TOO MUCH PHOTO EDITING AT THE NEW YORK TIMES?
There is right now a huge controversy about this picture published yesterday in The New York Times.
Inside the Haditha Dam in Iraq, a member of the Purrfect Angelz dance group entertained American troops, and Jim Wilson took this picture.
Take a look at the mic cord. It runs across the ground, curves, up and then... is gone.
Is this a Photoshop alteration?
Well, in one of the forums they went ahead and "perfected" the job with these two new options: no cord, no leges.
Oh, oh...
(Please see the UPDATE after the pictures)
UPDATE: The NYT photogrtapher explains the problem:
"The important thing to note is that this is a straight picture--there are no photoshop tricks, manipulation, or any other thing going on in this picture. it was a long (relatively speaking) exposure in a dimly lit room. what i wanted to do is not have the picture look like it was a blown out party photo shot with direct flash where the main subject would have been overlit and everything else under exposed. nothing was removed from the image nor was anything enhanced. when you shoot long exposures (as you know) anything or anyone who moves even slightly will be blurred. that's what happened with the cord here.
it was a terrible place to shoot and as you might well imagine, the marines certainly did not want me standing anywhere that i might block their view of the action on stage. at one point, one of the marines gave me a pretty hard time about standing on a chair at the edge of the stage--after the show was over, he lightened up and we had a decent conversation--he apologized and both of us departed with smiles on our faces but at the time, it was a little tense.
the dancer was standing still but moving the hand she held the microphone in as she spoke to the marines. that's why that part of the cord is blurred. some of the marines were moving as well (you can see some blurred hands in the photo).
i shot the picture at ISO 800 at 1/6 sec f2.8 the cord was moving as the dancer held the microphone in her hand moving it as she talked to the marines. the blurred cord is in the photo (the sort of dark wavy line against the background). i used the one camera mounted strobe i had with me in a cavernous room (it had 40 foot ceilings and was the size of a gym) lit only by a couple of flourescent lights--no stage lighting or anything like that existed. the stage was lit by the ambient light in the room. i shot four frames of that particular segment of the show, i selected the frame we published from those four pix because it was the only one even remotely sharp out of the four and i wanted a picture that showed the faces of the marines contrasted with the young woman's legs. i'm sure the dancer would have preferred a full head to toe shot showing her face but for me, this was more about the marines and less the dancers though they certainly were a central element. frankly, i was paying more attention to the reaction/faces of the marines than to anything else.
so, what was a simple solution to low and bad lighting isn't some sort of plan to take out a wire: there's absolutely no effort to some how pull the wool over the eyes of the readers. The Times has clear policies on manipulation of images (we don't do it), when i was a boss, i helped formulate those policies and i live by them. period. there is no chance that i'd throw my livelihood away by manipulating a photo. frankly, the most baffling part to me has more to do with what on earth do people thing would be gained by removing a wire from the photo?
the wire is in the photo but blurred due to motion. if you look at the picture closely you'll see it."
What it´s clear to me is that from now on, photographers and photo editors know that sombody here and there are watching.
The web has become a big watchdog of the watchdogs.
Inside the Haditha Dam in Iraq, a member of the Purrfect Angelz dance group entertained American troops, and Jim Wilson took this picture.
Take a look at the mic cord. It runs across the ground, curves, up and then... is gone.
Is this a Photoshop alteration?
Well, in one of the forums they went ahead and "perfected" the job with these two new options: no cord, no leges.
Oh, oh...
(Please see the UPDATE after the pictures)
UPDATE: The NYT photogrtapher explains the problem:
"The important thing to note is that this is a straight picture--there are no photoshop tricks, manipulation, or any other thing going on in this picture. it was a long (relatively speaking) exposure in a dimly lit room. what i wanted to do is not have the picture look like it was a blown out party photo shot with direct flash where the main subject would have been overlit and everything else under exposed. nothing was removed from the image nor was anything enhanced. when you shoot long exposures (as you know) anything or anyone who moves even slightly will be blurred. that's what happened with the cord here.
it was a terrible place to shoot and as you might well imagine, the marines certainly did not want me standing anywhere that i might block their view of the action on stage. at one point, one of the marines gave me a pretty hard time about standing on a chair at the edge of the stage--after the show was over, he lightened up and we had a decent conversation--he apologized and both of us departed with smiles on our faces but at the time, it was a little tense.
the dancer was standing still but moving the hand she held the microphone in as she spoke to the marines. that's why that part of the cord is blurred. some of the marines were moving as well (you can see some blurred hands in the photo).
i shot the picture at ISO 800 at 1/6 sec f2.8 the cord was moving as the dancer held the microphone in her hand moving it as she talked to the marines. the blurred cord is in the photo (the sort of dark wavy line against the background). i used the one camera mounted strobe i had with me in a cavernous room (it had 40 foot ceilings and was the size of a gym) lit only by a couple of flourescent lights--no stage lighting or anything like that existed. the stage was lit by the ambient light in the room. i shot four frames of that particular segment of the show, i selected the frame we published from those four pix because it was the only one even remotely sharp out of the four and i wanted a picture that showed the faces of the marines contrasted with the young woman's legs. i'm sure the dancer would have preferred a full head to toe shot showing her face but for me, this was more about the marines and less the dancers though they certainly were a central element. frankly, i was paying more attention to the reaction/faces of the marines than to anything else.
so, what was a simple solution to low and bad lighting isn't some sort of plan to take out a wire: there's absolutely no effort to some how pull the wool over the eyes of the readers. The Times has clear policies on manipulation of images (we don't do it), when i was a boss, i helped formulate those policies and i live by them. period. there is no chance that i'd throw my livelihood away by manipulating a photo. frankly, the most baffling part to me has more to do with what on earth do people thing would be gained by removing a wire from the photo?
the wire is in the photo but blurred due to motion. if you look at the picture closely you'll see it."
What it´s clear to me is that from now on, photographers and photo editors know that sombody here and there are watching.
The web has become a big watchdog of the watchdogs.
2 Comments:
Nothing is photoshopped. The mic cord is blurred because of movement. Obviously.
If you look at the full-size version there is a vague grey-ish 'fuzz' where the cord should be which could well be movement blur. It seems a really pointless piece of Photoshopping and particularly half-arsed if that's what it is.
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