It's too easy and tempting

It's one thing to manipulate images when photographing wildlife but documentary photography such as in the field of photo-journalism is sacrosanct. There have been violators in the past who have been caught and exposed.  You'd think the message would have gotten though. 

Yet the National Press Photographers Association and World Press Photo feel the need to hold a symposium in 2015 to talk about ethics in photography. This following "news that 20% of the photos entered in the World Press Photo contest were disqualified after reaching the penultimate round, due to digital manipulations of some sort being discovered." - DPR

In this profession whether you are a photo-journalist, journalist or news anchor, your credibility once lost is hard to regain in the public eye.


http://www.dpreview.com/articles/2027379175/nppa-and-world-press-plan-ethics-symposium-following-contest-disqualifications

OntPhoto wrote:It's one thing to manipulate images when photographing wildlife but documentary photography such as in the field of photo-journalism ...

Well, photographing wildlife in the way like most of the photographs you see here (or in National Geographic) is also documentary photography,

Truth in journalism was lost on the grassy knoll. On the truth meter,"seeing is believing" (that replaced "if I read it it must be true") has itself been displaced by the darker abilities of technology. What remains is our intuition...and if yours not well developed, maintained, and respected, we be in trouble.

What's the old saying? “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see." - Ben Franklin
It's never been truer.

When rules are so vague, how can one know what is acceptable??? Read rule #12 here:

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/2015-pho ... ntry-rules

What are "The currently accepted standards in industry"??? I surely don't know! I have heard of "only global changes are allowed", but if one takes a slider and alters the colors to something that doesn't represent reality, i.g. B&W , is that manipulation as well? Is slight cropping "digital manipulation"? How about the removal of hot pixels or dust bunnies? The rules are way too vague and indefensible to me! In a contest, things need to be spelled out very clearly. And rule #13 states "required to provide file/s as recorded by the camera". I would have to presume that original jpegs from cameras or cameraphones would be acceptable, since some people only shoot jpegs and/or cameraphones. Some journalists are even given training in their use:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/ ... y-training

 I used to enter a contest where all photos were accepted, whether they were framed or not. One year they stated in the rules that "Photos must be matted in white" with no further details. I matted my photos in white, shrink wrapped and then framed them as usual. When I took them to the site of the acceptance of entries, I asked if they were "only to be matted or were frames allowed?" so that I could remove the frames if necessary. I was told that frames were acceptable so I didn't remove the frames. I was later disqualified because of the frames!!! I had spent a lot of time and effort in addition to 300 miles of travel to deliver the entries and another 300 miles to pick them up. Too much room for interpretation is left in most contest rules.

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:When rules are so vague, how can one know what is acceptable??? Read rule #12 here:

http://www.worldpressphoto.org/2015-pho ... ntry-rules

What are "The currently accepted standards in industry"??? I surely don't know! I have heard of "only global changes are allowed", but if one takes a slider and alters the colors to something that doesn't represent reality, i.g. B&W , is that manipulation as well? Is slight cropping "digital manipulation"? How about the removal of hot pixels or dust bunnies? The rules are way too vague and indefensible to me! In a contest, things need to be spelled out very clearly. And rule #13 states "required to provide file/s as recorded by the camera". I would have to presume that original jpegs from cameras or cameraphones would be acceptable, since some people only shoot jpegs and/or cameraphones. Some journalists are even given training in their use:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/ ... y-training

 I used to enter a contest where all photos were accepted, whether they were framed or not. One year they stated in the rules that "Photos must be matted in white" with no further details. I matted my photos in white, shrink wrapped and then framed them as usual. When I took them to the site of the acceptance of entries, I asked if they were "only to be matted or were frames allowed?" so that I could remove the frames if necessary. I was told that frames were acceptable so I didn't remove the frames. I was later disqualified because of the frames!!! I had spent a lot of time and effort in addition to 300 miles of travel to deliver the entries and another 300 miles to pick them up. Too much room for interpretation is left in most contest rules.

Joe

Although rule #12 may sound vague at first glance, most if not all photo-journalists know what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to post-processing digitally captured news photos.  What is a news photo?  A visual document of what happened at the moment the image was snapped.  Dust bunnies?  Does removing it in post affect the integrity of the documented moment?  It depends on the source. If it was due to the photographic equipment such as lens, sensor, etc. removing it may not alter the captured image one bit  If the dust bunny was on the subject or any other content in the frame, removing it will be altering what was actually captured.  Some if not many, to play it safe and not call into question the integrity of the image, may just let everything be. 

If the sky was bright when the image was captured and you manipulate it in post-processing to make the sky look more dark or gloomy to convey a certain mood,  well then you are altering what was captured at the time the pic was snapped.  You are altering the weather elements at time of capture.

Sharpening, if applied globally will not likely alter the content of the image. Sharpness is a factor of in-camera settings and other factors such as shutter speed, dof, etc.  To play it safe, many may just leave that alone as well.  Afterall, what makes a news image great?  Likely not so much the technical as the content. Whether it is soft or sharp may not really matter so much.  If you accidentally took the image at the wrong WB setting and have to adjust it after the fact? Can you replicated all the actual colours at time of capture?  Maybe so but to play it safe, think most will just not touch it in post.  Turning a colour image to B+W?  I don't see any problems with this one but am not really sure.  

Keep in mind, the contest people require that you also provide an in-camera as shot image to compare once an image advances to a higher round of judging.  Much like the WOPTY contest requirement.  I think just use common sense.

OntPhoto wrote:Although rule #12 may sound vague at first glance, most if not all photo-journalists know what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to post-processing digitally captured news photos.  What is a news photo?  A visual document of what happened at the moment the image was snapped. 

Under rule #1, there is no limitation to photojournalists only. What is acceptable to some is not acceptable to others. The AP and National Press Photographers Association "Code of Ethics" can be found here:

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/goffs/135%2 ... 20code.pdf

Notice that removal of red eye is not permissible, and what does the word "substantially alter" mean regarding density, contrast, etc.?

Many examples of dubious changes can be found here:

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... journalism

Here is an example of the dilemma many face:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... hotography

And other examples here under "Types of Deception":

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign ... hotography

 Here is another example of vague rules in a contest under "Photojournalism":

http://www.caj.ca/caj-award-categories/

http://www.caj.ca/caj-awards-rules/

I know a prominent wild horse photographer who has had cover images and shows with images where the background has been softened to the point of being unrecognizable. If a photo is on the cover of a prominent magazine, shouldn't it be labeled as altered and not a straight image? There is a well known bird photographer who drastically alters his images, as well. Are they worthy of being called nature shots? There are no clear and accepted standards and never will be!!! Too many individuals with different morals, principals, artistic visions or ideals. That's why I feel that a contest needs to be very specific in what the rules are and be willing to address any concerns publicly that may come up in the interim period between opening of the entry period and the close of that period. In the contest that is the subject of this thread, it would be interesting to know if the violations of the rules were mistakes of ignorance or conscious decisions to violate the rules. I would venture to guess that there were some of both.

Joe

SantaFeJoe wrote:

I know a prominent wild horse photographer who has had cover images and shows with images where the background has been softened to the point of being unrecognizable. If a photo is on the cover of a prominent magazine, shouldn't it be labeled as altered and not a straight image?

There is a well known bird photographer who drastically alters his images, as well. Are they worthy of being called nature shots? There are no clear and accepted standards and never will be!!!
Joe

I suppose it all depends on the magazine and whether they care or not.  The onus is on the photographer to tell the editor how the image was obtained what changes were made to it, if any in post-processing.  Often no one notices or cares anyways.  Sometimes people do call them up on it.  A good example is the "Storybook Wolf" or was it the "Fairy-Tale Wolf" winning WPOTY photo from several years back.  Remember that one?  The uproar that ensued.  The rules were clear for that contest and people called the photographer out on it big time.  The photographer in question ended up getting banned for life from ever entering that contest again. 

DChan wrote:

OntPhoto wrote:It's one thing to manipulate images when photographing wildlife but documentary photography such as in the field of photo-journalism ...

Well, photographing wildlife in the way like most of the photographs you see here (or in National Geographic) is also documentary photography,

Is it really?  National Geographic, sure.  On nature photo sharing forums such as this (or any other one for that matter) I am not sure.  Let's take baiting as an example. 

Unless it is stated along with the photo, one may not know that an image was baited or not.  The bait doesn't necessarily have to appear in the image itself.  It may be cloned out or just out of photo range.  What about natural prey in an image?  Once again you do not know if the natural prey in the photo was naturally hunted by the owl or placed there for the taking.  Back when the great gray owls irrupted here in Ottawa, one photographer captured wild field mice in his backyard to be used as bait for the owls.  You may see a natural prey in the photo with the owl.  But you do not know the behind the scenes stuff that lead up to the captured image.  This is a photo sharing and presentation site and not a photo-journalism site.