New York Times controversy.

DaireQuinlan

"The New York Times commissioned Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins to travel around the United States and take photographs of abandoned construction projects left in the wake of the housing and securities market collapse. They pulled the online piece (here) after questions were raised over on Metafilter (here). Initially everyone was happily debating the economy and then suddenly someone commented “I call bull**** on this not being photoshopped” and everyone suddenly started debating the veracity of the images."

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2009/07/08/nytimes-magazine-pulls-photo-essay-after-questions-of-digital-alteration-are-raised/

Some other more glaring examples here:

http://www.pdnpulse.com/2009/07/new-york-times-magazine-withdraws-possibly-altered-photo-essay.html

I completely agree with the opprobrium heaped on the photographer. From a documentary/editorial perspective the alterations were completely beyond the pale. That said, I think removing a telephone pole or a wire is completely beyond the pale in similar situations.

So why did he do it ? Has the relationship between photography and reality become so plastic that a high profile artist, commissioned to do a piece for the NY times actually feels comfortable blatantly and obviously photoshopping his images "for aesthetic reasons" ?

The photographer has previously said ... "When I photograph I don’t do any post production to the images, either in the darkroom or digitally, because it erodes the process. So I respect the essence of these spaces." from an interview here:
http://artmostfierce.blogspot.com/2008/04/edgar-martins-topologies-book-aperture.html?showComment=1210730460000

This discussion really pertains I think just to editorial or documetary photography, as pointed out above. Fine art / Illustration work, go nuts :rolleyes:

smelltheglove

Not being bad but how often do people look for c&c on here and they are told to clone poles etc out in the background.... This sort of cloning is common place, ok so I wouldnt have left two thermostats on the wall, maybe he had a bad day, but its not the end of the world and it is very common place in photography, some will say too much so.

DaireQuinlan

smelltheglove wrote: »

Not being bad but how often do people look for c&c on here and they are told to clone poles etc out in the background.... This sort of cloning is common place, ok so I wouldnt have left two thermostats on the wall, maybe he had a bad day, but its not the end of the world and it is very common place in photography, some will say too much so.

As I pointed out in the OP, there's a big difference between fine art/illustration type photos (which is what's represented by the vast majority of stuff submitted here, at least aspirationally) and documentary and editorial work. In the latter type of work there is (or at least should be) zero tolerance for this sort of manipulation.

You say 'its not the end of the world' , chances are this is probably the end of his career as a photographer. I can't see many high profile commissions coming his way after this.

Actually, I mentioned the telephone poles because its the type of thing that people don't regard as a big deal when they neatly clone them out of a picture. Trivial though it may seem though, as soon as you've done that you've crossed a quite definate line.

smelltheglove

I say its not the end of the world because I wouldnt see it as a big deal. If it is the end of his career then it is a sad world we live in. Think about it in all honesty, most of the people giving out about the edits would be people like you and me, just that they think they could have done better.

Like I said maybe he had a bad day and wasn't on form but the NYT employed him based upon his work and if this is the way he works then it should be accpeted that this is what they wanted. Unless it was explicitly stated that no editing or cloning was to be done fair enough, there may be a story but if not the man did his job the way he knows how and presented his work.

Not everyone's work is to the whole worlds taste but his was obviuously to teh taste of NYT initially and they should stand by their choice instead of letting him take all the flak.


Edited
I have just noticed the photographer said previously he did not do any post production in an interview, however does this transfer to his work? I have heard many people say this before only to see that they have adjusted contrast, cropped, changed exposure etc etc also do we know that he wasn't asked to make some minor changes? I had one client once who asked me to make her thinner and remove her double chin, change faces of people in a group etc etc and when the edit was done she went off on one claiming it wasnt what she wanted, are the NYT innocent in the matter? There is a mans livelyhood and reputation at stake here and I dont think he should be slandered without all the facts.

DaireQuinlan

smelltheglove wrote: »

Like I said maybe he had a bad day and wasn't on form but the NYT employed him based upon his work and if this is the way he works then it should be accpeted that this is what they wanted. Unless it was explicitly stated that no editing or cloning was to be done fair enough, there may be a story but if not the man did his job the way he knows how and presented his work.

The NYT commissioned him to do some documentary work. There are quite open, strict, and generally widely understood rules about what is acceptable in documentary work. He wildly overstepped those bounds. Martins is (apparently) a fine art photographer by trade so he presumably treated the images with the same attitude as his fine art work (in which it is, of course, completely acceptable). This is what has got him into trouble.

smelltheglove

But who wrote the rules and was he told them, this is my point. If he was not told no editing than tough, he produced work to the standards of his portfolio. Job done.

DaireQuinlan

smelltheglove wrote: »

But who wrote the rules and was he told them, this is my point. If he was not told no editing than tough, he produced work to the standards of his portfolio. Job done.

It's editorial/documentary/journalistic work. You simply don't DO manipulations. None ! There have been dust ups and controversy before about dust spotting on images, and how much dodging/burning/contrast adjustment are appropriate before the image becomes unreliable, and they're all non-destructive edits on the whole. What Martins did was the equivalent of Iran adding those extra missiles into its shots last year, or that AP photographer crudely hacking together and cloning bits of his pictures to make those shots of Israeli warplanes look more 'dramatic'.

AnCatDubh

I can see where the NYT maybe hadn't enough clarity with their contracted photographer as to what they wanted and what was acceptable but without a review of such arrangements it might be difficult to say if the photographer got the wrong end of the stick or not.

It does raise an issue in terms of how much photography is contrived and what actually makes an image real or unreal - to what extent does post processing make your image no longer the real thing. Yes, if you photoshop in large sections of an image / cloning etc., or mirror the not nice half of an image as was done in one of the examples posted then it is certainly contrived.

What about more subtle alterations? Apart from cropping I think everyone then begins to contrive their image. What is a photograph anyhow?

You know them lovely aesthetic creating presets in lightroom - yup, you've already overstepped the mark because they create something that wasn't actually captured or represented by what was the scene. We've all done it - added a little drama to the scene, up'd the brightness, taken out that pesky telephone pole, added contrast / colour or saturation, etc.., etc..

Its still art - it creates something of beauty and the people behind it may be incredibly genuine and passionate about what they do but it's not terribly different from what this poor guy did with the NYT. Perhaps the expectations of the NYT were different from the brief that they gave the guy. Perhaps the NYT didn't think about what they were asking him for. Perhaps the guy didn't understand that documentary photography should have told it exactly like it is rather than as you might like to view it. Even having said that, i have viewed a lot of documentary photography which certainly uses post processing if even just to get the aesthetic right.

Spiritoftheseventies

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

It's editorial/documentary/journalistic work. You simply don't DO manipulations. None ! There have been dust ups and controversy before about dust spotting on images, and how much dodging/burning/contrast adjustment are appropriate before the image becomes unreliable, and they're all non-destructive edits on the whole. What Martins did was the equivalent of Iran adding those extra missiles into its shots last year, or that AP photographer crudely hacking together and cloning bits of his pictures to make those shots of Israeli warplanes look more 'dramatic'.

tribune did simillar piece last sunday. These developments are now major eyesores and yet no one is kicking up a fuss. two here in clontarf.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/jul/05/there-used-to-be-winos-lying-in-smithfield-now-you/

smelltheglove

DaireQuinlan wrote: »

What Martins did was the equivalent of Iran adding those extra missiles into its shots last year, or that AP photographer crudely hacking together and cloning bits of his pictures to make those shots of Israeli warplanes look more 'dramatic'.

Now thats a bit over the top isnt it.....

Something being widely known does not mean that EVERYONE knows it. I for one would not have been aware that I could not clone out an obstruction ina shot just because it was documentary, if some bloke jumped in my view I'd most likely clone him out! If its apparently frowned upon, ah well poor me but if NYT never had in black and white no edits, tough, they got the quality they requested.

AnCatDubh

AnCatDubh wrote: »

What is a photograph anyhow?

Ah, in the good ole days of film we would have been able to answer that.

Things are far more complicated to define with this new confangled digital stuff.

AnCatDubh

bayviewclose wrote: »

tribune did simillar piece last sunday. These developments are now major eyesores and yet no one is kicking up a fuss. two here in clontarf.
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/jul/05/there-used-to-be-winos-lying-in-smithfield-now-you/

I would humbly suggest that this image is not how it looks by any stretch of the imagination - that is if you went down and stood that the point where the image was taken I doubt if it would appear exactly as is - thus I'd think it is another example of being contrived and could fall into the same category as the NYT stuff. Not that there is anything wrong with that tbh - it probably hasn't fundamentally changed the visual rendition of the scene - it looks like a little drama has been added and maybe that was the purpose. It does go to demonstrate that it is happening everywhere.


Credit: tribune.ie

(I could be very wrong by the way )

AnCatDubh

Actually, as I think a little more about it and the image from the tribune linked above - optics can contrive your image too. Wider angles will make distance objects seem really far away and zooms will compress that distance so indeed even my assertion that film would have sorted them all out is probably incorrect. Maybe ban everything barr the nifty 50 which if memory serves me correctly will give a reasonable rendition of the perspectives of a scene?

Spiritoftheseventies

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Actually, as I think a little more about it and the image from the tribune linked above - optics can contrive your image too. Wider angles will make distance objects seem really far away and zooms will compress that distance so indeed even my assertion that film would have sorted them all out is probably incorrect. Maybe ban everything barr the nifty 50 which if memory serves me correctly will give a reasonable rendition of the perspectives of a scene?

what about picture of gorey from same article. dont think photographer had to do too much with that image. it spoke for itself. The pic used here i say was just made smaller to make room on the page.

Anouilh

smelltheglove wrote: »

Now thats a bit over the top isnt it.....

Something being widely known does not mean that EVERYONE knows it. I for one would not have been aware that I could not clone out an obstruction ina shot just because it was documentary, if some bloke jumped in my view I'd most likely clone him out! If its apparently frowned upon, ah well poor me but if NYT never had in black and white no edits, tough, they got the quality they requested.

The photo editor is the person who should have checked the work thoroughly before going to print. It is very embarrassing to have readers expose a story in this way.

Keep in mind that many people rely on the media to give a balanced and "true" representation of the world. Facts, while they may not be aesthetic or what the reader finds enjoyable, are what documentaries are based on. D

seclachi

smelltheglove wrote: »

I say its not the end of the world because I wouldnt see it as a big deal. If it is the end of his career then it is a sad world we live in. Think about it in all honesty, most of the people giving out about the edits would be people like you and me, just that they think they could have done better.

I disagree, the press should aim to report the truth at all times, sadly this is often not the case, but before you could generally rely on photographs to be an accurate representation of what happened. Most press outlets seem to follow this line of thought to be fair, which is why the NYT took down the photos. Cloning and mirrioring are fabrication and if the allegations are true (as they appear to be) his photos are art and not journalism.

Personally I think some changes are fine, such as tweaking colours (but not to such an extent it gives a misrepresentation, ie a dull sunset changed to being bright and vibrant), but I think any sort of editing of the image has no place in press, its art and fiction.

Spiritoftheseventies

seclachi wrote: »

I disagree, the press should aim to report the truth at all times, sadly this is often not the case, but before you could generally rely on photographs to be an accurate representation of what happened. Most press outlets seem to follow this line of thought to be fair, which is why the NYT took down the photos. Cloning and mirrioring are fabrication and if the allegations are true (as they appear to be) his photos are art and not journalism.

Personally I think some changes are fine, such as tweaking colours (but not to such an extent it gives a misrepresentation, ie a dull sunset changed to being bright and vibrant), but I think any sort of editing of the image has no place in press, its art and fiction.

two points. when a photographer submits a photo it is normally up to production to crop it or make minor alterations to it. the other point is did the photographer deliberately compromise the story with photographs.

Anouilh

An interesting aspect of the OTT reaction to this story is the fact that some comments in the pdnpulse link contain remarks about the commissioned photographer being "foreign".

In fact Edgar Martins has won awards in New York and this sort of publicity will probably boost his career:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Martins

(The sort of reminder one needs that fame is not always welcome.)

sineadw

smelltheglove wrote: »

Now thats a bit over the top isnt it.....

Something being widely known does not mean that EVERYONE knows it. I for one would not have been aware that I could not clone out an obstruction ina shot just because it was documentary, if some bloke jumped in my view I'd most likely clone him out! If its apparently frowned upon, ah well poor me but if NYT never had in black and white no edits, tough, they got the quality they requested.

In fairness, you're not a photo-journalist. AFAIK he is. Any photojournalist worth his salt would know this. Journalism is not about putting slants on things, or aesthetics, or what you think the shot should look like. It's about what the shot looks like.

Personally, I think this is indicative of the way a lot of journalism has gone, both pictorial and written. The sad fact is that if you want the truth you have to go to the coal face to get it - bloggers and flickr and twitter and agencies without an agenda and a profit margin to hit for the shareholders. Its been a bit of a black day for journalism today - I've been watching Sky News try to put a slant on the whole bugging thing all day. Personally I wouldn't trust a word (or image) of a lot of it any more.

smelltheglove

sineadw wrote: »

In fairness, you're not a photo-journalist. AFAIK he is. Any photojournalist worth his salt would know this. Journalism is not about putting slants on things, or aesthetics, or what you think the shot should look like. It's about what the shot looks like.

I think someone here has already stated that he is more of a fien art photographer, hence not necessarily knowing the apparent 'rule'.

DaireQuinlan

smelltheglove wrote: »

I think someone here has already stated that he is more of a fien art photographer, hence not necessarily knowing the apparent 'rule'.

Yeah thats the case. I'm going to turn this on its head though. I'd argue that if you were asked by one of the worlds most prestigious newspapers to do a piece on some current trend or event or whatever you'd have to be enormously stupid to think that widespread cloning and copy and pasting bits of your image would be even remotely acceptable. I find it impossible to believe that a professional photographer of his stature would be unaware of this. I don't think he's stupid. I reckon he just did it anyway, and hoped he wouldn't be caught out.

sineadw

^^ I'd have to agree...

AnCatDubh

In the days of film with its unique and beautiful inflexibility (or at least difficulty to do serious manipulations) did the photo editors simply crop and that was it?????

I caught the programme on Coleman Doyle on the TG4 web player and it appeared that he would arrive into the offices of the press at 10pm at night calling to 'hold the front page' at which point the 'on duty pic guy' would head to the dark room with his canister of film and emerge with the product which more or less hit the front page - as was and without very much manipulation.

Because with digital we are constantly tempted to post process the s*** out of an image to improve on reality and because in many ways our reputations as photographers depends on it there is a inextricable draw to getting constantly better, even when better doesn't exist or suit a scene.

Would we have been disappointed with the guys work if he turned it in the the NYT without processing ?? Maybe it would have fallen short of our expectations.

At this point in time, the modern DSLR can do as much post processing in camera (if not more) than what you would have dreamed about doing a short while ago (perhaps only 5 years). So I can now contrive an image before the picture editor ever sees it and the instantaneous nature of digital means that I have more time to do it than if I were to develop a film.

sineadw

I don't know anCat - I've seen some serious film manipulations. Ok so its a LOT more difficult and time consuming than it is with digital (and as such doesn't lend itself as well to front page journalism), but we're talking about pros here and photo essays taken over time (I think?), and they've always had more or less the same set of tools at their disposal in the darkroom.

DaireQuinlan

Further comment from the NYT

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/behind-5/

From David Dunlop on the Lens blog. It outlines their policy toward journalistic work aswell. Check out that link in the article though, they weren't always as strict :rolleyes:

KarmaGarda

Let's not be completely fooled now by film. Dodge and Burn, exposure, high contrast all came from the old Dark Room, not from Photoshop or the digital era. I'm not saying it was used in journalism photography, but it was used in some photography. People manipulated photos long before the D was put in front of SLR

On saying that, in regards to journalism, the only acceptable edit as far as I'm concerned is a crop. With colour adjustment where do you draw the line? That's the issue, it's just too fuzzy. Cloning and mirroring/copy pasting, is completely off limits.

smelltheglove

The only thing I can say here is the guy did the job he was commissioned to do. The NYT were intially happy with the results since they published them.

None of us were in the room to say he was told no editing or was not told no editing but I would not imagine, to have reached such a high point in his career, that this man is a bad photographer nor would I assume I could have done anything better, in fact I wouldnt even try to criticise his work, fair play to him for making it so far.

I for one will not add to the debates that may cost a fellow photographer his career.

seclachi

AnCatDubh wrote: »

In the days of film with its unique and beautiful inflexibility (or at least difficulty to do serious manipulations) did the photo editors simply crop and that was it?????

I caught the programme on Coleman Doyle on the TG4 web player and it appeared that he would arrive into the offices of the press at 10pm at night calling to 'hold the front page' at which point the 'on duty pic guy' would head to the dark room with his canister of film and emerge with the product which more or less hit the front page - as was and without very much manipulation.

Because with digital we are constantly tempted to post process the s*** out of an image to improve on reality and because in many ways our reputations as photographers depends on it there is a inextricable draw to getting constantly better, even when better doesn't exist or suit a scene.

Would we have been disappointed with the guys work if he turned it in the the NYT without processing ?? Maybe it would have fallen short of our expectations.

At this point in time, the modern DSLR can do as much post processing in camera (if not more) than what you would have dreamed about doing a short while ago (perhaps only 5 years). So I can now contrive an image before the picture editor ever sees it and the instantaneous nature of digital means that I have more time to do it than if I were to develop a film.

Like most things its not a black and white issue, but theres a difference between enhancement and fabrication. If you take a color picture and convert it to black and white nobody will complain, but if you say took the same picture started editing it directly by cloning bits and editing out other parts your directly fabricating information.

There is a threshold for these kind of things is what im getting at, altering the range to bring out somebody in a shadow is one thing, but copy and pasting in somebody who wasnt there in the first place is another.

Borderfox

If its documentary work then its wrong to alter or mirror or clone in things ,thats set in stone, I know its disused building sites by where does it stop when transferred to other documentary subject such as warzones/famine and such.

AnCatDubh

seclachi wrote: »

There is a threshold for these kind of things is what im getting at, altering the range to bring out somebody in a shadow is one thing, but copy and pasting in somebody who wasnt there in the first place is another.

You have reminded me of an incident that happened when I was just a lad and they first begun to be able to clone out objects from photographs. It kinda went along these lines;

Customer: Hi, I'd like this family portrait photo to be enhanced by removing that barrel from the scene.
Photo Shop Guy: No Problem - we can do that. It will be ready tomorrow.

<<Tomorrow Comes>>

Photo Shop Guy: Here you go Customer, didn't it turn out nice?
Customer: <<Looks at Photograph>> <<Puzzled Look Comes on Face>>
Photo Shop Guy: Is everything ok with it Customer?
Customer: It turned out nice all right but where is Johnny?
Photo Shop Guy: <Puzzled Look>> Who's Johnny?
Customer: Johnny's my brother. He was hiding behind that barrel that you removed!

No I wasn't Photo Shop Guy and wasn't Customer either but a true story folks. I kid you not.

Ah, simpler times.

seclachi

He watched too much blade runner and star trek I would say.

Fenster

I think I speak for us all when I say that journalistic photographers can't alter images worth a ****e. Look at the whole debacle with the steam of badly Photoshopped images coming out of the Middle East.

Anouilh

The problem is that the art work in the photo series under discussion was so well done that it got past the editor. She could have lost her job if the article had been on a very serious subject, like national security. (Not to say that total stalemate in the building trade is not serious.)

http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2009/02/6443/

I uploaded a photo to the "Combing the Streets" thread yesterday. My instinct, every time I look at it is to remove every person on the street and highlight the two central figures. It is not an aesthically pleasing photo. But if I did, it would no longer be documentary.