Assignmnet 2; Ethical Photojournalism

"By creating artificial realities in highly paid commercial work, the photographer should also be
sure that it does not bleed away authenticity, Kennedy says."

With the new era of digital photography it has become more accessable to easily manipulate photographs than it was to alter film images. Though saying that altering a image was able to be obtain when film was in it's prime. For example Frank Hurley manipulated his images during the war to create a more intense atmosphere. The ethics involved in crossing the line from taking a good photograph and altering it to achieve a perfect image is where the line between a artificial reality and the true reality. The image below is an example of how photographers tend to alter their image to obtain that 'perfect shot', the image on the left is the image the photographer captured whilst the image on the right is the image the photographer altered to create a more dramatic shot.
It is a know fact that photography has been manipulate since the beginning. Since the early photographs of war (mentioned above), another example is when the photographers arranged dead bodies of dead soldiers for aestheics. Another example (mentioned in the 'Contemporary Issues' reading on "Ethical Photojournalism: It's Authenticity and Impact', is where a production artist decided to rearrange the Pyramids of Egypt emabelling them to fit them onto the front cover. As it become more frequent for manipulation to create a aesthically pleasing image, people are led to believe that this is the reality around us. A prime exapmle is within the fashion industry where celebrities are photoshopped with the intention to create a flawless perfection, which people believe are real and try to live up to the standards we photographers present. Altering images within photography (either photojournalism - fashion photography) does has it's dire consequences, which can result in injury and even death. Clear example are it a photographer asks their subject to swing a little bit higher, the boy could have fallen off and possibly injuring himeslef. As mentioned in the article about Ethics in Photojournalism.
Everyone is presented with a oppitunity of documenting what is actually there or creating a artificial reality. We all know of the consequences, even if the image that has been manipulated and the photographer doesn't get caught out there is always the fact reality the the subject or even photographer wont look at a photograph and truly see the reality in another photograph.


Reference;

http://www.snorrigunnarsson.com/2007/09/04/photojournalism-on-steroids/