Sat, July 29th, 2006 by Miles
Patrick Schneider, a photographer for the Charlotte Observer, was fired from the paper for manipulating the colour of a sunset sky in an image featured in the newspaper on Thursday.
In a statement the paper said:
The photo, taken by Observer photographer Patrick Schneider, appeared on the front of the Local & State section. It depicted a Charlotte firefighter on a ladder, silhouetted by the light of the early morning sun.
In the original photo, the sky in the photo was brownish-gray. Enhanced with photo-editing software, the sky became a deep red and the sun took on a more distinct halo.
The photographer had been suspended previously for similar manipulations and three awards he had won from the North Carolina Press Photographers Association were taken back. Many people defended the photographer after his original suspension in 2003, there is an article here with a comparison of the three manipulated images he submitted to the NCPPA awards and the originals.
July 29th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
What did he expect? The writers don't get to spice up their stories to make them "better", why does he think he gets to do the same to his photos? He should have known better, all papers have very detailed guidelines for what is ethically acceptable and what isn't. If you want to edit your photos, photoJOURNALISM probably isn't for you.
July 29th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
Completely unfair. There's a lot of room for interpretation even in those "very detailed" guidelines. From the article: "The variations denounced as transformation of Mr. Schneider's images are so frivolous that one could account for such shifts alone by the changes in printing quality from one publication to another." So, so true. Even the capture medium makes a difference. Two different digital cameras or two different film stocks are going to look different from one another. Suppose the photographer chose one camera over another in his arsenal to take the picture because he knew the sensor produced deeper reds. Is that considered a manipulation? What if I took a picture under flourescent lights and corrected the white balance in Photoshop. Is that considered a manipulation?
July 29th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
Should have used a warm-up filter. . .It is somewhat comforting to know a field still exists where absolute integrity is required.
July 30th, 2006 at 1:45 am
What next, being fired for shooting RAW and changing the levels?
At the end of the day, digital camera's today DO NOT record colour like the human eye and unless the paper is happy to post a bland,flat image, then they need to get with the times
luddites
July 30th, 2006 at 5:56 am
I find it funny that ethics in photojournalism have become so much more strict in the digital age. I guess because its easier to do bad things, but film gave them a lot more room for dodging and burning. Heck, the Kent State shooting photo that won the pulitzer had a fence post taken out of it, but because it was in the darkroom they let it slide for the efforts I assume.
It happens though, this is a very serious issue in Photojournalism.
July 30th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Hypocrisy is rampant where one holds to an extremist point of view. It comes with the territory. Sooner or later, one recants.
Take the July 2006 cover of outdoor photography for example. The writer, talking about the cover shot, says that Galen Rowell would have “never sat by the glow of his computer screen until he got what he wanted… that he was never one for sitting in the dark, driving a mouse … if he was alive today, he’d be out there … and we he had the image he wanted … he’d climb up the next 14,000 ft mountain to see if the view was any better there.â€
What is insane about all of that malarkey, is that it is more than obvious, if you have seen the real image of i>Double Falls at Dawn , you would know, beyond a doubt, that the magazine doctored his image by beefing up the sunset clouds and the green grass in the image. I suspect that the unfortunate news photographer, was on his way out, and that the publisher wanted any excuse. The news is never accurate, it gets edited all the time.
July 30th, 2006 at 10:14 am
"Should have used a warm-up filter. . .It is somewhat comforting to know a field still exists where absolute integrity is required."
Photojournalists are only supposed to use filters that aid the exposure's accuracy, ie. to be able to evenly expose a sky and ground with a graduated ND filter, or to avoid flare and the such.
A warm-up filter as you suggest wouldn't be regarded with anymore 'integrity' than the digital equivalent, it's just harder to spot because there's no original to compare the final image to.
July 30th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Two digital cameras of different brands would produce pics with greater differences than what can be seen in those pictures. If he was fired only because of that it can't be a particularly good place to work anyway. Stone-age conservatism.
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:00 am
I have to say, of the three example images shown, only the first really bothers me - such a bad bit of airbrushing and definitely an image that I would not expect a photojournalist to come up with.
I find it hard to spot many differences in the second and third pictures. Maybe there's more to see in larger versions?
I wonder if photojournalists shall be forced to shoot entirely in jpeg rather than raw format, and then to deliver only unaltered images straight from the camera to the newspapers?
August 2nd, 2006 at 9:00 am
I think the only differences in the second two are slight saturation/colour ones. There is still a lot of manipulation that goes on, it's not like images can't be touched at all. Dodging and burning is permissable for example, to make faces clearer, it's just that you can't change anything that would deceive the viewer. Apparently that extends to slightly changing the colour of a sky.
August 8th, 2006 at 9:05 am
In more recent news a photojournalist has had all the images he contributed to Reuters dropped while they investigate them. Two of his images from the conflict in Lebanon were spotted to have been manipulated (one of them extremely badly).
I think in this context, when the images are from a region known for its sensitivity and conflict, it's easier to see why photojournalists need to be held to such high standards. In this case it looks like he just wanted to make his images more dramatic but a political motive could as easily dictated someone's actions.
There's a story here, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5254838.stm
August 15th, 2006 at 9:39 am
The point is if a journalist/photojournalist is prepared to manipulate his pictures/texts/grafics or what ever journalistic materials, in an unjournalistic way, so to say, deliver a lie, for the selling purposes. If disclosed, he or she, in most cases, (there are attentived exceptions) has forfeited his or her journalistic cofidence and made themselves unpossible us journalists at any serious journalistic media.
August 15th, 2006 at 6:54 pm
Correction!
"impossible as journalists" are the correct words, and nothing else.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:11 am
I believe there is a fine line as to what can or cannot be done. There are things that are overtly incorrect. However, when we look back on the days when bleaching was used in the darkroom, nothing was said. We often correct our color balance when shooting in a difficult situation when the lighting is mixed. We try to correct skin color when it comes out too red, green or blue. Is that okay? We will darken a bright sky that leaves us no borders. Should we not complete the photo. If there is detail in the highlights should we tone them down in order to see the details. Yes, we are making changes to the photograph. But is it changing the content. I think the key is trying to make a photo stronger through manipulation is wrong. But correcting what the camera cannot do should not be a problem. A camera is a mechanical device. It doesn't work the way our eye and brain work. If a seen is heavy with contrast then we cut the contrast. Our eyes and brain correct it in auto. Cameras are not perfect. They can only do so much.
May 24th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
In more recent news a photojournalist has had all the images he contributed to Reuters dropped while they investigate them. Two of his images from the conflict in Lebanon were spotted to have been manipulated (one of them extremely badly).