by
Paul Martin Lester
From (c) 1999
The faking of photographs, either through stage direction by the
photographer or through picture manipulations, also has a long tradition.
Photographers and editors learned early in photography's history that
economic and political gains can be made by photographic manipulations
because of a naive and trusting public. Even Pulitzer Prize winning
images, photographs that have been hailed as beautiful, humanistic
documents filled with sorrow, hope, or joy, have been questioned because
of rumors of manipulation.
The media have been criticized for showing so many gruesome images that
the public has hardened toward violent injustices. There is growing
concern that new technological advances that allow easy and undetectable
picture manipulation cause the public to be unconcerned about the truthful
content of photographs as well. With the acceptance of television
"docu-dramas" that show fiction within a factual framework, it is not
surprising that news organizations have used Hollywood techniques to
create facts. When pyramids are moved and moons are enlarged for cover
pictures of well-respected photojournalism publications, the public grows
cynical and mistrustful of journalism. The Hedonism philosophy is taken to
its most exaggerated point when business, not telling the truth, is the
prime concern.
Howard Chapnick (1982) eloquently summed up the dangers to journalism
with such manipulations. "Credibility. Responsibility. These words give us
the right to call photography a profession rather than a business. Not
maintaining that credibility will diminish our journalistic impact and
self-respect, and the importance of photography as communication" (pp.
40-41). With all the other ethical issues photojournalists should be
concerned about, picture manipulation, especially through the use of
computers, is a topic journalists are most concerned about. The threat to
credibility is irreversible if the public starts to mistrust the integrity
of the news photograph.
Hippolyte Bayard and the First Faked Photograph
Early photographic history is filled with artists-turned-photographers
who set up situations with models and backdrops and made elaborate
compositions from several negatives. Although he is seldom given credit,
Frenchman Hippolyte Bayard discovered a useful photographic process
independent of Daguerre and Fox Talbot in 1839. Frustrated by the lack of
recognition, Bayard made the first faked picture and caption combination
in 1840. He made a photograph of himself posed as a corpse and wrote on
the back of the print, "The Government, which has supported A Daguerre
more than is necessary, declared itself unable to do anything for M.
Bayard, and the unhappy man threw himself into the water in despair." Two
years later, the Societe d'Encouragement pour I'Industrie Nationale gave
Bayard a prize of 3,000 francs (Gemsheim, 1969, p. 87).
In 1857, Oscar Rejlander produced a picture with a documentary quality.
Captioned, "Street urchins tossing chestnuts," the photograph shows a
young boy in ragged clothes, delightfully looking up at a chestnut he has
presumably just tossed into the air. But stopping a moving object in
mid-air was a technical feat impossible with the slow film and lenses in
use at that time. Rejlander produced the effect through the use of a fine
thread. In that same year, he also made the controversial, "The Two Ways
of Life," an elaborate story of a young man's decision to follow the good
or evil way of life. Thirty separate negatives were combined to produce
the single image (Pollack, 1977, p. 175).
Another artist-photographer who produced composite pictures was Henry
Robinson. From five separate negatives, Robinson created the enormously
popular, "Fading Away." In a stage-like setup, the image shows a young
woman on her deathbed accompanied by grieving family members in various
poses.
Cliff Edom (1980) noted that "Both composite pictures were criticized
by a minority group for 'misrepresenting the truth' " (p. 184). The
criticism apparently moved Rejlander to denounce the process. In a letter
to Robinson he wrote, "I am tired of photograph-for-the-public,
particularly composite photos, for there can be no gain and there is no
honor, only cavil and misrepresentation" (Gernsheim, 1969, p. 247).
Portrait photography was enormously popular among the middle class, but
picture patrons complained that the images showed all their facial
peculiarities. Consequently, photographers of the day regularly softened
wrinkles and removed facial blemishes with elaborate techniques. One of
the earliest portrait photographers was Frenchman, Gaspard Felix
Tournachon, or Nadar as he was professionally named. Although Nadar
employed "six retouchers of negatives; and three artists for retouching
the positive prints," he personally found the custom of retouching
photographs to be "detestable and costly" (Newhall, 1982, pp. 69-70).
The photographic materials of the 1840s and 1850s were not overly
sensitive to green and extremely sensitive to blue. Consequently, prints
of nature scenes were often disappointing as a landscape was either a
silhouette with clouds appearing in the sky, or the landscape was exposed
correctly and the sky was printed white. To satisfy the public's thirst
for photographs that contained a well-exposed landscape and sky,
photographers usually reduced the sky with cyanide of potassium or painted
on the sky with India ink. As Gernsheim (1969) noted, "By the first method
dark rain clouds were obtained, by the second, white cumulus clouds."
Double exposure techniques were sometimes used to bring land and sky into
exposure harmony. Some photographers by the 1880s even traded or sold
favorite cloud negatives to other photographers "with incongruous results:
a dramatic cumulus cloud might serve for an Alpine scene, an English
cathedral, and the Pyramids" (p. 264).
Civil War Manipulations
By the time of the Civil War, photography was well established as one
of the most influential mediums in the world. Mathew Brady, a respected
portrait photographer with galleries in Washington, DC and New York,
established the first picture agency to cover the war. He hired brave
photographers and equipped them with all the necessary tools of the trade
to ride in horse-drawn portable darkrooms and make pictures of the war.
Most of the pictures Brady's photographers took were in the form of
tintypes, cheaply made images printed on metal or inexpensive images
called, "cartes de visite." The soldiers sent the images to their loved
ones back home.
Many of the battle scenes and portraits, credited to Brady, are valued
documentary images in the Library of Congress. But Brady made few
photographs during the Civil War. When pictures were sent to him from the
cannonball covered battlefields by his staff photographers, he quickly
attached the credit line, "Photograph by Brady." Brady hoped to increase
the likelihood of picture sales if people thought he made the images.
Brady thought he would make a fortune with the documentary pictures from
the war. But the public, grown weary of a costly war, were not interested
in paying for the images. Brady died practically penniless (Pollack, 1977,
pp. 56-59).
Other unethical picture manipulations during the Civil War have been
discovered by researchers. William Frassanito (1978) located two
stereocard views attributed to Brady taken after the first battle of Bull
Run in July 186 1. One view shows a group of standing, kneeling, and
firing soldiers. The second picture titled, "Confederate Dead on Matthews
Hill," shows the same group of soldiers lying on the ground, presumably
killed. Frassanito disputed the authenticity of these scenes because Brady
fled with the Union Army shortly after the battle and one man in the
picture is dressed in a heavy overcoat, a strange wardrobe choice for
July. "Someone apparently told the soldiers to pretend they were fighting
in the one view," wrote Frassanito, "and then instructed them to pretend
they were dead in the other" (pp. 31-32).
In an article titled, "The Case of the Rearranged Corpse," Frederic Ray
(1961), art director for Civil War Times magazine, detailed a more
famous manipulation. A photographer under Brady's employ, Alexander
Gardner, is credited with a series of pictures he made of 18-year-old Pvt.
Andrew Hoge of the 4th Virginia Infantry in Gettysburg. Hoge was stationed
in a sniper's nest behind a barricade of rocks. The photograph captioned,
"Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter," in Gardner's book, Gardner's
Photographic Sketch Book of the War, shows the dead sniper lying on
his back, his face turned toward the camera, and his rifle propped up
against one of the rocks. The image would have remained a striking
photographic document if it were not for another picture by Gardner that
shows the same soldier in a different location. This photograph is a
closer view of the young man still lying on his back, but his face is
turned away from the camera and his rifle lies on the ground by his side.
Apparently, the frustration with using slow films and lenses that made it
impossible to photograph action during the heat of a battle, caused
Gardner to create his own dramatic pictures. Ray wrote that Gardner "was
guilty of at least a misdemeanor as a photographic historian" and
concluded that his ethical transgressions were "nothing serious" (p. 19).
But when a photographer is shown to fake a picture, all of his work is put
into question. Again, the issue is credibility.
Stefan Lorant found an early photographic fake when he was
investigating pictures for a book about Abraham Lincoln. Lorant was the
art director for the London Picture Post magazine, the inspiration for
Life and Look magazines. He discovered that the popular
close-up portrait of Lincoln seen on the $5 bill was sandwiched atop the
body of Southern statesman, John Calhoun by a darkroom technician. The
result was a classic full-length portrait of the former president. The
North and the South were once again united. Entrepreneurs at the time were
eager to make money from Lincoln's assassination. But in their haste, the
President's famous mole appeared on the wrong side of his face.
Nevertheless, the full-length view of Lincoln is a popular portrait
(MacDougall, 1971, p. 120).
Mathew Brady and his staff were responsible for one last photographic
fake that involved the Civil War. General Sherman and his staff came to
the Brady studio to have their group portrait made after the War. However,
General Blair, an important member of Sherman's staff, could not attend
the photo shoot. Nevertheless, the group picture was taken. At a later
date, a head and shoulders picture of Blair was made. The image of his
head was then attached to the group picture with his name already
imprinted. Lucky for Brady that Blair did not suddenly die between the two
portrait sittings (Pollack, 1977, pp. 193-194).
Although never accused of faking a picture, documentary photographer
and writer, Jacob Riis, did use a manipulation technique that was
successfully accomplished by Mathew Brady. Because Riis was not a trained
photographer, he often hired them to accompany him on his nightly journeys
through New York's seedy underworld. The popular story is that Riis could
not rely on his photographers because they either would not show up for
scheduled appointments or became frightened by the rough characters they
were asked to photograph. Riis was forced to learn photography and took
the pictures that were used in his lectures and for his book, How the
Other Half Lives. But one of his most famous photographs, "Bandit's
Roost," was actually taken by Richard Hoe Lawrence. How many other
photographs Riis took credit for, but were actually the work of Lawrence
or another amateur photographer, Henry Pifford, is not known (Jussim,
1989, p. 40).
Engraving and Halftone Manipulations
Stephen Horgan in 1873 is credited with inventing the halftone printing
process that replaced the artistic renderings of the engraved images with
real pictures that were captured "from nature." The first photograph
printed with the new technique, captioned, "A Scene in Shantytown, New
York" showed crumbling buildings and piles of dirt from an obvious poor
section of town. The image printed in 1880 by the New York Daily
Graphic, was not meant to be an illustration of the newspaper's
commitment to correcting dire social problems within the city of New York,
but was simply part of a set of various printing techniques that were
demonstrated by the newspaper. The Horgan invention was considered too
expensive and difficult to use. F. E. Ives improved the process in 1890 to
a technique that is still in use today (Jussim, 1989, pp. 44-45).
It took several years before the halftone process caught on because
publishers had a large investment with engravers, many disliked the
quality of printed photographs, and editors and artists had more control
over engraved images. Once publishers started using photographs, however,
engraving technology was abandoned (Jussim, 1989, pp. 42-45).
As Estelle Jussim (1989) wrote in The Eyes of Time: Photojournalism
in America, the turn of the century began an era when readers were
"impressed more by the fact that a photograph could finally be made to
appear in a newspaper or magazine than by the content of that picture. . .
. It was an era deluged by the products of the press and manipulated by
warring publishers who displayed few ethical concerns. Photojoumalistic
images would be perceived as visual fact, but were actually more often
propaganda and pure sensationalism" (p. 38). Faked pictures, as Jussim
wrote, "became a frequent accompaniment to hyped stories" (p. 53). Robert
Taft (1938) noted in his book, Photography and the American Scene,
that "by the time the faked photograph is reproduced in halftone, it is
impossible to detect the forgers from the print alone" (p. 448). Art
directors who regularly ordered the manipulation of engravings saw nothing
ethically wrong with manipulating photographs.
Stage-managed and composite photographic techniques were common
contrivances by the turn of the century. The highly theatrical photographs
were usually made by painters new to the photographic medium. Typical of
the genre was the early work of painter-turned-photographer, Edward
Steichen. In 1902 he made a striking portrait of the artist, Rodin with
his famous piece, "Le Penseur." The 11 portrait of the artist and the
sculpture were exposed on separate negatives and combined into a single
print" ("Caption," 1989). Later in his career, Steichen is most known for
creating one of the most successful photojournalism exhibitions in the
world, "The Family of Man."
Worried over real estate prices and population declines, Gladys Hansen
(1989), in her recent book, Denial of Disaster, showed evidence
that many of the photographs made during the 1906 earthquake in San
Francisco were re-touched. City officials authorized artists to alter
photographs to minimize the appearance of damage from the earthquake. It
was assumed at the time that prospective settlers to San Francisco would
understand damage from a great fire, but would not move to the area if the
full fury of the earthquake was publicized.
Susan Moeller (1989) wrote that many pictures taken by war
photographers covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba were posed.
Fighting scenes were re-enacted and bodies were moved for better
compositions. Some creative photographers even re-enacted famous battle
scenes in New Jersey backyards and bathtubs. During World War I, many
photographs were manipulated for propaganda purposes. For example,
newspapers showed faked photographs of Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany cutting
off the hands of babies (Edom, 1976, p. 31).
In Making People Disappear, Alain Jaubert (1986), chronicled
numerous photographic abuses by mostly totalitarian regimes. Through
retouching, blocking, cutouts, recentering, and effacement techniques,
historical pictures have been altered to reflect a political leader's
version of the truth. For example, the photograph that showed the 1917
attack by revolutionary soldiers on the Winter Palace in Russia was
actually a re-enactment during a daylight street celebration three years
later. The actual attack occur-red in almost total darkness. The famous
photograph was darkened and the windows of the Palace "were painted white
to give the illusion of a building seen at night and lighted from within"
(p. 44).
Spirit Photography
A curious and little-mentioned photographic genre, spirit photography,
supposedly captured the likeness of the spirit of a deceased person.
Spirit photography, an outgrowth of the Spiritualism religious movement,
was proven by photographic experts, including the famous magician and
escape artist, Harry Houdini, to be double exposure fakes. Unsophisticated
to the technical considerations of photography and wanting to believe in
the truth of the photograph, people paid money to spiritual mediums and
believed the results. Usually a psychic medium would make, an appointment
with a customer and ask for a picture of the deceased. This portrait, it
was told, was necessary in order to communicate more easily with the dead
loved one. The spirit photographer would expose part of a negative plate
with the image. Using that same negative during a portrait sitting, the
photographer simply developed the image and showed the print to the amazed
and grateful customer (see Black, 1922; Bird, 1923; Edmunds, 1966;
Houdini, 1924).
Houdini traveled the world exposing the tricks mediums used to dupe
their customers. There were hundreds of ways the spirit photographers used
to manipulate negatives to produce spirits on film and Houdini usually
caught them all. He often traveled with Arthur Conan Doyle, of the
Sherlock Holmes stories, to debate the truthfulness of the spirit
photographs. Curiously, Doyle, an amateur photographer, was one of the
most strident advocates of spirit photography in the world. With large
prints and stories from mediums, Doyle would spread the gospel of ghosts.
He usually opened his lectures with, "Tonight I propose to put before you
some pictures and photographs which will illustrate . . . the physical
results which come from psychic knowledge" (from the "Opening of the
Photographic Lecture," Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX, Doyle
collection). As more people became technically sophisticated about
photography, spirit photographs soon faded into thin air.
The "Yellow Journalism" era, fueled by the intense competition between
Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York Tribune and William
Hearst, publisher of the New York Journal, created a readership
that demanded dramatic and sensational stories in their newspapers. In a
time when ethical considerations gave way to economic interests, editors
and photographers were willing to obliged their publishers.
Ken Kobre (1980) in his textbook, Photojournalism: The
Professionals' Approach, credited editor Emile Gavreau and assistant
art director Harry Grogin of the New York Evening Graphic with creating a
faked news picture. The technique called a composograph, used 20 separate
negatives to fake a sensational divorce trial after photographers were
ejected from the courtroom by the judge. Newspaper staff personnel posed
as trial participants for the picture. Although the Graphic admitted in
tiny print that the composographs were faked, the sensational images were
enormously popular among readers.
Photographers were recruited to satisfy the visual needs of the
newspapers. "Competition for the low-paying, exhausting [photographer]
jobs was fierce," wrote Claude Cookman (1985), a photography historian.
Joseph Costa, NPPA's first president, admitted that the heightened sense
of competition fostered many unethical acts besides faked images. Some
photographers put ear wax on lenses, exposed negatives, and stole negative
holders from other photographers. "Sabotage was standard practice," said
Costa, "and no photographer with any street savvy at all would ever let
his camera bag or equipment out of his sight" (p. 116).
As William Strothers (1989), readers' representative for The San
Diego Union wrote, sometimes those camera bags contained more than
camera equipment. "There are stories of some long-ago
reporter-photographers covering the police beat who used to carry teddy
bears in their cars. When they sped to the scene of an accident involving
a child, the toy would be employed to add poignancy to the photograph. It
also was common practice for photographers to pose participants in news
events to get good pictures" (p. 25).
In 1943, New York Journal photographer Harry Coleman admitted in
his book, Give Us a Little Smile, Baby, that he would dress up a
body at the morgue with a shirt and tie and prop it up for a seemingly
life-like portrait of the deceased subject. At the scene of a homicide,
Coleman would also describe the victim to a fellow photographer over the
telephone who would "dig up a real photograph of, say, John L. Sullivan,
remove his ferocious mustache, paint a General Grant beard across his
massive chin, and send it to the engravers as a legitimate picture of an
unidentified body in a foul murder" (cited in Ahlhauser, 1990, p. 2).
In a reaction to the many manipulated pictures by news photographers,
Kent Cooper (1947), an executive for the Associated Press wrote the
following:
April Fool's and Political Fakes
April Fool photographic fakes were popular in newspapers during the
first half of this century. Curtis MacDougall (1940) in his book,
Hoaxes, detailed several instances where newspapers published such
images as giant sea creatures, Viking ships, and a man supposedly flying
by his own lung power. The Madison, Wisconsin Capital-Times went so
far as to publish a photographic composite of the capitol dome collapsing
in 1933 that needlessly alarmed hundreds of people. Photography editor
Cliff Yeich ("One person's gallery," 1985) recently revised the April Fool
joke for his newspaper, the Reading, Pennsylvania Eagle-Times.
Yeich used double printing techniques to show the Concorde SST
aircraft landing at the Reading airport, an oil tanker cruising down the
Schuykill River, and two children playing with a giant wishbone from a
750-pound turkey. Although popular with many readers, such examples of fun
with photography do not belong in a newspaper. A photographer who employs
such trickery might be tempted to use the technique for news events.
Yeich, for example, after a recent rain storm, created the look of flooded
conditions on Reading's main street with a mirror. Another wet day at a
horse racing track resulted in a picture of a faked motorboat ride on the
oval course. The pictures were not printed on April Fool's day. Curiously,
April Fool's day hoaxes can still be found on college campuses. Many
university newspapers have April Fool's editions that lampoon campus
issues and personalities in faked stories and pictures.
More serious fakes involved political subjects. A 1928 campaign picture
of Herbert Hoover and his runningmate was faked because Hoover refused to
pose with the vice-presidential candidate, Charles Curtis. Life
magazine revealed a composite photograph, produced by a rival
politician, of a Maryland Democrat running for office that looked like he
was conferring with a Communist leader. The image was actually the result
of two separate photographs. The image was widely distributed among the
electorate. The Democrat lost the election (MacDougall, 197 1).
Floyd Collins' Faked Caption
Truth was again a victim during journalism's most sensational era.
Floyd Collins was a man who wanted to build his own amusement park. In
1925, he became trapped while exploring Sand Cave a few miles from the
famous, Mammoth Cave in rural Kentucky. For 17 days, rescue workers
attempted to free Collins, but without success. He died from starvation.
Fifty reporters on the scene turned Collins into a national martyr. Over
20,000 people from 16 states jammed into the area after reading the
newspaper articles. In the movie, Ace in the Hole, Billy Wilder
critically presented the side-show atmosphere surrounding the hole in the
ground (Lesy, 1976, p. 220).
Competition was intense among journalists on the scene to get
interviews and pictures no other newspaper had. William Eckenberg, a
photographer for the New York Times, learned that a farmer had a picture
of Collins taken 10 days earlier while inside another cave. Eckenberg
found the picture, made a copy and sent it to New York. The picture was
used by many papers across the country. Some papers, including the
Chicago Daily Tribune, accurately described the circumstances
surrounding the picture's history. Many other newspapers, however, perhaps
to heighten interest in the image, used the picture without an
explanation. A team of journalism historians were also fooled by the
picture. In America's Front Page News 1690-1970, a caption under a
reproduction of the front page of the New York, The World reads,
"The haunting picture of explorer Floyd Collins, peering from the Kentucky
cave in which he was wedged for 17 days, appeared on the day he was found
dead of exhaustion and starvation" (see Emery, Schuneman, & Emery,
1970; Faber, 1978).
Manipulations by Cropping
Cropping out significant elements of a picture in order to produce a
misleading image has been used for various motivations by photographers.
President Franklin Roosevelt, stricken with polio and confined to a
wheelchair, was photographed with close-ups by sympathetic photographers
who did not want to show the public the full extent of his feeble
condition. Likewise, photographs of Governor George Wallace, after he was
paralyzed from an assassination attempt, were cropped for the same reason.
An infamous example of creative cropping occurred during Senator Joseph
McCarthy's hearing on Communists in the government. To imply that
Secretary of the Army Robert T. Stevens had a close relationship with an
enlisted man, Private G. David Schine, a picture of the two was closely
cropped omitting a third man in the photograph, Air Force Colonel Jack T.
Bradley (Cook, 1971).
CHARGES OF MANIPULATION CLOUD FAMOUS PICTURES
Perhaps most troubling to the reputation of photojournalists and their
photographs are reports that well-known and deeply moving pictures have
been stage directed by the photographers.
Three famous photographs, Robert Capa's moment of death of a Republican
soldier during the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Rothstein's skull on parched
South Dakota land, and Joe Rosenthal's raising of the American flag over
Iwo Jima, have all been reported to be photographic manipulations. These
three images have a cloud of uncertainty that surrounds each
photographer's reputation.
Robert Capa's 'Moment of Death'
Published in Life magazine in 1937, Capa's photograph shows in
one instant the sudden and lonely death of an anonymous soldier. The
picture shocked readers with its sudden impact. Never before had the
public witnessed in such graphic horror a soldier's moment of death. After
an offhandedly made remark by the teasing Capa and weak evidence that the
killed soldier appeared alive in subsequent images in Capa's contact
sheet, rumors spread that the picture was either a result of Capa simply
shooting blindly and capturing the shot by chance or stage managed for the
camera (Knightley, 1976). Luck often helps experienced photographers. Bob
Jackson who took the Oswald murder picture and Eddie Adams who captured
the Viet Cong soldier's assassination were startled by the sound of a
gunshot and pressed their shutter buttons. Photographic reflexes, a result
of years of experience, plus a little luck can produce extraordinary
photographs.
Robert Capa was never the kind of photographer who needed to set up his
subjects. Capa, who's motto was, "If your pictures aren't good, you aren't
close enough," would have been dismissed had the moment-of-death
photograph been the only picture in his portfolio. However, Capa produced
many war-time photographs throughout his career. Another famous picture of
Capa's is the grainy and blurred image, caused by a lab assistant's high
drying temperature, of a soldier crawling in the shallow waters of
Normandy during the D-Day invasion. He photographed in Spain, China,
Israel, and finally in Vietnam, where he was killed when he stepped on a
land mine (Rothstein, 1986). Capa consistently produced images with strong
emotional impact and high technical expertise. He was not a photographer
who needed to fake a photograph in order to enhance his career.
Arthur Rothstein's Skulls
Arthur Rothstein (196 1), a documentary photographer for the Farm
Security Administration (FSA) during the American Dust Bowl era, made
photographs of a steer's skull on grassy and parched land. When the
different backgrounds were discovered, the skull was labeled a prop by
Republican politicians who used the Rothstein pictures to attack the
credibility of all the FSA photographs and particularly the Democratic
administration. The Democrats, it was argued, were using the photographs
to make environmental conditions look worse than they actually were in
order to pass controversial legislation through Congress. Rothstein was
accused of traveling around the country with his suitcase, his camera, and
his skull. Although he only moved the skull 10 feet, Rothstein would be
the first to admit that it was wrong of him. He regretted the controversy
for the rest of his career.
Rothstein produced several memorable photographic documents including
the classic Dust Bowl photograph of a father hurrying toward shelter
through a dust storm with his two young sons trailing behind. He received
more than 50 photography awards and wrote several books on the subject of
photojournalism and documentary photography. Given such a reputation, it
is difficult to imagine him packing a skull with his clothes and camera.
Joe Rosenthal's Flag
An Associated Press photographer, 33-year-old Joe Rosenthal, made three
photographs atop Suribachi, a Japanese observation post on the island of
Iwo Jima in 1945. His first picture became the most reproduced photograph
in history and won for him a Pulitzer Prize. His second picture, although
similar to the first, did not capture a dramatic moment and was forgotten
by history. His third photograph became the source of accusations that the
first photograph had been set up (Evans, 1978).
The first picture is the image most remembered. It shows six soldiers
erecting a large, American flag on a long diagonally slanted flagpole. The
soldiers seem to be straining, as they had strained to capture the
mountain from the Japanese, to fly the banner of the United States. This
large flag, however, was not the first American flag to fly over
Suribachi. Staff Sgt. Louis Lowery, a Marine photographer, who beat
Rosenthal to the top by several hours, recorded the first flag-raising
ceremony that used a small flag (Colton, 1989).
On his way up to the top, Rosenthal saw a Marine carrying a much larger
flag. The raising of that larger flag was recorded on film by a motion
picture cameraman and by Rosenthal with his Speed Graphic press camera.
After the raising of the flag, Rosenthal made a group picture of 18
soldiers smiling and waving for the camera. Although the flag-raising
ceremony was re-enacted, it was the Marines who were responsible for the
decision-not Rosenthal.
The confusion over the authenticity of the famous photograph resulted
from Rosenthal's casual response to a correspondent 9 days later in Guam.
Congratulations poured in from newspapers across America about the
picture. A writer happened to ask if the picture was posed. Thinking that
he meant the third photograph, Rosenthal admitted that it had been set up.
Speaking later of the famous picture, he rightly argued that "had I
posed the shot, I would, of course, have ruined it. I would . . . have
made them turn their heads so that they could be identified for AP members
throughout the country" ("Flag raising," 1980, p. 13). Nevertheless, when
the picture was first offered to the editors of Life magazine, it
was rejected because it looked too perfect. As one writer noted, "Life
was all for making movie stars look glamorous and frequently staged
photos, but this was hard news, and they wanted to be careful." After the
photograph was used throughout the world as a symbol of America's
victories, the picture was printed in Life. Incidentally, Mt.
Suribachi was soon recaptured by the Japanese. Many of the Marines who
were photographed by Rosenthal were numbered as casualties (Elson, 1968,
p. 56).
Writing of the Rosenthal icon, picture editor Harold Evans (1978), in
his book Pictures on a Page, noted that "no genius could have posed
the picture if he had spent a year in a studio with lights and a wind
machine" (p. 145). Lucky for photojournalism, Rosenthal did not carry a
wind machine to the top of Iwo Jima.
MANIPULATIONS BY TRADITIONAL TECHNIQUES
In the present era of ethical awareness, some photographers have
learned the hard way that giving stage-managed, manipulated prints or
misrepresented subjects to editors without explanations is ethically
wrong. Professor Jim Gordon (1981) of Bowling Green State University, Ohio
and editor of News Photographer magazine detailed the firing of
Norman Zeisloft.
Norman Zeisloft's Feet
A 17-year veteran of the St. Petersburg Times and Evening
Independent, Zeisloft was assigned to cover a baseball tournament. As
baseball games often go, sports action was hard to find. He spotted three
fans in the stands and said that it would be 11 cute if you had 'Yea,
Eckerd' written on the bottom of your feet." One young man agreed and
Zeisloft started to write. A photographer for a competing newspaper took a
picture of him writing on the bottom of the fan's foot and later put it up
on his photography lab's bulletin board as a joke.
Zeisloft's pen would not write on the man's dirty sole so he returned
to shooting the game. In the meantime, the man in the stands washed his
feet, wrote the message on his foot and called Zeisloft over. He took the
picture. Zeisloft gave the image to his editor without a word about the
stage-managed situation. Two days later it was printed in the Evening
Independent.
Someone sent the picture of Zeisloft writing on the bottom of the fan's
foot to Norman Isaacs, who served as chairman of the Pulitzer jury for
commentary and was chairman of the National News Council in New York.
Isaacs sent the picture to Gene Patterson who was Isaacs' close friend and
president and editor of the St. Petersburg newspapers. Patterson was also
chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board who had recently voted against
awarding the Pulitzer to Washington Post reporter, Janet Cooke.
(Cooke had admitted that a story she wrote of a little boy surrounded by
drug dealers was actually fiction. Her scandal was an embarrassment for
the Washington Post and the Pulitzer Prize Board.) Zeisloft was
fired.
At his administrative appeal, he explained, "we set up pictures for
society and club news, recipe contest winners, ribbon-cutting and
ground-breaking ceremonies, award shots and enterprise features."
Zeisloft, at 61 years old, may have been influenced by the stage managing
techniques that photographers had used several years earlier because of
their bulky cameras. Even Gene Smith, Life magazine's premier
picture story producer, has admitted, "If I really felt that it was
absolutely essential to the truth of the story, I would not hesitate to
pose the subjects" (Kobre, 1980, p. 302). Another famous Life
magazine photographer, Margaret Bourke White, regularly posed her
documentary subjects in order to get better compositions and emotional
impact in her photographs. Posing is close to the ethical line. Writing on
a foot to create a more interesting picture is over the edge.
Executive editor, Robert Haiman made the decision to fire Zeisloft. His
explanation should be tacked to the bulletin board of every newsroom in
the country. "It seems to me," Haiman said,
Other Subject and Picture Manipulations
Other photographers have lost or been suspended from their jobs when
editors were not told of a print or subject manipulation. Eric Demme, a
freelance photographer for United Press International (UPI), was fired for
a double printing manipulation. A picture of a jet airplane in one
photograph was combined with a chicken wing restaurant's sign. The sign
read, "Air traffic controllers dont [sic] affect our wings" and referred
to the national air traffic controller strike of 198 1. When the composite
was discovered, UPI ordered a "mandatory kill" on the picture. All editors
were instructed to destroy the picture. Demme explained that because
staffers helped him produce the image, he expected "a slap on the hand."
"It [the photograph] doesn't involve people," said Demme. "Why not?"
A panda bear "in his last remaining natural habitat" was found to have
been photographed in a 2-acre pen at a research center in China's Wuyipeng
province. Contract photographer for Geo magazine, Timm Rautert, was fired.
Geo managing editor, David Maxey said that the experience "will
make us more vigilant in the future. Embarrassing though this message is,
there's no substitute in journalism for candor" (Gordon, 1981, pp. 35-36).
The Sunday newspaper magazine, Parade, illustrated a cover story
on teenage prostitution with three pictures purported to be actual scenes
of women soliciting themselves for money. Under the headline, "Kids For
Sale," one of the pictures from New York City was taken by Pulitzer Prize
winning photographer, Eddie Adams. Professionals became concerned when it
was discovered later that Adams' 11 prostitute" was actually a paid model.
A disclaimer, identifying the woman in the picture as a model, had been
"dropped." Adams admitted that stories concerning children require the use
of models because of problems with obtaining parental permission.
Magazines set up cover pictures, Adams explained, "to draw attention to
the story, to illustrate a point. Newspapers have even more instances with
it with set-up feature pictures" (Brill, 1986, pp. 4-8). Nevertheless, if
models are used to illustrate a news editorial picture, the readers should
be told.
Eddie Motes of the Anniston, Alabama Star was looking for a
weather feature picture after a rainstorm produced flooded conditions. He
asked Angie Shockley, a community center employee, to walk with an
umbrella through ankle-deep water so that he could make pictures of her.
Shockley suddenly disappeared as she stepped into a ditch hidden by the
flood waters. Paul Kennedy had been watching the photography session and
immediately jumped into the culvert to save Shockley. A group of
basketball players and the Anniston Rescue Squad were needed to rescue
Kennedy who had become trapped against the culvert. Meanwhile, Shockley
had been sucked through the 50-foot drain and was unhurt on the other
side. Kennedy was treated and released at a local hospital. In one
assignment, Motes had created human interest feature and spot news
pictures.
Motes reported that his editor did not hold him responsible for the
accident. But in letters to News Photographer magazine,
photojournalists around the country let Motes know what they thought of
him setting up a situation that almost turned into tragedy. Typical of the
responses was Jason Grow's letter. "Motes' situation clearly illustrates
the danger of explicitly, or implicitly, encouraging someone to perform
for the sake of the camera. Eddie Motes was damn lucky that neither
Shockley nor Paul Kennedy were killed. Maybe through this near-tragedy we
all may re-evaluate what it is we are doing when we put our cameras to our
eyes" (Grow, 1989, p. 55).
Pulitzer Prize photographer for the Detroit Free Press, Manny
Crisostomo was suspended for 3 days after it was learned he "bought a Sony
Walkman and a sausage from a crack addict referred to as Tim in a story. .
. ." Crisostomo "feared the addict might become violent if he wasn't given
any money" (AP News Wire, 1989). For Life magazine in 1965, Bill
Eppridge photographed a young couple addicted to heroin. Eppridge admitted
that the couple asked for money, but he explained "that if we paid them,
the story could no longer be valid . . ." (Edom, 1980, p. 98). Crisostomo
and a reporter gave money and then drove the addicts to where they could
buy more crack. The large, lead picture in the layout of the addicts
smoking crack was taken inside the reporter's car. In an article in
News Photographer magazine, Crisostomo (1989) admitted that
"Integrity is everything. Reputations are hard to come by, but easy to
lose. When confronted with a serious ethical question, I can't go it
alone. My editors have to know what's going on. And if it comes down to a
choice between compromising my ethics or dropping the story, I'll drop the
story" (pp. 22-24). Credibility is severely damaged when reporters set up
a situation or provide money and transportation for subjects to purchase
illegal drugs.
When the Tokyo newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, sent a photographer to
document the environmental problems with a coral reef, he carved his
initials in the reef for the picture when he could not find enough damage.
The newspaper received 6,000 phone calls and 2,000 letters in I month when
the alteration was learned by the public. The photographer was fired. But
the Japanese did not stop with the photographer's punishment. As William
Strothers (1989) wrote, "Another photographer involved was suspended, the
salaries of the executive editor and three other editors were cut, and the
managing editor and photo editor were demoted. Finally, the president of
the newspaper resigned" (p. 25). The Japanese really know how to get the
message across.
Color as a Culprit?
The spread of color photography for magazines and newspapers has been
blamed for the trend toward the increased use of set ups and illustration
assignments. John Coffeen of the Tampa Tribune, noted that because
of the lighting techniques necessary to take good color pictures, many
photographers have returned to the posed shooting style, popular in the
1950s while on location and in the studio (Fitzgerald, 1988, p. 16).
When newspapers bought new color presses, studio shots increased
"because it was a chance to show off what we could do with the new
presses," according to Coffeen. When color photography is well printed it
attracts more readers and advertisers to the newspaper. Editors felt that
color slide materials would be best for color reproduction on the presses.
Slide exposures have to be right on the mark and that sometimes requires
the use of fill-in flash and set up techniques. Many newspapers have
purchased computer-controlled picture scanners that make color
separations. Consequently, photography staffs have been able to change to
more forgiving negative color films that can be used under adverse
technical conditions. Editors have also steered away from meaningless
sunset and sailboat pictures and use photojournalism photographs that
happen to be in color. Nevertheless, USA Today, with its pages
filled with colorful, tiny head and shoulder portraits, has been a model
for many newspapers around the country (Lester, 1988). Photographers
continue to get assignments for food, fashion, and editorial illustrations
where they use highly manipulative techniques common to advertising
photographers and then are expected to be straight documentary
photojournalists when they cover any other assignment.
Concern runs high among professionals about the increased use of the
illustration assignment. The judges for the Pictures of the Year (POY)/47
competition, sponsored by NPPA and the University of Missouri, have
eliminated the editorial illustration category from the competition. The
contest instructions state, "Given the growing popularity of set-up and
contrived pictures and the threat to photographic credibility posed by
computer manipulation of images POY will, in the future, focus entirely on
documentary work" ("Contest instructions," 1989). The POY judges will also
prefer photo reportage over photo illustration in every category.
COMPUTER MANIPULATIONS
In national surveys sent to photographers, editors, and educators, as
if guided by a single voice, all exclaim the same concern: The most
serious threat to the integrity and credibility of photojournalism images
is computer manipulation (Brink, 1988).
Why is there such a concern for a technique that is simply a
technological step up from photo retouching by hand? To simulate color in
early daguerreotypes and tintypes, photo retouchers, with brushes and inks
added rouge to cheeks and cyan to dresses. Before the halftone invention,
engravers regularly "improved" a photograph's content and composition.
Wedding portrait photographers regularly remove unwanted warts and
wrinkles. Advertising art directors customarily combine parts of pictures,
change colors, and create fantasy images to attract customers. But people
are well aware, and knowingly suspend their belief, when it comes to
portrait and advertising photographic images.
The concern comes when computer retouching is used for untouchable
images--photojournalism photographs ("Whose picture," 1987). Imagine a
newspaper that's masthead motto is, "April Fool's Day-Every Day." Like the
little boy who cried wolf in the fairytale, magazine and newspaper readers
would eventually turn their backs on the media out of mistrust.
Hal Buell of the Associated Press said, "I don't think your ethics can
be any better or any worse using electronic methods than they are using
the classical methods. Ethics is in the mind. It is not in the tools you
use" (Bossen, 1985, p. 30). There are two approaches that one can take
about the use of computer technology: absolute or relaxed. Either computer
manipulation should never be performed for news/editorial images, or
changes are allowed. Robert Gilka, former director of photography for
National Geographic magazine, articulated the absolute viewpoint.
Gilka said that manipulating images is "like limited nuclear war. There
ain't none" (Ritchin, 1984, p. 49). Jack Com, director of photography for
the Chicago Tribune said manipulations are "ethically, morally and
journalistically horrible" (Reaves, 1987, p. 3 1).
Michael Evans (1989), editor of graphics and photography at the
Atlanta Journal and Constitution and former White House "photo
opportunity" photographer for the Reagan administration, has a more
relaxed opinion. Evans cited W. Eugene Smith's work as an example of
"emphatically accurate photos" that are nevertheless manipulated. Evans
wrote that "Through burning, dodging, bleaching, negative-sandwiching,
double-printing and a veritable arsenal of other brilliant special
effects, Gene Smith produced prints that dazzled a photographically
unsophisticated world that literally thirsted for images" (pp. 26-28). A
famous portrait of Dr. Albert Schweitzer by Smith was a composite print
from two images because the main negative was technically flawed due to
fogging. Even the famous photograph, "The Migrant Mother" by Dorothea
Lange was retouched to eliminate a "ghostly thumb" in a comer of her
composition (Ohm, 1980).
The first time many learned that a new age in photo retouching had
dawned were the reports of cable mogul Ted Turner using computerized
colorization techniques on classic, black-and-white movies. The motive was
profit-it was hoped viewers would be more attracted to the color versions.
The list of computer and set up abuses grows daily at an alarming rate.
Most of the computer enhancements have occurred on the covers of various
magazines. National Geographic (1982a, 1982b) magazine, long known
for its reputation of photojournalism excellence, used a computer
digitizer on two occasions. On a cover story of Egypt, the Great Pyramids
of Giza in a horizontal picture by Gordon Gahen were squeezed together to
fit the magazine's vertical format. Editors for a picture story on Poland
used a photograph by Bruno Barby for the cover and the special supplement
that combined an expression on a man's face in one frame with a complete
view of his hat in another picture.
Tom Kennedy, who became the director of photography at National
Geographic after the covers were manipulated, recently stated that "We
no longer use that technology to manipulate elements in a photo simply to
achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a
mistake, and we wouldn't repeat that mistake today" (personal interview
with Carla Hotvedt, March 22, 1990).
The photojournalism compilations in the A Day in the Life books
of America, Australia, Canada, and California all had cover pictures
manipulated by computer technology. The horseman, hill, and tree on the
cover of A Day in the Life of America were moved closer together
enlarging the moon. The photograph was originally a horizontal. The
objects in the picture were moved to fit the cover's vertical format.
Dandelions behind a boy and a girl on the cover of A Day in the Life of
Canada were turned into green grass. An inch of water was added to the
top of the cover picture to include the title, A Day in the Life of
Australia. The top of a surfboard was created for the cover picture of
A Day in the Life of California.
The short-lived and experimental magazine, Picture Week fused
two different photographs in tabloid magazine style of Nancy Reagan and
Raisa Gorbachev to portray a misleading attitude of friendliness (Reaves,
1987). A cover picture for Rolling Stone magazine was altered with
the computer (O'Connor, 1986). The gun and shoulder holster were removed
from "Miami Vice" actor Don Johnson because editor Jan Wenner is an ardent
foe of handguns (Lasica, 1989). Popular Science magazine used the
computer to combine an airplane in one picture with the background of
another (Lasica, 1989). Television interviewer Oprah Winfrey's head was
spliced on top of Ann-Margret's body for a TV Guide cover ("Why
tamper," 1989). To illustrate Rob Lowe's troubles with videotape, Atlanta
magazine used a model holding a video camera and Lowe's smiling face in a
computerized cover composite (Lee, 1989). Shiela Reaves (1989) reported
that a cover picture of planes flying over the Chrysler building in New
York City for the Conde Nash Traveler was a composite from three separate
negatives. A former art director for Better Homes and Gardens
admitted that "45 of the 48 covers from 1984 to 1988 were digitally
manipulated, primarily because the magazine often uses inside photos for
its cover" (p. 1). For the examples just given, readers were not told that
the covers had been altered with a computer.
Editors argue that the cover photograph can be altered in order to
achieve maximum impact because the image is designed to attract a
potential buyer just like an advertisement. Sean Callahan, former editor
of American Photographer magazine feels that covers are sales tools
that are used to attract browsing newsstand buyers. "There is tremendous
competition in that kind of environment and so you have to do something to
get [buyers'] attention," Callahan said. Co-director David Cohen of A
Day in the Life of America said, "I don't know if it's right or wrong.
All I know is it sells the book better" (Lasica, 1989, p. 22). Creator and
photographer for the A Day in the Life series, Rick Smolan said,
"We are very proud of the fact that we were able to use this technology to
make the covers more dramatic and more impressive" (Reaves, 1989, pp.
26-32). In a later interview, Smolan altered his position. "At some point
the audience deserves to know," Smolan said, "whether or not [the cover
picture] is something you caught on the fly or something either you
created in the darkroom or created by setting it up" (Rosenberg, 1989, p.
47).
What if a newspaper editor decides that the front page or a section
front is a sales tool that should be used to attract more readers? Such a
philosophy would send computer retouchers; scrambling to make front-page
news photographs as visually dramatic as possible. Arizona
Republic's art director, Howard Finberg sees the danger of eager
editors who might "clean up photographs as they might clean up grammar in
a quote." "I know who runs the newspaper and it's not the photographers,"
Finberg asserted. "It's the editor who has no visual literacy at all" who
makes the retouching decisions (Rosenberg, 1989, p. 54).
Such editorial decisions have crept into the news photography divisions
of newspapers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch used a computer to
remove a can of Diet Coke from a picture taken of a Pulitzer Prize winning
photographer. The Hartford Courant (CT) used a computer to show
readers what the downtown skyline would look like with a new skyscraper.
The Asbury Park Press (NJ) ran an illustration that confused
readers. For a health and fitness story, computer artists combined a
picture of a cow eating hay with a studio set up of a salad. The Orange
County Register (CA) changed a smog-filled sky into cloudless blue for
an outdoor Olympics photograph and still won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for
its coverage. Backshop personnel for the Register also mistakenly
changed the color in a news picture. When vandals dyed a swimming pool
red, the production staff, unaware of the news story, thought the water
should be blue and used the computer accordingly (Lasica, 1989).
Publishers spend millions on computer retouching systems that may
pressure art directors to show some results. However, most newspaper
editorial departments have adopted policies for the use of the computer.
Since the Coke can incident, the motto at the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch is "If you don't do it in the darkroom, don't do it in
the system." But despite the best of intentions, abuses still occur.
Chicago Tribune associate design director, Judie Anderson, says,
"We do not do anything to alter a photograph unless it's absolutely
necessary." Nevertheless, she admits, "If there are blemishes on
somebody's skin that do detract, then we may do something" (Chaney, 1989,
p. 17). Hopefully, Anderson will not put Oprah Winfrey's head on that
person's body.
In 1981, Sony was the first company to introduce a film-less camera,
the Mavica. Because the image quality was low, most experts viewed the
camera as an expensive toy (see Morse, 1987). Since 1981 however,
improvements have been made. The ProMavica camera with a 2-inch, reusable
floppy disk can record 25 frames of still video images and time-compressed
FM audio sounds at a higher degree of quality. Nikon, Canon, and Kodak
also have still video cameras with transmission and computer-recording
devices that can send images via telephone lines to a photo editor's
computer terminal. Scitex, Crosfield, and Hell are leading manufacturers
of digital retouching and pre-press electronic scanning devices used by
newspaper and magazine art directors.
Reproduction quality and price are barriers to widespread acceptance of
the new technology. A computerized image is composed of tiny dots, called
pixels or picture elements. A high quality video image typically contains
approximately 380,000 pixels. Kodak has manufactured a floppy disk that
can record 1.4 million pixels. With high definition television (HDTV)
systems, the pixel count can be raised to 2.2 million. But computer
technology is far behind traditional film resolution standards. Typically,
a medium resolution film product contains over 18 million pixels. The
computer storage capability necessary for saving pictures increases
enormously in direct proportion to the resolution.
Optical disk technology has the capability to record high resolution
video images at the fraction of the cost of traditional floppy disk
recording devices. There is little doubt that by the new century,
photographers and editors will commonly use still video cameras and
computer terminals to record, manipulate, and save images.
There is an increasing trend in using television images for newspaper
reproduction. When only television cameras have recorded an important news
event, Polaroid and other print technologies can capture a video image
with a "Frame Grabber" for use in a publication. Newspaper publishers may
sign licensing agreements with cable operators to use still images
captured with this technology. Although the quality of the reproduced
picture is not as high as with traditional film products, the images are
certainly good enough to print. Why send photographers to an important
news or sporting event when an editor can "grab" pictures off a television
screen?
On October 6, 1989, the NPPA published the first issue of The
Electronic Times, an all-electronic newspaper. Digital and video
cameras recorded images that were manipulated using computer scanner and
pagination systems. The Associated Press recently announced its plan to
supply member newspapers with picture receiving and editing computer
stations. Students at the Rochester Institute of Technology produce a
totally electronic publication, E. s. p. r. i. t. Electronic
cameras, video, film and print scanners, and electronic darkroom software
are available for students in the electronic still photography program run
by Associate Professor, Douglas Ford Rea. Darkrooms will soon turn into
lightrooms as photographers move out into the newsrooms ("AP darkroom,"
1990).
TELEVISION MANIPULATIONS
Television news organizations, on the 50th year since the introduction
of the medium at the New York's World Fair, are not immune to simulation
criticism. NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow";
CBS' "Saturday Evening with Connie Chung"; and Fox Broadcasting's
"America's Most Wanted" and "A Current Affair" are programs that have all
mixed real news with re-enactments of events. The loudest opposition to
news simulations came when ABC's "World News Tonight" aired a re-enacted
segment depicting Felix Bloch, the U.S. diplomat under investigation for
spying, handing a briefcase filled with secrets to an enemy agent. Sam
Donaldson, a senior correspondent for ABC, told the Associated Press that
viewers could be easily mislead by the film to believe "that they had
actually seen the event. [But] they didn't. They didn't see that at all."
Peter Jennings apologized for the failure of ABC to properly and promptly
label the film as a simulation with, "We're sorry if anyone was mislead
and we'll try to see that it doesn't happen again" (Strothers, 1989, p.
25).
Because of the criticism, some changes have been announced by news
executives. Roone Arledge, president of ABC News said that since the Bloch
simulation, anything done out of the ordinary must receive the approval of
the president or his assistant. However, ABC's "20/20" later used a
re-enacted scene that was screened by executives, of a private detective
rummaging through a garbage can looking for evidence. Arledge defended the
film with, "It didn't confuse anyone. Everyone knew we weren't actually
there when he was first going through the garbage." Arledge then admitted,
"I don't know if I would have it done that way, though" (Goldman, 1989, p.
A-4). NBC announced that it would "stop its use of controversial news
re-creations and shift the only one of its programs that uses the
technique from the news to the entertainment division" ("NBC puts," 1989,
p. A-4).
Subject manipulations are an unfortunate necessity for television
videographers. Photojournalists and reporters are faced with demanding
deadlines often exasperated by the trend toward live newscasts by local
stations. Professional video cameras need a tripod for static pictures.
Additional lighting is often required for high quality illumination. Vans
that contain a satellite link with the newsroom sometimes need a specially
trained technician to operate the elaborate broadcasting system. Most
on-the-air broadcasts show interviews between reporters and a subject.
Consequently, technical and subject constraints combine to produce a
televised report that is at best, not spontaneous and at worse, rehearsed.
Videographers can compare themselves to the press photographers of the
1940s and 1950s who also produced set up images due to their technological
constraints. With the advent of small, handheld, high quality video
cameras, television reports may become more candid as happened with
newspaper and magazine photography with the introduction of handheld still
cameras.
FUTURE THREATS TO CREDIBILITY
In an article for American Photographer, Dr. Willi Heimsohm,
(1982) described a scenario in which editors played with history with
their computer. Heimsohm detailed a faked assassination, made possible
through computer technology, of Colonel Muammar Kaddafi of Libya for a
fictitious publication. The hypothetical situation, although far-fetched,
can be considered the ultimate fear of professionals. The re-creation is
reminiscent of a quote from George Orwell's (1949), 1984: "There were the
huge printing shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and
their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs" (p. 43).
Photographs, particularly those used as accurate and trustworthy
accounts of a significant event by respected publications, are our best
hedge against the threat of devious editors and special interest groups
who want to change truth and history. If the manipulation of photographs
is accepted for any image, the public will naturally doubt all photographs
and text within the publication.
At the very least, readers should be informed that an editorial image
has been altered. For example, Jim Dooley, photo editor/chief for
Newsday, was careful to let the readers know that a fashion feature
picture was a "photo-illustration with a caption that said a model with
clothes" (Fitzgerald, 1988, p. 34). Such a disclaimer does not always help
a reader understand a complicated computer procedure. Nancy Tobin, the
design director for the Asbury Park Press, explained that the cow
and salad illustration was labeled, "composite photo illustration, but
some people were left scratching their heads" (Lasica, 1989, p. 24). With
the price of digitizing equipment getting so low that editors for
corporation newsletters can afford to manipulate images, the temptation to
combine pictures without readers being notified will be great.
Because of the new technologies, photographers may have limited input
over the use of their pictures. The digital transmission of images,
recently demonstrated during the Olympic games and national political
conventions, allows a photographer to instantly send a digitized color
negative directly to the computer terminal of the photography editor
across a city or across the world via telephone transmission. Although
telephone transmission of photographic images has been a common practice
for many years, the photographer has always been able to print the picture
the way he or she thought it should look. The photo editor was only able
to crop the picture to fit into the space on the newspaper's page. When
the picture is sent to a computer, the photo editor can crop, but also
dodge, bum, correct the color, eliminate distracting elements, flop, and
combine images from separate photographs. Editors are even capable of
sharpening blur-red or out-of-focus pictures (Hesterman, 1988).
When computer-digitized transmissions become common, staff
photographers may have as much say over picture selection and use as
freelance photographers or television videographers who frequently
transmit live images via satellites without an opportunity to edit their
work. Such a trend would conflict with Houston Post staff
photographer Craig Hartley (1983), who wrote that the "photojournalist
must be responsible for his or her actions in the field and at the
publication" (p. 304). It would be difficult for a photographer to discuss
a controversial image with an editor over the telephone.
Beverly Bethune (1983), in a national survey of photographers, reported
that newspaper photojournalists listed "input into photo use, layout,
etc." as a major factor that defined job satisfaction. "Photographers,"
wrote Bethune, "who said they have a strong voice in making photo
decisions that affected their work as it appeared in their papers were
generally more satisfied overall than photographers with voices less
strong. They are happier, then, when they have a say in how their work is
used" (pp. 27-28). Computer transmission technology could take away that
job satisfaction requirement.
Freelance photographers have been the first group affected by computer
technology. A picture agency, The Image Bank, offers their best-selling
transparencies on videodisc to their clients throughout the world. Jim
Mostyn, president of The Image Bank/Chicago, predicted that "within the
next 10 years, all photography will be viewed and transmitted
electronically." As detailed in Photomethods, "special software
offers image masking capabilities which enable clients to combine elements
from many different photographs to form one image" (Thall, 1988). A
photographer's style, established over a lifetime of experience, will be
lost once pictures are fabricated on a computer. Furthermore, if for
example, 30% of one picture and 70% of a picture from another photographer
are used to make a third image, how is payment divided between the two
shooters? Does the art director/computer operator get a percentage? How
are copyrights for the created image assigned?
As much as it is possible, photographers should be consulted if a news
picture is controversial. When discussion is not possible, written
guidelines for such use, strictly adhered to by the editor, would be
appropriate.
After all is said and done, the photojournalist is still left with the
question, should all forms of subject and picture manipulations be banned,
or are exceptions acceptable? For many writers, the choice is simple. J.
D. Lasica (1989) features editor and columnist for the Sacramento Bee
wrote in an article titled, "Photographs that Lie," that "the 1980s may be
the last decade in which photos could be considered evidence of anything."
Director of photography for the Sacramento Bee, George Wedding,
also warned, "The photograph as we know it, as a record of fact, may no
longer in fact be that in three or five years" (Lasica, 1989, p. 22).
Brian Steffans, a graphics photography editor at the Los Angeles
Times pointed out, "You've got to rely on people's ethics. That's not
much different from relying on the reporter's words. You don't cheat just
because the technology is available" (p. 25). In a column titled,
"Troubles with re-creating news," William Strothers (1989) wrote that
"There is no substitute for truth. Viewers and readers expect that when we
give them the news we are telling the truth as best as we can determine
it. We may not always get it right, but we try. We can't make up for lack
of truth by re-enacting the event the way we think it ought to be" (p.
25). Finally, John Long (1989), of the Hartford Courant and former
president of the NPPA, wrote:
Photojournalism An Ethical Approach
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Photojournalism has a
long and cherished tradition of truthfulness. The impact of the visual
image on a viewer comes directly from the belief that the "camera never
lies." As a machine, the camera faithfully and unemotionally records a
moment in time. But a machine is only as truthful as the hands that guide
it. John Szarkowski (1980), director of photography for the Museum of
Modem Art in New York, explained that when truthfulness and visual impact
are combined in a powerful picture, such an image can shock the public.
But that public trust, however, can also be manipulated.
This is a personal appeal for a new approach to pictures of
people taken individually or in groups. I earnestly ask that you put a
premium on the natural, unposed pictures of people. Obviously you cannot
pose spontaneous shots without being deceitful. It is just as deceitful
for a photographer to make a man or woman to look some way or act some
way that is unnatural. (p. 48)
C. William Horrell (1955) noted
in a survey of newspaper photographers that "a need was expressed for more
natural and truthful photographic reports, a kind of report which could be
achieved through greater use of unposed subjects being photographed with
existing light" (p. 187). By the 1950s, the manipulation of subjects was
widely condemned by professionals. However, abuses still occurred.
the worst thing from the standpoint of the photographic
community is for editors to have that condescending attitude, well, you
know, he's only a photographer. I'm told that there are still some
editors in this country who regard photographers as second-class
citizens in the newsroom. . . . I don't happen to buy that. I believe
that a photographer is every bit as much a first-class citizen in this
journalistic community as any reporter. And there is one thing about the
journalistic community which is more important in it than in any other
community. And that is the obligation to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. There is simply no room for people who don't
tell the truth. (p. 34)
Zeisloft's defense of his picture are
the words of a past generation of press photographers. "It was just a
whimsical thing, just for a little joke," he said. "It was just a little
picture to make people smile rather than an old accident scene" (p. 32).
Norman Zeisloft's sin was not realizing that the ethics of stage-managed
pictures had changed.
Each day when you step out onto the street, remember that
you have been granted a sacred trust to be truthful. You have the
responsibility to produce only honest images. You have no right to set
up pictures; you have no right to stage the news; you have no right to
distort the facts. Your fellow citizens trust you. If you destroy the
credibility of your work, even in small ways, it destroys the
credibility of your newspaper or TV station in the eyes of the people
you are covering. (pp. 13-14)
As demonstrated by the many
examples in this chapter, photographic truth is an elusive, often
subjective, concept. Generally speaking, whenever the Hedonistic
philosophy is put into play, the truthfulness of an image suffers.
Personal presumptions about how a subject's story should be told, concerns
for clean, photographic compositions, deadline pressure panic,
unreasonable demands from an editor, layout efficiency, a cover picture's
eye-catching ability, and political, religious or personal beliefs can all
demean the credibility of the photograph, the photographer, and the
publication. Let a truth based on sound, journalism principles be your
guiding philosophy. When an objective truth is put first, photographs and
the stories behind them can be easily defended and are a source for
humanistic concern and inspiration.