January 28, 2004

I was talking to a friend online the other day and he said something that disturbs me. He was looking at a picture on my blog and he asked if I had removed the background. "No, of course not" I replied. It doesn't sound like much but the more I thought about it the more I came to realize how often people question the reality of images now. (and maybe the integrity of the photographer)

Let me give a little background. W. Eugene Smith was a storied photojournalist who worked for Magnum, Ziff-Davis and even dictated his own terms when he was a staffer at Life Magazine. He has been called "arguably the greatest photojournalist who ever lived." Many of the most recognizable iconic images, such as 'Steelworker With Goggles,' the portrait of Albert Schweitzer and 'Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath,' are his. That's why it was such a surprise to find out how much image manipulation he performed in the darkroom. For example, the silhouette of the saw and the hand reaching for it in the Schweitzer photo were added after the fact. They do not exist on the original negative. And that's only one example of many famous iconic images that were modified by Smith during the printing process. He has changed the direction people were looking, eliminated backgrounds and even added fiery reflections to goggles. I won't even detail the amount of lightening and darkening (called dodging and burning) he did to selected areas of prints, which is and has always been standard practice in photography. Despite public knowledge of all that, W. Eugene Smith is still a revered legend.

Fast-forward to 2003.

• Photojournalist Patrick Schneider of the Charlotte Observer had a trio of awards rescinded and was suspended without pay for three days because he "altered the content of a photograph" according to the North Carolina Press Photographers Association President Chuck Liddy.
• Brian Walski, a staff photographer covering the war in Iraq for the Los Angeles Times, was fired for creating and submitting a photo that was a composite of two consecutive images.

The ability and opportunity to manipulate, edit or fabricate parts of photographs has always been present. Widespread public knowledge of it has not. Today it seems like everyone and their grandmother knows what Photoshop is.

A lot of professional photojournalists are afraid that incidents like the couple from 2003 will erode the public trust in the accuracy of news images. In reality there's no need to worry about that. The seed of doubt already exists in the mind of the public and conduct like that of Schneider's merely confirms it. The damage is already done. I suppose the only real question left is whether the public really cares. Is it possible that major image manipulation has become so common that people don't view it as deception?

Posted by Daniel at January 28, 2004 09:46 PM | TrackBack