Fake film photography...busted!

The true subject in photography is not the things in front of the camera. The true subject is the thing in the camera: the real optical image formed by the lens. It is the real optical image that actually hits the film and occasions the photograph where it strikes. The photograph is a picture of this image. And the image describes only indirectly, via the transfer function of the lens, the configuration of the external world.

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This is dangerously suggesting there are two realities - one in front of the camera and the other in the camera.

(I believe in none)

miha said:

This is dangerously suggesting there are two realities - one in front of the camera and the other in the camera.

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There are way more than two realities. There are an infinite number of realities, and no one reality precludes any of the others.

Each vantage point creates a new reality.

I smell cats...

Luckless said:

This is the core of the issue. facts. That the foot exists is a fact, but not one even remotely relevant to the event at hand...

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Lord, where to begin?

(1) It's not for you to decide which facts are relevant, and which are not. That is the responsibility of each viewer of the reportage photograph. By supporting the arbitrary removal of elements from within that photograph, you are in effect censoring a viewer's right to know.

(2) Again, there is a huge difference between selecting between future events, and attempting to create do-overs of past events. Please carefully reread (there was a url link here which no longer exists). Then read it again. The gulf between the two descriptions could not be wider. Or more clear.

(3) At its most fundamental, your argument (and that of several others) resolves down to: Because I have the option of moving my feet before initially releasing the shutter, I should also have the option of Photoshopping elements into and out of an image after releasing the shutter. It is not possible to draw a meaningful cause-effect line connecting those two points.

(4) The peeing dog is not relevant to the State of the Union address until the photojournalist chooses to make it a part of the story by including it in his reportage. Once so included, regardless of accidentally or with malice aforethought, it becomes part of the factual record of that event. Removing it after that point is intellectually dishonest. It is an attempt to rewrite the recorded history of that event.

(5) The problem here is not about what you chose not to include in a photograph before the fact. It's about what you chose to include, then changed your mind and subsequently removed from the photograph after the fact. So please stop saying it's OK to cheat after the fact just because you can think of ways to cheat before the fact. Two wrongs do not cancel out to a right. Cheating is still cheating.

(6) Earlier I asked if you could think of any other broader consequences of removing picture elements, stating that the original busted photographer even alluded to one in the original article. I heard no further response, so here it is. Compromised credibility. Once you are caught cheating, your audience stops believing you. And stops believing your publications. And stops believing the publisher of those publications. And on and on...

Common to all of the above is the principle that we simply do not attempt to alter history after the fact. This is the lynch-pin of trust. Without that, you as the reporting journalist may as well not even bother showing up, because I as the viewer/reader/audience won't believe a thing you tell me.

You do realize that in all of your responses thus far you are effectively advocating for the unethical practice of photojournalism, don't you? Your views on the acceptability of unacknowledged post-creation mucking around with the content elements in a reportage photograph are at odds with every single newsgathering organization in existence. They all have rules attempting to prevent exactly what you are championing.

You do realize that professional photojournalists have been fired for doing exactly that for which you are strongly advocating as being perfectly acceptable, right?

Ken

If it is against the rules, it is against the rules.

The rules make a lot of sense, but they certainly aren't perfect.

The photographer should have sent at lest two versions to the editors, and they should have made the editorial decision.

Because editors do edit.

but, matt, its not that he submitted a poorly edited image ( lack of judgement and edited out a foot )
but that he desaturated it and someone else claimed it was tri x and d76

I know nothing about the B&W pic, W. Eugene Smith, "Spanish Wake", but it is striking in its composition, emotive timbre and the chiaroscuro. The mood is obviously heavy and veiled in gloom that is so very typical of loss. The lighting does strike me as a little uneven and heavy, but I can see no forthright suggestion that it is posed. Manipulated or not, it's a beautiful pic in the end.

wiltw said:

In reading the linked article, I see nothing claiming or implying the photo was captured on or digitally remastered to 135 Tri-X with processing in D-76 !

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You see by reading? Look at the picture. If you or anyone else can't see the fake grain then you all need to look at more photographs and read less.

If I was one of the people on the jury I should eliminate this shot by over-cropping - it fakes another completely different focal length changing heavily the context of the original image.
But I'm not, and all I have to add is that an extensive cropping could help for scientific purposes, but not to photojournalism. What I see everyday in the press media is an out-context manipulation using over-cropping, well noted by attentive editors and the public in general in a daily basis.
Sort of tired to see very good layers equipped with very good weapons...

Cheers,

Renato

Poisson Du Jour said:

I know nothing about the B&W pic, W. Eugene Smith, "Spanish Wake", but it is striking in its composition, emotive timbre and the chiaroscuro. The mood is obviously heavy and veiled in gloom that is so very typical of loss. The lighting does strike me as a little uneven and heavy, but I can see no forthright suggestion that it is posed. Manipulated or not, it's a beautiful pic in the end.

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It must have been posed. Do you think you can enter a house where you are an extraneous, where people is mourning a person who just died, and just enter and take out your camera and take pictures? You would find yourself soon in the same conditions as the man on the bed!

Besides, if the picture is 1951, what kind of ISO speed was the film and was it small format? Was it hand-held?

Honestly, for strictly cultural reasons, in no way this can be a "candid" picture. It's just obvious the man was there and the other persons are paying attention at the picture. It's easy to become blurred. Have you ever seen such a scene in Southern Italy (or Spain, or Greece) in the '50? Women would just scream like eagles for hours and frantically move their arms everywhere. Believe me, that was posed.

And I don't say there is anything wrong in the picture because it is just plain evident it is posed and he must have had permission from the parents to take the picture. And he probably took more than one! And - I imagine - with a tripod.

And I agree that, in the end, it's a nice work.

MattKing said:

One cannot have honesty or dishonesty arising out of a photograph itself. There has to be some sort of representation attached to a photograph before one can speak of honesty or dishonesty, and the representation is what is honest or dishonest.

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Very well said! The golf picture, I think, is a demonstration of this. If you pretend it's unmanipulated and it is, there is a credibility problem of all material that you send to your agency. If the picture is shown in a "pictorial" way, or as a portrait, anything sticks.

The larger picture, of the bendage on the hand, could have been legitimately posed if it had been for documentary purposes. But if it is claimed it is a reportage and the scene happens in front of your eyes independently from you, and later it is discovered that, instead, the scene was enacted, then there certainly is a credibility problem, even if one could say that, after all, bendaging hands works exactly that way and the picture would have not been different!

Look at this picture:
http://www.steveday.co.uk/travel/travel14.html

The poacher arrested by the police, it's your truly. Trust me, I'm no poacher. There was a TV crew who was making a reportage over honey-buzzards poaching in the Street of Messina. I was among the anti-poaching volunteers. The TV crew wanted to illustrate an arrest of a poacher. That's not something that can ever happen with the TV present on the scene, but we know how TV works, in general: they "illustrate" their piece with images that relate to the point. There was another man, the "real fake poacher", who should have come with his rifle. But he had a problem and was late. So I was asked to pose as the poacher. A scene was filmed three times, in which policemen (real ones) were jumping fences and running toward me, hiding behind that hut. Then they would bring me in front of the hut and search me. All filmed by the TV crew.
It is the way TV works.
Finally the "real fake poacher" arrived with his rifle and the entire scene was filmed again.

I suggest you have a trip around that Steve Day site, he was a dear friend of mine, and a very good photographer, may good light shine for him now.

jnanian said:

but, matt, its not that he submitted a poorly edited image ( lack of judgement and edited out a foot )
but that he desaturated it and someone else claimed it was tri x and d76

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Spurious claims for the provenance of an image are not exclusive to digital photographs. We've all seen posts that insist the look of a Leica lens is unmistakeable, and the unique way it draws reality is unavailable to any other optic. I can think of shots taken on Russian rangefinder lenses, or indeed single coated SLR glass which, if accompanied by a title that stated they were taken on a vintage Summicron, wouldn't raise an eyebrow. Likewise, claims for the look of a film are often as much about exposure and development as granular structure. A 400 ASA film can look like FP4 or chalk and soot Moriyama, depending on the process and printing.

We jump to conclusions based on what we are told as much as what we see.

Diapositivo said:

It must have been posed.

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It's not about whether the picture was posed or not, it's about the manipulaton Smith made later in his darkroom: Dead Link Removed

miha

i hope he was scolded for such blatent fakery

miha said:

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dang illusionists !

Diapositivo said:

It must have been posed. Do you think you can enter a house where you are an extraneous, where people is mourning a person who just died, and just enter and take out your camera and take pictures? You would find yourself soon in the same conditions as the man on the bed!<snip>

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This is not necessarily true. Some cultures want and ask for photographs of funerals, wakes and of their deceased. I personally think it's a bit morbid but it's never been a part of my culture. It's very possible the photographer was either invited or was welcomed after offering to take photos. Posed? Maybe... maybe not.

Old-N-Feeble said:

This is not necessarily true. Some cultures want and ask for photographs of funerals, wakes and of their deceased. I personally think it's a bit morbid but it's never been a part of my culture. It's very possible the photographer was either invited or was welcomed after offering to take photos. Posed? Maybe... maybe not.

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for a long long time people with cameras have been asked to make "deathbed portraits" because family and friends
who had to travel great distances often couldn't make it to the funeral or wake. from what I understand
this practice is still alive and well, and that is what I thought the photograph was ...

bayard did his own death portrait in the 1800s ..self portrait of a drowned man.
I hope he was lashed with a wet noodle fo that hoax afterwards seeing he was quite alive
fo a long time after he made the self portrait.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippolyte_Bayard#Self_Portrait_as_a_Drowned_Man

Ken Nadvornick said:

Common to all of the above is the principle that we simply do not attempt to alter history after the fact. This is the lynch-pin of trust. Without that, you as the reporting journalist may as well not even bother showing up, because I as the viewer/reader/audience won't believe a thing you tell me.

You do realize that in all of your responses thus far you are effectively advocating for the unethical practice of photojournalism, don't you? Your view of the acceptability of unacknowledged post-creation mucking around with the content elements in a reportage photograph is at odds with every single newsgathering organization in existence. They all have rules attempting to prevent exactly what you are championing.

You do realize that professional photojournalists have been fired for doing exactly that for which you are strongly advocating as being perfectly acceptable, right?

Ken

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1) It very much IS the reporter's job to decide what facts to include when writing an article, and what is unnecessary or irrelevant to the issue at hand. This is why you very rarely read about the peeling paint or scuff marks in a room where someone gives a press release.

2) You argue that there is some great and magically difference in the reporter snapping a photo now and editing it, vs snapping a photo 10 seconds later, and they would produce a pair of photos of which you would have no way of telling apart, and you want to argue that this matters

3) My argument has been that it is illogical and serves no purpose to froth at the mouth and attempt to lynch photojournalists who use the tools at their disposal to produce a clear and honest image of the subject matter at hand, while pretending that an 'unedited photo' is magically somehow more honest and truthful. Along side that is my argument that we should be holding photojournalists to a Higher standard of honesty and ethics by providing images which best represent the events, and not pretending that a reasonable usage of photoshop actually has an affect on this

4) This is holding photojournalists to an arbitrarily different standard than others. Newspaper articles aren't published straight out of a reporter's notebook. Phrasing is reworked, information is dropped, additional information is sought if they feel they are coming up short on something. Editing is done. We don't demand to see a reporter's notebook, and then call for their metaphorical lynching when we spot a difference.

5) Is it 'cheating' if you used a different lens and obliterate part of an image through depth of field? Is it 'cheating' if you snap dozens of photos and then only provide a select few? A photojournalist's job is to provide a clear and objective view of what they are reporting on, and as such it is my belief that we should expect them to do just that with the tools they have available to them. It is up to the photographer to use their tools wisely and honestly. This is NOT supporting wild and unrestricted use of photoshop.

6) "What might be done..." is a slippery slope fallacy. You can apply the exact same "What might be done" arguments to completely unedited photos. "What might be done if..."
- You stage a photo?
- Claim a photo is of something other than what is actually happening?
- Use strong bias in what you do and do not photograph?
So I do hope you can forgive me for not being clearer with how I've addressed this point in my past posts.



You do realize that all of my arguments have been about changing to focus to real ethical practices, and breaking down the illogical current views that anything photoshop is always bad, and that it can never be trusted. Many in the world have settled on a horribly arbitrary black and white view on the matter. A photojournalist who abuses photoshop to present something that does not accurately represent the events is of course no different than any other journalist who outright lies in their reporting.

However the set of all photojournalists who use photoshop is not the same as the set of all photojournalists who abuse photoshop. Yes, I fully acknowledge that it can be abused, and that we should not trust those who do abuse their tools to present something untruthful or unfaithful to the events they are reporting on. I do not claim to have a hard and fast line that will work for all images which will clearly define where one has wandered into the realm of abuse, and actually suggest caution and very careful thought be employed before any editing is made, but at the same time I do not place that line of abuse as starting at "Open Photoshop".

Also just because something has been done, or that it is currently the widely accepted view, doesn't mean that it is actually right.

I do not feed trolls.

Luckless said:

1) It very much IS the reporter's job to decide what facts to include when writing an article, and what is unnecessary or irrelevant to the issue at hand. This is why you very rarely read about the peeling paint or scuff marks in a room where someone gives a press release..

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Agreed. However, we all realize that a written article will always be subjective no matter how objective the reporter tries to be. It is also true that a photojournalist is subjective in his presentation of subject matter and may consciously or unconsciously reflect biases. I really don't care. With any subject I've been intimately familiar with, news articles about that subject are full of misleading or totally incorrect information. Look up the "Gell-Mann effect". Therefore, speaking just for myself, I don't care if the presentation is manipulated before the photo is taken. In the Pyramids of Giza National Geographic cover photo, the photographer paid the Bedouins to walk their camels between his camera and the Pyramids. To me, that's fine. However, the photo was later manipulated to move a Pyramid to fit the portrait orientation of the cover - that is dishonest.

Regardless of how a situation may be staged or manipulated before a photo is made, to me they are all valid presentations in front of the camera - like forks in the road mentioned earlier. However once the photo is made, once a path is taken, it is dishonest to change that photo to reflect a different path. This is why I stated earlier that only emulsion coated plates, negatives, or instant films provide an image that is unaltered by human judgement.

2) You argue that there is some great and magically difference in the reporter snapping a photo now and editing it, vs snapping a photo 10 seconds later, and they would produce a pair of photos of which you would have no way of telling apart, and you want to argue that this matters..
..

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Yes, they are definitely different - that is indisputable. It matters to me and matters to others; it clearly doesn't matter to you. One photo is unaltered by human judgement; the other is. You can say human judgement always enters into play simply by where the photojournalist stood and when the shutter was tripped and that is true. However, what is important to me and all that is important to me is that the image was unaltered by human judgement after the shutter was tripped.

+1

Sirius Glass said:

I do not feel trolls.

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Should I be concerned that you feel them?

Look again, I said "feed" not "feel".

Ko.Fe. said:

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 .

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^^^^^^
Yes. What he said!