January 17, 2009
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Seeing is Believing?
I could not believe when my son told me how many photos today in the news and media are “Photo-shopped”! You would assume a good reporter goes out and shoots the photos, adds them to his article and presto you see the results on CNN or elsewhere. Well, not always… it seems sometimes the things you see in the photos may not have even been there… or there were things that should have been in the photo that totally vanish!
I mean I knew they did it all the time with models and such… airbrushing away blemishes… but I had no idea that this was so prevalent with our everyday news articles!
Check out a couple of examples below… These are photoshop mistakes (from a website called “photoshop distasters”) so you can tell they obviously altered the photo… but with the photos that do not have the mistakes, you would never know. That kinda creeps me out!
Bee
Here is an example from the CNN website. This was from only a couple of days ago when the plane went in the Hudson river. Notice the tail fin of the larger plane in the front looks like it is behind the smaller plane in the distance!
Now this next one below really has me intrigued… look down at Sarcozy’s legs. There was another man there! But they forgot to erase his leg! I wonder who it was?
Comments (6)
it’s sad. There’s been a lot of controversy the past few years… a couple of high-profile photogs were fired from newspapers for manipulating photos. The one that got biggest press was about two years ago when a pro-Palestinian photog freelancing for Reuters added smoke and missiles that showed Israel using more firepower than they actually did.
It’s so easy… too easy. There were days when you had to be really good in a darkroom to pull of manipulations, the kind of stuff the Soviet Union did to make people disappear from history. Now any kid with a ‘puter and practice can pull off a convincing fake.
As with everything, use discernment when taking in information from ANY source. Get your news from as many sources as possible, no matter their bias. By reading the same story from several sources, you’ll filter out the differences and find the similarities and get a better sense of what really happened.
OK, I’m done with my rant.
Photo Tampering Throughout History: The list on this page has grown since I saw it last… however it’s the first few entries that surprised me the most.
OK, so I can’t get off this soap box… one more link. On a page labled Top 15 Manipulated Photographs, number 2 and 3 make me the saddest. One photograph was awarded the Pulitzer Prize (before the manipulation was know, and it was in pre-Photoshop days). The other was done by the editors at National Geographic.
@roamingchile -
Wow… it seems like the media is just all about lying… it is tough to know what is real. Thanks for the sites!
@BeeyondSight -
OK… another pet peeve. Don’t paint all of the media with the same broad brush. I consider myself a member of that media, even if I’ve been on sabbatical for two years.
All people have biases. Biases will get in the way of all storytelling, whether the story teller is aware of it or not. That’s why I suggested that you get news from as many places as possible and make your own conclusions.
Now, there are bad apples, as in any profession, who deliberately lie. But most are not being deliberate in their slants, in allowing their personal experiences to color their storytelling. Heck, personal experience leads to better storytelling.
In the case of photos, some made bad decisions. Most are just trying to make the perfect photograph (which is nearly impossible and comes very rarely. I fault the photo schools and editors for expecting perfect photos of imperfect news events.) Then there are the ones that are trying to influence coverage. There are liars in every group of people. We all pay attention to the media, and so more often see when a liar is exposed. It doesn’t mean all in the media are lying.
@roamingchile -
True not ALL media will be lying. The big disappointment is that ALL photos are now “suspect”. Used to be they would use a photo as “evidence” that something really occurred … but I think that day is soon behind us.
Blessings, Bee