Lucidly stated.
Everyone seems up in arms about manipulated photos. Never mind that the whole news article is slanted to say the least, the photos are supposed to be true to life. Silly.
I had a friend once who was a news anchorman. He told me that the media never outright lied (presumably he was not talking about the papers you buy at the grocery counter). If you saw it on the news you could be sure something happened at the place and time. But any conclusions beyond that would be stupid because the editors would always slant the story to fit their agenda.
graywolf http://www.graywolfphoto.com "Idiot Proof" <==> "Expert Proof" -----------------------------------
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In your example the lie was not the photo but in the context, where it was used as if it was a puddle of blood.
You could also say that the intent in the manipulation was to lie, but again, this could have been acieved by the photographer in many ways. The photographer is a lier, not the photograph.
I have another example: If you want to describe the feeling of sitting around a camp fire under the stars this is impossible to describe with one exposure, because you can't capture both the stars and the camp fire in the same picture, the contrast is to big. To give a truthful description of the situation you have to use two exposures, and add the stars to the picture of the people around the fire. I picture without stars tells a lie, the "manipulated" photo tells the truth.
Photographs in mass media are illustrations, not proof. It is the photographer you have to choose whether you want to believe or not. He will always chose the picture that reflects his understanding of the situation.
Usually in such discussions (appologies to those who are bored by it) I usually give this link: www.uelsmann.com which shows how much manipultion you can do in the darkroom, and to my own unmanipulated photos: http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=366144 in which all manipulation is performed during the exposure.
My point is that any rules will lead to absurdities. My series show the truth as it was seen through the camera, but still they lie, because they show something that wasn't real. Could the "orapple" be shown in an article about fruit, and gene technology?
DagT
fra: "Michael Heim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dato: 2005/01/24 ma PM 12:42:03 CET til: <[email protected]> emne: AW: Dogmatism: what is allowed?
I can't agree with you. I know that pictures have ever been manipulated, people have even been cut out of images because of political reasons. But does that give as a carte blanche to manipulate pictures without telling anybody about it?
I give you a practical example. A few years ago htere was a terroristic incident in luxor, egypt, where many people died. There were a lot of pictures. One of them showed the plaxe and a puddle of blood. So thought we. In real, it was an ordinary puddle of water, but some guy made it look a little more redish. Some newspaper printed the picture. It was a big scandal.
I would say, in a journalistic environment, that wasn't OK. I think you would agree. But were is the borderline?
I'm more tolerant, if a picture is declared as "art". If anybody can see it was manipulated. But, if you shoot a picture for national geografic magazine - you can't tinker around.
Michael
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