I thought PJ doesn't allow retouching

[Craig75]

OK, Craig, where would you stop? Would you photograph blind so as not to insert your bias? What's pitiful is not considering all the aspects of this situation. Believing that one simple rule will save your frome being deceived is pathetic.

Whatever shot I take is already going to be from my own mind garden and framed with a headline by editor to suit his/her paymaster. To then start manipulating the shot as well...way way too much attempted mind control.

 

[Wallendo]

The refugee photo is so highly manipulated that it obviously represents photo commentary, not photojournalism. To me, it looks more like a staged painting than a real photograph.
The drug addict photo appears dark. Since there is a plain shadow in the photo, it appears that the photograph was intentionally darkened. Did this occur when it was taken, or in photoshop, and does it really make a difference?
Neither of these images bother me because neither represents news where the details of the images are needed in order to represent facts. Both of theses images were manipulated to convey emotion, not to change factual events.
Framing and composition can give false facts just a easily as photoshop. There was a recent photo of a refugee child wandering through the desert, separated from his family. Another image taken at the same time demonstrated that he was separated from his family by 30 feet. Both photographs were real, but composition and framing gave completely different representations of reality.
The best safeguard we have in the developed world, is that many events are photographed by multiple photographers and obvious manipulation will be brought to light.

 

[Arklatexian]

The refugee photo is so highly manipulated that it obviously represents photo commentary, not photojournalism. To me, it looks more like a staged painting than a real photograph.
The drug addict photo appears dark. Since there is a plain shadow in the photo, it appears that the photograph was intentionally darkened. Did this occur when it was taken, or in photoshop, and does it really make a difference?
Neither of these images bother me because neither represents news where the details of the images are needed in order to represent facts. Both of theses images were manipulated to convey emotion, not to change factual events.
Framing and composition can give false facts just a easily as photoshop. There was a recent photo of a refugee child wandering through the desert, separated from his family. Another image taken at the same time demonstrated that he was separated from his family by 30 feet. Both photographs were real, but composition and framing gave completely different representations of reality.
The best safeguard we have in the developed world, is that many events are photographed by multiple photographers and obvious manipulation will be brought to light.

This post has reminded me of an old (long before Digital was even thought of) photographic truism and that is: "cameras do not lie, photographers lie") With the advent of "Photo-Shop", it probably is worse today! Personally I do not believe what I am shown in any PJ picture today...........Regards!

 

[Colin Corneau]

No one has commented on digital retouching being connected to the manipulation *routinely* done in a darkroom. What was done in the Rohingya images that can't, essentially, be done by manipulating exposure and development of film?
What substantive difference is there between choosing to use a wide angle lens or a 50mm lens, also? Both are deliberate choices made that shape what is portrayed.

What a dismaying number of commenters here still fail to grasp is that those choices do not misrepresent or fabricate what was portrayed. No elements were removed or added, and no false statements were made in captions/cutlines explaining what was being shown. That's the difference.

 

[NortheastPhotographic]

If what Nachteway is doing is "retouching", then pushing Tri-X to 1600 would also have to be classified as "retouching".

 

[Craig75]

No elements were removed or added, and no false statements were made in captions/cutlines explaining what was being shown. That's the difference.

you dont know that.

you don't know if money changed hands for junky shot, those syringes might have nothing in them, maybe two girls didnt want to shoot up that moment but a bit of money and ah why not... and the reason you cant say for certain whether thats what happened here or not is because too many journalists have pulled all those tricks before.

you can see from shadows its a high hard light - but highlights arent telling you that as he's deliberately bullshitting you with highlights by pulling them back in post so that girls look grimey and now the time of day it was taken is disguised.

 

[Sirius Glass]

This post has reminded me of an old (long before Digital was even thought of) photographic truism and that is: "cameras do not lie, photographers lie") With the advent of "Photo-Shop", it probably is worse today! Personally I do not believe what I am shown in any PJ picture today...........Regards!

+1

 

[Cholentpot]

Ted Turner found that out too late. His colorized B&W movies were abominations.

Mel Brooks saw this coming way back when and forced Young Frankenstein to be shot on 'Agfa black and white THICK film' Love this story.

 

[Eric Rose]

you dont know that.

you don't know if money changed hands for junky shot, those syringes might have nothing in them, maybe two girls didnt want to shoot up that moment but a bit of money and ah why not... and the reason you cant say for certain whether thats what happened here or not is because too many journalists have pulled all those tricks before.

you can see from shadows its a high hard light - but highlights arent telling you that as he's deliberately bullshitting you with highlights by pulling them back in post so that girls look grimey and now the time of day it was taken is disguised.

You've got to be joking!

 

[Craig75]

You've got to be joking!

about?

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Altering a photo in order to change its perception is certainly unethical and should not be allowed.

 

[Saganich]

I suppose the question is, does tonal adjustment (routine or severe) changes how a viewer feels about the subject? We forget that image like this are representations of people in their worlds. If we start by agreeing that these worlds exist then the significance for the viewer is based on many factors the least of which is tonal or structural manipulation of the scene. On the one hand the girls seem completely at ease on the street doing what their doing. This is their world and the image represents that perfectly. On the other hand the refugees are in a tumultuous world they are not familiar with. The expressions and bodies show they are not at ease, comfortable, or enjoying their world in the least. They are anxious, scared, and worried about their survival. The image represents this perfectly. I don't believe tonal manipulation can alter these fundamentals. If one is a skeptic about the existence of these worlds, then perhaps the subtle changes in mood caused by tonal manipulation could be used to undermine the significance of the images but it is first and foremost an attempted denial of the worlds and the people in them. Ethics has to always start with the humans involved.

 

[Ces1um]

I had read somewhere that journalists were not allowed to retouch their images, so they chose their shots and focal lengths to suit their goals. Wide angled lenses close up and above to create a more pointed appearance of someone they didn't like- often portrayed someone to be more sinister. They'd have people face out of the frame leaving mostly negative space to create loneliness. People in the distance facing into the frame with negative space hinted vulnerability. They could sway people's emotions based on how they treated the subject rather than manipulating the actual negative.

 

[Colin Corneau]

you dont know that.

you don't know if money changed hands for junky shot, those syringes might have nothing in them, maybe two girls didnt want to shoot up that moment but a bit of money and ah why not... and the reason you cant say for certain whether thats what happened here or not is because too many journalists have pulled all those tricks before.

you can see from shadows its a high hard light - but highlights arent telling you that as he's deliberately bullshitting you with highlights by pulling them back in post so that girls look grimey and now the time of day it was taken is disguised.

I'm not even going to dignify that ignorant slur with a response. You clearly have absolutely zero idea what you're talking about...both photographers have a long career that's held them accountable, and their current employers have ironclad rules on that, too - facts which you are happy to ignore. Unbelievable...

 

[Colin Corneau]

That post says more about the poster than it does the talented people it refers to.

 

[Luckless]

I'm not even going to dignify that ignorant slur with a response. You clearly have absolutely zero idea what you're talking about...both photographers have a long career that's held them accountable, and their current employers have ironclad rules on that, too - facts which you are happy to ignore. Unbelievable...

I think you're rather missing the point. You Don't know, and unless you were there you have no way of knowing. You are trusting the photographers are being, and have been, honest about their work.

Many countries have "Ironclad rules" against things like sexual harassment and such, and yet how many "great people" who "would never do something like that" make it into the media every year after having done something questionable that they shouldn't have, and end up having a long history of doing so without getting caught?

 

[Prof_Pixel]

I had read somewhere that journalists were not allowed to retouch their images, so they chose their shots and focal lengths to suit their goals. Wide angled lenses close up and above to create a more pointed appearance of someone they didn't like- often portrayed someone to be more sinister. They'd have people face out of the frame leaving mostly negative space to create loneliness. People in the distance facing into the frame with negative space hinted vulnerability. They could sway people's emotions based on how they treated the subject rather than manipulating the actual negative.

+1

Photographers have always manipulated the reproduced image in many ways. Anyone who thinks photographs 'tell the truth' is kidding themself.

 

[Craig75]

I'm not even going to dignify that ignorant slur with a response. You clearly have absolutely zero idea what you're talking about...both photographers have a long career that's held them accountable, and their current employers have ironclad rules on that, too - facts which you are happy to ignore. Unbelievable...

The shot in question is meant to look like a "street" shot but it's very clearly staged/posed to my eye and once you are willing to stage photos of people shooting up then just how far you willing to go to get a shot? You can tell he's talked to the two girls for a certain amount of time before taking the shot. Safe to assume he's explained what he's doing. Then next thing they are shooting up in front of him. Happy coincidence

You say nothings been removed - well all the light that was clearly in the original shot which you can see from the shadows has been removed so that what was a well lit scene is now low key and grimey. Effective? defintively. But original photo has clearly had all highlights stripped out so that a bright day is now murky.

Accountable journalists and ironclad rules means nothing - BBC have all that but still managed to cover up a paedophile ring in their own organisation which they refused to investigate - yeah unbelievable I know

 

[faberryman]

Conspiracies everywhere.

 

[Colin Corneau]

Yes, conspiracies...look, there's a boogyman behind the bushes.

These photographers both have a solid and respectable career. That didn't happen by accident. The simple fact remains that antics like choreographing subjects would ruin their reputations and their careers. I think you're kidding yourself if you actually believe they're willing to sacrifice their good names in such a stupid way.

Nachtwey spent at least a year on this essay. That's more than enough time to spend with subjects, winning their confidence and waiting for moments just like this to happen on their own...moments, by the way, that are not exactly rare in a devastating, unprecedented situation like the opioid epidemic. Go spend some time in places like the Downtown East Side in Vancouver -- you'll see scenes a lot crazier than that on a regular basis.

You are free to make whatever wild speculation you want about a career you clearly know nothing about...but don't slander the good names of two greats in the industry.

 

[Craig75]

Yes, conspiracies...look, there's a boogyman behind the bushes.

These photographers both have a solid and respectable career. That didn't happen by accident. The simple fact remains that antics like choreographing subjects would ruin their reputations and their careers. I think you're kidding yourself if you actually believe they're willing to sacrifice their good names in such a stupid way.

Nachtwey spent at least a year on this essay. That's more than enough time to spend with subjects, winning their confidence and waiting for moments just like this to happen on their own...moments, by the way, that are not exactly rare in a devastating, unprecedented situation like the opioid epidemic. Go spend some time in places like the Downtown East Side in Vancouver -- you'll see scenes a lot crazier than that on a regular basis.

You are free to make whatever wild speculation you want about a career you clearly know nothing about...but don't slander the good names of two greats in the industry.

You're basing your judgement on Nachtwey the man to give it legitimacy and authenticty and the man's a legend so it's perfectly sensible choice. But if you didnt know it was him then the unreal manipulation of light is the gateway to questioning what else is "unreal" in the photo. Plenty of photographers have been busted for doing a lot worse than I've just described.

He's clearly f'ed the light with good intentions - to show how grimey heavy drug use is - and i'm sure most viewers would pay the price to be tricked like that as its a message they will agree with but.... in doing that you have just wandered onto the outskirts of a gigantic grey vista where a lot of people are doing a lot of very dodgy things.

 

[Cholentpot]

+1

Photographers have always manipulated the reproduced image in many ways. Anyone who thinks photographs 'tell the truth' is kidding themself.

This is the truth. Every last photo ever shot has been manipulated.

The unaltered crowd are the same as the SOOC crowd. Look fellas, film especially C-41, has been digitally processed since the 90's. You gotta deal with that orange mask somehow. Shot something with b&w? Did you chose a developer? An agitation method? How about the paper stock to print?

 

[MattKing]

I find use of the term "retouching" to be quite strange (in this context).
Retouching was traditionally used to minimize/remove/hide features that were considered to be unwanted - things like wrinkles and pimples.
The discussion in the thread (and the rules people refer to) seems to be more about falsification in general - manipulation that tends to change the nature of the subject presented.
If someone burns in a distracting reflection off a button on a shirt, or darkens a distracting corner of a window in the background, they may be changing the photograph, but they aren't mis-representing in any way the subject in the photograph (unless the button and background window's tone are meaningful in some way). Essentially, they are just dealing with a mis-step in the photographic process.
It doesn't make sense to exclude that purely technical and essentially non-editorial item.

 

[MattKing]

Look fellas, film especially C-41, has been digitally processed since the 90's. You gotta deal with that orange mask somehow.

I'm not sure I understand why you think that dealing with the mask is "processing". Somehow it seems to me that dealing with a negative image with reversed colours requires more "processing" than dealing with a simple colour mask.

 

[Craig75]

Conspiracies everywhere.

Yep - sadly they were conducted by the newspapers, paedophiles and police in UK and lead to arrests, jail, newspaper closures. News organisations were/are very very dark here and it took decades for the people to get any form of justice against them. Names, reps, guidelines mean nothing here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_International_phone_hacking_scandal

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_sexual_abuse_cases

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#The_Sun