Pics or It Didn't Happen: A False Ultimatum

Did Noah really build an arc?

Let me introduce this topic with a personal story. A few months ago, I used Facebook to post a rather random status. My status was short and sweet:

Just saw the most epic rattail in the history of rattails

Shortly after posting my status, someone replied with:

 pics or it didn't happen

This person had a point. I didn't whip our my camera in time to snap a shot of this magnificent hairstyle which I had just seen. To be fair, the near 12 year old whizzed by me on a bike as I was stepping off a curb. I noticed that this kid had an insanely long braid emanating from the top of his head going down his back, with shorter, normal-length hair around it. This was no average rattail a person would see on the regular. It was epic! And I saw it in a flash and then it was gone. But it left such an impression on me I had to tell the world what I had just seen! But I had no proof of this amazing claim, rendering my words worthless.

According to urbandictionary.com, the meaning of "pics or it didn't happen" is defined as:

A phrase used on Internet forums to counter the vast range of unverifiable claims made by users. Often these claims involve personal brag-worthy accomplishments, extraordinary or rare sights/occurrences, and tales relating to alcohol or drug use.

The phrase "pics or it didn't happen" is primarily a phrase coined as a result of Internet. Yet, the phrase applies in many situations where photography is concerned. For instance, after watching the documentary about the Mexican Suitcase in class recently, we discussed how understanding of the Spanish Civil War would suffer greatly if the photographs had been lost forever. Lost "pics" are as good as no "pics." And if there are no "pics," as this phrase implies, then "it didn't happen."

On one hand, photographs are seen as almost indisputable proof that something happened. Part of the reason the photographs in the Mexican Suitcase are valuable is also because they are the earliest example of war photojournalism in which the photographer is on the front lines capturing the war as it is happening. Because the photos were taken during the action, and not before or after as previous wars have been captured, they are the first war to truly live up to this phrase.

In examining evidence of the Japanese-American internment in the 1940s by the United States government, author Judith Fryer Davidoff compared Farm Security Administration photographs and a government report of the events. Davidoff concluded that "the two narratives seemed to document different events." The photographs contradicted the report and made Davidoff call the report, "a tool for the deliberate manipulation of collective memory." In this case, the photographs disputed what was reported. 

Yet "pics or it didn't happen" is a false ultimatum for two reasons. First, photographs are not objective in the slightest. From the moment of their creation, photographs are manipulated. As Antonin Kratochvil and Michael Perrson explain in their 2001 article on the differences between photojournalism and documentary photography, one shows "an instant shot" while the other shows "interwoven layers of life" (27). They both use the same medium, but are intended to send different messages. The phrase "pics or it didn't happen" implies a naivete which forgets to examine photographs with a critical eye.

Second, "pics or it didn't happen" has broader negative societal implications and presents an ultimatum that favors the victors in the same vein as the phrase, "history is written by the winners." For the losers of history, or those who are persecuted, the first step often taken by their aggressors is to destroy their heritage by destroying any evidence of themselves or their persecution. This includes photographic evidence. Such people include religious or political refugees, victims of genocide, slaves, and the list goes on. The problem lies in the idea that people whose histories are not documented in photographs are presumed to have no history.

Even if photographs do exist of an event, a photograph is not immune to questions of provenance and intended audience as the phrase "pics or it didn't happen" might suggest. The organization or person who created the photo has as much to do with the event happening as the event happening in the photograph does. As Mary Panzer puts it, "the archive governs the meaning of the images inside it" (49). The photograph does not tell the whole story of what is happening in and of itself.

The phrase "pics or it didn't happen," while popular, is not entirely justified. With the implication that events do not "happen" unless they are photographed, this phrase presents a false ultimatum that does not accurately represent the myriad of factors influencing how photos are taken and why they are preserved. In the digital realm and in physical photographic print collections, it is important to be critical of what the presence or absence of "pics" is really saying about what "happened."

References

Davidoff, Judith Fryer. "'The Color of My Skin, the Shape of My Eyes': Photographs of the Japanese-American Internment by Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Toyo Miyatake." Yale Journal of Criticism 9.2 (1996): 233-244.

Kratochvil Antonin, and Michael Perrson. "Photojournalism and Documentary Photography. Photography and the Written Word, Neiman Reports (2001): 27-31.

Panzer, Mary. "Meaning of the Twentieth-Century Press Archive." Aperture 202  (2010): 46-5.

Preservation and Access to X-ray Images

The X-Ray Process

X-ray images are used by doctors to see bones, organs, and other objects inside of the body. A x-ray is made by placing the patient or other object between a photographic plate and a machine which emits a stream of x-rays. The x-rays pass through body and either directly exposes the film, or it passes through a special screen which converts the radiation to visible light which exposes the film.  New technology allows a digital reader to detect the x-rays, which directly creates a digital image, by-passing the film altogether. The x-ray radiation passes through the different substances of the body at different rates, which creates the image. Hard tissues like bone obstruct the x-rays more, so those areas remain unexposed, while soft tissues like organs and skin allow the x-rays to pass through easily, exposing those areas. This creates a negative image that, when held up to the light, shows the bones in white and the other areas as dark or black. The x-ray is then viewed by being held up against a lighted background.

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How Stuff Works. How X-rays Work. http://science.howstuffworks.com/x-ray1.htm

Curiosity.com from Discovery. How does an X-ray machine work? http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/how-xrays-machine-work

NHS Choices. X-ray. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/X-ray/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Format, Size, and Preservation

X-rays as physical objects have many similarities to other photo types. Like an ambrotype, an x-ray image is a unique, direct image. No prints are made of the image, and it is properly viewed as originally created. But x-rays most resemble film negatives. X-rays were first made using nitrate film, from the 1910s to the 1930s, on acetate safety film, from the 1920s to the mid-1960s, and then on polyester film from the mid-1950s onward. All of the regular preservation problems apply to x-rays as to any other film, such as exploding nitrate and acetate’s vinegar syndrome. The same storage conditions also apply to x-rays as to any other film. For short term storage, temperatures less than 70 F and relative humidity around 50% will suffice. For long term storage, cool storage between 35 and 40 F and relative humidity between 20 and 50% is recommended. This can extend the life of the film to about 100 years. Archives should also be aware of any special storage conditions required by law for nitrate storage.

X-rays, however, do pose a few special concerns. First is that x-rays are very likely to be intermixed with paper documents, since they often accompany patient or research files. Separating the x-rays from the papers requires proper documentation so that intellectual control can be maintained. Often, x-rays will simply be left intermixed with the papers. Whether they are removed or not, the x-rays should be stored individually in lignin-free, buffered paper envelopes so that the film can breath. These envelopes should be stored vertically, to avoid damaging the film.

X-rays, unlike most film, are single sheets, and they come in a wide range of sizes due to the requirement that the image be life-size. This can make both storage and handling difficult. The large single sheets mean that film can break easily if not handled properly. Physical handling should be avoided if possible, and white cotton lint-free gloves should be used. The larger sizes are especially fragile. X-rays can come in sizes ranging from 8” x 10” to very large, measuring more than 17” on a side. These large x-rays will not fit in a normal records box, and special containers would have to be made or ordered. The smaller sizes are often still larger than the paper documents surrounding them. As with photographs, if x-rays are removed, they should be arranged by size to equalize stress on the film and to make storage easier.

If x-rays are deteriorating and the archives fears losing the images, a print can be made using the x-ray as a negative, or it can be scanned to create a digital copy.

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National Archives. Managing X-ray Films as Federal Records. http://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/publications/managing-xray-films.html

Privacy and Access

When photographs and negatives enter a collection, preservation action is often taken immediately to insure speedy access to the material. X-rays and other medical records, however, cannot by law be accessed for some time if there is any personal information attached.

In 1996, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services passed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the corresponding Privacy Rule. This Privacy Rule deals with an individual’s “protected health information,” which includes “names; postal address other than town, city, state, or zip code; telephone numbers; fax numbers; email addresses; Social Security numbers; medical record numbers; health plan beneficiary numbers; account numbers; certificate or license numbers; vehicle identifiers and serial numbers; device identifiers and serial numbers; uniform resource locators (URLs); Internet protocol (IP) addresses; biometric identifiers, such as fingerprints; and full-face photographic images and other similar images” (Wiener and Gilliland, 2011). Any records that do not contain this information, “de-identified health information,” is freely available. This information used to be permanently inaccessible without permission or a million legal hoops for authorized access, due to possible repercussions of the revelation of genetic diseases of descendents. However, in January 2013, an amendment was passed with makes protected health information available 50 years after the death of the subject.

This creates several problems for archives with medical material. Papers must be sorted carefully to determine which folders have personally identifiable information. These papers must then be restricted for a period of time. For medical records of research patients, it is not always clear when an individual died, so calculating 50 years from the death of the subject is difficult if not impossible. Therefore, restrictions must be extended so that the archive can be sure of complying with the law.

These lengthy restrictions impede access by the researcher, but they also create huge preservation problems for x-rays. Without proper long-term storage, many x-rays will be dust or goo before the 50-80 years are up. Archives must fight to get these items properly conserved, stored, or reproduced when the collection is first processed so that access can be assured when the time limit is finally up.

Luckily, the vast majority of x-rays in the last 30 years have been on polyester film, which is likely to last until the information can be made public. Also, not all organizations and archives must comply with the HIPAA laws. Archives should check their HIPAA designation with their legal team. Also, all x-rays that are de-identified can be freely accessed at any time.

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United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Summary of the HIPAA Privacy Rule. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/privacysummary.pdf

Wiener, Judith A. and Anne T. Gilliland. “Balancing between two goods: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and ethical compliancy considerations for privacy-sensitive materials in health sciences archival and historical special collections.” Journal of the Medical  Library Association. 2011 January; 99(1): 15-22. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3016646/#!po=11.9048

Society of American Archivists Science, Technology and Health Care Roundtable, and Archivists and Librarians in the HIstory of the Health Sciences. HIPAA Resource Page. http://www.library.vcu.edu/tml/speccoll/hipaa.html

Visual Literacy

Visual literacy is an evolving concept. As the world becomes more and more filled with visual materials everyday, visual literacy will become more and more important. People need knowledge and education that will help them “effectively find, interpret, evaluate, use, and create images and visual media.” Libraries are responsible for supporting this kind of learning.

The term “visual literacy” was first introduced by John Debes, Coordinator of Education Projects at Eastman Kodak Company, in 1968. He explained that people needed visual literacy because they were living in a “more visual environment” than earlier generations. Archivists have been using this term since the nineteen-nineties in reference to reading photographs. The Society of American Archivists notes that visual literacy is “the ability to 'read' an image and connotes the ability to understand an image as more than the appearance of things.” Today, visual literacy is seen as being so crucial that the American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) list visual literacy as an essential element for all 21st century learners.

Now that the importance of visual literacy is so widely recognized, how can libraries help further people’s understanding of visual materials?

I think that one of the biggest challenges to visual literacy is building the structure to support this kind of learning. According to the ACRL, “Visual literacy education is typically a collaborative endeavor, involving faculty, librarians, curators, archivists, visual resources professionals, and learning technologists.” It is not the responsibility of just one department or discipline or group; there are a lot of people who need to work together to develop visual literacy.

First of all, libraries need to do more faculty outreach to support visual literacy. Without buy in from teachers and faculty, visual literacy will not improve. In the same way that faculty are using other primary sources, there need to be assignments based on using visual materials so that students can become comfortable working with these materials. One way that librarians and archivists can facilitate this is by keeping faculty informed about what resources are available and relevant to their courses. Whether it is by informal chats or email updates or newsletters, it is important to communicate with faculty and try to help them integrate more visual materials into their teaching.

Next, in order for libraries to provide this service, library staff need to be trained in visual literacy. There needs to be reference training and services, systems development, digitization services and archival training in order for libraries to really support visual literacy.

Reference staff need to be trained about various aspects of visual literacy. Reference staff need an introduction and workshops to inform them about what visual literacy is plus they need to be educated about various visual resources and databases that are available. Some reference staff are already educated in this area but it seems that they are few and far between. This a really great library guide that helps inform users about various aspects of using images in research: Library Guide to Using Images. The librarians who designed this guide to using images included local databases, images by subject, copyright free images, search strategies, image analysis, citation & copyright and tools to help users. There are also additional resources for faculty listed. This is one of the few comprehensive resources that I found on a library website. In order to develop visual literacy, reference staff need to be informed about visual literacy.

Systems staff need to build programs and install software that enable more visually oriented learning. For example, it is possible for systems staff to allow users to build and share collections of visual materials. Researchers who are using materials can group items and create “sequences” of materials that can be shared with other researchers.

Quality digitization of materials is necessary so that people can view items online. Digitization makes it so that images have a much larger audience. Plus, digitization can allow for advances in scholarship. People can develop programs like this one: http://tineye.com/ that help people understand where an image came from and also how people are using it. I tried it on a number of different photographs. The system recognizes some of the images that I uploaded but not all. There are over 4 billion images already indexed and there are more and more each day, so I think that this will just get more useful. Here is one example that I found that had some interesting results:

This photograph of Miles Davis came back with 87 different websites that are using it. You can find sites ranging from a jazz radio station website to blogs to Flickr to the BBC and much more. If someone were studying Miles Davis, this could be a really useful tool, and moreso once more scholarly collections are indexed. Digitization can enhance research in a number of ways and it plays a big part in visual literacy.

As we learned in class, archives do not usually spend a lot of time working with individual photographs. In order to encourage visual literacy, archives need to give photographs and visual materials more attention. Archivists need to be trained to read photograph on a number of levels. They need to be able to tell the historical context of a photograph and also whether or not the photograph has artistic elements. This kind of description will help users better understand what is going on in a photograph. Further, archivists need to be trained in visual literacy. If archivists know more about visual literacy and its desired outcomes, they can work with faculty, reference staff, systems and digitization staff to integrate materials into the classroom and digital collections. Plus, archives can “promote a symbiotic relationship with researchers” and have researchers help enhance catalog records and sequences of images. Researchers are already spending time studying materials so archivist can work with researchers to enrich library materials.

Visual literacy is accepted as a critical part of the learning process in today’s world but in order to realize this goal, major changes need to take place. If you look at the desired learning outcomes associated with visual literacy from the ACRL at the bottom of this page: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy, you will see that this is not an easy goal to reach. This requires coordinating a lot of work from a number of different groups of people.

Works Cited:

Association Of College And Research Libraries. (2011, October). ACRL visual literacy competency standards for higher education. Retrieved from Association of College and Research Libraries website: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/visualliteracy

Debes, J. L. (1968). Some foundations for visual literacy. Audiovisual Instruction, 13, 961-964.

Pearce-Moses, R. (2013, ). Visual literacy. Retrieved from A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology website: http://www2.archivists.org/glossary/terms/v/visual-literacy

Malkmus, D. (2010). "Old stuff" for new teaching methods: Outreach to history faculty teaching with primary sources.Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 10(4), 415-435. Retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.bc.edu/journals/portal_libraries_and_the_academy/v010/10.4.malkmus.html

Lesy, M. (2007). Visual literacy. Journal of American History, 94, 143-153. Retrieved from http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/americanfaces/lesy.html

Kaplan, E., & Mifflin, J. (1996). “Mind and sight”: Visual literacy and the archivist*. Archival Issues, 1, 107-127. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.bc.edu/stable/41101943

The Politics of Representation

Frederick Douglas and friend (circa 1850)

photographer: William A. Pratt

Title: Freemen of Color

Quarter plate daguerreotype | Hand colored

4 1/4 x 3 1/8 in. (10.8 x 7.9 cm)

Photographs are easy to think about and very difficult to write about.  How do you translate what is an initial sensory perception into the theoretical language of archival practice?  I chose to reflect on Joan Schwartz’s article “Coming to Terms with Photographs: Descriptive Standards, Linguistic ‘Othering,’and the Margins of Archivy,” to frame my final post.  It mirrors, I feel, a greater dilemma for archival education that exists in the shadows of the overarching paradigm of library science.

What is visual literacy?

FLICKR COMMONS

As Conway points out – everyone sees an image differently.  In this multi-dimensional context – what have archivists done or not done in the handling of photographic materials?  Or what could be better done towards their categorization and access? 

Schwartz suggests that the identification of photographs as non-text records – “images,” “graphic images,” or “special media,” directs our thinking to a linear trajectory that establishes the textual model as the accepted norm.  Add to this the language and systems of cataloguing and indexicality we are taught, and you are literally trying to put a round peg in a square hole: 

We do need to become familiar with these tools, but familiarity with such tools must be mitigated by a certain professional wariness on two levels: just as library tools must be adapted, not adopted, to perform archival functions, so must these same tools be tailored to the nature and needs of the respective media to which they are applied. (Schwartz, 169)

I don’t pretend to fully understand how to competently apply adequate descriptors to photographic images, but I am compelled by our exposure in this course to not “give up,” and further marginalize the materials I handle or the expectations of prospective users of those materials.

Sculptor Malvina Hoffman and Model (circa 1930)

Preparation for Exhibition, Chicago Field Museum –The Hall of Man

http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/our-collections/photo-archives-malvina-hoffman-collection

Ironically just as photography revolutionized and surpassed our expectations of the representations of painting, we live with the unknown and ever-evolving implications of cyber technologies.  Just as the unseen world was made accessible to the populace after photography’s advent in 1839, we voraciously travel the virtual globe daily in search of answers to every facet of our lives.

I find the term visual literacy a bit hierarchical unless expanded to include those areas of knowledge creation that are not traditionally defined as academic because -- like photographs -- they are not easily categorized:

Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson (in 1994) 

Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/A-Spectacular-Collection-of-Native-American-Quilts.html
(The undocumented textile knowledge production of Native and African Americans)

This lack of questioning is dangerous because it implicitly supports the archival myth of neutrality and objectivity, and thus sanctions the already strong predilection of archives and archivists to document primarily mainstream culture and powerful records creators...Its rules of evidence and authenticity favour textural documents, from which such rules were derived, at the expense of other ways of experiencing the present, and thus of viewing the past.  Its strong whiffs of positivist and “scientific” values inhibit archivists adopting multiple and ambient ways of seeing and knowing.  (Schwartz and Cook: 18)

The arguments that place photographs as suspect in their handling as secondary sources of historical evidence mirror those of the use of oral histories.  An example of this is the Library of Congress’ WPA Collection of Former Slave Narratives (1936-38); its mis-management and faulty indexing over time.  Yet however, skewed, cropped, or touched up -- photographs like the re-counting of a former slave’s life experience – document an event we would not otherwise know. 

 Central Lunatic Asylum for Negros (circa 1900)

(occupational therapy)

Now Central State Hospital, Petersburg, VA

In thinking about the politics of representation – the governance of decision making paradigms within what Boker and Leigh would term the “community of thinkers” offers insidious consequences in taking for granted the power inherent in categorization.  I suggest we -- as future archivists – and information architects -- refuse to walk the linear tightrope. 

References:

Bowker, Geoffrey C. and Susan Leigh Star, Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences, MIT Press; (1999)

Conway, Paul, “Modes of Seeing: Digitized Photographic Archives and the Experienced User,” American Archivist 73, no. 2 (2010):  425-462.

Schwartz, J M, “Coming to Terms with Photographs: Descriptive Standards, Linguistic ‘Othering,’and the Margins of Archivy,” Archivaria (2002): 142-171.

Schwartz, Joan M. and Terry Cook, "Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory," Archival Science 2, no. 1-2 (2002): 1-19.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (1977)

Yetman, Norman, “The Background of the Slave Narrative Collection,” American Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 32 (Autumn, 1967): 534-553

Authenticity and Photographic Archives

One important issue that archivists must confront when dealing with photographic collections is the issue of authenticity. As professionals, archivists strive to present the most accurate and truthful information possible about their holdings. This means that they must work diligently to determine the authenticity of the photographs they accession, process, and provide access to. There are several ways in which archivists can attempt to verify the authenticity of the photographs in their care, including “examining provenance and otherwise tracing the history of a collection,”¹ becoming educated about history and historical photographic processes in order to determine if photographs are truly from the ascribed time period, and learning how to determine if a photo has been altered – a skill that is gaining in importance and changing rapidly during the digital age.

Photographic archives do not exist in a vacuum. Context provided by related non-photographic materials can be integral to determining the provenance of a photograph or group of photographs. In Photographs: Archival Care and Management, Diane Vogt-O’Connor recommends that archivists examine “captions, correspondence, journals, oral history interviews, [and] photo logbooks”² to gain additional information about the authenticity of potential accessions. Such external evidence is crucial when determining the provenance of a photographic collection, and provenance and authenticity go hand in hand where photographic archives are concerned. Identifying an unbroken chain of custody and a collector’s intent and methods are important steps on the road to determining a photograph’s authenticity.

Archivists who work with photographs must also educate themselves about history and historical photographic processes so that they may use internal clues to determine the authenticity of photographs. Items seen in a photograph, such as cars, signs, and clothing, are important clues that can date a photograph to a specific time period. Although caution must be exercised when using this method -- clothes that are no longer in style may be still be seen 20 years after their heydey, for example -- historical knowledge can be an invaluable asset to an archivist. In addition, being able to identify historical photographic processes is a crucial skill for archivists. While some modern photographers still utilize historical processes, a well-trained eye will be able to spot the difference between a genuine original and a modern reproduction, and we should all know that the acetate negatives a collector claims are authentic mid-1800s artifacts are anything but.

The area of photographic authenticity changing the most rapidly may be determining whether a photograph has been altered. For over 100 years, this typically meant that a negative had been tampered with in order to produce a print that was more aesthetically pleasing or conveyed a different message than the original photograph. With the advent of both digital photography and digital imaging technology, it is both easier to undetectably alter a photograph and to acquire tools that help determine a photograph’s authenticity. While “[p]hotographic manipulation is not new…[w]hat is new...is the absence of any physical trail of evidence that lets the researcher see what was done.”³ This means that issues of provenance and intent must be examined even more closely when dealing with collections of digital photographs. But while modern technology can be manipulated, it can also work on the side of photographic truth. In their 2005 article “When Photographs Create False Memories,” Maryanne Garry and Matthew P. Gerrie assert that people “may not trust the famous, allegedly doctored photo of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard.”⁴ In 2009, Dartmouth researcher Hany Farid used 3-D computer imaging technology to show that the shadows claimed to be inconsistent with a single light source were in fact perfectly plausible.⁵ Rapid advances in technology may soon help to settle other long-controversial questions of photographic authenticity.

As the guardians of photographic history, archivists endeavor to provide researchers with accurate descriptions of authentic photographs. Since its mere presence in an archive confers legitimacy to a photograph, archivists must use all the tools available to them to determine the authenticity of the photographs in their care. Examining the provenance and history of a collection, using historical knowledge to read internal evidence, and determining if a photograph has been altered are all important steps on the road to authenticating a photograph.

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1 Elizabeth Kaplan and Jeffrey Mifflin, “Mind and Sight: Visual Literacy and the Archivist,” in American Archival Studies: Readings in Theory and Practice (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2000), 95.^↩

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2 Diane Vogt-O’Connor, “Appraisal and Acquisitions,” in Photographs: Archival Care and Management, (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2006), 95. ^↩

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3 Martha A. Sandweiss, “Image and Artifact: The Photograph as Evidence in the Digital Age,” The Journal of American History 94 (2007): 200. ^↩

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4 Maryanne Garry and Matthew P. Gerrie, “When Photographs Create False Memories,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 14 (2005): 321. ^↩

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5 Hany Farid, “The Lee Harvey Oswald backyard photos: real or fake?,” Perception 38 (2009). ^↩

Photojournalism Ethics in the Modern Age

While photojournalism is almost as old as photography itself, the ethics of photojournalism have evolved over time and are still evolving. With each new leap in technology, we are left to ponder the boundaries of photo manipulation. When has a photographer gone too far in modifying an image?

To demonstrate how far we have come, it is important to consider where photojournalism began. The Civil War Trust credits Matthew Brady as the father of photojournalism for his work documenting the Civil War. Yet, we know that he did not photograph the battlefields as he found them, instead moving the bodies as necessary to compose the image, a practice that would be unacceptable by today’s photojournalism standards.

Title: Antietam, Maryland. Bodies of dead, Louisiana Regiment
Creator: Matthew Brady
Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
URL: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/item/cwp2003005540/PP/resource/

The National Press Photographers Association clearly states in the preamble to its code of ethics that their “primary goal is the faithful and comprehensive depiction of the subject at hand.” They further state that “photographs can also cause great harm if they are callously intrusive or are manipulated.” To that end, “editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects” (NPAA).

But how much manipulation is too much? How far can we go before we have mislead viewers or misrepresented subjects? Based on how individual editors and the photojournalism community has policed itself, it is clear that there is little wiggle room in this regard.

In 2003, The Los Angeles Times printed a photo by Brian Walski of a British soldier gesturing for an Iraqi man carrying a small child to stop.

Title: Soldier in Basra
Creator: Brian Walski
Publisher: Los Angeles Times
URL: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too_b328

It is a provocative image of the potential for conflict between soldiers and civilians. However, an observant editor of another paper realized the above image is stitched together from two of Walski’s photographs; it is a combination of the two shots. The soldier is from one image; the civilian from another.

While the editing may seem minor at first, it changes how we read the photograph. In the doctored version, we are left with some tension about what will happen if the civilian does not stop. In the original photographs, we see the soldier signal for the man to stop, but then lower his weapon as the civilian comes closer, suggesting some permission was granted to approach. We read less conflict in the original photographs.

Brian Walski was fired by the Los Angeles Times for violating the code of ethics when he presented his edited image as truth.

In another famous case, Reuters released a photo to the wire service of smoke over Beirut after an Israeli airstrike, but later removed the photograph after viewers complained that the image looked photoshopped based on the repeated, circle patterns.

Brian Walski was fired by the Los Angeles Times for violating the code of ethics when he presented his edited image as truth.

In another famous case, Reuters released a photo to the wire service of smoke over Beirut after an Israeli airstrike, but later removed the photograph after viewers complained that the image looked photoshopped based on the repeated, circle patterns.

Title: Smoke Over Beirut (Edited)
Creator: Adnan Hajj
Publisher: Reuters
URL: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too_b328

Title: Smoke Over Beirut (Original)
Creator: Adnan Hajj
Publisher: Reuters
URL: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too_b328

Reuters broke ties with the photographer, Adnan Hajj, after determining that he had manipulated the photograph intentionally.

While photo editors agree that these examples are unethical, they can be difficult to catch. According to a New York Times article, “detecting the smoke and mirrors is a challenge. While editors for print publications commonly rely on editing systems that track each change made to an article, photo editors have fewer tools at their disposal and often rely simply on experience and instinct.” (Aspan).

As evidenced by the fact that the images above were published by major news services, photo editors cannot always determine when an image has been edited beyond the bounds of the profession, and the editor’s job is only getting harder as they view more images, increasingly coming from amateurs who may not be well versed in photojournalism ethics.

CNN, NBC News, ABC News, and Fox News have sections of their web sites where people can submit photographs to the news department. Three of the four sites make no mention of photojournalism ethics; only ABC News included any instructions that “events depicted in the footage are real and not staged” (ABC News). The other terms of service were more concerned with the transfer of an image’s copyright than in instructing the public on the boundaries of ethical photojournalism. They rely on the masses to understand the industry’s proprieties.

At the same time, it is increasingly difficult for amateurs to even know that their images are doctored. Services like Google+’s Auto Awesome “improve” a photo when it is saved. In the case of the “Eraser” feature, “if you take a sequence of 3 or more photos in front of a structure or landmark with movement in the background, Eraser will give you a photo with all the moving objects removed” (Auto Awesome). A layperson may submit one of these modified photographs without realizing it and without the complete set of images, a photo editor may print one of these doctored photographs unwittingly.

As we continue to make everyone with a cellphone camera a photojournalist, we need to create better protections against using manipulated images in journalism. Such an effort requires the technology to determine a photograph’s provenance, perhaps in embedded metadata, but it also requires the very news organizations who solicit these images to educate laypeople on the ethics of photojournalism and its importance.

Works Cited

“10 News Photos That Took Retouching Too Far” 10,000 Words. May 21, 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/10-news-photos-that-took-photoshop-too_b328

Aspan, Maria. “Ease of Alteration Creates Woes for Picture Editors.” New York Times. August 14, 2006. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/technology/14photoshop.html?_r=0.

“Auto Awesome Photos & Movies”. Google. 2013. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. https://support.google.com/plus/answer/3113884?hl=en.

“Matthew Brady” Civil War Trust. n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/mathew-brady.html.

“NPAA Code of Ethics” National Press Photographers Association. 2012. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics.

“Send Us Your Cell Phone Video and Pictures” ABC News. May 7, 2006. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=1927971.

Van Riper, Frank. “Manipulating Truth, Losing Credibility.” Washington Post. March 4, 2009. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.htm.