· web view– second half of article: choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

UNIT 2: PHOTOGRAPHY & DESIGNMEDIA LITERACY I: Photo Manipulation & Ethics

Student 1: Student 2: Table #:

PART I: Working with Source Material / Reading Packet for Essay Prompts

PROCESS------------

GOAL: Each table will complete and summarize the reading by working together and sharing information.

1. Each student will work with a partner and divide their chosen article in 1/2, coming up with 3 essential ideas and one important quote or example from their reading.

2. On Tuesday / Wednesday, students will spend the first part of the class sharing their information with their table to complete their worksheet.

3. You will have 45 minutes on Tuesday / Wednesday to complete this packet.4. A table with 11- 12 students must complete the entire packet together. A table with 9-10 students must

complete 5 questions together. A table with 7-8 students must complete 4 questions together. A table with 6 or less students must complete 3 questions together.

Study Questions:

1. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY: A Question of Ethics Article 1a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

a.

b.

c.

Example or quote from article:

Article 1b – second half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one examplea.

b.

c.


2.The Ethics of Digital Manipulation: Is it real, or is it Photoshop? Article 2a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

a.

b.

c.



b.

c.

Example or quote from article

3. Every Picture Can Tell a Lie Article 3a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

a.

b.

c.



b.

c.


4. PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES THE WAY WE RECORD AND RESPOND TO SOCIAL ISSUES

Article 4a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one examplea.

b.

c.



b.

c.


5. The Ethics of Street Photography Article 5a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

a.

b.

c.



b.

c.


6. Photo ethics – a blurry line Article 6a – first half of article: Choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

a.

b.

c.



b.

c.


Circle one prompt below.

Photojournalism:o Photojournalism works within the same ethical approaches to objectivity that are applied by other

journalists. What to shoot, how to frame and how to edit are constant considerations. Photographing news for an assignment is one of the most ethical problems photographers face. Photojournalists have a moral responsibility to decide what pictures to take, what picture to stage, and what pictures to show the public. What level of photo manipulation is acceptable for a photojournalist? Write & shoot a 2-3 page paper, using the photo techniques while analyzing the ethics of photo manipulation, "focusing" on the differences between "pure" photographs and those manipulated and sold as “real”. Embed your examples on the front page of your essay.

Photo Manipulation (Fakery):o Since its creation 175 years ago, photography has followed two basic pathways: as documentation

- cityscapes, local events, personal portraits - and as a method of experimentation and manipulation, to fool the viewer into a set of beliefs or ideas. Students will research both "real" photography and compare it to its manipulated cousin. Write a 2-3 page essay comparing both methods as ways of revealing the photographer’s goals and intentions. Cite 3 or more sources in your comparison. Embed two examples on the front page of your essay.

Rubric: 1) answers the question fully; 2) creative thesis and ideas; 3) cites evidence

Rewrite your chosen prompt in your own words.

PHOTO ETHICS PACKET1. DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHYA Question of EthicsBonnie Meltzer

While walking down a street in a big city, a newspaper cover caught my eye. From 100 feet away I said to myself, Somebody's been using Photoshop. The picture on the front page was of a noted personality all dressed up in the latest grunge-----not her usual style. What caught my eye was not the celebrity but the obvious use of photo manipulation. The hair was drawn on with bilious yellow and of a texture that was not real. As I got closer I could see that the artist who made the cover of this weekly paper wanted you to know that he had tampered with the original photo. It was very obvious.

I snatched up a copy of the paper to use at my next lecture on imaging. I now had a perfect visual example of badly executed, very clumsy photo manipulation. But why did I want such a bad photo? Because this cover, especially juxtaposed with a skillfully manipulated photo, raises two of the most important questions about photo manipulation. Why are photographs edited, anyway? Does it make a difference if you can tell that a photo has been edited?

The Importance of Reading ImagesComputer-edited photographs are ubiquitous. Even if we weren't teachers we have to know the issues surrounding imaging. We live in an increasingly visual world. As individuals and as a culture, we need to know how to read and interpret visual images.

As teachers we need to help our students be aware of the uses and abuses of imaging. Photo manipulation is not just about using the technology --- is about understanding our society. We have to prepare our students as users of the technology because they will become adults who will be working in the newsrooms, laboratories, and graphic studios.

They are also going to be on the receiving end of all this manipulated visual information. We have to help them navigate through it all so they can become thinking adults. All this raises more questions. How do we tell what's real and What's not? How do we keep from believing everything that is printed? How do we keep from believing nothing?

Manipulating PhotographsI will probably raise more questions in this article than I will answer. I can, however, give you a good idea of why people edit photographs. All of you who read this publication already know that computers are wondrous machines. When it comes to photography it seems even more magical. I can redecorate my whole house, loose ten pounds or even ten years, and leap tall building at a single bound all while sitting at my Mac. As an artist I am entranced by the creative things I can do. I can make a visual landscape replete with icons and symbols. I can stretch reality to create new meaning by mixing images that don't normally appear together. I can make reality unreal and, conversely, make fantasy seem real.

Artists sometimes need to work with the mundane. We have to take the bad photographs that our clients give us and make them printable. I recently received a newsletter that had a picture of a group of board members on the front page. I don't think it was an editorial comment that the members of the board were gray and faceless. Whoever was responsible for putting the newsletter together didn't know that a photo can be made lighter and brighter, be given more contrast, and have the image sharped. With a computer and photo manipulation software, the contrast in the photo could have been adjusted turning this photo into a nice group portrait instead of a faceless blob.

Family pictures that are so faded that you are afraid that the image won't last until next year, much less the next generation, can also be made more visible with imaging. Even after all these years of working with enhancement software, I am amazed at how much can be made visible with the right techniques and, of course, software. Grandma's features reappear!

And speaking of family pictures, what about the one in which you look really cute but it appears that a parking meter is growing out of your head? Aunt Sally could never master the view finder! Again, photo imaging software comes to the rescue. Not only can you erase the parking meter but you can extend the rest of the background to fill in where the meter stood.

It used to be that you needed zillions of dollars worth of hardware and complicated software to accomplish these feats. Now, however, our fourth grade students can achieve these miracles with even LC's and low cost software like Color It!

The Ethics of ManipulationWhy do you think that Oprah Whinfrey's head on Ann Margaret's body appeared on the cover of August 26, 1989 issue of TV Guide? Try to imagine a final production meeting in which an editor might have tried to explain the decision to use that photo:

I need a picture of Oprah, a new one now that she is thin but we don't have one and we go to press too soon to get one. What shall we do? Let's see, we have an old picture of her. Let's but her head on a thin body. We can do that now, right? Who will know? We just have to match the direction of the head and the body. We don't even have to worry about color. We can match any skin tone. We need to do this now .

Is a deadline a good enough justification for this solution? Is laziness a good enough reason? Is cost a good enough reason?

The Oprah example may seem rather trivial---Unless, of course, the picture was of you. The intent may be different, but is there any difference in the editor's solution and painting a mustache and beard on a poster? Both are violations of the person pictured. Does it matter that in one instance the attempt was made to make the person look good while the other was made to discredit the person? Answering the questions begets more questions

The matter of intent must be discussed. In the Oprah example, we have surmised that "truth" may sometimes be distorted because of laziness. But there are other reasons images are manipulated. The two headed goats on the cover of the supermarket tabloids are made to deceive. Can a can of pop be removed electronically from a table without being deceptive? Should a person ever be added or subtracted from a photo? Again we must consider intent. Is the photo of people going to be used at a trial? Is it for a newsletter or class picture? Does it appear in a reliable newspaper as a news item? What makes the difference between a positive use of photo manipulation and an abuse of it?

Even positive intent can lead to distortion. A person editing photographs must always be aware of the way our soviet reads symbols. You have seen the June 27,1994 covers of Newsweek and Time with two different versions of the same mug shot of O. J. Simpson. The Time cover make Simpson's face darker, blurrier, and unshaven. Matt Mahurin, the illustrator at Time Magazine who manipulated the police photo of O. J., at his word, he said that he "wanted to make it more artful, more compelling." He forgot to ask the following questions:Should a police photo be manipulated? A news photo be manipulated?Are certain kinds of images symbols for complicated attitudes and issues.Are certain symbols or images understood differently by different ethnic groups or segments of society.Will my intent be misinterpreted? Will I be unsuccessful as a visual communicator?We are left asking ourselves the question: Was Mr. Mahurin a racist, an unthinking person or a bad artist?Newsweek published the same mug shot without altering it. It was the juxtaposition of both the Time and Newsweek covers that really points to the issues. No other example of photo manipulation gives us as much to talk about as these two covers. The issues are present with other examples from the media but they aren't as clearly defined.

Student AwarenessThe question you are probably asking at this point is, What can I do? One way of helping students to understand the issues surrounding photo manipulation is to have them ask questions. Make them aware of all the issues involves when they create images for the school newspapers, art class, term papers and other school work. You can start with Where? When? Why? How? and What?

Where did I get this photo? Is it mine to use?

When can I use a copyrighted photo? Why am I changing this photo? How will the readers interpret this photo? How would they have interpreted it without editing? What is the context of the photo? Is this photo supposed to be truth (journalism) or fantasy (art)?

For those of you who don't teach imaging the same questions can be asked of newspaper and magazine photos, TV advertisements, and even mail. The idea is to enable your students to observe, analyze, evaluate, and yes, think critically about the tons of visual material that come their way.

The manipulation of photographs is not new. In 1903 Edward Steichen said . . .In the very beginning, when the operator controls and regulates his time of exposure, when in the dark room the developer is mixed for detail, breath, flatness or contrast, faking has been resorted to. In fact every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible. When all is said, it still remains entirely a matter of degree and ability. Adobe Magazine 6(3), 104)

It is also true that photographers touch up photographs, but it was a long and arduous process. Digital editing is faster and easier. The tools are within economic reach for institutions and individuals. Thus more photographs can be and are manipulated.

My intent in writing this article is to make you aware of the issues--to get you to ask questions--to stimulate discussion and to encourage debate with your students and your peers. Some questions can't be answered easily. Others can't be answered at all. But to not ask the questions is to miss a great opportunity.

2.The Ethics of Digital ManipulationIs it real, or is it Photoshop?

How can we believe anything we see anymore? With today's technology, we can literally do anything we want with images.

In the example see above, we have changed the red color of M8, the Lagoon Nebula, whose main spectral emission lies in the red portion of the spectrum, to blue with a simple adjustment in Photoshop.

When photography was first invented, its overwhelming power came from the fact that it recorded nature more realistically than any other art form had ever done before. Because of this, people trusted it and believed it portrayed "reality" and "truth".

But, just as story telling could portray the "truth" with an accurate accounting of the facts, it could just as easily become fiction. Fake and manipulated photographs - visual fiction - began circulating not long after the invention of photography.

M8 "True" Color M8 "False" Color

With the invention of motion pictures, and certainly television, the public came to know that not every picture they saw was necessarily factual in its depiction of reality.

Historical Image Manipulation

Many people think that the manipulation of images started with the invention of Photoshop, but there have been fake photographs since the invention of photography.

A "Fairy" photograph from 1917 from Cottingley, England by Elise Wright and Frances Griffiths.

In 1917, Elise Wright, age 16, and her cousin Frances Griffiths, age 10, used a simple camera to produce what they claimed were photographs of fairies in their garden in Cottingley, England (above).

Arthur Conon Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, believed these photos to be real, and wrote pamphlets attesting to their truthfulness. Even today some people believe these photographs are real.

At about the same time, photographic composites of different images were created by commercial photographic studios to bring family members together into one picture when they were not together in reality for the portrait session (right).

Notice that the three people on the left in the image appear to be floating in mid air in this photographic portrait of the Daquilla family from the early 20th century by A. Werner and Sons in New York.

They were apparently cut out of other photos and pasted on top of a photo of the woman at right and re-photographed in a composite image.

Ethics and Aesthetics

Daquilla Family Photograph by A. Werner and Sons.

When we correct, manipulate and enhance images in Photoshop, we must deal with questions of both ethics and aesthetics. This discussion is not only limited to digital manipulation, but also includes conventional darkroom methods.

Ethics are a set of rules that we invent that define what we think is good and bad. The dictionary says ethics are "a set of moral principles or values" and that ethical means "conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct".

Aesthetics, on the other hand, deal with the nature of beauty, art and taste, and things that are pleasing in appearance.

With digital processing, there is almost no limit to what can be done to an image, and many things are done to images with the best intentions. The question is, when does the pursuit of aesthetics violate our ethics?

Changes can be made to images that are undetectable, so much so that there is now discussion that photographs will no longer be allowed as evidence in courts of law.

Today's viewers however, are very sophisticated visually. They know full well that anything, literally, can be done to an image. They have seen dinosaurs and aliens portrayed with lifelike realism in the movies. Problems arise though because viewersexpect to be fooled in the movies, and tend to get upset and feel betrayed when they are fooled in an allegedly factual medium such as the news business.

In this discussion, there will be no simple black and white answers, everything will fall along a continuum and it is humans who decide the rules for what is considered ethical behavior and these rules can and do change over time.

The Myths of Objective Reality and Absolute Truth

The fundamental fact that we usually forget is that when we take a picture we do not make a perfectly objective recording of reality. What we make is an interpretation of reality.

Another problem in the "accurate" recording of nature is inherent in the choice of technology used by a photographer. Do you prefer Kodachrome of Velvia color film? Take your pick. Which particular Canon digital picture style do you like: Standard, Portrait, Landscape, Neutral, Faithful, or Monochrome? Which is a "true" recording of nature? None of these are. Each is an interpretation of nature. There is no film or digital camera that perfectly and accurately records nature even on this simple level.

It is also a fact that color is created in the mind of the observer. It is not a physical property of objects in the world, just as pain is not a physical property of the baseball that hits you in the eye.

Another way that still photography departs from reality is that it "freezes" time. We experience reality as a continuous stream while we are conscious. Motion video mimics this, but traditional still photography does not.

Interpretations

Photographers interpret what they see in a myriad of ways. The choice of lens by focal length and working f/stop alter spatial relationships between objects in the frame. The choice of location and focal

length changes the very content of the picture. The choice of when to trip the shutter freezes a particular moment in a fluid and continuously changing time stream.

The real world is not recorded with strict objectivity in photographs because they are taken by human photographers who exercise editorial judgments in the taking of the photo, which includes the personal preferences, aesthetics, prejudices, intentions and philosophies of the photographer who takes the image.

Ethical Limits

How much is too much, how far is too far?

It depends on what you are trying to do. I am trying to share the beauty and wonder of the universe with others through my astrophotography. The question is more one of aesthetics than ethics for me because I am not formally trying to produce science with my images. My images do have documentary aspects however, so ethical considerations do come into play.

It's simple to me. The special qualities of long-exposure astrophotography allow the recording of objects and details that are mostly invisible to normal human vision. It is really out there in nature, we just can't see it. Some of this detail is incredibly faint and low contrast. If I enhance this faint detail in the original image to make it more visible, or more aesthetically appealing, that is ethically acceptable to me.

If you add something that wasn't there in the original scene, you've crossed the line from a documentary art form into a fictional one. This may or may not be OK, depending on what your purpose is. If your purpose is to portray a scene as truthful, then it's not OK. If your purpose was to create fiction, or "art", then it is OK. You just have to be up front and tell the viewer what you are doing in either case.

This position is, however, an opinion, and a completely subjective value judgment on my part. Like all ethical judgments, it can be unique and different for each individual.

As for changing the contents of an image, personally I don't think much of the practice. For example, consider an image that shows a double exposure of a gigantic moon or an eclipse shot with a telephoto lens and a foreground scene that was shot with a wide angle. It's fake. I know it immediately when I look at it. A scene like that can't exist in nature. It doesn't do anything for me. I also know how difficult it is to take a photo of the real thing, and personally I place a tremendous amount of value on knowing an image is an attempt at being accurate.

However, other people might find a big moon in a wide-angle scene interesting and really enjoy it. On several occasions I have seen both photographically knowledgeable people, as well as the general public, get really excited over such an image. In my opinion, as long as the artist does not try to misrepresent what they are doing and methods are completely explained in the caption, it is an aesthetic judgment as to their success or failure.

I think the acceptance and popularity of images like this are mostly due to the proclivities of the viewer - they would rather be entertained and don't care that much that they were fooled. In fact, many people take great delight in being fooled, for example, at magic shows.

Most people who willingly suspend disbelief do so only in the context of entertainment and fiction. Although you could argue that others, such as those who really believe in things such as ghosts and fairies, have different, lower, standards of credulity than most rational, scientifically inclined people.

What most people get justifiably upset at is when someone intentionally lies and presents something as truthful when it is not.

Moon Composite

Exceptions

In some situations it would be unethical not to digitally alter the content of a photograph, such as when a photo definitely records something incorrectly, such as red eye. The red eye would never have been there if we didn't change the original scene by adding the flash.

Another example would be correcting the green cast of an image shot under fluorescent lights on daylight film. Our eyes adapt to the green color of the light and we see it as normal in the scene, but the daylight film actually records it accurately as green. You would have a hard time getting most people to accept that the green is more "truthful".

In other cases, the only way to present a truer representation of reality is through a composite rather than with a single exposure.

For instance this photograph of the moon over the Philadelphia skyline is a fairly accurate representation of the scene as it really appeared to the eye.

However, there was no way to take this image in a single exposure because of the difference in brightness between the full moon and the foreground - some 14 stops difference.

Two exposures were made, one correct for the moon, and one correct for the foreground. They were then composited together in Photoshop. The moon is in the exact location it was when the photo was taken, and both photos were made with the same focal length lens.

The result was more true to the reality of the scene and the way it really looked than a single exposure could have captured. In this case the only way to faithfully represent the original scene was through some Photoshop "trickery". Was this truthful and ethical? I believe so and the procedure was fully explained in the caption.

Now, if I had moved the moon to make it better in composition, would I have crossed the ethical line if I presented this as a documentary photo? Yes, I think so.

Purposes and intentions

The important questions when we manipulate an image are, why are we doing this, and what are our purposes and intentions? Where do we draw the line? What is ethical in the digital manipulation and enhancement of a photo?

To answer these questions we must consider why we took the picture and what we are going to do with it. If the picture is taken for artistic purposes only, then pretty much anything goes because only aesthetic considerations come into play. If the photo was taken for documentary or journalistic reasons, then another set of ethical considerations come into play that have been developed by the photographer and the viewers of the image.

My personal opinion is that the answer hovers somewhere around the line that gets crossed when the manipulation is done with the intent to deceive the viewer, such as when two separate photos of John Kerry and Jane Fonda were put together for political purposes in a presidential election campaign to make it look like they appeared together at an anti-war rally.

Blue Moon Composite

Some people say that I go too far in the digital enhancement of my astrophotos, and that the colors in some of my images are over-exaggerated and garish. And that opinion is OK with me. However, it is my job as an artist to present my interpretation of reality, and it is their job as viewers to accept it and get something out of it, or not, and reject it.

As a journalist in my sports photography, my job and responsibility are to faithfully and truthfully interpret and represent reality in an image as well as I can understand it.

Do The Tools Make A Difference?

We start out with nature. We can only observe it intimately with our own senses. Some might argue that a perfect experience can only be a first person experience. But if we find something interesting or beautiful, we may want to share something of that experience with others.

If others are not there with us to view the original scene personally, we can only share our own interpretation of the original experience. And we can only share this experience through some other media than reality. It may be verbal, through an oral story that tells of what we experienced, or it may be written down in words. It may be through some technology such as a simple drawing with pencil and paper, or a more complex technology such as film, CCD imaging or video.

The tool or technology does not really matter. Do you really care whether Hemingway wrote with a pen and paper or a typewriter? What matters is what the artist does with the tool or technology. Is he true to the subject and reality as he sees it?

Is it the tool, or the user of the tool, that the viewer trusts? The viewer must trust the creator of the work. The artist's credibility is the only commodity of value that he has to exchange with the viewer for their trust.

The Bottom Line

If an artist painted an entire picture from a photograph, would this be unethical? Only if he tried to misrepresent what it was and how he did it. If the creator was honest about exactly what was done, then the viewer could make his own judgment.

Personally I would not place as much value on a painting of a photographic scene, because you had to have the photo first, and getting the photo was the hard part. I would also not put much value on an photo where details were added that were not in the original image.

Of course, you could argue, completely legitimately, that the real beauty is out there in nature, in reality, and that any recording, or representation of that beauty in a photograph or painting is only a pale imitation of the real thing. This is undoubtedly true, to a very large degree. It is also true that a photograph or painting by a skilled artist can capture some of the spirit of beauty of the scene, and that artifact can transmit some of that nature to others.

Final Thoughts

Because of the ease in manipulating digital images with Photoshop, some people are questioning whether images are "real" or "art", and wondering if they can believe anything they see anymore. But people have been faking photos since the invention of photography - this is nothing new.

People have also been making things up since the invention of language. It's called fiction! And lots of people get a lot of enjoyment out of it. As long as the purpose of the "art" is not to intentionally mislead or misrepresent, and the artist is clear about his methods and intentions, no one gets fooled. Of course, there are some art forms, such as magic, where the intention is specifically to deceive, and the viewer willingly goes along with it.

It only becomes a problem, and a question of ethics, when the artist or photographer lies about his motivations, methods, and conclusions, and presents images with the purpose to intentionally deceive.

Through my astrophotograhy I can share with others the wonders and beauty of the universe that are sometimes invisible to the human eye. Digital enhancement can add to these aesthetic experiences.

What is important is our motivation. Why are we doing these things? Are we doing them to deceive people? No, most of us are not. We are doing it to make the subject more visually interesting. We are simply trying to make it a better picture. Just as a writer enhances his factual stories with metaphor and adjectives, photographers can enhance their images with digital techniques such as contrast and color enhancement.

Writers massage the language of words; photographers massage the language of light.

3.Every Picture Can Tell a LieDavid Shenk 10.20.97

Just a few weeks before the Paris car crash that killed Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, the Mirror, a London tabloid, published a picture of the glamorous new couple romancing on a boat, leaning toward one another, apparently about to kiss. It was all so provocative.

In fact, though, that kiss never happened. The picture had been digitally altered; Dodi's head was rotated slightly to make it look as though a smooch was in the works.

The technical wizardry of this manipulation will impress few Synapse readers. Anyone who has spent five minutes fooling with imaging software knows how simple such tampering can be. Programs such as Photoshop may be the single best emblem of the immense new - and eminently abusable - power conferred on humanity by the digital revolution: With a little will and some patience, virtually anyone can do virtually anything to a photograph. Had the editors so desired, they could have shown Diana painting starbursts on Dodi's chest, with Boris Yeltsin standing right behind them, pinching Diana's butt.

But that's not the type of thing most editors do with Photoshop. What they do is far more subtle and insidious. Take the case of Rebecca Sealfon, winner of this year's United States National Spelling Bee. Naturally, she was elated the moment she won. The Associated Press distributed a photograph of an exuberant teenager screaming for joy and waving her arms in the air. Hanging down in front of her ruffled white blouse was her large entrant placard. It read:

140Daily News

New York, New YorkThis meant simply that Sealfon was entrant number 140, and that the New York Daily News was her sponsor for the event.

A curious thing happened, though, when the picture appeared the next day in the New York Post, aDaily News competitor. The "140" was a lot bigger on the placard, and the phrase "Daily News" had vanished.This excision is so petty and insubstantial, one might convincingly argue that it belongs in the Who Cares file. But I think it's a significant symbol of what photographs are becoming in the wired world, and of the havoc that high-tech editors are already beginning to wreak on the institution of photojournalism.

Clearly, "photofiction," as some call it, is potentially provocative even as an art form (though there is plenty of room for skepticism here too - turning an ordinary photograph into a hallucinatory gallery of disassociated images does not automatically make it art). As a new journalistic tool, though, it is highly suspect. People look to photographs as quasi-objective representations of firsthand data, as a form of verification or proof. As soon as the essential integrity of a photo is undermined, so is the relationship between the news provider and the news consumer.

Obviously, there is no justification for an editor digitally repositioning subjects in order to give the false impression that a kiss or slap or snub is taking place. But I would argue that the manipulation needn't be nearly so flagrant in order to be unethical and damaging. When untidy or unappealing objects are cleaned up or removed, the essence of that photo also quickly disappears. The unspoken contract between the photographer and the viewer is broken. The photo is no longer a glimpse of the scene. It is now an illustration: an interpretation with selective facts, categorized in a particular way, with some details highlighted, many others simply obliterated.There is no such thing as true objectivity, of course, in photography or any other medium. By its nature, a photograph is an incomplete and therefore slanted picture of reality - a stylized depiction that represents exactly what the photographer wants you to see, and no more. Each photograph is like a story, and we have to remember that behind every story is a storyteller.

It's also worth recalling that conventional photo-manipulation has been around as long as the camera. Cropping alone is a powerful tool, and there are plenty of basic darkroom techniques for removing or altering aspects of any photograph. Surrealist art photographers like Jerry Uelsmann have captivated colleagues and collectors for decades by creatively embedding exotic foreign images into natural landscapes.

Thankfully, though, Uelsmann doesn't try to pass his work off as reality. Nor is he under pressure to spike up sales on the newsstands. But in photo editors' hands, this new digital sandbox threatens to cheapen journalism and even further undermine news consumers' confidence in the media. By making dramatic manipulations simple to effect and difficult to detect, photofiction threatens to exacerbate the climate of distrust.

Fortunately, there's an easy antidote, in the form of a full-disclosure proposal by former New York Times Magazine photo editor Fred Ritchin. Ritchin has developed a new icon, a tiny crossed-out camera lens, which he would like to see affixed to any published photograph with digital alterations.

Whether or not Ritchin's proposal catches on, there is likely to be one beneficial byproduct of the digital poisoning of photojournalism. Sooner or later, the mass consumer audience will catch on to the manipulation, probably through a major celebrity scandal. When they do, consumers will permanently say goodbye to their image-naiveté. A new variety of skepticism will flourish. Critical awareness of photojournalism's subjectivity will spread far and wide.But let's not allow that to justify the stupidity. If we let the system break down completely, skepticism will yield to destructive cynicism. And if that happens, we will all be sorry. Today, a good picture is worth a thousand words. For the life of me, I can't figure out why we would want to devalue that, and make a picture worth nothing more than a lie.This article appeared originally in HotWired.

4.PHOTOGRAPHY CHANGES THE WAY WE RECORD AND RESPOND TO SOCIAL ISSUES

Story ByFrank H. Goodyear, III

Frank H. Goodyear, III, assistant curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, suggests how mass produced and widely distributed images helped the abolitionist movement.

During the Civil War, photography heroicized the leading politicians and military officers, memorialized sites where the war was waged, and—remarkable for the time—revealed how violent and deadly the battles between Union and Confederate forces actually were. It also played an influential role in broadening the national debate about slavery. As this famous photograph suggests, photography was capable of communicating powerful ideas about the so-called “peculiar institution”—ideas that ultimately undermined the prevailing notion that slavery was a benign tradition.

The photograph pictures the runaway slave Gordon exposing his scourged back to the camera of two itinerant photographers, William D. McPherson and his partner, Mr. Oliver. Gordon had received a severe whipping for undisclosed reasons in the fall of 1862. This beating left him with horrible welts on much of the surface of his back. While the plantation owner discharged the overseer who had carried out this vicious attack, for the next two months as Gordon recuperated in bed, he decided to escape.

In March 1863 he fled his home, heading east towards the Mississippi River. Upon learning of his flight, his master recruited several neighbors and together they chased after him with a pack of bloodhounds. Gordon had anticipated that he would be pursued and carried with him onions from the plantation, which he rubbed on his body to throw the dogs off-scent. Such resourcefulness worked, and Gordon—his clothes torn and his body covered with mud and dirt—reached the safety of Union soldiers stationed at Baton Rouge ten days later. He had traveled approximately eighty miles.While at this encampment Gordon decided to enlist in the Union Army. As President Lincoln had granted African Americans the opportunity to serve in segregated units only months earlier, Gordon was at the front of a movement that would ultimately involve nearly 200,000 African Americans. It was during his medical examination prior to being mustered into the army that military doctors discovered the extensive scars on his back. McPherson and Oliver were then in the camp, and Gordon was asked to pose for a picture that would reveal the harsh treatment he had recently received.

The photographic team mass-produced and sold copies of Gordon’s portrait in the small and popular format of the time, known as the carte-de-visite. The image provoked an immediate response as copies circulated quickly and widely. Samuel K. Towle, a surgeon with the 30th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteers working in Baton Rouge, sent a copy of the photograph to the Surgeon-General of the State of Massachusetts. In his accompanying letter he wrote: “Few sensation writers ever depicted worse punishments than this man must have received, though nothing in his appearance indicates any unusual viciousness—but on the contrary, he seems INTELLIGENT AND WELL-BEHAVED.” Within months commercial photographers in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and London were issuing this image on their own studio mounts. This particular copy was made by the famous New York portrait photographer Mathew Brady.

Recognized as a searing indictment of slavery, Gordon’s portrait was presented as the latest evidence in the abolitionist campaign. An unidentified writer for the New York Independent wrote: “This Card Photograph should be multiplied by 100,000, and scattered over the States. It tells the story in a way that even Mrs. [Harriet Beecher] Stowe [author of the 1852 book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin] can not approach, because it tells the story to the eye.” Abolitionist leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison referred to it repeatedly in their work.On July 4, 1863 Harper’s Weeklyreproduced the image as a wood engraving with the article, “A Typical Negro.” Two other portraits of Gordon—one “as he entered our lines,” and the other “in his uniform as a U.S. soldier”—were also included. Together these three images and the accompanying article about his harrowing journey and the brutality of Southern slaveholders transformed Gordon into a symbol of the courage and patriotism of African Americans. His example also inspired many free blacks in the North to enlist.

Records of Gordon’s military service during the Civil War are incomplete.Harper’s Weekly reported that he served as a Union guide in Louisiana, and that during one expedition he was taken captive by Confederate forces, beaten, and left for dead. Yet, he supposedly survived and returned to Union lines. The Liberator reported that he served as a sergeant in an African American regiment that fought bravely at the siege of Port Hudson, an important Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River twenty miles north of Baton Rouge. This battle on May 27, 1863 marked the first time that African American soldiers played a leading role in an assault on a major Confederate position. Their heroism was widely noted and helped convince many skeptics to accept the enlistment of African Americans into the U.S. Army. There are no further records indicating what became of Gordon. Yet, this famous image of him lives on as a searing testament of slavery’s brutality and the fortitude displayed by so many African Americans during this period.

5.The Ethics of Street PhotographyBy Joerg ColbergApr 3, 2013

“[Garry] Winogrand was famous for never asking people permission before taking their photographs;” writes Caille Millner in a review of the photographer’s current retrospective at SFMoMA, “a whole generation of male photographers idolized him for shooting however he wanted, whenever he wanted.” It’s not hard to imagine what the legions of Winogrand fans will have made of Millner’s review, which continues “No one seems to recognize that Winogrand’s beliefs are shared most seriously by the kinds of men who haunt Reddit subforums like ‘Creepshots.’ On those forums, the chorus is ‘Rape her.’ Thanks to his superior sense of aesthetics, Winogrand’s moments of lechery show up at SFMOMA, where the chorus is that he’s a visionary.” Winogrand aside1, there is a serious issue here, namely the issue of permission or consent. If you take a photograph of someone and that person confronts you about it, how do you react? The most common response from photographers appears to be that provided you’re in a public space you can take any picture you want. That’s true, at least in a legal sense. But it does not really address the issue at hand at all: If someone does not want their photograph taken do you, as a photographer, just go ahead and do so anyway, because you can? I actually do not think that’s such a good idea.

I wrote about the ethics (or actually total lack of ethics) surrounding paparazzi a little while ago. There, sadly our culture has embraced the idea that celebrities somehow deserve to be treated in ways that we would reject for ourselves, that celebrities in effect are fair game for our societal bullying. After I published the piece, I found quite a few references to street photography, many comments centering on something like “If we enforce restrictions then street photography is in danger.”

I’ve long been critical of the macho culture of the Winogrand era street photographers, and I also do not like the idea that you can do whatever you want with your camera in a public space. Photographers need to be aware of the ethics of their endeavour. But I have to be more precise. Street photographers for the most part agree amongst themselves that what they’re doing is fine. But that’s actually irrelevant. The main question is whether the public is fine with it.

Over the past few years, the public’s understanding of photography appears to have changed considerably in various aspects. In particular, people appear to have become much more wary of being photographed without being asked. Of course, this would appear to be ironic given that there are surveillance cameras everywhere. But I think one needs to understand that there is a difference between these two. If you enter a store that you know has surveillance cameras you implicitly give your consent to being filmed or photographed. If someone takes your picture in the street that consent is absent. (I don’t want to get into too many details here, but it has something to do with what I think of as active and passive privacy)

Given that large parts of the public have become much more wary of photographers and their cameras I do think the photographic community has to start thinking about what this means. I can think of two consequences right away.

First, given that many people just don’t want to be photographed without their consent, photographers should be more careful about this. In other words, it might be perfectly legal to photograph someone in a public space, but something being legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical as well (it was perfectly legal for banks to sell “shitty” loans to their customers pre-2008 financial crisis [and it still is] but that does not make it ethical). If that means that street photography is in some sort of trouble then, well, so be it. Street photography might be a type of photography with a rich history. But just because something was widely accepted in the past does not mean that it will always be widely accepted. I could list all kinds of previously widely accepted practices that we now reject.

That said, and second, it’s the photographic community’s task to educate the public about what they’re doing. In other words, instead of posturing about what they can do, street photographers better tell the public how what they’re doing is not only mindful of the public’s concerns, but also constitutes an important and valuable artistic practice that enriches not just the practitioners’ but everybody else’s lives.

The onus is on photographers and not on the public. Art photography occupies a tiny niche in this very large world, and we cannot expect the general public to have the same kind of knowledge and/or understanding of photography the members of this tiny niche have.

I personally do not find street photography unethical per se. But I am very concerned about street photographers brushing aside concerns voiced by the public. If a large number of people do not want to have their photograph taken in the street, then that poses a serious ethical problem, a problem that cannot and must not be solved by photographers’ fiat.

In actuality, it would be impractical to ask every person in the frame whether they’re OK with a picture. That said, if someone clearly does not want to be photographed or if they are for their photo to be deleted after the fact, then I do think those wishes have to be respected.

In a certain way, having this kind of explaining to do might not be such a bad thing at all. I don’t mean to say that I want photographers to have problems. But running against resistance means having to think about what one is doing, having to explore it more deeply, having to explain to a lot of non-specialists what is going on. We all gain from that.

And the ethics of photography, the way how its possible applications or uses might clash with our ideas what’s right and wrong is a very important topic, especially given the fact that cameras are everywhere now.

Thus the public’s wariness of having photographs in public spaces taken without permission poses a challenge for photography as much as an opportunity, an opportunity to talk about what photographs - street and otherwise - do and how they do it.

6.Photo ethics – a blurry lineby Becka Cremer

Posted in: Law/Ethics, Photoshop/Illustrator, Spring 2009

With technology and digital media evolving at an incredible rate, it is not surprising that journalistic ethics

have struggled to keep pace. In the struggle, we have yet to arrive at one set conclusion.

In March 2001, a Los Angeles Times photographer who was covering the war in Iraq used Adobe

Photoshop to combine two photos. The resulting image was printed on the front page of two newspapers.

Less than a week later, the photographer was fired.

The photographers responsible for the July 2007 cover of Redbook magazine also used Photoshop

extensively. When someone leaked the original photos of Faith Hill – wrinkles and all – to Jezebel.com, the

site posted a guide to the manipulation. Bloggers and mainstream media alike offered their criticisms.

Despite the outrage of some at this use of photo-editing software, many others conceded – and

commented online – that airbrushing of photos was to be expected.

And before first deadline this year, students across the country flipped photos, cut out backgrounds and

created photo-based graphics to illustrate yearbook stories and themes. Some will appear on covers or get

other prime placement. The consequences of these photos and photo illustrations will be seen when the

books are distributed.

In some of these situations, it is clear that photojournalists or their editors made unethical decisions. In

others, judgment is not so easy.

The capabilities of digital editing software such as Photoshop have made it easy for students and

professionals to alter and manipulate photos quickly. With this ease, though, the line between right and

wrong in photo editing has become increasingly blurry.

General philosophy

For Dawn Nelson, yearbook adviser at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, Calif., deciding what

is ethical is easy. “We do not alter reality,” she said. “If you manipulate a photo, somebody always knows.

And then it just destroys your credibility.”

Robin Sawyer, yearbook adviser at First Flight High School in Kill Devil Hills, N.C., also adheres to a basic

journalistic philosophy. “Our readers have to expect that we are going to give them the truth,” Sawyer said.

“Anything you do that alters reality alters the truth.”

Not all advisers have such clear-cut policies. Rose Gifford, yearbook adviser at Mercer Island High School

in Mercer Island, Wash., said her staff does what works best for each page.

“I know that there are purists who think you should use a photo ‘as is’ but that’s not how you teach

photography,” Gifford said.

Gifford teaches her staff to use Photoshop and the tools and techniques available, such as filters and

cropping, to enhance photos. For example, the large class photo is edited every year to include every

senior, she said.

Jai Tanner, yearbook adviser at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas, takes a slightly different view. For

her, yearbooks are both journalism and art, and the tools available should be used to do the best job

possible.

“The important thing is, whatever you do, to do it well,” Tanner said.

The darkroom rule

Many photojournalism teachers and yearbook advisers stick to the “darkroom rule,” only using Photoshop

to do things that can be done in a traditional darkroom.

“Photoshop is a digital darkroom to tweak color, contrast, exposure – that kind of thing. Anything that

enhances the photograph but doesn’t change it,” Nelson said. “That’s just a standard of journalism.”

The technology, Nelson said, allows students to use photos that have technical problems that would take

too much time and skill to fix in a traditional darkroom.

“You can save and use pictures that you might not have been able to use before. You can bring out the

best in a photo, enhance the quality,” Nelson said. “That’s what Photoshop should be used for: to enhance

the photograph, not to change reality.”

Tanner does not adhere strictly to the “darkroom rule.” Her staff has taken advantage of the digital tools

available in Photoshop for its 2009 theme, “Shift.” The point of the book, Tanner said, is to look at things

differently. In illustrating the theme, the staff was influenced by Andy Warhol, the artist famous for his pop

art, and Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the famous Barrack Obama hope poster.

The staff used the artistic technique – which they called “Warhol-izing” – on all of the divider pages. After

that, Tanner said, the process became more subjective. Of the first 50 spreads the staff submitted, only

four or five non-divider spreads included Warhol-ized photos.

The staff at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas, used a technique they called “Warhol-izing” to create

illustrations on their theme pages and a few additional spreads for their 2009 theme, “Shift.”

The staff at Franklin High School in El Paso, Texas, used a technique they called "Warhol-izing" to

create illustrations on their theme pages and a few additional spreads for their 2009 theme, "Shift."

“It’s enough to remind people that it’s there,” Tanner said.”We are also doing a lot of other things to drive

home the theme, to make it about seeing things differently in a myriad of ways.”

One student, Nando Vasquez, does nearly all of the photo manipulation for Tanner’s staff. That way,

Tanner said, none of the students can “go wild” with the technique.

“Nando really takes direction from me or the editors. We say ‘do this,’ and he said ‘OK’ and he goes and he

does his magic,” Tanner said.

Vasquez said he decides what modifications to make to a photo on an individual basis. He chooses

something to Warhol-ize in a photo, then evaluates the message the change sends. If the change does not

work with the story, he chooses something else.

“I like doing the artwork because it makes you look at it in a different way,” Vasquez said. “It makes you

look at a picture’s meaning. I can make you look at an expression, or look at a photo for more information.”

At the beginning of the year, Tanner’s head photographer expressed concern about having his photos used

for photo illustrations.

“[He] is a purist photographer. He likes his work used AS IS,” Tanner said. “I have a staff that’s OK with the

manipulation of a photo and one photographer who hesitates. He has a good reason for it. He wants to

build a portfolio. He had to do a lot of compromise. Everything you do is always about give and take and

compromise.”

Of course, Tanner said, she and her staff are aware that, if they are not careful, they could take Warhol-

izing too far. “The issue is knowing when to do it, how much to do it and how to do it,” Tanner said.

Photoshop enables you to move objects from one image to another. But just because you can, should you?

Staff members need to determine where to draw the line in manipulating images. In this example, sports

photographers are taught to include the ball in play with the players. Maybe the photographer knew the

player hit the ball, but just missed taking the image. Yet, the new image does not accurately reflect reality.

Ask yourself what you want your yearbook images to say.

Photoshop enables you to move objects from one image to another. But just because you can, should

you? Staff members need to determine where to draw the line in manipulating images. In this example,

sports photographers are taught to include the ball in play with the players. Maybe the photographer

knew the player hit the ball, but just missed taking the image. Yet, the new image does not accurately

reflect reality. Ask yourself what you want your yearbook images to say.

Call it what it is

Tanner’s staff is also careful to label every photo that has been manipulated with a dual photo credit that

reads “Photo by” and “Photo illustration by.”

Sawyer and Nelson agree that labeling a photo illustration as such helps clarify ethical boundaries.

“If it’s no longer a representation of reality, then it’s a photo illustration,” Nelson said. “That doesn’t mean

you shouldn’t do it, but it has to be labeled as a photo illustration.”

However, Nelson believes staffs should limit the number of photo illustrations in their yearbooks.

“The purpose of the yearbook is to document the year,” Nelson said. “When you’re substituting art for a

photo you’re cheating people in the school by saying that that is more important than what people are

actually doing.”

Airbrushing

It is important to keep the audience of the book in mind, Nelson said. She teaches her students that photo

editing sensitively means selecting photos that subjects will be glad to see in the yearbook.

“I encourage them to always remember that every photo they run is about somebody,” Nelson said. “And I

ask them to look at each photo and ask, ‘If it were you, would you want that photo to be run?’ ‘Is that what

you want to say about that person, that group, that sport?’”

In the 2008 Hoofprints yearbook, for example, Nelson’s photo editor chose to use a picture of two seniors

dancing at the winter formal. One of the girls had scars from severe burns on her arms. The student had

worn a sleeveless top to the dance, and her arms are prominent in the photo. Nelson asked her students to

take the photo to the girl and ask her how she felt about it running. The girl was fine with it, and the photo

was included on the spread.

“What we don’t do is Photoshop the burns off her arms,” Nelson said. “You make an ethical decision. You

don’t manipulate the photo.”

Gifford feels differently about cosmetic changes made in Photoshop; her policy is much less strict.

“Pretty much all studio photos are airbrushed anyway, and pretty much all of the photos we see in

magazines are airbrushed, too. I think that’s real life,” Gifford said.

“If, for instance, we took a photo of someone who had really bad acne, we would probably offer to take the

acne off,” Gifford said.

“Airbrushing of the senior photos happens every day, so what’s the difference?” Gifford said. “We don’t do

it just because it looks better, but I’d change it if they asked.”

Photo manipulation for inclusion

One place that Gifford said Photoshop helps her staff present a better product is a large, foldout senior

photo spread. These pages, Gifford said, are edited for appropriateness and to include all of the seniors.

“We cut out hand signals, no matter what they are. We warn them in advance that we will take them out,”

Gifford said. “We have to go through one person at a time. Every once in a while a junior sneaks in. I’ll

clone a wall in to take them out.”

These edits are important, Gifford said, because they help the photo tell the complete story of the senior

class.

“The yearbook’s supposed to be a representation of the whole school and we want to make sure we

include as many (seniors) as possible,” Gifford said.

She adds that the students who miss the senior photo are often the students who are less involved in the

school and, therefore, less represented in the yearbook. Adding them in to the senior photo helps get them

into the book.

Truth be told, the reader is not getting the entire story from an image with cut-out background. This image

may now be out of context and not tell the entire story, or tell it in a truthful way. Consider the story you are

trying to tell in words and images when you think about using a COB.

Photoshop cheating

Truth be told, the reader is not getting the entire story from an image with cut-out background. This

image may now be out of context and not tell the entire story, or tell it in a truthful way. Consider the

story you are trying to tell in words and images when you think about using a COB.

In the same situation, though, Tanner would arrive at a very different conclusion.

“You have to think about what is your objective in Photoshopping a shot. Doing it to a group photo, that’s

where you’d be doing it for journalism. That to me is really cheating. For me there’s a clear line,” Tanner

said. “What we’re doing, it does differ from Photoshop cheating – putting people in, taking things out… that

kind of thing.”

However, Tanner and Gifford both shun another kind of Photoshop “cheating,” including flipping photos to

keep them from facing off the page.

“We talk about flipping pictures,” Sawyer said. “Why can’t you flip a picture? Because it’s not real.”

http://www.walsworthyearbooks.com/idea-file/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cob.jpg

An exception to every rule

“Senior ads are kind of different. You don’t control the content. It’s not journalism, not news,” Sawyer said.

“The only students who have asked for airbrushing are seniors, and we’ve done that. That’s only happened

a couple of times,” Gifford said. “They say things like ‘my face is all red. Can you take away that red tint?’

It’s the same thing as when you take pictures in the gym and the colors are all wrong. Certainly we adjust

that.”

Nelson said that, over the years, her staff has occasionally blurred profanity in photos, but that is a “last

ditch choice.” She said she would send students to reshoot and consider all of the options before using a

photo that requires altering to meet community standards.

“I would hope that it’s not the only photo. I would assume that my photographers would have brought back

more than one image and we’d have options,” Nelson said. “I would ask them to use a better photograph.”

When in doubt, reshoot

“I can’t think of any really good reasons you would manipulate a photo and use the manipulated photo

instead of reshooting,” Nelson said. “It would be better, more ethical, to choose a different photo than to

use the manipulated one.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘What is the purpose of a yearbook? What is your mission?’ The mission of a

yearbook is to tell the story of the school year for that year and that school. It’s not supposed to be an art

piece. That doesn’t mean it can’t be artistic, because it certainly can be, through beautiful design,” Nelson

said. “But if it becomes about what the staff can do with photo manipulation and Photoshop to be artistic,

then you are just cheating the audience.”

Nelson feels strongly that students want to see themselves and their friends in the book. Too much photo

manipulation compromises that.

“You can use graphics to create a beautiful book in places, but not to be substitutes for real, unaltered

photography of what actually happened,” Nelson said.

Think about what this image is trying to say. In the background, the graffiti may be distracting, or

may contain inappropriate language or gang signs. But if this is where these boys hang out every

day after school, is it OK to remove the graffiti and alter the look of the location?

Teaching ethics

Enforcing a staff policy on photo ethics begins with setting a standard early. Nelson begins the school year

by asking her students to define photojournalism. She explains the difference between photos and photo

illustrations and engages her students in conversations about what is acceptable and unacceptable. Then,

after her students have photographed their first assignments, she has students cull through their own

photos, keeping only the very best.

“If they’re blurry, they get thrown out. If there’s no center of interest, they get thrown out. If there’s no ball,

throw it out,” Nelson said. “They have to learn to hold their own work to a high standard.”

In addition to class discussions, Sawyer uses the Newspaper Photographer’s Association code of ethics as

part of her staff manual. She said teaching ethics in photo editing goes hand-in-hand with teaching basic

journalism ethics.

“It begins in teaching ethics – that journalism is truth. If it’s not the truth, it’s ethically wrong,” Sawyer said.

“Was that person in the photo when you took the picture. No? Then it’s not the truth. Was that pole in the

photo when you took it? Yes? Then you can’t take it out.”

For more questions read, “Photo Ethics, What would you do?“

· web view– second half of article: choose three important concepts / ideas and one example

Documents