Visual lies... in the last century
Digital manipulation of photo-journalism... ( 2 )
Before I hurl out the blatant visual lies and liars in our mainstream media -- journalists who betray the code ethics in reporting history -- let us get to know the subject matter a little closer.
I have spent some time to research for local authorities on the unwritten code of ethics among past and present practitioners in press photography in Malaysia. discovered a strong conviction for journalistic integrity advocated by Associated Press picture editor Vincent Thian, who is an award-winning press photographer. Later on this.
CY Leow, a noted picture editor who is now retired, was one of my other reference points. I asked him to illustrate to us who are the Do's and Don't's when it comes to digital manipulation. He fought a tough bout of flu to bring us an illuminating piece.
What was observed in Leow's article happened in the last century. The newspaper quoted has since exerted more stringent scrutiny in weeding out digitally manipulated press photos. But not other broadsheets.
Digital manipulation of press photos
By CY Leow
I read with anticipation of what Jeff is going to reveal in “Digital manipulation of photo-journalism”. Most readers agreed that you can't believe what you read in the papers. Now you can't even trust your own eyes in the authenticity of the published photographs!
The art of trick photography is almost as old as photography itself. Many years ago, imaginative photographers learned about double exposures, perspective tricks, cut-and-paste techniques and other ways of altering photographs, all without the help of computers and Photoshop!
I remember with amusement
In the early 70’s when I first joined The Star as their first Photo Editor in Penang, there was this photographer who “excelled” in darkroom trickery. Those were the days that we were using Nikkormat camera with manual focusing lens, I remember with amusement that many times when he came back from a night soccer match, he would lock himself in the darkroom to “create” the ball in his shots! He somehow perfected the use of “cotton wool ball on photo paper” during enlarger exposure to create a “fuzzy ball” in his photos! The sports desk at the paper used his doctored “action shots” many times! ;-)
The plane… the plane!
Shortly after the horrifying events of 9/11, a story was widely circulated that a camera that somehow survived the collapsed New York WTC Twin Towers was found on a sidewalk. When the film was developed, it revealed a tourist on the World Trade Center observation deck with a low-flying plane in the background and about to crash into the building! Many people believe in that incredible shot and that “Tourist Guy” became a folklore… ha ha ha.
Of course, the image is a fake. The North Tower had no open observation deck; it's the wrong type of plane at the wrong angle; that Tourist Guy has been identified as a 25-year-old Hungarian named Peter and on his way to becoming the most digitally manipulated person in history! Check it out at http://touristofdeath.com/.
Tidak Apa…
Malaysian newspapers do not take image manipulation of their published pictures seriously. In some ways, this is because the Malaysian readers don’t care or protest too much when that happens.
Granted, when I was Picture Editor, I gave strict instructions that I will not tolerate manipulation of NEWS PICTURES and if any pictures are altered in any way, the caption must say so; failing which we are trying to cheat the readers.
Even so, some manipulated pictures got published and when the Senior Editors were informed they adopted a “Tidak-apa-so-what” attitude. Since no one was reprimanded, the abuses happened again and again!
Superimposition…
The most commonly used “technique” used in the Malaysian newspapers, the “smart” editor thinks that since the photographer cannot marry the performer and the audiences into one striking shot, we will do this:
The shot of Hong Kong pop star Jacky Cheung during his concert in Kuala Lumpur National Stadium, Friday, April 23, 1999. Cheung was in Malaysia to hold his third world tour.
I had asked dozens of readers after this picture appeared and guess what, no one mind that the picture was manipulated by superimposing!
Mountain out of Mole Hill…Take a close look at this picture below and see if you can spot the manipulation.
Look good? You cannot see anything wrong with it?
This news picture from Penang was published on the front page of The Star, Northern Edition. When I saw the edition in KL the next day, I immediately realized something was awry! See that man on the left, beside the stainless “tea pots”; don’t he looked out of proportion? And where were his LEGS? On closer examination, take a look at his hand that was resting on the pot lid:
What happened to his finger? What about the reflection on the shinny lid? Huh?
A call to the Penang office confirmed my suspicion. That front page picture was a “combination” of two shots taken on different days!
Before we go on, let’s look at the picture caption:
PENSIONER TEOH AH ENG (LEFT) ATTENDING TO HIKERS
WHO HELPED THEMSELVES TO FREE DRINKS ATOP THE HILL.
Yes, that was captioned by a trained, qualified; well paid reporter!!
It turned out that the photog who did the job only got a shot of Ah Eng (bottom pic), the story was about him giving free drinks to hikers which were not on his emulsion!
The photographers was dispatched back to get a shot of Eng WITH the hikers but when the snapper got there Ah Eng has gone home!
The “quick minded” photog then decided to snap the picture on top and the Editor (dead line pressing) gave his/her blessing to marry the two picture together for publication! They would have got away scot-free had they not do such a shoddy manipulation job!
I, then the Picture Editor reported to our Group Editor and all I get was a “Aii-yoo, how can they do that!” End of story.
I types out a inter-office memo and got all the photographers to sign and if they do that again they will face the music. Yeah Right!
Look Better Without The Background…
During the heated days of Anwar Ibrahim’s trail, one of the “star” witnesses Ummi Hafilda was saying that she was suing Harakah for calling her a “small time hooker”.
This picture, a strong, expressive news-worthy shot appeared on the front page of The Star, nationally. Why… I even picked and sold the picture successfully to the Editors for the front the next day!
Everything seemed “honky-dory” except the original picture that looked like this!
Some smart aleck artist felt that those brown picture frames in the background “destroyed” the composition and he “artistically” ERASED THEM without asking the Editor, the Picture Editor. When questioned, he claimed that his Art Supervisor approved the “changes”!
You readers might think that this is NO BIG DEAL, hello… you are CHANGING HISTORY, that picture is a WITNESS to history! And as expected, no one get reprimanded… tidak apa lah!
The Last Laugh…
Thought I will show you another published picture from The Star.
The picture was of children from the Montford Boys Town waving their flags to support the Sauber Team at the qualifying rounds of the Petronas Malaysia GP.
What???!!@# You might think that the photographer got crappy reflexes and got the car cut off at the frame edge?
Well, the submitted picture was below:
No manipulation was done, really... Just Sub Editors that don’t care about their work, if you wonder how such boo boo can happen; well… they do. Too often, go look for them!
HAPPY PHOTOSHOPPING!
OK folks, that's from CY Leow, based on his personal experience in Malaysia, in the last century -- before the Year 2000 that is.
Last week, I saw one such visual lie in a national mainstream paper on March 22, 2006. I want to re-ask my three questions on journalistic practice:
- How far can "Photoshop" techniques be employed to 'doctor', or digitally manipulate, news photos which chronicle history?
- Is there a code of ethics on photo manipulation among press photographers in Malaysia?
- If news photos can be digitally manipulated, is there any guarantee that the same will not be done on textual reporting?
Watch this space!
Comments
I wonder if anyone recalled the missing dayabimi building april fool's joke back in the 80's?
that freaked a few.
Posted by: tjwork![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 03:21 PM
IMHO this is a very serious problem. Can you imagine visual lies can be used to incite violence with irresponsible or evil-bent persons?
Posted by: concern-lah![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 05:07 PM
sorry
"...by irresponsible ..."
Posted by: concern-lah![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 05:08 PM
What you see is what you believe? Right? However, our physical world is just an illusion. Quantum physics shows you that the world is not the hard and unchangeable thing it may appear to be.
It is the act of observing an object that causes it to be there - where and how we observe it. An object does not exist independently of its observer! So digital manipulation or not it is all an illusion in what we see in the photos.
Therefore, the Buddhist belief the world is a “Maya” is right all along
Posted by: multidimid![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 05:16 PM
Jeff, you're overreacting.
Firstly, nobody is going to believe that a famous performer would ghostly cover himself over his audience - that's breaking the laws of science lah. It's used for ARTISTIC effect.
The last few photos (the car and the Ummi Hafilda one) were bad examples. It makes no difference whether the car was fully in the shot or not. It makes no difference whether there were empty picture frames in the shot. It's not like it affects the story.
Your earlier ball story? Well, sometimes something DID happen but it just didn't show up on cam fast enough. One of my host mothers in The Netherlands worked as a professional event photographer, and one event she covered was a conference. At one point in the conference, the host tossed a football at the audience. When she took the photo, the ball went out of the frame. She just took another pic of the ball and added it to the first shot - and it was fine. It doesn't change the fact that the ball WAS thrown; indeed, it supported it.
The STORY is the important thing. The photos are just there for support. Minor, inconsequential details can be distracting and there's no reason not to be rid of them if they serve no purpose.
Even your Giza Pyramids thing in the last entry was a bad example. No one is really going to compare how thin the pyramids are. It doesn't change the grandeur of the pyramids.
If you want to rail against "visual lies", pick examples that are REALLY malicious - don't fill it with noise like this, which are distracting and take attention away from the real fake ones.
Posted by: Tiara![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 07:48 PM
OMG! Can you believe that? A professional event photographer can manipulate an EVENT and it is OK! How professional is that? Oh... but of course it is AOK because the event is NOT MALICIOUS. Finally it dawn on me why paper and magazine are getting away with lies because there are TOO MANY TIARA in this world!!!
Posted by: cyleow![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 08:19 PM
Hi Jeff
Many thanks for this post. Visual trickery is a good effective weapon to create confusion and possibly violence.
Kudos to you for raising public awareness on this!
• What you read is not what it seems.
• What you see is not what it seems.
• What you hear is not what it seems??? Can recorded voice be re-engineered or digitally manipulated? Damn damn scary.
Posted by: dignity2u![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 09:40 PM
Tiara, you are talking utter nonsense.
Imagine if someone was not fast enough to 'catch' Jack Ruby shooting Lee H Oswald. I am sure evryone knows how famous that picture is. However, just imagine if that picture was manipulated. If you found out now that that picture was indeed
doctored, won't you feel cheated?
Imagine if Aemstrong's pix on the moon was doctored? Or the nude pix of the young girl escaping a napalm attack in Vietnam?
Credit is given to a photographer for taking pictures that are difficult or impossible to capture. When it is captured, there is something special about that moment. Its about being at the right place at the right time. There are so many pictures like that around. Just pick any Special Edition of LIFE magazine and you'll know what i mean.
Your 'example' of the Dutch event holds no water. The photographer lied.Period.
Jeff i wonder...if photographers nowadays win awards for doctored pictures.
Maybe CY Leow can answer this....are pictures of sporting events doctored rampantly? ie soccer, cricket etc
A visual lie IS a visual lie no matter how you try to justify it!!
Posted by: dr.strangelove![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 10:12 PM
Imagine if Armstrong's pix on the moon was doctored
Posted by: dr.strangelove![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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March 31, 2006 10:14 PM
Thank you dr.strangelove, as far as I know there are no doctored sports event pictures . May be that is because the tv cameras are always present and doctored pix will be caught out pretty quickly. But then there is this PROFESSIONAL event photographer in the Netherland that is known for adding "missing balls" into her shots :-)
Posted by: cyleow![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 1, 2006 01:09 PM
If you're doing to rail against doctored photos, choose stuff that actually brought HARM. These examples are picking at straws - they do not support your argument.
Posted by: Tiara![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 2, 2006 11:19 AM
And if you're going to use THESE to get your arms up...why aren't you guys complaining over when Jeff Ooi censored the "Muhammad" out of the Wiley comic?
Posted by: Tiara![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 2, 2006 11:20 AM
Last comment: The photgrapher DID NOT LIE. There WAS a ball THROWN to the audience. She didn't make up a non-existent event.
Posted by: Tiara![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 2, 2006 11:21 AM
Tiara....
Q) why aren't you guys complaining over when Jeff Ooi censored the "Muhammad" out of the Wiley comic?....
A) well, that was not a photograph, we all knew it was censored. Please stick to the point at hand.
Q)"...She didn't make up a non-existent event..."
A) She lied about "capturing" the actual moment. it's like saying...since no one else was on the moon to snap a pix of 'Buzz' and Neil together, it's ok to manipulate and have them both in a picture since that event actually took place.
And back to you, since YOU asked "pick examples that are REALLY malicious"....can you give us one?
Posted by: dr.strangelove![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 2, 2006 09:07 PM
So Jeff where is the visual lie in our national mainstream paper on March 22, 2006?
Tiara and Dr.Strangelove, i think those are called white lies
Posted by: hedonism![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jeffooi.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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April 4, 2006 04:26 PM