Probable Manipulated NY Times Magazine Photos Pulled
by Todd ~ July 8th, 2009. Filed under: Documentary, Photojournalism, digital.A Photo Editor is covering a suspected case of photo manipulation in last Sunday’s NY Times Magazine. This was originally raised on Metafilter, but has been picked elsewhere. A Photo Editor compares the published image by Edgar Martins with one mirrored horizontally in Photoshop. Looks damning. And now the Times has pulled the feature from their site.
After going back to the paper copy of the magazine, I can find at least one other image that clearly has cloned portions and features the same symmetry as the example on A Photo Editor. There’s no question there is heavy post-production manipulation at play, Martins’ denials not withstanding. This is a poor reproduction, but if you’ve got a paper copy of the magazine, I’ve circled obvious areas of manipulation:
Both my wife and I found this to be the most striking image published in the print edition. And we both spent more than a cursory look without detecting manipulation, yet were able to identify cloned areas once our suspicions were up. I’d allow that the Times should have the leeway to have different stories. Had this been presented as something other than a purely documentary story, some manipulation would have been acceptable, maybe using the “photographic illustration” moniker other publications picked up following the “darkened OJ” brouhaha. It’s not the fact of manipulation that galls, but deception.
What I can’t understand is why such obvious remnants of cloning continually crop up in these cases. “Civilians” with only a suspicion of manipulation quickly identify sloppy clone effects, such as the duplicated leaves on the floor along an axis line. Why are such defects missed by the perpetrators who are fully aware of the deception and should be more highly attuned to identifying these “tells”?
July 8th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I just can’t understand why he would go to the trouble of making a statement about them not being manipulated when they are?
July 8th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
From what I can gather he’s seen these accusations before in the face of adamant insistance on straight, no post production photography. Perhaps he felt denials had worked before and underestimated the difference between the level of illumination you find in the art world ghetto compared to being featured in the NY Times?
July 8th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
They’ve been slipping, but this is even more egregious, as they illustrate a news story. Do they really think other artists shooting for the Magazine haven’t done similar manipulation in the past that they’ve published in the mag? Their error was bragging about no manipulation in an age where everythign is manipulated to some extent (color, levels, cropping)
Worse sin (not pulled, but I just wrote them so we’ll see):
http://wecanshoottoo.blogspot.com/2009/06/excessive-photojournalism-photoshopping.html
July 8th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
That example is so overly processed it almost looks like an infrared photograph!
If you peruse Moises Saman’s portfolio (the photographer in question), it seems the overly processed high contrast effect is pretty common in his work: http://www.moisessaman.com.