New Photojournalism Technique?
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I just saw this (More than a little obnoxious. Much more.) advertisement for the new Google phone coming out, and it shocked me with how easy editing has become, with it being built into default camera apps nowadays.
I also distinctly remember reading about phones sold in Asia having incredible “beautification” filters on by default, that leave people looking unrecognizable. It makes me feel increasingly old, but I would be lying if I wasn’t impressed at the ease of use. Gone are the days of spending hours learning photoshop to remove red eye or cropping a photo - now you can reshape reality with a button press!
Actually, let's make that fox pop a bit more.
There's no doubt that the capabilities of software these days are very clever, I just guess I'm a bit old fashioned as I feel that the images I saw had been tampered with to such a degree that it distorted the anguish that folk are suffering in the latest goings on in the news.
Some things should be left alone and images of traumatised & grieving people is one of them.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
Jay.
Some things should be left alone and images of traumatised & grieving people is one of them.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
Jay.
If you look at Shanghai Baby, which if it’s not the most effective propaganda photo in history is on everybody’s top five list of contenders, it is an nearly unbelievably perfect photo, which is why the Japanese claimed it was staged.
The Leica was held as level and plumb as if on a tripod. The exposure is perfect. The baby is exactly centered, crying with all it’s worth, it’s head a third up on the frame, and the ruined railroad station is in ever so slight soft focus in the background.
But it wasn’t the first frame:
The photographer later said he watched a man rescue a severely injured child and return to get the baby, and he just kept on taking photos.
It so inflamed the world against Japan the government put out a $50,000 (million dollars today) bounty on his head, but he died an old man in bed in 1981.
He owned a camera shop and sold Leicas, so he wasn’t the typical amateur:
But if he’d not got the shot, or if it wasn’t recognized by William Randolph Hearst as the masterpiece it is, then the world might not have been so revulsed as to embargo Japan, which led directly to the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbor because they were convinced America would declare war if Japan invaded French and Dutch colonies to fuel their war effort.
The back story was Chinese Nationalist forces were retreating from Shanghai. The Japanese announced they would bomb the station at 2 pm, but were two hours late. The pilots mistook a mob of refugees for Chinese troops boarding trains. Whoops!
Be careful to only bomb military targets.
The lesson still rings true today.
The Leica was held as level and plumb as if on a tripod. The exposure is perfect. The baby is exactly centered, crying with all it’s worth, it’s head a third up on the frame, and the ruined railroad station is in ever so slight soft focus in the background.
But it wasn’t the first frame:
The photographer later said he watched a man rescue a severely injured child and return to get the baby, and he just kept on taking photos.
It so inflamed the world against Japan the government put out a $50,000 (million dollars today) bounty on his head, but he died an old man in bed in 1981.
He owned a camera shop and sold Leicas, so he wasn’t the typical amateur:
But if he’d not got the shot, or if it wasn’t recognized by William Randolph Hearst as the masterpiece it is, then the world might not have been so revulsed as to embargo Japan, which led directly to the Japanese decision to bomb Pearl Harbor because they were convinced America would declare war if Japan invaded French and Dutch colonies to fuel their war effort.
The back story was Chinese Nationalist forces were retreating from Shanghai. The Japanese announced they would bomb the station at 2 pm, but were two hours late. The pilots mistook a mob of refugees for Chinese troops boarding trains. Whoops!
Be careful to only bomb military targets.
The lesson still rings true today.
Something similar has been used artistically in film. High and Low (1963) by Akira Kurosawa is a black and white film with the exception of the scene where pink smoke is a signal:
Steven Spielberg used a similar thing thirty years later in Schindler’s List (1993)—the film is black and white, but there’s scene with the little girl in a red coat:
Steven Spielberg used a similar thing thirty years later in Schindler’s List (1993)—the film is black and white, but there’s scene with the little girl in a red coat:
Every partisan loves the photojournalist when the photo supports the partisans cause and hates him when it runs counter to the cause.
This photo led to the 1968 Gun Control Act.
RFK was at a political event and photojournalists were thick and there are many other photographs of the waiter and RFK on the floor.
Technically the famous Robert Eppridge photo is terrible, it’s back lit, it barely came out.
But the sorrow on the waiter’s face, made it an icon.
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Since the first photograph people have been manipulating the physical image in ways. Hopefully people are somewhat aware of the techniques and can spot them or at least learn when to question if an image is what it says it is. Though honestly the manipulation begins the moment someone chooses what to take a picture of. Not that it's a bad thing, but every picture is a choice to show what the photographer wants to show. You know funny kind of works the same ways words do. And you have to make up your own mind on what and who to trust.
But yes pretty much anyone can do it now without putting out much effort.
Photojournalists have used digital cameras now for about twenty years and color film before that about twenty more.
Yet if you study photography the world’s most famous photos are still overwhelmingly in black and white, over forty years old.
What’s different about the new color manipulated photos is the removal of color, or the manipulation of color.
The photojournalist with a still camera is NOT a neutral, disinterested documenter of facts.
We all want to snap the next Migrant Mother
Either that or the famous “Che” are the most famous photos ever taken, and I ain’t no Commie.
Migrant Mother died a very old woman, living on the Social Security retirement benefits her famous photo help make the most popular government program in America.
While Che went down in Bolivia, dying by the same sword he wielded to turn Cuba and other nations into a hell hole of communism.
But it was a right smart photo of him.
Only it was manipulated by cropping.
The advantage black and white film had over digital or color film was tonality. The gradient of tone allowed photos like RFK and the waiter.
Still today Leica sells a monochrome digital Leica to attempt to duplicate it.
What amazes me about every famous old black and white photo is the photographer didn’t know if he’d made the shot until the subject was long gone, and the negatives were developed. There were no second chances.
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It all falls under the term image manipulation. Not terribly sexy. I practiced it for years when I worked in visual effects.
Anyone can do image manipulation with today’s technology, but not many can do it well.
kind of like the same way anyone can make some upside down v shapes on a paper, but you can paint some pretty convincing mountainscapes?
Though the same rules apply for seeing through the fakes, some people will buy anything.
It's actually a very old photo effect. Desaturating colors in the background while making the subject's colors more vivid has been around since the days of film. Oh, sure it's done with computers and software and probably AI now. But before it was washing out the negative and then hand tinting certain elements.
And I do want to point out that digital photos almost require editing, manipulation, getting in and adjusting color or brightness or shadows or tone. Film captures light. Sensors capture data. To get the digital images looking right, it takes adjusting the data to mirror light.
And I do want to point out that digital photos almost require editing, manipulation, getting in and adjusting color or brightness or shadows or tone. Film captures light. Sensors capture data. To get the digital images looking right, it takes adjusting the data to mirror light.
Thankfully this selective desaturation effect is being used so ham-handedly that we notice it quickly.
But no photograph truly represents reality as we see it. Every decision the photographer makes (lens focal length, aperture, camera height, camera location, shutter speed, filtering) changes the image that's captured. And if the photographer is controlling the light, as in a studio, they gain even more control over the image.
For a century or more photographers were creating images even before they got into the darkroom.
The only thing that's changed significantly is the ease with which images are manipulated after the fact.
We need to be aware of this and turn a skeptical eye toward images that elicit a strong emotional response, but we should have been doing this all along.
But no photograph truly represents reality as we see it. Every decision the photographer makes (lens focal length, aperture, camera height, camera location, shutter speed, filtering) changes the image that's captured. And if the photographer is controlling the light, as in a studio, they gain even more control over the image.
For a century or more photographers were creating images even before they got into the darkroom.
The only thing that's changed significantly is the ease with which images are manipulated after the fact.
We need to be aware of this and turn a skeptical eye toward images that elicit a strong emotional response, but we should have been doing this all along.
There was the famous magazine cover of OJ Simpson with the manipulated skin tone, but I grew wary of the truth in photos much earlier.
When I was first interested in photography, I recall reading an article about deceptive editing. The example used was a picture of one of the Kennedys leaving church. Depending on how it was cropped, the picture either showed a connection to his wife, a priest or an unrelated woman. So depending on the editor's politics, the picture could emphasize his Catholicism, his marriage, or imply some sort of extra-marital hanky panky, all without any comments.
When I was first interested in photography, I recall reading an article about deceptive editing. The example used was a picture of one of the Kennedys leaving church. Depending on how it was cropped, the picture either showed a connection to his wife, a priest or an unrelated woman. So depending on the editor's politics, the picture could emphasize his Catholicism, his marriage, or imply some sort of extra-marital hanky panky, all without any comments.
Or we can go back even further. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), there was a prominent photographer. Matt Brady was one of the first wartime photojournalists. And he was one of the worse offenders for moving bodies and rearranging the area to make a better picture. So really, photo manipulation and let's call it "enhanced" or "response driven" journalism has been with us quite a while.
Not in edited news sources.
News is a capitalist business in the United States, subject to copyright laws.
To publish a copyright protected photo there must be permission by the copyright holder and news editors verify it.
What allows for fakes is us trying to be our own News editor.
Or, the publisher may purchase full ownership and publish as they please. Rights can be sold for everything from one time use, with or without constraints, to sole ownership, with or without constraints. Or, an agent for the publisher, a photo-journalist possibly, may have made the shot. There's myriad of possibilities available to a publisher and the "artist"/shooter.