. One was that you had to record the time and location of the shot. As in address, someting I'm sure a lot of us here aren't used to doing. An in big letters it said "Absolutely no digital modification of any kind will be accepted." If that's how it is for a contest, imagine what it's like for their PJ's! Oh yeah, I still got a pic in! (thank gawd for EXIF)
As someone who lives in Charlotte and on occasion has to read something from the Charlotte Observer, all I can say is that I wish they had as many requirements for the "facts" they print in the text that accompanies the images as they do for the images.
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