August 9, 2006: an overview of reuters fauxtography, discovered so far - I did not directly refer to or rip off this post, although while hashing this post out, I recalled that a similar categorization might have been made already, and in fact ran across this post once again during my search for example pictures.
Here is how I would arrange the four categories of fraud.
Class I: Misleading Presentation
The first class of fraudulent photography involves the use of authentic pictures in a misleading presentation. Take an old picture, put a new caption on it and stick it next to an article on a current event. Or take a closely cropped picture of a few people at a demonstration and inflate their numbers. Maybe there aren’t any good pictures out yet, of the rubble and devastation of the current war, so it might seem like a good idea to lift some images of the previous one. The dishonesty here is in presenting authentic pictures as something other than what they are.
Class II: Digitally Manipulated Photography
The second class of fraudulent photography involves pictures that have been altered; they would have taken expert work with an airbrush in days past, now any idiot with Photoshop can have a go at it.
What disturbs me about this is that in some of these cases, such as the infamous smoke over Beirut picture, the fraud was caught due to some highly obvious uses of the ‘clone brush’. In other words, had the work not been so amateurish it might have passed public examination for perhaps a few more days. It is disturbing because it is not at all outside the realm of possibility that next time, the bad guys will make sure they hire people with advanced computer graphics skill.
Often the press agency will defend some of these pictures as ‘part of our perfectly normal procedure for adjusting contrast and removing specks of dust’. But while some contrast enhancement and dust removal is certainly legitimate, here’s a tip: if the result is that you make white smoke look like brown smoke, or gray smoke look like black smoke, you’re going to get called on it. Because different colors of smoke indicate different things.
2006 - Adnan Hajj decides his picture of Beirut needs more smoke than appeared in real life. Reuters buys it.
CBC photo of Toronto, original.
Same CBC photo of Toronto, somewhat cropped, somehow a lot more brown, as if the city were being choked by nasty pollution. Except the color shift is completely someone taking artistic license.
Class III: Staged Photography
The third class of fraudulent photography involves the use of “real pictures” of staged events. The pictures are real in that there is no manipulation of the picture itself, so they will pass inspection for anyone looking for signs of the dreaded Photoshop. However the subject matter is nothing but performance art masquerading as news. It may be the photographers themselves setting up a scene, the subjects, or a collaboration. In whatever case it is not news. The best a staged photo or an altered photo can qualify to be is an illustration, nothing more.
I consider staged photography more threatening than digitally manipulated photography (when used fraudulently), as it is generally easier to make it look ‘good’, and generally somewhat less obvious.
2009 - AP publishes Palestinian grievance theater
2005 - Iraqi terrorists claim to have captured a soldier(left), but it is really an action figure (right). AP buys it.
Class IV: Wholly Fictitious Photography
The fourth class of fraudulent photography has no current examples that I know of. But it is conceivable that a combination of a staged photo with digital manipulation could–if under the control of skilled artists rather than the hacks working for the Iranian government, Hezbollah, or Hamas– remove basically all limits to the imagination. Massive crowds appearing where they never really were, apparently brutal and gory violence where nobody was seriously hurt, or rocket strikes multiplied twentyfold from their real number. The difference between this and simple staged photography would basically be the same as the difference between 21st century movies and films from the early 1980s.
And so you give them the idea to actually find someone that knows what they’re doing? Remember the one with the woman holding a completely inviolate cartridge, saying it was a bullet she dug out of her wall? I love idiot stuff like that!
Comment by cmblake6 — May 31, 2009 @ 12:36 am
I assume that they’ve thought about this for years. A Class IV fraud would require at minimum one person, preferably a few, with sufficient skill in computer graphics and photo manipulation. In order to slip something like that into a reputable press agency, even into what passes for a reputable press agency these days, they would have to have an accomplice inside, in a position to protect the source, and pass a certain amount of vetting. The easier route would be to put something out as a press release, probably from one of a certain few governments. That is assuming that the craftsmanship is solid. Otherwise nobody of sound mind would believe anything that government ever published again.
Regardless, the fact that it is technically possible demands that we watch out for what may be an inevitable eventuality. The next inappropriately Photoshopped news photo just might have had some more careful attention than before, and it can’t be much more than a few years before someone tries to pass off a doctored video. We know what amateurish mistakes look like but we have to consider the possibility that next time it will be more difficult.
Comment by georgeguy — May 31, 2009 @ 5:38 pm