While tripping around the web, I ran into this interesting article, worthy of a read, and more than that, a discussion on the FORUM.

[photopress:pixloga2007013105.jpg,full,centered]
30 Jan 2007 REUTERS/Susana Vera

The article comes from Reuters news agency and opens the door to many issues.

Click here for the full article.

It was started like this:
“Reuters.com asked Gary Hershorn, News Pictures Editor for North America, to discuss some of the tools photojournalists have used in the past — and what they use now — to produce pictures. On Monday, Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database after a review showed he had altered two images”

“News photographers routinely process images using Adobe Photoshop software. But there has been a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what was allowed in making prints in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is all that is acceptable today.”

In past articles we’ve discussed the rights of the street photographer. Now we all have seen the manipulated photos in the press of celebs.

Do you know when you are seeing unmanipulated photos purporting to be fact ?

It’s a huge question which we can possibly only answer by our own morale compass.

It does raise the issue: as a writer puts forward their interpretation of the scene, does a photojournalist have the same tools available? Is that freedom of speech or freedom of interpretation.

This can continue on the FORUM.

Now in NO WAY are we inferring that the image at the head of this article had any work done other than perhaps sharpening and color enrichment.

But this may make you think a bit about the news you read. And look at.

It’s Wednesday all right.

Cheers!
Damon Webster