3 ms·

My thoughts exactly. The photographer probably thought he was doing this innocently, but even a small manipulation like this can seriously change what a pictur

My thoughts exactly. The photographer probably thought he was doing this innocently, but even a small manipulation like this can seriously change what a picture means. There's a really good example of this somewhere online showing how the meaning of a photo can be changed by cropping the right and left sides of a picture involving a soldier. Sadly, I can't seem to find it. So, here's a couple of other examples: http://familybible.org/israel/conflict/PeacefulTerrorists.htm http://familybible.org/israel/conflict/PeacefulTerrorists.ht... http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/07/unethical-cropping.html http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photogra... AP is absolutely correct to take such draconian measures - they need to be credible. EDIT: Found it! See here: http://www.rhetorik.ch/Bildmanipulation/soldat.jpg http://www.rhetorik.ch/Bildmanipulation/soldat.jpg

m0nastic 15y ago
The photographer was a freelancer, so it's possible that he wasn't familiar with the AP's guidelines. That said, not manipulating images is the first thing that gets drilled into you as a photojournalist (either in school, or when you start doing assignments), so it's pretty unusual for someone to not realize the importance. A lot of photo agencies require submission of the RAW files specifically to combat this sort of thing.