Don’t Tempt Me, Photoshop! Part 1

True Confessions: When I worked for a daily newspaper, I altered several photos on one project before they went in the paper. And, given the same situation, I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

The Justification: Ever tried to herd cats? If so, then you know what it’s like to take group shots of 10 kindergarten classes in one day.

The Explanation: Every year, the paper I was working on put together a special section titled “The Class of Present Year +12” (in 2003, it would be “The Class of 2015,” etc.). In it, we’d take pictures of every kindergarten class in the county’s schools (and not just the public schools, my friends; the private schools, too. If you think 5-year-olds in private schools behave better than their peers in the public system, think again). Once we gathered all these images of the precious tots, we’d package it all together, sell advertising to companies that wanted to be part of a “feel good” project, and then make sure everyone’s parents knew that Little Johnny and Janie were going to be in the paper that day, so buy 12 copies!

Win/Win, everyone’s happy, right? Well, not if you’re the one that had to traipse around to all these far-flung schools and try to get 20 or so little germ factories to sit still and look at the same point for five or 10 seconds. Generally, when taking a photo of any group, you take two or three, in case someone blinks. In this case, I’d take four or five, because, invariably, some future jackass that will be your kid’s co-worker at some point would decide this was their big moment and do their best Broadway jazz-hands, usually elbowing their buddy next to them. Chaos ensued.

(By the way, I really don’t have anything against kids, who are, on average, perfectly lovely people. Just want to throw that out there. But I’m sure that even the most doting of parents will, at their most truthful, admit that they wish their kids would, sometimes, just cut the crap. The thing to keep in mind is that these weren’t MY KIDS.)

So, when I’d get back to the newsroom (and I’m using the term “news” pretty loosely right now), I’d take a look at the photos and see that, of the four pictures I had, about 20% of the kids were looking off in the distance, blinking, or otherwise not putting their best face forward. And it wasn’t just me; everyone’s pictures had the same problems.

Then it occurred to me. Out of four shots, all the kids were looking at the camera at some point, just not all at the same time. Since I didn’t move, and since they stayed (pretty much) in the same positions, it would be easy to make a composite shot in Photoshop. The devil on my right shoulder said “do it.” The angel on my left said “Meh, whatever.”

So, in summary, if you had a child in kindergarten sometime during the first half of this decade, at a certain school system, there’s a good chance that I cut off your kid’s head, and depending on how much trouble they were, I wasn’t always gentle. But, hey, YOUR kids were probably looking at the camera and smiling, right? It’s those damn other people’s children who are the troublemakers, so no worries.

The point of this long, slightly rambly story is that, now that digital photography is everywhere, it’s easy to doctor photos with programs such as Photoshop, and the temptation can sometimes be overwhelming. It’s easy to say “I’d never doctor a photograph that was going to be published,” it’s hard not to bump up the contrast, remove the red-eye, make this part of the photo a little lighter, that part a little darker (just to help the composition, you understand)…. At what point does it go from touch-up work to forged photography?

Simply messing with the lightness and darkness of photographs (called “dodging and burning,”) got Time Magazine in a spot of trouble when they ran a picture of O.J. Simpson’s mug shot after the slow-speed Bronco chase. While Newsweek ran the photo pretty much as is, Time’s version was darker and more sinister. The illustrator responsible said that he wanted to make the image “more artful, more compelling,” by illustrating the shadow that had fallen over a then-loved sports figure (it’s true – O.J. Simpson at one time played football). Enough people saw it as “demonizing the black man” that time did something they had to that point never done – they pulled the cover and replaced it so that the one that hit the newsstands was a much less controversial shot (only subscribers to the “evil” cover, so call now!).

Of course, photo retouching isn’t a new game. Russia was an old pro at it in the 1920’s (pre-Photoshop). Probably the most famous case was that of Leon Trotsky, a friend of Lenin who ran afoul of Stalin’s politics. Suddenly, like a teenage boyfriend who cheated, he was eliminated from the photo albums, and from the public record. When you consider the technology the Soviets  had to work with, it wasn’t a bad job, actually.

Next week, we’ll take a look at modern examples — some funny, some not-so-much — of altered photos being used to tell stories that should never have been told.

TO BE CONTINUED…