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Also putting down something for having bikini pictures in it isn't a great argument. The unsettling thing is that it appears that there is an element of editing beyond cropping after they get a picture from the wire. You get into the slippery slope thing. If SI's picture desk thinks it's standard procedure to adjust colors and saturation then is that extending to Time Magazine etc. I'm in a part of the photo industry that traffics in heavy manipulation and snake oil, but that's basically commonly accepted so people really only notice if you do it badly. Photojournalism, even sports photojournalism, has made what you see is what you get part of its core philosophy. This is probably one of the more benign fuckups I've seen. The other case similar to this is the guy that was fired for cloning out some soccer balls in the background of a picture. But yeah +1 on everything BobTheCow said.
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Dec 13, 2012 18:28
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I think it's a good thing for these kinds of things to pop up every now and then. Because the truth is, you can't trust photos, and you really shouldn't trust journalism. Maybe if they realize that people are constantly editing photos that they're being shown, they may be able to realize that no, women's bodies don't look like that, and that war photos don't always tell the whole story, and so on. When people realize that photos can easily be dramatically altered, it makes them doubt more about what's being shown to them (even if "legitimate" OOC photos) which I don't think is a bad thing.
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Dec 13, 2012 18:30
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nonanone posted:I think it's a good thing for these kinds of things to pop up every now and then. Because the truth is, you can't trust photos, and you really shouldn't trust journalism. Maybe if they realize that people are constantly editing photos that they're being shown, they may be able to realize that no, women's bodies don't look like that, and that war photos don't always tell the whole story, and so on. When people realize that photos can easily be dramatically altered, it makes them doubt more about what's being shown to them (even if "legitimate" OOC photos) which I don't think is a bad thing. I think there is an issue where photography has a split that people don't recognise often. With photojournalism there's a purpose of recording and leaving stuff in situ. There are inevitable biases in that though with what the journalist is photographing and not photographing but at its core it's more about "this is a thing that happened" - There needs to be awareness of bias but I would hope that the community of photojournalism is self policing enough that we don't need to suspect every image of manipulation. Whereas the other half of photography is more driven by creating things for the photograph through staging scenes and enhancing that in post. But yeah as part of the second half of photography I do think there is an element of hypocrisy in a lot of photojournalism presenting itself as fact but at least they're trying!
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Dec 13, 2012 18:43
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nonanone posted:When people realize that photos can easily be dramatically altered, it makes them doubt more about what's being shown to them (even if "legitimate" OOC photos) which I don't think is a bad thing. I agree with this. The fact is that every single picture is biased right from the getgo. Do you use a telephoto to crush two subjects together? Do you use a wideangle lens to inject space into a photo, or to close in so you can get something else out of the picture? Do you take a step to the left to get that guy's elbow out of the picture? Do you use a shallow depth of field so some soccer balls are blurred out of the background? Can you apply a gaussian blur to the background in post to simulate a shallow depth of field? How is doing that different than clone-stamping? There was a case a while back where someone clone-stamped some extra smoke into a war photograph. That seems too far to me, but photographs don't always resemble what the eye sees and the alteration could have made it closer to the image the photographer experienced. Assuming that's true, would it have been too far to increase the contrast in post to try and curve the smoke back into the picture? How about using in-camera settings? Would it be too far to use a polarizer to try and make it more stark? There's so many steps, algorithms, and interpretations between photons flying through the air and a print hanging on the wall that it seems asinine to say "it's OK to alter the image here but not there". I see two fundamental problems. One is that people assume that photographs carry a certain element of truthfulness. This has literally never been the case, direct manipulation of photographs and video goes right back to photoshopping unpeople out of pictures with Stalin and such and in lesser form airbrushing, soft-focus, and pictoral style go back right to the origin of photography. The other is that we treat analog manipulations and photographic techniques as somehow more legitimate than digital manipulations - why is using a bigger aperture to get soccer balls blurred out of the background of your photograph acceptable, but clone stamp gets you fired? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 18:46
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Paul MaudDib posted:There was a case a while back where someone clone-stamped some extra smoke into a war photograph. I seem to recall that was a textbook case of "the only reason anybody noticed was that he did it badly." I'm obviously not going to sit here and say that hundreds of incredibly talented photojournalists are unprofessional hacks, by any means, but it does make you wonder a bit about all the rest of the images you see, since there are surely a lot of them who AREN'T terrible at Photoshop. I mean, look at any of those photos of Stalin where people who had fallen out of favour with him got removed from photographs (and life), and that was obviously done without any of the kickass technology we have today. And yet probably every single one of those photos would be accepted as honest truth by any publication today, provided they hadn't seen the original and didn't know the backstory. EDIT: Like Paragon8 said, most of the commercial stuff I do is in an area where moderate to heavy manipulation is expected (within the bounds of plausibility), but people aren't paying me to give them perfectly accurate representations of what was in front of my lens, they're paying me for an image they find flattering. Photojournalism is a far cry from that, though (or should be). SoundMonkey fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 19:04
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Speaking of expected heavy manipulation (where I spent all morning changing a girl's entire physique so I can get paid proper), I was actually quite shocked to discover that a number of people don't know that these photos are manipulated. I thought it was common knowledge that the advertisement photos are heavily retouched, but no, there are tons of people out there who think these women are real and that flawless, and that men have this perfect chin/stubble, and these body proportions really exist. I imagine it must really do a number on young men and women who've grown up in this era of "perfect bodies." I guess I feel particularly bad about it because I contribute to it myself. But if I didn't, then I would be seen as a bad photographer who can't make people look good. No way to win 
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Dec 13, 2012 19:19
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Although that being said, I've photographed girls that didn't need to be touched at all in photoshop. There are some absolute goddesses out there. Even Victoria's Secrets is toning it down. I remember a Gawker type article come out with leaked VS images recently that was all like "look at them retouching armpit wrinkles and strap marks, how monsterous" but not nothing that they weren't changing body shape at all which I found impressive. Interestingly a lot of the UK's Men's Magazine market right now looks to use models that are more "attainable" than someone that looks like a VS Angel. It can be quite disconcerting to go from working on a shoot with girls that are gorgeous and would be the most beautiful woman in most rooms to going to work on a shoot with with someone that stepped out of a VS campaign and it's just like "loving hell they're real"
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Dec 13, 2012 19:33
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Wow, tell me more about your taste in woman???? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 13, 2012 19:36
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Zlatan Imhobitch posted:Wow, tell me more about your taste in woman???? Just look up my model mayham page to see my tastes in women. fat and nude.
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Dec 13, 2012 19:41
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Paragon8 posted:Although that being said, I've photographed girls that didn't need to be touched at all in photoshop. There are some absolute goddesses out there. Yeah I've noticed a real trend towards realism, which is nice, but then it also reinforces the idea that everyone should be "naturally" beautiful, which I'm not sure is any better. It's a shame it's so difficult to celebrate these genuinely beautiful women from an aesthetic standpoint without hurting other women. It's so insane to see these ladies in real life; it's all about their attitude though. I bumped into one of the top African fashion models, and she was just incredible. Her presence alone was simply stunning. Having said that, these ladies are just like everyone else, and so many people are shocked at how much work it takes to "put on their face". I think that's why those no-makeup pictures of celebrities and models are so popular. Their proportions, that make them so photogenic and unique, look so strange when you see them outside the runway/photos. It's almost unsettling.
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Dec 13, 2012 19:58
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8th-samurai posted:So it's unethical for someone to change the color of a sports team jersey? I mean it's not news, it's grown men in tights being paid money to play with balls. Those guys are actually paid nothing (other than scholarships) to play with balls.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:00
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As touched upon in a recent TED talk, there is a genetic legacy that defines our standard of beauty. Right now that's tall pretty white women. It is a hard thing to overcome and there isn't much of an incentive to deviate from that as that image is still making billions of dollars.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:07
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Sometimes I wonder if Twiggy ever thinks about what kind of effect she's had on the industry. How many girls and women starved themselves to try to look like the new image she brought about? I wonder if she had never gotten popular, if fashion would still trend the same way. (Probably, since focusing on being skinny is something only the rich can consistently do.) What kind of moral responsibilities do we have as photographers? These kind of questions are probably why people hate that photographer who took the picture of the guy in the subway, and why that other dude killed himself after taking that picture of that starving kid. It definitely affects my own commercial (and personal) work, but it's a constant struggle for sure.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:16
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nonanone posted:Sometimes I wonder if Twiggy ever thinks about what kind of effect she's had on the industry. How many girls and women starved themselves to try to look like the new image she brought about? I wonder if she had never gotten popular, if fashion would still trend the same way. (Probably, since focusing on being skinny is something only the rich can consistently do.) It would be nice to take an idealistic stand but that unfortunately doesn't pay the bills, and it's not like there's a photography union that can take a collective stand on something. Advertising standards are really the only place to fight this, but you run the risk of taking things too far. Unfortunately there is a cycle where the fashion industry is catering to a customer whose tastes it shapes. Is it easier to change the tastes of the customer or the industry trying to cater to them? Stuff like the Dove Real Women campaigns seem depressingly ineffectual. A week or two of PR buzz about how amazing it is but then reverting back to traditional campaigns the next year indicating it wasn't that effective. and I think that's all I can really say on the matter, after all this is a fun stuff thread.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:30
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There's no trend toward realism, there is only a slight move away from the surface-level 'airbrushed' look that dominated since the dawn of, well, actual airbrushing. Photographs have never represented truth on any level, and the fact that the public at large apparently still cannot accept this is disturbing.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:41
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Reichstag posted:There's no trend toward realism, there is only a slight move away from the surface-level 'airbrushed' look that dominated since the dawn of, well, actual airbrushing. Photographs have never represented truth on any level, and the fact that the public at large apparently still cannot accept this is disturbing. there's a lot of manufactured realism in popular culture unfortunately. gone are the days of pushing art in terms of aesthetics but rather now we have a push towards pseudo-realism through terrible tv shows to shaky-cam movies. Anything that helps tricking people into thinking they're a step away from what they're consuming.
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Dec 13, 2012 20:50
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nonanone posted:(Probably, since focusing on being skinny is something only the rich can consistently do.) I'm speaking completely out of my area of knowledge here and I suspect that 100 people that read this forum will be more informed about the history of this than I am, but it's interesting that this is only recently true. My understanding is that up until various economic factors made ingesting large amounts of calories something attainable for the majority at the same time that lifestyles were becoming more sedentary. Suddenly thin became something that had to be attained rather than the default and thus became fashionable. Either way, it seems like the trend would have happened inevitably, Twiggy or not. What occurs to me is that all the photos of Flapper fashion I've seen show rail thin women in outfits minimizing their femininity, so it doesn't seem like it was something that didn't occur to anyone until 1965.
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Dec 13, 2012 22:17
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SoundMonkey posted:I seem to recall that was a textbook case of "the only reason anybody noticed was that he did it badly." I'm obviously not going to sit here and say that hundreds of incredibly talented photojournalists are unprofessional hacks, by any means, but it does make you wonder a bit about all the rest of the images you see, since there are surely a lot of them who AREN'T terrible at Photoshop. The only reason that Blade photographer really got caught years ago was because people compared photos he submitted with others' photos from the same event. When there is a pool of photographers that are all submitting photos with some legs sticking out under a banner, and suddenly this guy's got a photo from the same moment and same angle without the feet, you take a closer look.
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Dec 13, 2012 22:28
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BobTheCow posted:Sports Illustrated IS a "legitimate" publication. It sells 8 million copies a week and reaches millions more online. It breaks stories and covers events. It is journalism and is expected to follow the same rules and is held to the same standards. This wouldn't even be a discussion if a reporter had decided to change the final score of a game, as it was a verifiable fact that was reported wrong, just like reporting a black jersey was green. I'm not saying it's a 'zine run in some dudes basement, just that it's not a legitimate source of news. Changing the color on a sports jersey is literally the same thing as a celebrity magazine reporting that Lady Gaga wore a red shirt when she really wore a blue shirt. Sorry that you feel that peoples hobbies are on par things that matter to everyone like wars and murders and stuff. Paragon8 posted:Also putting down something for having bikini pictures in it isn't a great argument. I'm not putting them down (okay maybe a little) just pointing out that they are an entertainment magazine. Your slippery slope argument is a bit silly when those two publications aren't even on the same slope.
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Dec 14, 2012 03:20
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8th-samurai posted:I'm not saying it's a 'zine run in some dudes basement, just that it's not a legitimate source of news. Changing the color on a sports jersey is literally the same thing as a celebrity magazine reporting that Lady Gaga wore a red shirt when she really wore a blue shirt. Sorry that you feel that peoples hobbies are on par things that matter to everyone like wars and murders and stuff. Gettin' dangerously close to rule 1a/9 here, bro.
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Dec 14, 2012 03:56
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What news today ISN'T meant to be entertainment first.
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Dec 14, 2012 04:30
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Reichstag posted:There's no trend toward realism, there is only a slight move away from the surface-level 'airbrushed' look that dominated since the dawn of, well, actual airbrushing. Photographs have never represented truth on any level, and the fact that the public at large apparently still cannot accept this is disturbing. scrolling through this thread and this is the only post i stopped to read. no regrets e: Also don't talk poo poo about curling whereismyshoe fucked around with this message at 06:02 on Dec 14, 2012 |
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Dec 14, 2012 05:03
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SoundMonkey posted:Gettin' dangerously close to rule 1a/9 here, bro. We wouldn't even be having this conversation if it was about some bullshit made up sport like cricket or curling. 
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Dec 14, 2012 05:54
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8th-samurai posted:We wouldn't even be having this conversation if it was about some bullshit made up sport like cricket or curling. Both of those sports own though. Especially curling.
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Dec 14, 2012 05:57
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Mr. Despair posted:Both of those sports own though. Curling does in fact own. It's like someone just said "We have some rocks, some brooms, a poo poo ton of beer and we are in Canada. We can make this happen."
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Dec 14, 2012 06:21
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Give credit where it's due - curling was invented in Scotland. Then a bunch of Scots decided Scotland wasn't a great place to be so they moved to Canada, but kept up the proud tradition of hurling rocks across frozen lakes while drinking.    Also, panning the rock is hard due to the very slow shutter speeds needed. **** My brief survey of football fans in one of the NCAA threads in SAS revealed that for the most part, they don't care about the colour-changing at Sports Illustrated. Some don't care about SI, some don't care about uniform colours, and my favourite comment was: Declan MacManus posted:I mean, I'm sure it's a violation of some photojournalistic code but that sort of stuff doesn't really register. Most of the photo spreads in these things are doctored anyways so what's one altered photo? If it becomes a repeated trend then I guess that's a problem but I guess take better pictures and it won't be
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Dec 14, 2012 06:40
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I had no idea curling invented in Scotland. Makes sense though, golf is another sport that couldn't possibly have been thought up by sober people.
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Dec 14, 2012 06:58
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8th-samurai posted:Sorry that you feel that peoples hobbies are on par things that matter to everyone like wars and murders and stuff. I personally could not possibly give less of a poo poo about sports, and I would still bet money that you could go out onto a random city street and find 10 people who could tell you the winner of a recent Monday night football game (assuming it is football season, I have no idea if it is right now) before you could find 10 people that could tell you the nations involved in World War II or even 10 people that could tell you which countries the US currently has ground troops engaged in active warfare in. You're basically using your personal tastes as a barometer for "things that matter" and that is not how the world works. Also every single newspaper in the country has a sports section. How is that not journalism?
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Dec 14, 2012 12:28
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8th-samurai posted:We wouldn't even be having this conversation if it was about some bullshit made up sport like cricket or curling. Don't you be bad mouthing cricket either, a game that takes the best part of a week to play properly and has regular breaks for meals and afternoon tea is a-okay in my books. Plus you can always nail the white balance with a shot at a test match.
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Dec 14, 2012 12:34
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It has taken me weeks of careful observation and questioning in my temporary position in Australia to learn the underlying Truth and Beauty of cricket. It's the drinking. Five full days of getting utterly plastered, outside in the brutal Australian sun. 
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Dec 14, 2012 12:43
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mr. mephistopheles posted:I personally could not possibly give less of a poo poo about sports, and I would still bet money that you could go out onto a random city street and find 10 people who could tell you the winner of a recent Monday night football game (assuming it is football season, I have no idea if it is right now) before you could find 10 people that could tell you the nations involved in World War II or even 10 people that could tell you which countries the US currently has ground troops engaged in active warfare in. Don't try to pin people being stupid on me. Every newspaper in the country has ads and comics in them too, are they important news? 
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Dec 14, 2012 12:58
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8th-samurai posted:Don't try to pin people being stupid on me. Every newspaper in the country has ads and comics in them too, are they important news? What is news, an event that happens and is reported on? That's what happens with sports. Comics and ads are not the same thing. Neither are editorials or crossword puzzles. Sports journalism is a record of fact just like war and the economy and weed and dudes smooching and weather. Like it's been said repeatedly, just because you don't find something worthwhile doesn't mean it isn't a thing that has happened and people pay attention to. Tell me more about how people who check a score or look at a photo in the sports section are stupid.  Is it okay if your paper leads A1 with a Super Bowl celebration, or do you have to avert your precious eyes for fear of catching the dumb?
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Dec 14, 2012 15:02
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Holy hot drat can we stop arguing about the legitimacy of Sports Illustrated? Just because you're not interested in sports news does not mean it's not a publication that is reporting on events that happened. You can debate their journalistic integrity all you want, but bickering about whether or not they're 'legitimate' is haraam.
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Dec 14, 2012 16:35
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BobTheCow posted:Tell me more about how people who check a score or look at a photo in the sports section are stupid. Nah man, I was specifically talking about the people in Mr Mephistopheles straw man example. I don't think people are stupid for enjoying a hobby like following sports. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 14, 2012 16:54
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SoundMonkey posted:Holy hot drat can we stop arguing about the legitimacy of Sports Illustrated? Just because you're not interested in sports news does not mean it's not a publication that is reporting on events that happened. You can debate their journalistic integrity all you want, but bickering about whether or not they're 'legitimate' is haraam. All journalistic integrity died with Cronkite. Move on, nothing to see here now.
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Dec 14, 2012 17:03
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SoundMonkey posted:bickering about whether or not they're 'legitimate' is haraam. SoundMonkey instituting Sharia Law itt.
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Dec 14, 2012 17:05
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pseudonordic posted:SoundMonkey instituting Sharia Law itt. Woah... Do you have proof that Soundmonkey is a dirty Muslim? Him and Obama are besties?
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Dec 14, 2012 17:07
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pseudonordic posted:SoundMonkey instituting Sharia Law itt. Great, now the US is going to occupy the dorkroom.  Unless that makes us embedded reporters now, which might be cool.
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Dec 14, 2012 17:08
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xzzy posted:Great, now the US is going to occupy the dorkroom. Dorkroom photographers are now Bang Bang Club members. Score with 19 year old Peace Corps volunteers as necessary.
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Dec 14, 2012 23:02
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Segueing on to war photography.... The Syrian conflict: a war photographer's story
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Dec 15, 2012 00:31
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