RE: [Leica] fired for photoshopping

[Peter Klein <pklein@2alpha.net>]

At 03:35 PM 4/3/03 -0800, B.D. wrote:
>No, it's not, if it requires you combining images to do it. A
>photojournalist is believed by the public to be a photographer who
>records events AS THEY OCCUR - not as he or she wishes they occurred,
>believes they really occurred, or believes they were meant to occur.

I have to agree.

I was going to stay out of this one, but I think it's interesting how my 
thinking has evolved over a day's worth of reading the comments on the 
Brian Walski matter. (And by the way, it's one of the most interesting 
discussions about real photography that we've had on the LUG in a while).

When I first saw the photos (looked at cursorily at work), I thought:  "OK, 
he shouldn't have done it, but the picture didn't really lie, it just made 
for a more dramatic pose."   Slap him on the wrist, but don't fire him."

Then I read Tina's comments about how different the composite photo was 
from the two real photos, and how it could be interpreted.  I looked again, 
and thought, "Yes, she's right."

I read about the physical hardships the photographer endured, and I 
thought, "Poor guy.  But he had to actively *do* something to create the 
composite picture.  Yes, he was dog-tired and spaced out. But altering the 
photo wasn't an act of omission, it was an act of commission requiring 
skill and effort.

I do think it would be a waste of human potiential if Walski lost his 
entire career because of this one stupid act.  But I can't blame the paper 
for firing him.  Martin is right that the power of Photoshop combined with 
deadlines and the pressure to get *the* shot, whatever it takes, can lead 
to incredible temptation. There ought to be some systemic safeguard.

But how can we trust our newspapers if they allow an altered image to stand 
for the truth?   Yes, there is a bit of self-righteous grandstanding in the 
LA Times' actions.  But I'm not sure that they could have done much else 
once the story broke.  How can their readers ever trust the paper again if 
Walski is on staff?  I hope he can do penance and end up shooting somewhere 
else.

Years ago, I wrote a paper on the McCarthy era.  I remember studying images 
that had been used by the House Un-American Activities Committee.  One 
image in particular stuck me.  It had been altered by tight cropping to 
make it look like Committee Target Smith was a close friend of Known 
Bad-Assed Communist Jones.  If you looked at the original photograph, it 
turns out that the two were just part of a larger group of people at an 
airport.  If mere cropping can be used to lie so blatantly, how can we 
possibly permit Photoshopping in a news picture?

Remember when we had a similar discusson about wildlife 
photography?  Imagine this:  After weeks of crouching in a rockpile in the 
Rockies, a photographer finally gets that perfect shot of the Punk-Striped 
Horny Marmot.  The problem is, the marmot only showed himself completely on 
a hazy day.  Now, the photographer knows that the marmot sunned himself on 
those same rocks on a sunny day, but it was facing the wrong way for that 
perfect shot.  So, with the help of Photoshop, Mr. Marmot's hazy-day pose 
gets spliced into that perfect sunny-day background with the snow-striped 
Maroon Bells looming above.

Is that picture, taken as itself, a lie?  Perhaps not, because it reflects 
a reality that did exist.  The problem is, if we allow that photograph to 
be passed off as reality, what is to prevent some other photographer from 
photographing a polar bear and putting him in front of the pyramids at 
Giza?  Where do we draw the line?  And how do we know when and where it was 
drawn?

I have no problem with a photocomposite being part of a feature story, IF 
the composite is CLEARLY LABELED AS SUCH, or is so obviously a collage that 
the artificial juxtoposition is understood. But not a news photo. No, no, 
no.  It's sort of like the joke about being only a little pregnant.

Considering all this, I now understand even more the wisdom of our own 
Nathan Wajsman's Grand Photoshop Principle:  To do nothing in Photoshop 
that he wouldn't do in a wet darkroom.  I've tried  to adhere to that 
principle, but I've occasionally stretched it by cloning out a stray tree 
branch or telephone wire. For artistic or illustrative photography, I think 
that's a judgement call.  But for a news photo, I wonder if even that is 
too much.

To the public, a picture is a picture.  If they suspect that it has been 
altered in any way, they will no longer trust it.  If they suspect that 
their daily paper allows alteration, eventually they won't trust the 
paper.  In an era when any junior high school student can create a credible 
photographic forgery, and "Because I Can" is a common mode of behavior, we 
need to know that it Just Doesn't Happen at the news desk.

So, with a heavy heart, I must conclude that Walski's firing is 
justified.  I do think that after he's suffered the humiliation and the 
loss of his job, I could trust a photo of his in some other paper at a 
later date.  Having experienced the consequences, he would be far less 
likely to do it again.  Along with a cavalier attitude towards the rest of 
the world, another American fault is the prevailing idea that one lapse of 
judgement should cost a person not only their job, but their entire career 
forever.  Would that we were all so perfect. . .

- --Peter Klein
Seattle, WA


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