14 ms·

One thing that bugs me is that this article doesn't link to any of the original sources, nor provides any links to the photographer's website. The photographer

One thing that bugs me is that this article doesn't link to any of the original sources, nor provides any links to the photographer's website. The photographer clearly states in her website that all of her photos are edited in some way or another (see 'Disclaimer'): https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya Providing the originals would also make it trivial to pass it through https://fotoforensics.com/ https://fotoforensics.com/ to carry out a more robust detection of doctoring of the images.

xanthine 4y ago
So I took one of the images on the front page of her website (https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5dc05d17e6229c77b6557d4a/831378cf-4c7b-43c2-842e-6e72be7f0c81/web2.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5dc05d17e6229c...) and uploaded it to FotoForensics: https://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=282efc0801ef0a8a50689e59ff16ba76f63115f0.353647&show=ela https://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=282efc0801ef0a8a50... The results are for you to judge.
- berkut 4y ago
  Note: That analysis (ELA) only really looks at gradient/diff of compression artefacts in pratice, so if you losslessly edited the original from the RAW source at full float32 (say in Nuke or something which supports full precision workflows) and then exported to another file, that wouldn't show anything. In other words, it's mostly only good for detecting if a JPEG (with compression artefacts) was edited and saved to another JPEG, although even then you can work around it to some degree by saving at similar chroma and compression qualities if you know what you're doing.
iamben 4y ago
The article was last Friday. Any idea when she added the disclaimer? It looks like she never meant it to be presented as anything other than a composite, but someone took it as such and ran with it. Now she's trying to weather the "you're a terrible person" shitstorm.
- xanthine 4y ago
  That is easily solved by looking at a capture from the beginning of this month, where indeed, the disclaimer is absent: https://web.archive.org/web/20221101125244/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221101125244/https://kittiyapa...
  - bawolff 4y ago
    I think the point is she wasn't explicitly presenting them as authentic, in which case whether or not the disclaimer is there originally is irrelavent.
    - matkoniecz 4y ago
      They were and still are presenting them as actual photos >Squinting through my camera’s telephoto lens, I noticed something in the shadow of Mount Pumori. At first I thought it was a rock, but it was exactly what I was looking for. https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series
      - arrrg 4y ago
        You can create photo montages from actual photos you took. In that way her description would still reflect reality. Or are you claiming she didn’t photograph a snow leopard?
        josefx 4y ago
        Does she claim anywhere that she did? As far as I can tell she only claims that she took photos in Nepal that she later touched up to her hearts content.
        matkoniecz 4y ago
        They describe it as taking photo of snow leopard. I am claiming that her descriptions are at least highly misleading and apparently formed to technically avoid stating false info, while lying.
Aeolun 4y ago
I think her website has been changed now? It’s very explicit that “yes, all my photos are edited to some extend, and I never told anyone any different”.
raylad 4y ago
As you point out, it says on the website that the photos are composites and are edited. She is not claiming otherwise. So this controversy is silly. There is no lie to expose.
- deleted 4y ago
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- deleted 4y ago
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sharpascents 4y ago
Good point on the analysis not linking any original sources. However, and importantly, she only added the disclaimer after having suffered from the backlash: Check for yourself: No statement about 'composites' on this version from 4 days ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010418/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010418/https://kittiyapa... I am not convinced by her explanation either. It was never clear they were composites. Again, going to her original publication: https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series I find the whole story misleading at best: having the 'composite' (fake) images next to captions explaining that this is a snow leopard at 17,014 ft (5185 meters) is dishonest. She thought she could get away with it but backtracked a few days later after it got out of hands.
- Narretz 4y ago
  The about page from 27th November does have a notice that some images are composites: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/contact https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapa...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - sharpascents 4y ago
    I stand corrected. We don't know when this first disclaimer was orignially published / added though. And I would let people make their own decision whether they think her publication is misleading or not: https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series edit: her disclaimer also reads like it was more reactive rather than precautionary: "I never stated my images were not edited anywhere".
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      She isn't a journalist, it is a side project. As she points out, misleading photos are common in all kinds of publications without a disclaimer. Does she deserve death threats? It is responsible to post a "debunking" article without actually reaching out to the artist to ask? I consider the "journalists" who wrote this article to be far more lacking in ethics than the artist who posted these photos.
Narretz 4y ago
The wayback machine has an entry from 26th November without the disclaimer notice: https://web.archive.org/web/20221126145641/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221126145641/https://kittiyapa... But the earliest entry for the contact page (27th November) is the same as right now: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/contact https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapa... So it's unclear when the disclaimer was added.
arrrg 4y ago
fotoforensics.com is not robust in detecting fakes. This still requires human judgement. Naively looking at what you see there and taking it for gospel very likely leads to both false positives and negatives. I think the assumption that you can just take any image, upload it to fotoforensics.com and know whether it's fake is dangerous.
matkoniecz 4y ago
> The photographer clearly states in her website that all of her photos are edited in some way or another (see 'Disclaimer'): Nevertheless, on https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series there is no mention whatsoever that images are fake collages. Images are highly misleading, no actual snow leopards are in places like this. Also, even disclaimer is misleading and not making clear that many images are heavily faked. Not just colour balanced but altogether merge of multiple different photos. That is just lying from side of that artist ("photographer" is misleading here).
- prox 4y ago
  I wonder if it is also because she didn’t receive any formal education in art (as per her website) , so she is highly oblivious to some ways things are done. At the same time she tries to appear as if she is some celebrated artist (mentioned by National Geographic etc.) She seems to be have chosen ambiguity as her mode of communication which is troublesome.
- matkoniecz 4y ago
  Note: disclaimer is now linked in a tiny banner. It used to be not linked before. Note also https://web.archive.org/web/20221127122923mp_/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/prints/ghost-of-the-himalayas https://web.archive.org/web/20221127122923mp_/https://kittiy... selling fake collages as "Photography by Kittiya Pawlowski" Footer has also > Member of the World Photography Organization since 2016 and > Help fund Kittiya's next photography expedition to Antarctica

xanthine 4y ago

So I took one of the images on the front page of her website (https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5dc05d17e6229c77b6557d4a/831378cf-4c7b-43c2-842e-6e72be7f0c81/web2.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5dc05d17e6229c...) and uploaded it to FotoForensics: https://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=282efc0801ef0a8a50689e59ff16ba76f63115f0.353647&show=ela https://fotoforensics.com/analysis.php?id=282efc0801ef0a8a50... The results are for you to judge.

berkut 4y ago
Note: That analysis (ELA) only really looks at gradient/diff of compression artefacts in pratice, so if you losslessly edited the original from the RAW source at full float32 (say in Nuke or something which supports full precision workflows) and then exported to another file, that wouldn't show anything. In other words, it's mostly only good for detecting if a JPEG (with compression artefacts) was edited and saved to another JPEG, although even then you can work around it to some degree by saving at similar chroma and compression qualities if you know what you're doing.

iamben 4y ago

The article was last Friday. Any idea when she added the disclaimer? It looks like she never meant it to be presented as anything other than a composite, but someone took it as such and ran with it. Now she's trying to weather the "you're a terrible person" shitstorm.

xanthine 4y ago
That is easily solved by looking at a capture from the beginning of this month, where indeed, the disclaimer is absent: https://web.archive.org/web/20221101125244/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221101125244/https://kittiyapa...
- bawolff 4y ago
  I think the point is she wasn't explicitly presenting them as authentic, in which case whether or not the disclaimer is there originally is irrelavent.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
    They were and still are presenting them as actual photos >Squinting through my camera’s telephoto lens, I noticed something in the shadow of Mount Pumori. At first I thought it was a rock, but it was exactly what I was looking for. https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series
    - arrrg 4y ago
      You can create photo montages from actual photos you took. In that way her description would still reflect reality. Or are you claiming she didn’t photograph a snow leopard?
      - josefx 4y ago
        Does she claim anywhere that she did? As far as I can tell she only claims that she took photos in Nepal that she later touched up to her hearts content.
      - matkoniecz 4y ago
        They describe it as taking photo of snow leopard. I am claiming that her descriptions are at least highly misleading and apparently formed to technically avoid stating false info, while lying.

Aeolun 4y ago

I think her website has been changed now? It’s very explicit that “yes, all my photos are edited to some extend, and I never told anyone any different”.

raylad 4y ago

As you point out, it says on the website that the photos are composites and are edited. She is not claiming otherwise. So this controversy is silly. There is no lie to expose.

deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

sharpascents 4y ago

Good point on the analysis not linking any original sources. However, and importantly, she only added the disclaimer after having suffered from the backlash: Check for yourself: No statement about 'composites' on this version from 4 days ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010418/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010418/https://kittiyapa... I am not convinced by her explanation either. It was never clear they were composites. Again, going to her original publication: https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series I find the whole story misleading at best: having the 'composite' (fake) images next to captions explaining that this is a snow leopard at 17,014 ft (5185 meters) is dishonest. She thought she could get away with it but backtracked a few days later after it got out of hands.

Narretz 4y ago
The about page from 27th November does have a notice that some images are composites: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/contact https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapa...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sharpascents 4y ago
  I stand corrected. We don't know when this first disclaimer was orignially published / added though. And I would let people make their own decision whether they think her publication is misleading or not: https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series edit: her disclaimer also reads like it was more reactive rather than precautionary: "I never stated my images were not edited anywhere".
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    She isn't a journalist, it is a side project. As she points out, misleading photos are common in all kinds of publications without a disclaimer. Does she deserve death threats? It is responsible to post a "debunking" article without actually reaching out to the artist to ask? I consider the "journalists" who wrote this article to be far more lacking in ethics than the artist who posted these photos.

Narretz 4y ago

The wayback machine has an entry from 26th November without the disclaimer notice: https://web.archive.org/web/20221126145641/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/about-kittiya https://web.archive.org/web/20221126145641/https://kittiyapa... But the earliest entry for the contact page (27th November) is the same as right now: https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/contact https://web.archive.org/web/20221127010417/https://kittiyapa... So it's unclear when the disclaimer was added.

arrrg 4y ago

fotoforensics.com is not robust in detecting fakes. This still requires human judgement. Naively looking at what you see there and taking it for gospel very likely leads to both false positives and negatives. I think the assumption that you can just take any image, upload it to fotoforensics.com and know whether it's fake is dangerous.

matkoniecz 4y ago

> The photographer clearly states in her website that all of her photos are edited in some way or another (see 'Disclaimer'): Nevertheless, on https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series https://kittiyapawlowski.com/snow-leopard-series there is no mention whatsoever that images are fake collages. Images are highly misleading, no actual snow leopards are in places like this. Also, even disclaimer is misleading and not making clear that many images are heavily faked. Not just colour balanced but altogether merge of multiple different photos. That is just lying from side of that artist ("photographer" is misleading here).

prox 4y ago
I wonder if it is also because she didn’t receive any formal education in art (as per her website) , so she is highly oblivious to some ways things are done. At the same time she tries to appear as if she is some celebrated artist (mentioned by National Geographic etc.) She seems to be have chosen ambiguity as her mode of communication which is troublesome.
matkoniecz 4y ago
Note: disclaimer is now linked in a tiny banner. It used to be not linked before. Note also https://web.archive.org/web/20221127122923mp_/https://kittiyapawlowski.com/prints/ghost-of-the-himalayas https://web.archive.org/web/20221127122923mp_/https://kittiy... selling fake collages as "Photography by Kittiya Pawlowski" Footer has also > Member of the World Photography Organization since 2016 and > Help fund Kittiya's next photography expedition to Antarctica