Ethics in Business

Source: "Stop Stealing Photos." Photo Stealers. Stop Stealing Photos, 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

The ultimate free advertising is word of mouth, when people love your service so much that they share your images and information with family and friends. Eventually, your studio may even become a household name! At the other end of that spectrum, though, is the fact that your reputation can be completely ruined because of one mistake. Taking one shortcut or making one unethical move, no matter how small it may seem to you at the time, can mean the end of your career. Following are just a few examples of people taking those shortcuts and deciding that they don't want to take the time to create their own work, whether photographed or written.

During the past couple of months I have been following Photo Stealers/Stop Stealing Photos, which was started by a photographer with the goal of exposing copyright infringers. You will be amazed at how many so-called photographers she has on her site! Keep an eye on her Facebook page for new listings to see how NOT to run your business. The image above is one example of a photographer taking an original image (right) and using it as his or her own (left). The price for wedding coverage alone is enough to tell anyone in the know that something is off, and having a resource like Stop Stealing Photos that calls out frauds is one step toward weeding out those without real skill.

People haven't just been infringing on image copyrights. Lately, it seems there has been a wave of plagiarism by some well-known photographers in the wedding and portrait industries. Without mentioning names and adding to the myriad articles and opinion pieces out there, one popular wedding photographer has repeatedly copied other people's tweets while another has duplicated entire pages of his workshop brochures from other photographers. While copying tweets may not seem all that horrible, that first photographer has built up a reputation of being a funny, relatable person that others trust. Even such a seemingly innocuous thing can bring an entire body of work into question. Had she simply retweeted instead of making it seem like she was the originator of the various thoughts, she may not have become the center of controversy.

Much like the legal and political worlds, in photography the appearance of impropriety is enough to get you shunned. Build your brand in an ethical, honest manner and your clients (not to mention other photographers) will appreciate and value you. Check out this November blog entry on ethics if you're interested in photojournalism, a field in which even the smallest photographic manipulation is a definite career-ender!

-Friday Ambassador

Works Cited:

"Photo Stealers on Facebook." Photo Stealers on Facebook. Facebook, 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
"Stop Stealing Photos." Photo Stealers. Stop Stealing Photos, 2014. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

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/>.