I came across two references to ethics and manipulation in photography this morning. I suppose that means I’m supposed to post about them. There’s a huge difference between journalistic photography and editorial photography and art photography. I’m not going to go into all the differences, but I will say I am glad to hear about the photogs who got fired for manipulating their images. They should have been.
It’s one thing to correct a journalistic image for exposure, etc. and quite another to add or take away elements from the image (don’t like the light pole in your photo? Just photoshop it away!), or correct too far - remember the OJ Simpson photos that ran on magazine covers several years ago? One was darkened so much to make him appear more ominous. Ethics in layout also should be mentioned as well - manipulation of an image, such as reversing it, to give an impression you want your reader/viewer to take away from the material. The question remains, how far is too far?
The tech to do this has gotten so good, it can be hard to tell when an image has been manipulated. Editorial, portraiture, personal, and art photography have a lot more leeway, but there are still limits. There’s a new program out that will remove unwanted items from your vacation photos, such as those pesky background tourists. This still rubs me the wrong way a little bit, due to the potential for abuse.
It’s harder and harder to trust the integrity of real news media when we can’t trust the image we are being shown is real. Not to mention the potential for slander and defamation that can result; or on the flip side, using manipulation of images to cause people to feel better or worse (to manipulate them) about someone or something when it’s not reality, as in political campaigns and the “war on terror,” where this stuff runs rampant.
From the New York Times, “Ease of Alteration Creates Woes for Picture Editors”, and from News.com, “Pictures that Lie.”