Let's talk about Photoshop! We've been covering it in class, and now everyone has used it a bit, so I think now is a good time to talk about how it fits into news photography.
There are as many stances on the use of Photoshop or related editing programs for photojournalism, as there are news entities. Stances range from a firm 'no editing' policy, to allowing various cosmetic edits that do not 'alter reality' like the policy at the OU Daily.
You may be thinking, "What is the harm? A little photo editing here and there couldn't hurt anything!" I used to agree. Many news outlets do a fine job upholding said rules, and only employ editing software in tasteful, restrained ways.
I don't want to talk about them.
We're going to look at the bad apples in the bunch. The reason I think letting highly powered image editors exist in newsrooms can be a pretty awful idea, at times.
Recently, the Huffington Post did a write up over an article that was posted on the Daily Mail's website. As if they weren't in the news themselves enough for the wrong reasons. According to the article (and screen grabs of the website) Daily Mail wrote about Gwyneth Paltrow and the P.M.’s wife, Samantha Cameron appearing at a fashion event together. The problem? Accompanying their article was an obviously edited image of Mrs. Cameron and Ms. Paltrow.
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| From Anorak.UK |
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| Huffington Post |
Was such reality bending really necessary? If they appeared anywhere near one another, then cheating with angles or a telephoto lens could have made them appear closer together than they in truth, were. Or even resort to extreme close crops of both so you couldn't tell where they were in relation to one another. I'm not saying that's right by any means, but it is a little less egregious than outright digital lies.
You may argue that no one is expecting such accuracy from a little throw away story like that, so why bother? Well, because it isn't many steps between what happened here and what happened on Der Zeitung back in May. Many of you can recall unaided the images that covered most newspapers the day after the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Barak Obama and his closest aides hunched over laptops around a table, concerned faces all around. A Brooklyn-based Hasidic paper published an article running an edited image, but edited in a very different way. Photos Courtesy of New York Daily News.
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| You must at least admit, they do a great job of getting rid of them. Maybe Photoshop 6 will have a "Remove anyone with ovaries" filter. |
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| The real image. |
No women to be seen! Zeitung claimed it was following Jewish modesty laws by removing the women, but altering photos in such a way is pretty indefensible, whatever the excuse.
Perhaps I'm overreacting, but when I see this image, I can't help but thick that the novel 1984 is finally coming true. Granted, there has been altering of photos for political reasons since the cold war, at least, but we're finally to the point that they're impossible for the layperson to detect. Simply removing all women (or minority of your choosing) from the historical (which is what news becomes, eventually) record is a pretty frightening concept.
If it was just too immodest to have fully clothed women in their newspaper, then they should have used censor bars, mosaic blurs or what have you. Then at least we'd know that some people were there, rather than letting us pretend they had no role in the shaping of history.
More than 1984, think of Stalin just completely erasing people from existence! I'm always amazed by this.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
Granted that was before photoshop, but you get my hyperbole. I'm bothered by this generally on two levels. Take the Cameron and Paltrow image. My thinking on this, and if I was the authors editor, why not just put in the two separate photos. I mean is that photoshopped image really going to drive 100k more views? No. That's ridiculous.
Apart from the egregious like the Hasidic, the subtle manipulations of photos ensures that you can never really tell what is a true photo anymore. (I'm a UFO nut so this bothers me.) But think fashion and beauty. In one of your prior posts i think you wrote on objectification of women. I agree that it's outrageous, and more photoshopping of girls to make their skin tone perfect, or their hips smaller or whatever is just more of this objectification.
Great logo BTW. I really liked yours.
I love how all of your posts are fitting together, great job.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Darren, photoshop when used in advertising to make people look perfect may seem harmless, but I think it is just furthering the idea that we can be perfect. If models are not perfect and have to be photoshopped, what does that mean for the rest of us normal people?
As well, I'd like to just play a little devil's advocate and point out that some media are truly trying to combat this issue. I loved these Dove ads about real beauty. I think they were a great idea, and you know what, they convinced me! Ads are everywhere, and I think I'm pretty good at ignoring them, but these actually persuaded me.
If you Google it, there are lots of photos and ads. But, this is what I could find quickly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U
Every time I've seen that video I'm amazed. Like we discussed today, our classmates and such aren't representative of the general population. Most of you(i'm not) are attractive and bright adults. The typical public person is not going to be as discerning. They want their cheerleaders on the sidelines, their models photoshopped, their reality to be more fantasy. (It is fantasy)
ReplyDeleteIt is great that Dove and some television shows are trying to promote the message of beauty as coming in all shapes sizes and appearances. I'm not cynical, but I think the typical advertiser creates this "pseudo-environment" that they project onto us. They are projecting images that they presume a 18-35 male/female with middle income would want and expect. They presume that the photoshopping and false reality is what the pseudo environment is calling for. I disagree with that wholeheartedly, but that is the theory they follow.