Photo Ethics

"Any change to a news photo - any violation of that moment - is a lie. Big or small, any lie damages your credibility." --John Long, NPPA co-chair

Recap

We spoke in class the other day about ethical photography and photo editing. Together, we looked at and discussed some examples of unethical photo manipulations throughout history. Here are a couple definitions I want to make sure you understand:

Imposing Meaning
The act of manipulating or altering a photograph in a way that adds a message that is not already present in the image. This typically occurs during editing, but can also occur during shooting.

Obscuring Meaning
The act of manipulating or altering a photograph in a way that intentionally masks or obfuscates the information present in the photograph. Again, this can occur in editing (for example, cropping out a person who is affecting the behavior of another person in frame) or during shooting (simply by not including important elements in the frame, or by framing a photograph in a way that creates a relationship between two unrelated subjects).

So what can you change when editing a photograph? You may adjust brightness and contrast, or "dodge" and "burn" (darken or lighten areas of the photo). But you may only do so slightly, in a way that clarifies the image. You must not use these techniques to make a photo appear more dramatic (as in the case of the TIME Magazine cover featuring O.J. Simpson). You may crop a photo, but only if you do not remove any important information. Cropping is extremely dangerous territory. You are better of avoiding cropping all together. During our lesson, Pasqual mentioned that he only crops when he did not have time to switch from a wide lens, and thus the important information (the subject) is obscured (too small).

Homework

I would like you all to read Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography by John Long of the National Press Photographer's Association. Although it was written nearly a decade ago, the piece is still relevant. Long makes an interesting (and important) distinction between matters of taste and matters of ethics.

Resources and Supplementary Materials

• Written Materials:
• Ethics in the Age of Digital Photography (Read all the sections at on the left. If your internet connection is running slow, there is a plain text version here, but it lacks the example photos)
• DigitalCustom Model Ethics Guidelines (A detailed set of guidelines on photo ethics from a company that specializes in professional photo editing)
• The New York Times: Guidelines on Our Integrity(The section on photography is at the very bottom, but the whole thing is worth reading, as you all write as well)
• "The Camera Never Lies, but the Software Can" (A 2004 New York Times article about photo manipulation, in response to the fake John Kerry/Jane Fonda photo)
• "Research News From Applied Cognitive Psychology Suggests Photos Can Change History" (A news piece about the ACP study I mentioned in class. The actual study is not yet available online.)
• Photographic Examples:
• Photo Tampering Throughout History (A timeline that includes several of the examples we viewed in class, as well as an example from this past week!)