Lisa Coles Access to Photography Tower Hamlets College An introduction to the ethics of photographic manipulation

1. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Assessment Criteria 5
Demonstrate how visual codes associated with conventional
photographs can be called into question with digital techniques
Study the images and list any differences between them
Why did the photographer make the changes?
How has the visual meaning changed?
What might be the consequences of the changes?

2. Photograph by Adnan Hajj / Reuters
Aug. 2006 - Reuters withdrew this image of smoke rising from burning
buildings after an Israeli airstrike Saturday on the suburbs of Beirut after
evidence emerged that it had been manipulated to show more smoke. The
manipulated image is shown on the left. The unaltered image, shown on the
right, has since run.

14. Sept 2010: Ex Egyptian president Mubarak — who was originally on the far
left of the photo — is now leading the team down the red carpet. Not only
has he been moved, his image has also been reflected. This is how it
appeared in Al-Ahram, Egypt’s state-run newspaper:
Al-Ahram is
Egypt’s largest
newspaper,
with a reported
circulation of
over a million

15. Klavs Bo Christensen's pictures were removed from the Danish Union of Press
Photographer's "Picture of the Year" contest when judges compared his images to his
RAW files and noticed he used exaggerated coloration in his submissions.
The rules stated: You may post-process images electronically in accordance with
good practice. That is cropping, dodging, converting to B&W as well as normal
exposure and colour correction which preserves the image’s original expression.
The judges deemed the over saturated work ―unacceptable‖

16. photo by Brian Walski of the Los Angeles
Times.
Walski was on assignment in Basra, Iraq, during the height of the initial ground war
in 2003. That picture ran on page one of the LAT and the Hartford Courant. The only
way Walski got caught: Careful examination of the original shows several people in
the background that appear twice.

17. Initially, the photographer — Allan Detrich — reportedly denied he had
photoshopped the picture. Then he said he had changed it for his own copy but then
had accidentally transmitted it to the photo editor.
The paper suspended him and began combing though 14 weeks of files he had shot
so far that year.
Donald Winslow of the National Press Photographers Association reported:
Detrich submitted 947 photographs for publication in 2007, right up through his last
week of work. Of those 947, 233 were published either in the newspaper or on the
Blade’s Web site. Editors have determined that 79 of the photographs were clearly
digitally altered.

18. Award-winning photographer Bryan Patrick has
been fired from his newspaper, the Sacramento
Bee for violating the paper’s ethics policy.
The picture on the right was a combination of
the two on the left. Notice any repeats?

19. This was an entry for the world press photo, it would have won if it had not been
disqualified. The offending image is by Stepan Rudik.
The issue was not the crop, the black and white conversions, grain or contrast
etc. it was the fact that he removed the person from behind the figure. This minor
correction was the reason the image was disqualified. Is this justified?

20. The photograph above left, released on the news website and public relations arm of
Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Sepah News, has been apparently digitally altered to
show four missiles rising into the air, instead of three, during a test-firing Wednesday in
Iran. The third missile from the left has apparently been added to cover up the missile
on the ground that may have failed during the test.

22. Edward Curtis is also known to have manipulated the images he produced for his
books. The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis One image in particular, In a
Piegan Lodge, 1910–Volume Six, Portfolio Plate 188 is a prime example.

23. In this doctored photo of Queen Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon — mother of Queen
Elizabeth II — and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in
Banff, Alberta, King George VI was removed from the original photograph. This
photo was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister.

24. his Pulitzer Prize winning photo by John Filo shows Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as
she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller at Kent State University, where
National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing four and
wounding nine. The photo originally featured a visually distracting fencepost behind
Mary Ann Vecchio’s head, but this was removed by an unknown photo editor in the
early 1970’s. The modified photo then was published in Life magazine and other
publications.

25. Avedon’s instructions to his printer

26. BRIEF 9 Montaging Digital Images
PART TWO
Create your own codes of convention (bulleted list) for using Photoshop
commercially as a Fashion Photographer or PhotoJournalist in the U.K.
Include an introductory paragraph explaining why we need a code of
convention. Use some examples of photographs by existing commercial
photographers to illustrate your point.
Assessment Criteria 5 Demonstrate how visual codes associated with
conventional photographs can be called into question with digital techniques