Posing Questions of Photographic Ethics

The New York Times ^ | 6/16/2015 | James Estrin

[Beave Meister]

Most curators hope to get glowing reviews and popular acclaim when they mount an exhibit. Michael Kamber, on the other hand, is expecting some blowback for his latest show, “Altered Images: 150 Years of Posed and Manipulated Documentary Photography,” which opens this weekend at the Bronx Documentary Center.

And he’s perfectly O.K. with that.

“I think there will be some unhappy people,” said Mr. Kamber, a photojournalist and founder of the center. “That’s good. If people would stop faking photos, then they wouldn’t have to be worried about being called out.”

The exhibit, a selection of well-known images that have been altered, staged or faked, is an indictment of some modern practices, and practitioners, of photojournalism. At a time when veteran photographers are being replaced by newcomers or untrained “citizen journalists,” it also raises important questions about the profession’s future amid increasing doubts about the veracity of images.

[Beave Meister]

The Old Gray Whore writing about ethics is funny enough.

[BenLurkin]

well-known images that have been altered, staged or faked

[JoeProBono]

Prize-winning wildlife photo STAGED

[a fool in paradise]

This award winning photo was doctored at the time to make it "a better composition" (they painted out the fence post).

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Wow I never knew that.

Thanks.

[a fool in paradise]

I wonder if they have this one in their show.

[a fool in paradise]

JINOS, Journalists in name only.

Note, the kid doesn't look so sad.

[a fool in paradise]

“Different news organizations have different standards and different contests have different standards,” Mr. Kamber said. “This is a discussion that we must have before we’ve destroyed all credibility in photojournalism.”

TOO LATE!

[MeshugeMikey]

WE HAVE A GRAND PROZE WINNER!!!!!

[MeshugeMikey]

Photo journalism is really the only area of photography where Ethics...per se as in HONESTY really matters.

THe Photographer...Ansel Adams

the photo on Our Left....the original .un "altered" in darkrom processing

.. the photo on Our RIght,....the final....."faked" i.e highly "processed image which has become rather famous over the years.

[Vermont Lt]

To call the picture on the faked is indicative of ignorance of the photographic process.

And there is a grand canyon’s worth of difference between what Ansel Adams did and journalism. It is like confusing Michelangelo with a caricature artis on the street.

[MeshugeMikey]

I used Ansls Examples to define...PROCESSED and Unprocessed

In the digital age... far more can be ...and is regularly Processed..in FIne Art Photography.

by faked...I meant...simply Modified...the lighter image was not given the same processing sequence..as the more well known Darker..Higher Contrast Image.

In Ansels Day it was done in the Darkroom....today its done in Adobe Lightroon and Adobe Photoshop.

Ansel was a fan of those new fangled Scanners...when we last heard from him

Any of his images...digitally processed would be utterly stunning.

Not to slight his “eye nut he was the master of the darkroom

[MeshugeMikey]

One of a series of my favorite "faked" photographs

the Clients were Adobe..and Sun Microsystems.

the photo as published in COmmunications Arts Magazine...had a bit more "pop" applied...

as "fate" would have it..I was on that hill above that road.....Panoramic Highway in Mill Valley CA...early one summer evening watching a row of Kawasaki Motorcycles...being "Filmed: for a ad...and coined what I though was a GREART tagline for that model Kawasaki

Kawasaki...THE OTHER MOUNTAIN BIKE

[PLMerite]

"Moonrise" is my favorite Ansel Adams image. He worked for hours burning and dodging to get the image "right" to his eyes. No different from running a digital image through Photoshop to correct lighting and color.

[Vermont Lt]

Ok, sorry to have taken you literally. I understand your point.

That guy was the best ever.

Photoshop is probably the best advancement in photography since safety film. The fact that many use it for evil is too bad. Ha ha.

[Rodamala]

I know a guy that was a professional photographer that had worked for a major newpaper in NJ. He did this for a living. Recently I was curious about a photograph that he had taken, which had been an office decoration at my old job. The original was actually located, but in the interim, the photographer was brought into the email conversation, and he said he certainly still has the negative, but... he has no darkroom anymore. Sacrificed to the digital age... which I got to see his transition to digital still photography equipment in the 1990s... but a photographer, without a darkroom? I just had no clue how to respond to that. I mean, isn't that like an mechanic without a wrench, an electrician without a pair of wire cutters, or a house framer without a hammer?

I guess I just have to look at it like an engineer without a sliderule, or a housewife without a sewing machine.

[SunTzuWu]

Bookmark.

[a fool in paradise]

He worked for hours burning and dodging to get the image "right" to his eyes. No different from running a digital image through Photoshop to correct lighting and color.

There is a key difference.

In photoshop, reset your image to the original file each time you press print and "enhance" again. See how consistent your results are making the prints look identical.

If you click "save" you have created a new "negative".

[Covenantor]

Photo journalism is really the only area of photography where Ethics...per se as in HONESTY really matters.

There should be a bright sharp line between photo "journalism" and all other forms of photography.

The hard truth is that newspapers and news magazines have long been invested in maintaining a false front of objectivity, both in their copy and photos.

Published daily news photos were under the constraits of time, economics, and the available photo and printing technologies of the day. At the first step in the workflow, deciding a photo is worth the effort and expense of making screened plates in time for the next edition a photograph may be cropped to fit the column format and placement. Right there the first editing of image information becomes subjective, beyond the photographers choice of position and composition before snapping the shutter. Cropping alone can change the viewers reaction dramatically of the event and color the processing of the presented word copy. And that has always been the intent of the publisher, to control the emotional shape and content of the final product. Digital tools in image capture and processing have just made it much quicker and cheaper than ever before.

Today it's a matter of caveat emptor, buyer beware.

[Liberty Valance]

"Cheer up baby - it's only photoshop ..."