Trend for the worse: photomanipulated journalism in the Times

[trojan_horse]

Monday April 4th 2005. The Times newspaper (UK), Page 3, top

photograph.

 

If you don't have access to the British newspaper, you won't see the

image by Richard Pohle. This is an image of a boy, sharply in

focus, against a sea of blurred people, holding a sharp photograph.

Nothing else in his plane of focus is sharp, and the edges around

him are very sharp and defined.

 

I've spoken to 10 people, photographers and non-photographers alike,

and no one is convinced that his photograph of a young boy is not

digitally manipulated.

 

A little short of writing to the times to underline the erosion of

the quality of their newspaper by the use of unwarranted manipulated

images, which alludes to represent rather than manipulate news (the

image doesn't even claim to be a recent photograph - it could be old

library stock), seeing this image in the times detracts from evening

reading.

 

Has anyone else seen it to have any views on this? We know the old

arguments and the potential difficulties of using digital media. Is

this an example of an increasing laxity and tendency towards an

acceptance of photomanipulation in news and reportage?

 

Apologies to anyone without access to the Times broadsheet although

perhaps that is not a huge loss.

[aardvarko]

sounds like tilt/shift.

[Spearhead]

Easy to do with a diffusion filter also, people have done for at least a hundred years.

 

When will people get it through their heads. Manipulation has nothing to do with digital media, it has to do with the veracity of the source. Images have been manipulated and used to mis-represent since people began taking them. In fact, it existed long before that, as painting and drawing were used to represent "reality" and frequently didn't.

[Ian Taylor]

Seems like a <a href="http://pictureawards.co.uk/nominations/pages/13750-M2.htm" target="_blank">photographer</a> to me.

[sprouty]

You know this would be a lot easier if we had an image to look at.

<P>

But since we don't take a look <a href="http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/User-Guide/filter/filter-center-spot.html">here</a> and see if this is the effect you're talking about. It's a center-spot filter, a form of diffusion filter (as Jeff mentioned).

 

-sp

[andrew_miller_gresham]

black and white? :))

[joshchapman]

The issue isn't so much that the digital medium causes manipulations - we all know that those were around far before anyone could anticipate chips replacing film. What digital does do, however, is make manipulation that much easier. When photoshop is part of your workflow (say for colour balance and a bit of unsharp mask) it's suddently much easier to make a gaussian blur layer and mask your subject. Total computer time, 3 minutes, wheras that's just a pain in the ass to do in a wet darkroom. The advent of the photo-illustration (which many non photographers may not immidiately recognize as manipulated) weakens the credibility of photojournalism across the board. Though this case may not be the most egregious example, I hope this kind of thing doesn't become more common than it already is.

[aardvarko]

Actually, all that it would take in a wet darkroom is a tilted easel.

[cyr_.]

It is what it is............stop trying to put limitations on it. Was Remberandt not a painter when he used his finger or the end of a stick instead of a brush? Every advancment brings a new way of doing the old over and over again. Let it be.

[cyr_.]

PS Isn't the act of photography a manipulation in itself?

[trojan_horse]

I can't upload an image which is copyright - all I can do is reference it.

 

Chris - it's not tilt and shift - tilt and shift operates on a particular plane or axis and affects the whole of that plane or axis.

Jeff's point about a diffusion filter makes more sense, although the sharpness of this solitary character is so striking against the blurred people, that it is a specific type of sharpness and diffusion, atypical for documentary photography. A darkroom tilt easel would not achieve the result which Richard Pohle shows (which is also in colour).

 

"Manipulation has nothing to do with digital media, it has to do with the veracity of the source."

 

Interesting thought. Not the means, nor the end, but the source. Although implausible, as reality is not something out there to be discovered; it is the way we interpret it - "the means" which renders it documentary or not. Or maybe not?

 

"Images have been manipulated and used to mis-represent since people began taking them. In fact, it existed long before that, as painting and drawing were used to represent "reality" and frequently didn't."

 

Yes we all know that and didn't really need to hear it again.

 

Ian - Richard Pohle is a highly accomplished photographer. His photograph on the Times is questionable for me, and others. That he might win an award for a cranked up saturated photograph of the Queen of England popping her head out with deliberate vignetting and manipulation doesn't bother me. That it comes under the rubric of 'documentary photography' and is more frequently seen than not does bother me.

 

 

"It is what it is............stop trying to put limitations on it."

 

Some people love dogs, and others love sheep. Let them be. Of course you're right. That sentence speaks for itself by saying nothing.

 

"Isn't the act of photography a manipulation in itself?"

 

Ask yourself whether the tradition set up by the documentarian photographers of the 20th century conveyed human interest through 'manipulation' of their images - look through Sanders, Lange and Capa and then consider whether your question is sensible.

[varjag]

Let's face it, photojournalism always distorts reality to the liking of the reporter. By choosing the composition, the moment and the camera angle, by emphasizing on one aspects and and ignoring others, a journalist creates a story favoring one particular view. The bias is minimal in the works of best PJs but is still present.

 

And the perceived realism of photography makes it even harder to detect for an untrained eye; I'd argue that dealing with obviosuly set up or manipulated pieces of propaganda is far easier. Certain cliches and approaches are bound to bring the expected associations to the reader, prompting the conclusions. The anti-government protests here are typical in this regard: the official press would feed you with images of drunken types, faces distorted with anger and injured policemen, while the independents would feature ordinary people holding each other's hands in front of armed and armored law enforcement hordes. The real eye-opener was when I've tried covering protests myself: I realised that just by looking at the shots it is obvious where my sympathies go, and since then started to notice that everywere.

[sprouty]

So then now that you know that this effect is easily created by a simple filter, let me ask you: is it an acceptable form of manipulation? If it <I>is</I> then I ask why should it matter if the effect was done with a physical lens or through a PS technique? After all it's the effect you're concerned about not method used to create it.

<P>

Of course if you <I>don't</I> consider a diffuser acceptable, then what about a polarizer, or haze filter, or any number of other filters that alter the final image in some way?

[trojan_horse]

Eugene,

 

Facing photojournalism, I see no absolute premise as you have stated:

 

"photojournalism always distorts reality to the liking of the reporter."

 

Not always, nor necessarily, nor even true. Again, your premise is that 'reality is out there' and that the act of 'interpreting' it, equates to a distortion.

 

Photojournalism is an interpretation of what's out there -that might be a belief I hold true. On the otherhand, 'technical manipulation' of the image, which is what this thread is about, is a different event. It is an 'interpretative' event, as well as a 'manipulated' one. Through the manipulation, for instance, a diffusion filter, the meaning of the image shifts by focussing on a specific part of the image. To argue that 'interpreting reality' is a 'manipulation' isn't even interesting, except when the two activities are confused and enmeshed, both as 'manipulation'.

 

"By choosing the composition, the moment and the camera angle, by emphasizing on one aspects and and ignoring others, a journalist creates a story favoring one particular view."

 

Thus - "a photographer's interpretation". Not "technical manipulation".

 

Sp - you've totally missed the point. Actually I'm not sure if you're even addressing me or my question in this post.

 

As a national newspaper, supporting overtly manipulated images by their printing and dissemination, I would ask: "in documentary photography, is it acceptable to use technical manipulation of the image?"

 

We know that it is already "acceptable" to some - the photograph in the national paper shows it is, and to those who argue that we should 'let it be' i.e. do nothing and accept a decline in integrity, but denouncing photographic interpretation as another layer of 'manipulation'.

[cyr_.]

<i>I can't upload an image which is copyright - all I can do is reference it.</i><p>Seems like that's not all you <b>can't</b> upload. I just love looking at your work Trojan.

[Spearhead]

<i>Ask yourself whether the tradition set up by the documentarian photographers of the 20th century conveyed human interest through 'manipulation' of their images - look through Sanders, Lange and Capa and then consider whether your question is sensible.</i><p>

 

Many documentary photographers, including two of the ones you mention (and I don't know about the third), have set up "documentary" photos. That's a much stronger "manipulation" than just adding blur.

[trojan_horse]

Cyr - people see what they want even if there's nothing there. And there is nothing there. I don't upload photographs. Is that a precondition for using a forum?

 

That's a good point Jeff. Staging a photograph is a re-enactment: an attempt to convey the essence of something through artifice, which is what some of the historical documentary photographers have done.

 

Yet this is not what makes their corpus of work distinctive. Sure they have done this - their distinction is in conveying something more important about the period, culture and lifetime they lived to its viewers.

[Spearhead]

<i>their distinction is in conveying something more important about the period, culture and lifetime they lived to its viewers.</i><p>

 

Which is totally disconnected from whether or not they used manipulations. And why it doesn't matter any more now than it did then.

[varjag]

<p>Trojan Horse,

 

<p><i>Again, your premise is that 'reality is out there' and that the act of 'interpreting' it, equates to a distortion.</i>

 

<p>My premise is that the "photographer's interpretation" is a hindrance on the way to the Holy Grail of Unbiased Journalism, and is no less objectionable than an obvious image manipulation (btw, don't think I ever collated them in my post). In fact it might be even worse, as it slips past the brain's usual bullshit sensors. You did notice the selective blur/diffuser at an instant; now think how many times you didn't pay attention to subliminal messages of the photographs from Iraq, Chechnya or Palestine. As subtle their isolated effects are, combined they are pulling your thought into the goo of a "point of view".

[cyr_.]

<i>Is that a precondition for using a forum?</i><P>It should be.</p>

[trojan_horse]

Oh I see.

 

Thank you for taking the time to express your thoughts.

[mike dixon]

I said this in another thread earlier today, but it fits here as well: the issue isn't photos that are manipulated vs. photos that aren't manipulated--it's "manipulations I'm comfortable with" vs. "manipulations I'm not comfortable with."

[jgreg]

Trojan,

While I see your point and would tend to agree with you, I must second Mike Dixon. Among "historical" documentary photographers are many who, as others pointed out, staged images, used heavy burn/dodge on prints, etc. You make a distinctiion between a diffuser lens and wet dodge/burn or vignetting, both of which are used to alter a photo in order to highlight a particular element of that photo. But one is ok and the other is not? If you are balking at the use of simple filter manipulation of a photo, then you should not embrace the work of these "historical" photogs either. Just because its a BW photo from the 50's, doesn't mean it was truthfully done.

 

You ask if this is a trend towards laxity. The laxity has been present in some regard for some time. But before the fudging happened "in camera" or under an enlarger, now it happends on a computer screen. Same bul#%hit, different era. Is it everyone? Nope, but there were some in that day just as there are today.

[vic_.]

If he did indeed manipulate the photograph in post-production, the Times is 11 years late. Time or Newsweek manipulated OJ's cover shot in 1994, and I don't recall anyone being fired over it.

[kelly_flanigan1]

The UFO dodging tools and garbage cans lids I guess was a groovy 60's thing.