Fake film photography...busted!

ic-racer · Apr 8, 2016

Classic 35mm Tri-X in D76 that we all know and love...

ic-racer · Apr 8, 2016

Oops! I guess not...the original image, prior to becoming a fake film photograph:

ic-racer · Apr 8, 2016

Details here: http://petapixel.com/2010/03/03/world-press-photo-disqualifies-winner/

miha · Apr 8, 2016

I remember seeing this a long time ago already?

ic-racer · Apr 8, 2016

miha said:
I remember seeing this a long time ago already?

Here on APUG? Can you find the earlier thread?

miha · Apr 8, 2016

I'm not sure it was here, does it matter?

pdeeh · Apr 8, 2016

None of this matters

Sirius Glass · Apr 8, 2016

Finally an attempt to bring trust back into photography. Trust matters.

removed account4 · Apr 8, 2016

ic-racer said:
Oops! I guess not...the original image, prior to becoming a fake film photograph:

when did he claim it was a film photograph, or uncropped ?

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 8, 2016

pdeeh said:
None of this matters

That's a disturbing assertion...

Ken

Sirius Glass · Apr 8, 2016

pdeeh said:
None of this matters

I could not disagree more. It does matter.

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 8, 2016

jnanian said:
when did he claim it was a film photograph, or uncropped ?

The problem isn't about film or cropping. It's about subject alteration within the context of news reportage. Within such a context trust is absolutely paramount.

Ken

mdarnton · Apr 8, 2016

This is just BS. The bias starts when the photog decides where to stand and what to shoot, and it's a joke to pretend otherwise. The current attempt at putting a spin on it that they can legislate truth by simple rules that can be provable is both bogus and deceitful. Much more deceitful that just removing irrelevant parts of a background, in fact. Shame on them all.

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 8, 2016

mdarnton said:
This is just BS. The bias starts when the photog decides where to stand and what to shoot, and it's a joke to pretend otherwise. The current attempt at putting a spin on it that they can legislate truth by simple rules that can be provable is both bogus and deceitful. Much more deceitful that just removing irrelevant parts of a background, in fact. Shame on them all.

And this is even more disturbing, as it illuminates what can happen after trust is lost...

Ken

Luckless · Apr 8, 2016

The big and important question to ask with regards to "Does this matter" is "What impact and changes did the edit make?"

I have to agree with mdarnton. Nothing was achieved through the edits of this image that could not have been done had the photographer shot it with a different camera and lens at a slightly different time (to get rid of the foot).

If you believe that "Truth and honesty" can be in any way enforced by demanding .cr2, .nef, or some other specific format, then that is honestly kind of worrying that anyone thinks it would actually make any sort of difference. A) What and when a photographer chooses to point their camera at matters a whole lot more than the media and format used. B) While not an easy task it is far from impossible to encode something that was entirely created in photoshop as a standard 'raw' file format. They're just data after all.

Yes, of course major edits of content such as adding content from a completely different photo is a terrible thing in journalism, but I'm not going to cry over someone tidying up an image to be more visually interesting if they haven't changed anything that carries any sort of importance to what was actually going on.

bvy · Apr 8, 2016

Make photography great again.

removed account4 · Apr 8, 2016

sorry for the big snip mdarnton

mdarnton said:
This is just BS

i think the whole thing is bogus, the fact that he didnt' stand or point the camera 4 inches to the right
so the foot was hidden is the reason he removed it, becasue it looked like a finger that didn't exist on the hand.
he submitted the raw files for the judges to mull over
and the spin that he lied and suggested that the image was a film based image made with tri x and d 76
is absolute BS. he didn't contest the judges decision, and i agree with him, removing the foot that looked like
a finger did not change the content and impact of the photograph.

the whole concept that some people have that photography is the truth that must be preserved is laughable.
it is the truth that the person with the camera and the truth of the printer &c decide to present as the truth.
the only shred of truthfulness that happens with a camera is on a molecular level.
that chemical rays of light hit something that is light sensitive and create an image, nothing more, nothing less.

i regularly do archival work for federal and state agencies. i hide telephone poles and other extraneous things by the way i photograph a building so there are fewer distractions. i make something that is hideous/ugly look nice and presentable
( last rites )
am i lying ?
i photograph people with dignity and respect, i make people look good when i make a portrait so good that some folks
who were talking to them a few hours earlier didn't even recognize them,
am i lying ?
i often times contact print color negative or slide film on b/w paper.
is that lying ?

its the same old same old

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 8, 2016

Luckless said:
The big and important question to ask with regards to "Does this matter" is "What impact and changes did the edit make?"

That is indeed the biggest and most important question to ask. Now, in seeking an answer broaden your vision to gaze beyond just that meaningless blurred sliver of half-a-foot in a shoe.

What other broader and more consequential impacts and changes might such an edit make?

Ken

Diapositivo · Apr 8, 2016

Ken Nadvornick said:
The problem isn't about film or cropping. It's about subject alteration within the context of news reportage. Within such a context trust is absolutely paramount.

Ken

I agree. Rules are rules. In photojournalism this kind of manipulations are not allowed, and disqualification was warranted.

The "fake old film picture" is in any case, if the lie is created by the photographer, not less worthy of disqualification. The point is not whether the picture is "true" or not, the point is that in photojournalism the photographer must never try to "cook" the image in a way that might change its significance. Pretending it is shot on film when it is not is a forgery in any case, whatever "value", if any, you attribute to analogue photography. It just tells you the photographer is not honest.

The removal of the foot is disloyal. There are plenty other photographers who could submit a supposedly interesting crop of their image and would need to cook some detail here and there. They don't because it's violating the rules of photojournalism. The photographer was "unlucky" to have that feet in the image, and other photographers were "unlucky" to have other image details in their pictures, which they honestly did not retouch. Rules are rules.

Ko.Fe. · Apr 8, 2016

I could find it difficult to distinguish it from film on this screen size for color version. You know, overprocessed flattened scan. But BW version, you would have to be legally blind to get it as film. Primitive emulation even for 2010.
And the rest is BS, with petapixel as biggest pile of poop not related to photography .

Luckless · Apr 8, 2016

Ken Nadvornick said:
What other broader and more consequential impacts and changes might such an edit make?

Ken

Yes, what consequences are there to removing signs of an irrelevant and distracting element from a photo which would make the photo harder to understand?

I in no way deny that you can greatly alter important elements, and fully acknowledge the massive change and impact such an action can have, but I fail to see any reason to worry to be concerned over the edits as given to this photo. In what way does it change your opinion on what is going on at the time the photo was taken?

cramej · Apr 8, 2016

Nowhere in the article (which BTW is from 2010) does it say that the photographer claimed it was 35mm Tri-X. The contest disqualified the image because he changed the content which was prohibited. I would agree that leaving the foot in ruins the image and at least he didn't take out the person whose foot it is - just burned it in heavily. Lesson in the end? You lose if you don't follow the rules.

Tis Himself · Apr 8, 2016

One must presume that the rules were made available prior to anyone entering the contest. I'm sure no one held a gun to the photographer's head and forced him to make an entry that did not conform to the rules. He chose not to follow the rules. When he got caught and was disqualified, I do not understand how anyone can say it doesn't matter. I believe that this is symptomatic of many things in today's society ... get away with all that you can because there are often no consequences. I believe he got what he deserved. I applaud the disqualification decision.

Ken Nadvornick · Apr 8, 2016

Luckless said:
Yes, what consequences are there to removing signs of an irrelevant and distracting element from a photo which would make the photo harder to understand?

There are several broader consequences. Here are two obvious ones:

(1) Who gets to judge which removed elements are "irrelevant" and "distracting"? You? What if the rest of us disagree with you? On the other hand, if no elements are removed (and we can all TRUST that none were removed), then we can all explicitly draw our own conclusions regarding the meaning of what we are seeing.

(2) Unless informed after the fact, how do we know what else might also have been removed? Whose job is it to do that informing? You? How can we TRUST that you have told us everything? We know that half-of-a-foot was removed from this particular illustration.* We know this because the photographer got caught. But how do we also know for a fact that other more significant details have not also been removed? Details like perhaps a blurred image of the famed "Hollywood" sign on a distant hillside? Which would then imply that this entire news "event" was actually staged on an outdoor motion picture set?

The bottom line is, if a photographer is allowed to remove so-called insignificant subject matter, then he can also remove highly significant subject matter. Either unknowingly or intentionally. And because the elements were removed, we the viewers (who are using his visual reportage to help further our understanding of the issues depicted), would never know.

Can you think of any other consequences?

(The photographer in question actually alluded to another very serious one in the article itself.)

Ken

* Post-alteration it is no longer a photograph.

Diapositivo · Apr 8, 2016

A couple of articles about this subject. I can't find an article about a Getty Images photographer who some years ago made a lot of fuss when it was discovered that he had modified a pictures that was published (no contest, just normal work).

http://www.bjp-online.com/2015/02/image-manipulation-hits-world-press-photo/

Dead Link Removed

Photojournalism has nothing to do with photography as form of artistic expression. Changing the elements of a picture is like changing the transcript of a politician's speach in order to make it shorter, or clearer, or different from what it was. Adding or removing elements is taboo however "insignificant" the element.

Fake film photography...busted!

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