Are you calling me a FAKER?

As a graphic designer and photographer, Photoshop is a God-send. Photoshop is a software that allows me to create, collage, and design practically anything that I may formulate in my mind. However, Photoshop, as wonderful of tool that it may be, can also be a tool of destruction, costing photojournalists their jobs. Recently, a controversy has appeared over the use of digital manipulation in photojournalism. Photojournalism like most forms of journalism is driven by evidence and fact. However, when it or any portion of the work is questioned,the work as a whole is diminished and looses credibility.

We all know that the models on the front pages of magazines are ridiculously touched up and essentially fake. For example pictures of celebrities such as Kate Winslet or Katie Couric are manipulated to provide an enhanced or idealized look of the individual. Photographers will add or take out items of the photos to ensure that their image looks the way they intended it to look. In the same regard, newspaper photographers’ and advertisers’ use manipulation in the same way. However advertisements are not the issue at hand. In newspapers, photojournalists are using Photoshop to enhance or reinforce their idea. Whether its right or wrong, is the question.


In one instance, the LA Times, had to retract their image from the front page of the paper because the photographer, Brian Walski digitally manipulated his photographs to create a separate image. His manipulations with the photo would have gone unnoticed however, the photographer failed to notice that the same man appeared twice in the manipulated photograph. While I understand that the actual event depicted in the image did not occur, I would still argue that the image is valid and a true depiction of what was going on during that given moment in time. The National Press Photographers Association stated in their “Digital Manipulation Code of Ethics” that "altering the content of a photograph in any way deceives the public…”. While I would not go so far as to say that it Walski was right to alter his photograph. I would still say that it was an accurate depiction of an event in Iraq. In response to the code of ethics, I understand how it may be seen as deceiving the public. However, despite Walski’s large mistake for not posting it as a photo-illustration, I believe that the content and substance of his photograph was not altered and therefore it is an accurate portrayal of true events that occurred in Iraq.