The altered image on the top makes the smoke look much more menacing and the city darker.
I have a deep distrust of the press.
Every reporter has an angle, and they can cut and paste quotes and reports to show off that angle. They don’t all do it, and they don’t do it all the time, but they do it enough to double-check anything that smells a little fishy. And also, to double-check some stuff that doesn’t seem fishy.
Slate presents a fascinating article about altered digital images that have appeared in the press lately (link). They link to several other pages, including what they call a “rogue’s gallery†of altered images. So this is a whole new way to not trust them.
Some are simply altered to make people look a little better, or to improve the composition of a shot. I’m against those, but I’m really offended by the politically motivated alterations (like combining shots to make it appear as though John Kerry and Jane Fonda shared a stage to protest Vietnam).
Slate asks what kind of alterations are ok and what aren’t. That is, what about enhancements to see something, vs. zooming in, vs. brightening a color?
I think that the test is pretty simple, though maybe I haven’t thought it through. Let’s replace the photographer with an imaginary, and verbose, reporter on the scene (he writes a thousand words for every picture).
If that reporter, looking with naked eyes, or binoculars, or a telescope, or night-vision goggles, could see the same thing that’s in the photo, then it’s legit. If not, then it’s probably not.
If he doesn’t see a dark sky, then the image shouldn’t be altered to show a darker, menacing sky. If he doesn’t see a multi-racial group, then he shouldn’t combine images to make one. But if he can see the note that the president writes (asking for a bathroom break), then a photographer should be able to enhance the image to the point that the audience can see the note, too. (That’s not imaginary. That’s a real note, on the “Gallery†page linked to above.)
Whether it’s print or an image, they shouldn’t change the facts to suit their angle. But the “facts†doesn’t have to mean the entire picture that an observer would see while standing there. Frame the picture, zoom in, enhance the note.
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