Ethics in Photography and Photojournalism

Good Morning and Happy Sunday! Today I wanted to touch base on a few things that I had to research in my last class which was Intro to Photojournalism. This will be a slightly longer blog than usual, but I think that it touches on some very good points.

The subject of ethics in photography has been a long standing issue; there have been instances of fraud that have been documented back to when Lincoln was President.  In the last decade, with the introduction of Photoshop and other photo editing programs this has become an easier task for people who want to bend the truth and give a totally distorted view on a certain event or situation.

The first documented case of fraud occurred around 1860, with a photograph of President Lincoln. “This nearly iconic portrait (in the form of a lithograph) of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is a composite of Lincoln’s head and the Southern politician John Calhoun’s body.”  (Four & Six). This is just one example.

Then there is another example is of General Ulysses S. Grant, this photo composite was apparently done circa, 1864. “This print (Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division) appears to be of General Ulysses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia, during the American Civil War. Some very nice detective work by researchers at the Library of Congress revealed that this print is a composite of three separate prints: (1) the head in this photo is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. McCook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher’s Hill, VA.” (Four and six).

But in recent years the news services all over the world have been caught printing and circulating fraudulent photos. Ethics and morals go hand in hand, when a news agency enhances or uses a photo out of context it constitutes fraud. Reuters has come under fire with others like U.S New and World Report for misrepresenting images.

“The recent discovery that the Reuters news agency released a digitally manipulated photograph as an authentic image of the bombing in Beirut has drawn attention to the important topic of bias in the media. But lost in the frenzy over one particular image is an even more devastating fact: that over the last week Reuters has been caught red-handed in an astonishing variety of journalistic frauds in the photo coverage of the war in Lebanon.” (Zombietime.com)  In the images s how by this blog, Reuters used the same woman in different areas, on different dates claiming devastation to her home.  When the truth came out, the images were just recirculated with a new caption, this is fraud and creates mistrust in the people that are printing or circulating the images.  Below are a few of the images of the same woman.

      

Again if you have any comments or questions please feel free to ask.

Enjoy Your Sunday and Photograph Something Everyday!

Sunday Ambassador~ Wayne

References:

Four and Six, . "Photo Tampering throughout History." www.fourandsix.com. Four and Six.com, n.d. Web. 5 Sep 2013. <http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/>.

Four and Six, . "Photo Tampering throughout History." www.fourandsix.com. Four and Six.com, n.d. Web. 5 Sep 2013. <http://www.fourandsix.com/storage/photo-tampering-history/c1860-Lincoln.jpg>.

Four and Six, . "Photo Tampering throughout History." www.fourandsix.com. Four and Six.com, n.d. Web. 5 Sep 2013. <http://www.fourandsix.com/storage/photo-tampering-history/c1864-Grant.jpg>.

Zombietime.com, . "The Reuters Photo Scandal: A taxonomy of Fraud." Zombietime.com. Zombietime.com, 2006. Web. 5 Sep. 2013. <http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/>.