Link: Mostly True: Kennerly: Chop Crop in the Lens:
I felt really compelled to try to answer a few questions on the David Hume Kennerly piece (controversy?) today.
Link: Mostly True: Kennerly: Chop Crop in the Lens:
I felt really compelled to try to answer a few questions on the David Hume Kennerly piece (controversy?) today.
Link: Essay: Chop and Crop – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
However, Newsweek’s objective in running the cropped version was to illustrate its editorial point of view, which could only have been done by shifting the content of the image so that readers just saw what the editors wanted them to see. This radical alteration is photo fakery. Newsweek’s choice to run my picture as a political cartoon not only embarrassed and humiliated me and ridiculed the subject of the picture, but it ultimately denigrated my profession.
Link: E-Bits – The Lens Cap Comes Off: AP Defends Photo Release – The Digital Journalist:
In her journal, Ms. Jacobson expresses consideration, compassion and concern for the families of soldiers shown in conflict. Her mission as she states it: “Then, there’s the journalism side of things, which is what I am and why I am here … it is necessary for people to see the good, the bad, and the ugly in order to reflect upon ourselves as human beings.” And reflecting we are. The publication of Jacobson’s image of Cpl. Bernard has stimulated one of the most active discussions in recent memory.
Link: At Toronto Film Festival, Cautions on Documentaries – NYTimes.com:
The report found that documentarians, while they generally aspire to act honorably, often operate under ad hoc ethical codes. The craft tends to see itself as being bound less by the need to be accurate and fair than by a desire for social justice, to level the playing field between those who are perceived to be powerful and those who are not.
Link: Journal entries of AP photographer embedded with US Marines in Afghanistan – The Digital Journalist:
To publish or not is the question. The image is not the most technically sound, but his face is visible as are his wounds. Many factors come into play. There’s the form we signed agreeing to how and what we would cover while embedded. It says we can photograph casualties from a respectable distance and in such a way that the person is not identifiable. Then you think about the relatives and friends of Bernard. Would you, as a parent, want that image posted for all the world to see? Or even would you want to see how your son died? You’d probably want to remember him another way. Although, it was interesting to watch the Marines from his squad flip through the images from that day on my computer (they asked to see them). They did stop when they came to that moment. But none of them complained or grew angry about it. They understood that it was what it was. They understand, despite that he was their friend, it was the reality of things.
Link: Ethics: Telling the Whole Story – The Digital Journalist:
The controversy has always involved the conflicting interests of two cultural titans, a military charged with protecting the nation and a free press that has the task of informing the citizenry.
The military has historically favored less war-related information for public consumption while the journalists have always favored more.
Link: John Burns Discusses Sultan Munadi – At War Blog – NYTimes.com:
Sultan Munadi is dead, and a British paratrooper whose name we may never know. There may also have been Afghan casualties, perhaps Taliban, perhaps not; that we also don’t know yet, for sure. But from where I am writing this, on a sunny autumn afternoon in rural England, the deaths of Sultan and the British commando seem like a grim black cloud darkening the landscape – a harbinger, perhaps, for the increasingly grim news that seems to await us all from a war that seems to be worsening by the day, and heading for worse yet unless our political and military leaders can find a way to turn the situation around.
::: The Travel Photographer :::: POV: To Publish or Not?:
Every day we see photographs of Iraqi corpses, Palestinians horribly maimed, Afghan women with horrific burns, Congolese civilians beheaded, and many others. They are also loved ones and have families too, yet we show them in our publications without even thinking twice. Yes, sometimes, a gentle soul at one of the newspapers inserts a caution before the graphic images…but they still end up on our front pages, don’t they?
Death Of A Marine: AP Releases Graphic Photos From Afghanistan Ambush:
AP said in a statement released in conjunction with the photographs today that the meeting with Bernard’s parents included them seeing the photographs in advance of any release.
“AP journalists document world events every day. Afghanistan is no exception. We feel it is our journalistic duty to show the reality of the war there, however unpleasant and brutal that sometimes is,” AP director of photography Santiago Lyon said. Bernard’s death shows “his sacrifice for his country.”
Behind the Scenes: To Publish or Not? – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
It is a scene from which many of us would naturally recoil, or at least avert our eyes: a grievously injured young man, fallen on a rough patch of earth; his open-mouthed and unseeing stare registering — who can know what? — horror or fear or shock; being tended desperately by two companions in what are the first moments of the final hours of his life.
It is a scene that plays out daily among American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, but one that has largely been unseen by the American public in eight years of war.
On Friday, after a couple of weeks of intramural debate and over the objections of the young man’s father (supported by the defense secretary), The Associated Press released such a photograph, by Julie Jacobson.
Robert Gates protests AP decision as ‘appalling’ – Mike Allen – POLITICO.com:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency.”
IEEE Spectrum: Seeing Is Not Believing:
Just days after Sarah Palin’s selection last August as the Republican vice presidential candidate, a photo of a bikini-clad, gun-toting Palin blitzed across the Internet. Almost as quickly, it was revealed as a hoax—a crude bit of Photoshop manipulation created by splicing an image of the Alaska governor’s head onto someone else’s body. From start to finish, the doctoring probably took no more than 15 minutes.
via Conscientious
Pictures That Please Us: Lucy’s Blog: Self.com:
Last Friday, the Internet was abuzz with the fact that I answered the question, did you Photoshop the September issue cover photo of Kelly Clarkson? with the answer: Yes. Of course we do retouching (though it’s technically not Photoshop, but that is semantics). We correct color and other aspects of the digital pictures we take and then publish the best version we can. Here is what I have to add to this conversation
PDNPulse: Edgar Martins Regrets “Confusion” Over NYT Magazine Photos:
Last month, The New York Times Magazine withdrew a photo story by photographer Edgar Martins after it became apparent that Martins had digitally manipulated the images. Martins has now responded to the controversy with a 2,900-word essay (plus footnotes) published on his Web site.
The most important questions in the NYT vs. Edgar Martins case not answered – Conscientious:
most people noted that Martins’ piece did not address what is seen as the most important question, namely why he told everybody he was not manipulating his images (even pre-Times) when, in fact, he did. If you want to know, you’re in good company: I want to know, too.
How can I believe what I see, when the truth is a show?:
Finally, now that Edgar Martins has been exposed as a liar, why would he then continue to treat us like idiots by offering a load of pompous drivel instead of a frank and honest explanation? I find the whole sequence of events baffling, particularly as it could have been so easily avoided.
Behind the Scenes: Edgar Martins Speaks – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
Edgar Martins is a freelance photographer whose picture essay in The Times Magazine on July 5 and an accompanying slide show on NYTimes.com, “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age,” were found to include digital alterations — contrary to the stipulations of his contract and his stated, repeated assertions to the writer, editors and fact checker at the magazine. This week, Mr. Martins released an essay, “How Can I See What I See, Until I Know What I Know?” It constitutes his response to the controversy that has arisen.
He also annotated five photographs from the “Ruins” series, which encompasses more work than appeared in The Times. (Of those seen here, only the picture from Greenwich, Conn., was published.) In the quoted descriptions below, Mr. Martins discusses publicly — and more specifically than he has before — some methods he used and why he employed them.