'All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Smoke'

you missed the point. My first post is "roughly" how to do it.  My second post is how not to do it.  I did not post any "failure".

"how to do it"... If  taken in a studio then there properly would have been soft overhead lighting (direct or reflected) to retain detail in the hair.

I was less concerned about the border.

If there is detail in the hair then the border in my mind is not so important.

Do not get your connection between Henri, you and cropping. 

Photojournalism ethics?  What ethics? Not in the Media. Media have agendas not ethics.

Here is my attempt at lightening the hair. The problem with the original, I think was that the hair in front appears as a kind of solid mass. I tried to introduce the barest touch of highlights into the hair. Nothing very noticeable and certainly not over the top. Maybe you won't even be able to spot the difference but I think it works ok. Best, Jack

It will vary from monitor to monitor and my laptop forget about.  My PC monitor is matched to my printer default settings.  That match is really all I care about.  I don't know for sure how my posts appears to photo.net members.

Your term "highlight" is not exactly the same as  my term "texture/detail" but it works I think.

John knows how "nit picky" I am about detail.  In the "old days I was "nit picked" to death until I SAW THE LIGHT (how do you like that pun?)

You ought to Google ethics, Photoshopping, photography, media, photojournalism, and various other terms, then find the discussion boards about how the career guys fuss about their 'ethics' -- Is this edit OK? Is that action or even a crop permissible?  'You shouldn't  do that and still be hirable in the profession', they will tell each other, and on and on -- it's the subject of very serious discussion among serious professional journalism shooter. 

Try sportsshooters as part of your Google.com search to find a serious discussion.

(Sportsshooters is part of a group of professional journalistic sports photographers).

You shoot from the hip sometimes when you post . . . . Posting hip shots (so to speak) should be forbidden in comments.  You should actually try to do some research before posting.  Ethics in journalism shooting is very serious business, and a breach can get you banned from employment for life as a shooter.

john

John (Crosley)

I like your version; when I look at mine, I see differentiation in the hair, but maybe it's just my monitor, but I see detail.  That's why I didn't try to lighten more.

Good effort; thanks so much for posting.  I like it.

john

John (Crosley)

Why should one Google ethics, read discussion forums etc?  Just read/watch the news....Reuters, AP, CNN, etc. and do some research.

1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.

2. Photographing staged scenes and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.

4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

People believe what they want to believe.

To say John, that you are naive is the kindest way I can put it.

Your comment was 'ad hominem', objectionable, and that's simply forbidden.

If there's any more of that, I'll just simply stop responding to your contributions and block you.  I've essentially done that before actual blocking was possible so you know I mean it.

I stopped responding to your contributions for one year before when you transgressed your bounds, so do not doubt my seriousness, Meir, and during that time you 'invented' an 'alter ego' (or simply posted under your given name - no one here knows exactly which).

You made it appear somehow, also as though I endorsed those enumerated thoughts that you posted, or that they were common; they are not. I don't nor am I naive.  

You are full of manure, and if you repeat such thoughts, I will block you.

I worked for Associated Press, and I come from a journalism background.

Due to something that I do not share, I currently also have a 'journalism connection'.

If any photographer or newsman were caught manipulating the news or misrepresenting the news, he/she would be fired on the spot from Associated Press where I trained and worked as a newsman and photographer/photo editor, and I am told by UPI members, from that organization also.   AP was (and may still be) the world's largest news gathering organization.

Even having TWO retractions for publishing significant 'wrong facts' was a firing offense that was not appealable. AP cared very much about the truth.  It was owned by the nation's newspapers as a cooperative.  I think it still is, but don't vouch for that.  

I was told that there were two ways to get fired in that union shop -  (1) Steal a typewriter (in those precomputer days) or (2) Write misleading, fabricated, or false 'facts'.  If I did any of those, I could kiss my ass and my career goodbye.

Word would travel fast,l and no newspaper would hire me, had I done any of those.

Ethics counts in print journalism -- it did then and it still does.  

(there are some exceptions, which I will address at the bottom).

I worked with a young women who had 'two' kills (her stories turned out to have wrong facts in them).  Not long after, the wife of the the big, far-off bureau chief who supervised her and my bureau (we then worked in Nevada) called to ask me bluntly if this woman reporter/correspondent  was sleeping with her husband, the supervising bureau chief, (to which I deferred an answer since I didn't know the truth, though I suspected.)

Soon after this woman correspondent was quietly 'gone', the supervising big time, major bureau chief was 'gone', and my small town AP correspondent writing 'partner' - a 100% ethical and honest guy made of 'real stuff' -- was invited to head the San Francisco bureau, which he did, and he took over his former boss's job.  

The woman with the 'kills' ended up as a stand in the street TV  journalist.

You can say what you want about tv journalists -- I do not hold them in high regard.  In generqal, their editors write what the field reporters are to say or find quotes from, then they go, get people who say words that fit preordained quotes (often), and the rest usuallly gets edited out.  

The reporter often has little to do with the 'story' in local TV news, and possibly also in national TV news.  I am 'naive' about that and admit it.

I speak or write only for the big market newspaper print media/ not the shopping weeklies or the television and radio media -- as they are different entirely.  

I wrote the news that was read on the hourly newscast sometimes worldwide, and what was written in the newspapers around the world when they reported news from my geographic part(s) of the world, when I was writing news (part of my career).

I NEVER was accused of fabricating a fact or was accused of a falsehood or even committing a mistake, other than once writing the wrong spelling for a paper that one wraps marijuana cigarettes in - a simple spelling error.

(That was important to me, because it's the ONLY error I ever had called to my attention - and any error was of major significance.  We were schooled that one very bad error was to misspell a person's name, because that person absolutely KNOWS the truth about the spelling and then they know you're careless or wrong if you don't spell their name correctly, though sometimes lists you're handed by sources contain misspellings.)

My writing partner and sometimes bureau chief who went to become San Francisco Bureau Chief had highest ethics.

He would have fired on the spot anyone caught doing any of the things you enumerated, and he would have been backed by management.  I had highest respect for his ethics, and I think he had same for mine since he recommended I be transferred to the highest councils of AP in New York.

As part of my Associated Press duties when I was asked to move to New York World Headquarter, I was nominally assigned to the Wirephoto Division (AP Photos), but also represented that department in many things before the entire Associated Press.  Now AP had a photo manager-- worldwide 'Photo Chief' -- the famous Hal Buell --- a legend.  But Hal chose to let them invite me to sit in on the daily news budget planning council with the General Manager (biggest AP boss worldwide) the chiefs of the Washington and Chicago bureaus, plus all the worldwide department chief editors when I was 24 -- a good ten years younger than any other person at the daily 'budget conference' which allocated space on the wire for the next day's news.  

I was youngest but more than equal - I more than pulled my weight and earned my keep.

We also planned for future stories.  Though I was not formally named a 'department head' at age 24, I was given a worldwide department head's duties to sit at the table with them on an equal footing.  

I was being groomed by AP General Manager Wes Gallagher (he told me) eventually with his blessing to take over the entire AP.  (I didn't want to and left, it was too miserly an outfit).

You may have seen such a meeting of department editors in 'All the President's Men' with Jason Robards, playing Washington Post Chief Editor, Ben Bradlee.

These people brooked no playing with the facts, and during my two and a fraction years there in NYC world headquarters before I moved onto higher paying (four times the salary) pastures before law school, I never saw or heard of anyone breaking the rules about telling the truth, staging anything, misrepresenting anything, or any of the other things on your list.

I didn't even hear 'talk' or 'rumors' of such things, and my ear was to the ground. If there had been gossip about such goings on, I would have heard it.

About the photo montage, anone who sees a toy at a disaster scene is going to take a photo of it and contrast it with the disaster.  As your montage shows it's a cliche.

If anyone at AP ever picked up a toy to put at a disaster scene for that purpose, and it was found out, they'd be fired outright, no matter if they had a Pulitzer or not.  

Fact is, experience shows there's always toys at disaster scenes, especially in war or great explosions in residential areas, so such chicanery is not even on the radar.

Even experienced editors sometimes fall into sending cliches into print, but that's not dishonesty.  It does NOT meant the toys were 'planted' - they always abound at disasters in public places (not at oil refineries, but you get the point).

I was helped to be hired at AP by an eventual Pulitzer winner, Sal Vader, and Sal's ethics were world class - as were all the rest of those  (but one) I worked with, and that exception was just a slacker, a drunk who got fired, and - ultimately after firing jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge -- a suicide -- I read years later.  One of my colleagues sent me to meet Henri Cartier-Bresson (Jimmy White) a former friend from 'The China Days' during the fall of the Kuomintang and the rise of the Communist Party.

I was not playing with dummies.  I met Cartier-Bresson, too.

I started basically at the top, then moved higher, to the point where allI had to do was wait for people to die to end up at the top, so long as I allowed myself to be groomed, but I didn't want that.  It wasn't my career plan, so I refused and went my own way.

I never worked with such a group of high minded individuals in my life -- even if many of the union workers among them sometimes were lazy or complainers -- people you'd call 'slackers' from time to time, but ethically they were professional.  

I never had anyone tap me on the shoulder and say 'watch what that guy writes' or 'check to see this person's notes' or even 'call that reporters's source again and recheck his quotes'.

 There  may have been 'slackers and sometimes complainers' but they were never to my knowledge liars or misrepresenters.

Human nature being what it is, it's possible someone cheated and was not found out right away,, but not if management ever found out, or even fellow employes, for the em

"any more comments like that one"... like what one? 

Copied off the internet and pasted to your page, so I do not claim that it is my comment per se.

The photos are not authentic and upper left is Ap. Maybe take it up with the source.

This has nothing to do with images you posted, although you posted them against the rules and that is subject to Photo.net discipline, I think.

Under a former Administration, a member was  booted off the service in the face of a complaint for doing just what you did.

You are forbidden from posting any but your own personal images - no exceptions.

This is about posting a list of forbidden or 'iffy' 'or worse' journalistic practices, suggesting somehow they are prevalent in 'the media' and calling me 'naive at best'.  You seem somehow to link them to me, or suggest in some poor way that I am aware of such practices and stupidly turn a blind eye.  That is hogwash.

As a former professional and present professional in the 'media' (print media), I can tell you that I have past and present knowledge of such 'ethics', and so far as I can tell, you have none but speculation and that is questionable at best until you can educate me differently (privately:  see below).

To call me 'naiive' as best' about my former and present profession is an ad hominem attack, highly objectionable and perhaps slanderous as well, as it suggests lack of ability to perform professional work (which can easily be a libel/slander -- best to learn your law, as that particular disparagement can be a very expensive one.

Your post fails for posting the images (1) and for (2) posting an ad hominem, untrue, and offensive remark.  

You personally KNOW of my journalistic background and cannot pretend you don't.  You have shown you have read all or nearly all my postings here for years, and the facts of that background have been thoroughly spelled out before.

You have posited a number of wrong journalistic practices, suggested they are prevalent, that somehow I have ignored them in 'the media' (and by that, that includes my personal background, the legitimate print media), and that simply is false.  If you have proof to the contrary --- write me, but no longer in this forum. We can now hash that out in personal correspondence; your goodwill here is at low ebb . . . and sinking.

In relation to journalistic ethics vis a vis the print media with which I am still 'in touch' and active is a calumnny and not to be tolerated when you call me 'naiive at best' without any suggestion that you have any superior knowledge or experience.

Your posted photos prove nothing except that photographers and photo editors are suckers for a photo cliche. I'd have taken the same cliche.  It's a cliche because it's powerful, but I'd also have tried to take something different.  Ref:  James Nachtwey, 'War Photographer' and how he worked in former Yugoslavia justaposing a shattered art work with a shattered village. It's the same theme, different photo and less of a cliche, but still somewhat of a cliche, though masterfully done.  

I'm sure he's taken the same toy/shattered town cliche numerous times as well.  Everyone has who's active in disaster journalism photography has, I'd bet.   Editors, not always being best critics often print cliches - they can only send or print what's before them at that time, not what they wish were there.

They also print what they think will 'sell papers' or inside papers, sell the reading of articles, or in the case of wire services, cause member papers (or subscribers) to print the stories and photos that are sent out, and subscribers to wire services are not always discriminating against cliche photos.

In any case, that says absolutely nothing about ethics; it's a commentary about a cliche; nothing more.

Your photo montage, besides being posted against the rules is one giant red herring.  It says nothing about ethics at all and thus makes no point about ethics and does not illustrate anything you wrote.

You have written you are a doctor of something or other, so I know you are smart enough to make the distinctions I have made and without difficulty.  Either you are obfuscating now in asking the present question, or you're getting sclerotic, and I have no belief you are getting sclerotic.

Hence my reaction.

Which remains the same.

If you have something to say, you have my e-mail address; and you should write me there; this is not the place for this discussion any longer.

I feel a block coming on if this continues.  Of course you knew exactly what I wrote about and it had nothing to do with the photos you posted, and you knew exactly so, (my personal belief), and since I believe that's true, your reply above is a waste of my time.

Write me if you have something serious to say, otherwise, goodbye.

Photo.net member

John Crosley

Enough on the f...... media, journalism, AP, etc. Has nothing to do with the photo.