Photos under fire in the propaganda war

Patrick Barkham Wednesday August 9, 2006 The Guardian

The camera not only lies but the photographers behind them are akin to Pinocchio. So say some bloggers after an internet-led campaign to expose Adnan Hajj, a ebanese freelance journalist !ho altered an image of the !ar in ebanon. "euters !ithdre! it and sacked Hajj# bloggers hailed another $ictory o$er the supposedly duplicitous mainstream media. Are blogs finally shining a light on a multitude of photographic sins% &mages ha$e been manipulated e$er since 'atthe! (rady, considered the father of photojournalism, rearranged scenes during the American )i$il *ar. )ommunist artists painted Trotsky out of photographs. 'odern celebrity shoots are routinely exposed for making stars thinner or longerlegged. *ith the potential to carry real emotional intensity, photographs of !ar are the most intently scrutinised. +uring the &ra, !ar, the A Times sacked a staff photographer for digitally altering an image of a (ritish soldier and a group of &ra,i ci$ilians. &n the latest conflict, bloggers claim pictures of dead children in -ana !ere staged. +ifferent media groups ha$e different rules regarding the photos they choose to publish. 'ost, like the .uardian, ban all image manipulation /except in photomontages, for instance, !here it is declared0. This means no altering the content, no merging of images, no 1cloning1 of backgrounds and no 1flipping1 of images /so a subject looking left looks right0. The "euters rulebook, mean!hile, says2 13o additions or deletions, no misleading the $ie!er by manipulation of the tonal and colourbalance to disguise element of an image or to change the context.1 (ut do photographers obey% A !ar photographer, a freelance photographer and a portrait photographer & spoke to all agreed their rule in the digital age !as2 only do !hat you could do in a darkroom. This means they !ill lighten or darken pictures /or parts, such as sky0 and use editing packages such as Photoshop to remo$e dust spots /!hich still occur on digital chips0. +igital pictures are also routinely sharpened up, although this is a minor adjustment and does not bring outof-focus shots into focus. According to one picture editor, !ar photographers still do some rearranging of scenes2 cuddly toys may be piled up in !reckage for a better shot. A photographer currently in ebanon says Hajj4s adding of smoke to one shot of (eirut after a bomb attack !as 1completely unacceptable1. He argues, ho!e$er, that the fuss is part of a campaign to discredit journalists documenting the $ictims of !ar. 1People are risking their li$es going to take pictures and are then being accused of setting up the murder of children.1 Amateurs may think they can more easily spot fakes in our media-saturated age, but it may also be harder for professionals to detect them. 5amonn 'c)abe, the .uardian4s former picture editor, pities current editors !ho must no! sort through 6,777 thumbnail images each day. 1The t!o things & !orry about are the amount of pictures and the speed at !hich they are flying around,1 he says. 1&t is difficult to check the $eracity of all these pictures1.