On an a.m. flight, I skimmed today’s Washington Post and noted an article on tomorrow’s presidential inauguration. The story depicted the lives/views of two polar opposite attendees, one an unemployed Califonia leftist who cannot abide Bush and his policies, the second an affluent female Republican/businesswoman who adores the man and his mission. The photographs showed the man standing in front of what appeared a fresh protest banner, while the woman–wearing stunning evening gown and pearls–is seen dramatically standing at the center of a luxurious rug while smiling over her shoulder like a glamor-queen. Lots of drama.
I’ve seen numerous other photos over the years in which the subjects seem posed, which raises the question: Ethically, can a photographer say to his/her subject: “Now, give me a sad look” or “Turn your head, look at that portrait of George Bush, and sneer” or “Can you look down and think about how sad this issue makes you?”
Can photojournalists ask their subjects to recreate a missed action shot? And what about instances in which the subject smiles for the photo, but the topic is anything but happy–can the photographer then say, “No, please don’t smile. Show me how you’re feeling inside.”
Last scenario: Let’s say an article features reunited members of the family. The family is happy again. Can the photographer ask them to, say, play some fun game in their family room/backyard, to visually demonstrate their happiness?
That whole story is a beautiful example of bias in the news. They could have easily picked a poor Republican and a rich Democrat (there’s lots of both out there), but they chose to boost the party stereotypes in the story. Why wouldn’t they have the photographer add to the effect.
Speaking as a photojournalist (although I don’t work as much for the papers or wires anymore) I’ll answer at best what the ethics are. The Poynter Institute is a good place to look toward for guidelines on journlist ethics.
For an editorial news picture, this is absolutely unethical.
If the photographer misses the shot, the photographer misses the shot. Recreating is unethical. It’s not your job as a photojournalist to recreate reality. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen from time to time, but in my book and any ethical journalist’s book, it is absolutely unethical.
Well, that’s a portrait not a news shot. For portraits and features you have more wiggle room. You’re usually allowed to pose portraits because they’re not news shots.
Of course they can, and usually do. If you don’t boss people around and tell them where to stand they’ll invariably ruin any chance at a good shot you might ever have. Or you could stay in one place for six years and hope somebody lines up right… but most of the time you just have them pose for you.
And can and will get fired for it if somebody snitches on them. Which has been the case several times in the industry. The latest I remember hearing was a photographic contributer to the New York Times who was summarily dismissed for posing photos on a drug story. A fellow photojournalist was walking by and spotted him setting up the photos for a New York Times feature which was supposed to accompanied by documentary photography—NOT photo illustrations (and that’s a whole 'nother can of worms.) The photojournalist snitched and the photographer got fired.
Another one was the case of the Los Angeles times freelancer in Iraq who spliced two frames into one to make the picture look more dramatic. When the LA Times questioned him, he admitted to his Photoshopping and was fired on the spot.
An important question to ask is “Will the average reader expect and believe this to reflect reality as it would have been if the camera was not present?” If that’s the case (as in most news photos), then the photo should absolutely not be staged. If it’s a situation in which you’re doing a feature (as pulykamell alluded to) on something and the subject is showing you (the reader) something, then it’s ok.
Additionally, any time anything other than simple contrast and color corrections are made to a photo, it MUST (journalist-ethics-wise, I mean) be labeled as a photo illustration. Good examples of this are any Photoshop filters or blacked-out, blurred or desaturated backgrounds.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned raising the flag at Iwo Jima. One of the most famous pictures of all time is a fake (or at least a re-creation taken a few hours after the first flag raising)
No, no, no. That’s not a fake! There’s a lot of confusion about the photo, as Joe Rosenthal took one staged group shot and the famous historical flag-raising shot. The latter was NOT at all staged. It was also the lesser of two flag raisings that happened that day. I have to run out now, but I’ll come back with a cite if nobody beats me to it.
And here’s pictures of the first flag raising, the second flag raising, and the truly posed picture which was the source of the communication mix-up.
Once again, the picture was neither a fake, nor a recreation done on Joe’s request. It’s a genuine news photo and all available accounts back up the photographer. I just wish this rumor would finally die.
I remember the big stink when National Geographic published a picture of the Great Pyramids at Giza on the cover, but digitally manipulated them to get them to fit. When that came out, hoo boy.
Here’s a good lecture on the topic, with just a sideways reference to the pyramid event.
And a lot of photojournalists have a problem with photo illustrations. One reason being is that it’s awfully easy to create a realistic photo illustration that is indistinguishable from a straight news photo. Sure, you can tag it as a “Photo Illustration” in the cutline, but a) How many people are going to read the fine print and b) How many people can say definitely what a photo illustration is? A photo illustration doesn’t even have to be photoshopped or manipulated. It could be a straight photo which recreates an event to illustrate a strory. Sort of the still equivalent of a video dramatization. It’s a very murky area and it makes a lot of photojournalists uncomfortable as when the lines between documentary photography and illustration are eroded, and the best bet is to avoid any photo illustrations that can be confused with actual news photographs.
One such recent example was a picture of a bumper sticker which said “Save a Hunter, Shoot a Hmong.” This appeared, I believe, in a Hmong newspaper in Minnesota. The photo looked realistic enough and was placed and presented in the same way you would expect a news photograph to be presented. But if you looked closely, underneath the photo were the words “Photo Illustration by [whomever].” Despite the photo illustration disclaimer, I can say with confidence that most photojournalists would find this unethical. (There were bumper stickers with the slogan “Save a Hunter, Shoot a Mung” being sold in Minnesota before being pulled off the shelves. Why the newspaper didn’t just run a shot of one of these stickers, I don’t know.)
Generally, here are the changes that are ethically acceptable in Photoshop:
Dodging and burning (selectively brightening or darkening areas of the picture)
Cropping
Eliminating dust & scratches (with digital photography, not so much a problem)
“Noise reduction” Digital photographs at high ISO tend to display digital grain, reducing the noise in an image is minimizing this grain.
Sharpening
And that’s about it. At no point should you change the meaning of the photograph. Cropping is routine, but it cannot be done to such severity that it changes the meaning of a photograph. One example I remember hearing from Ken Irby of the Poynter Institute involved showing a picture of an English police officer apparently chasing a black man down a street in London. If you examined the picture closely, though, you would realize that something was off. The two almost seemed to be looking off the page. Sure enough, this was an extreme crop of a police officer and black civilian chasing a third person off the frame. Such a crop would be unethical.
Also, you can get into trouble with color balance and contrast. Anyone remember the OJ Simpson photo controversy? Both Newsweek and Time had the same picture of OJ, but Newsweek ran it straight, while [(Mouse over the photo to see the Time cover.) That’s above and beyond what I would call reasonable color and contrast adjustments, and is absolutely unethical.
[url=“http://www.med.sc.edu:1081/isb.htm”]On this rather ugly webpage](http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall04/Wilson/digitalediting.html"=Time darkened it and made it look much more sinister.[/url) you can find some great information and examples of unethical photo editing. (Including my LA Times example). Notice the Newsday photo at the very bottom of Nancy Kerrigan and Tanya Harding. Looks like a news photo, eh? But read the caption: “Tonya Harding, left, and Nancy Kerrigan, appear to skate together in this New York Newsday composite illustration. Tomorrow, they’ll really take to the ice together.” That’s total bullshit. The photograph is pretending to be a real news photo, and it’s only when you read the fine print that you understand the reality. This is the type of crap that pisses off hard-working photojournalists and chips away at the value and impact of their work.
It particularly irks me because I have many colleagues in the field and I know their ethics and I’ve seen them in action. It’s a few bad apples that spoil the bunch such that the public comes to the idea that photojouralists pose their photos “all the time.” No. They. Don’t. Only for portraits. For news photos posing or recreating is absolutely unethical and should not be tolerated.
That’s the main thing, not changing the meaning of the photo. I guess the print equivalent to over-manipulating a photo would be taking a quote and using ellipses to make the source say what you want him to say, rather than what he actually said.
I agree that a photo illustration should never be used when a reader might mistake it for the actual event. I do feel photo illustrations are definitely useful in feature-type situations. Do you feel a cut-out is a photo illustration? Is this?What about this? (I believe the second one is labeled as such)
In another example from Poynter, Patrick Schneider, of The Charlotte Observer, was suspended without pay for three days, and awards from the North Carolina Press Photographer’s Association were rescinded for three pictures of his which were discovered to have been overly dodged and burnt (burned?).
Kenneth Irby’s story has a nice comparison of the original images and the contest entries.
That’s an interesting story. I haven’t heard about that one. I can agree in the case of the first photo. But the second and third photo? I don’t see the problem with those at all. The differences that I see on my monitor are only in the degree of contrast, and they’re very subtle differences at that. Such a result could easily have occurred in the film world simply by what speed film you used, your exposure, over processing, etc. Is underexposing your picture and printing it unethical? Are silhouettes (in which you expose for the light source) unethical because the limitations of exposure latitude throw darker areas into complete black?
That ruling doesn’t make any sense to me, unless it’s based only on the first photo.
Maybe part of the issue here is terminology. In the O.P., Carnac the Magnificent! seemed to use the words “photojournalist” and “photographer” interchangeably, and they’re not the same thing.
I have attended my share of events that have been photographed for the newspapers, and I can tell you they are frequently staged. Ribbon-cutting ceremonies are a perfect example, but everybody knows those photos are staged. My wife was doing some work for Miss America some years back, and the local newspaper was covering the event. They wanted an action shot with my wife, and I was working on her equipment at the time. The photographer asked me to please move aside so he could get the shot. My wife didn’t do anything differently, but I moved. Was that ethical?
I’ve had photographers tell me to straighten my tie, or take off my sunglasses (or whatever) before they took my picture for the newspaper. If they come up to me AFTER the event, and say “would you please stand over there and take off your coat for another picture?”, I think we’d all consider that manipulating the picture. But what if I’m walking up to the podium and a photographer says, “Hey, Wombat, ditch the hat”? Is that okay? What about when I’m standing at the lectern and someone says, “Look over here,” and then snaps a pic? Ethical?
These are the kinds of things that are done every single day by photographers all over the world.
