Debating the Rules and Ethics of Digital Photojournalism

This afternoon we had our usual Maths or English session. Today was English. We got given an article that was all about photographers that had entered a photojournalism competiton. The article was included in The New York Times and was discussing whether it's right for the contestants to be disqualified if the judges believe the images are over - edited and don't look like the original image. The audience I believe the article is aimed at is high end photographers that should know the rules and ethics towards photography.

My personal opinion towards this article is that the photograhers should be disqualified for over -editing their images especially if it is photojournalism because the photographers are then showing a fake picture and fooling people into what they want their audience to believe the place looks like. I read through the article and chose two different people's opinions. I chose Michele McNally who is the director of photography and an assisstant managing editor at The New York Times. Michele was also the chairwoman of the World Press Photo contest jury this year. When I read through what Michele had written I was quite shocked that the New York Times had decided to asked someone who worked for them about their opinion on the competiton. I thought this was a very bias opinion however the newspaper might not have thought about Michele working for them but might have thought of them as someone who was part of the jury of the World Press Photo competition. Michele was very harsh in what she said about some things but I can see where she is coming from in a way. One thing that I agree with Michelle on is 'Some were disqualified for sloppy Photoshop manipulation. However, a large number were rejected for removing or adding information to the image, for example, like toning that rendered some parts so black that entire objects disappeared from the frame.' I agree that the photographers who edited their images so much by toning them to chnage their apperance should be disqualified because good well - trained photographers should know better. One thing that I don't agree on is that Michele was part of the jury and is an assistant managing editor at The New York Times because at the end of the day that is making her very bias. I also chose to look at what a seasoned photojournalist thought of the competition as long as his name wasn't published. The photographer says 'We can underexpose and overexpose the same image, neither version is "true" or "untrue" - it is just a different interpretation of the world in front of us.' I agree with what the photographer says because people edit their photos to what they saw in front of them that day because they may have put the flash on to take the picture but I disagree with the photographer because they are still manipualting the image to something that maybe they wanted to have seen. One thing that I found interesting about what the photographer said was 'When I was notified that I was disqualified last year I was shocked and embarassed. But then I realised that I didn't do anything different than I ever did.' I think that I would be shocked if I was disqualified but the photographer doesn't actually say that he's ever entered the competition before so he doesn't know whether it's different to what he normally does.

After expressing my opinion earlier I still feel the same about photographers being disqualified from the competition because they should knpw better in reality especially because it's photojournalism. National Geographic got caught out once before for putting a picture on the front cover on their magazine of the pyramids in Eygpt. The photographer had moved the pyramids closer together and didn't tell National Geographic. National Geographic now have a policy where they say that they only put non - edited images on the front cover of the magazine and inside the contents of the magazine. This is why I believe that photojournalism should stay un - edited because people get a perception of a place that doesn't actually look like what they expected.