Photography Fraud

It's amazing how sometimes human being will go to an extent for honour. This will include through ways which go against one's integrity.

I discovered an article about photography fraud on last week's Sunday Times (of Singapore), and then I saw a journal entry in DeviantArt today regarding the matter today.

Photojournalism is definitely one intricate and difficult kind of photography. You have to be at the right time and the right place. That's what makes it hard.

Photojournalism means news photography.

Well, we're not always at the right time and the right place all the time. Some photographers, as they try to make up for this, photomanipulates some pictures of theirs, combining two or several different images of theirs using Photoshop to make a 'perfect' photo. All this for the sake of the photos being bought by some giant magazine or news companies, and of course honour.

I think photography fraud is a total disrespect to photography as a form of art. Let's be honest, the honour that you gained from your fake picture will never be a long lasting one. Some way or another, someone will find out that you're a cheat.

Four types of photography fraud of Lebanon-Israel War:
1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.
2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.
3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.
4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

You will then lose others' respect as a photographer, and as a person as well.

I will never want that to happen to me.

Ever.

Some examples:

Case 1

Here's a lady wailing about her housebeing destroyed. Reuters wrote this picture is taken at 22 July 2006.

Here's a (same) lady wailing about her house being destroyed (again). Reuters wrote the picture is taken at 5 August 2006.

Here's a (picture of the same) lady wailing about her house being destroyed (for the third time!) This picture is on the cover of the July 22 edition of the London magazine The Spectator.

Ehmmm... how many houses does this lady has (or had)? O_o

Case 2

Before Photoshop

After Photoshop (more specifically, clone stamps haha)

Hmm.. the second case I think is more obvious. The person really has poor skills with Adobe Photoshop. Bad move!

Case 3 (the funniest one)

Mickey...

And his female companion...

And his tiger companion from Aladdin..

And some unknown outsider.

Hmm... so many toy shots. I won't be surprised if Panda Z turned out in one of the shot.

All pictures taken from http://zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/
Do visit the site for more examples.

Cheers.