State of the Art

Question of the Day: Should Retouchers Get Photo Credits?

Yesterday I bumped into the inimitable Laurie Kratochvil, photo editor par excellence, who told me to make sure and read the profile of digital retoucher Pascal Dangin in this week’s issue of The New Yorker
   The profile is interesting, in the thoughtful, thorough, and long way that New Yorker articles tend to be. But it raises some important points about the art of photography now.
     Dangin is the owner and resident genius of Box Studios in New York, the place where lots of big fashion photographers, magazines, and advertisers get their images perfected for print. “His success lies…in his ability to marry technical prowess to an aesthetic sensibility: his clients are paying for his eye, and his mind, as much as for his hand,” writes the article’s author, Lauren Collins.
     At this point I think we’re all aware of how important retouchers have become to the photographic process. Often, as the article points out, it is Dangin who creates a successful image by altering the work a photographer has already done.
     So I have a question I’d like to put out into the world: Should retouchers like Dangin be given photo credits when their work results in something useful? If it truly is his artistry that makes an image work, shouldn’t we know that? Of course that might upset lots of photographers. But what do you think?
     (Above: A photo of Dangin for the New Yorker by Josef Astor. I don’t know if it was retouched.)—David Schonauer

Flickr Superstar Profiled in Times Magazine

I’ve been keeping a secret for a while now, and it’s time I just let it out, so here goes: I totally don’t follow the whole Flickr thing. I check out images there from time to time, but I don’t know who the big stars and major personalities are. By now I should be an upstanding member of the Flickr community, since I write about photography, but instead I spend all my spare time working.
    So I was really interested in a piece in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine by Vigrinia Heffernan about Rebekka Guoleifsdottir, describes as “one of Flickr’s most popular photographers.
    The point of the story was that some savvy photographers have learned how to perfect a “Flickr style”—images that look good in thumbnail form, with fulsome digital manipulation—and how to work the social networking aspect of the site to make herself more popular.
     As the piece points out, Guoleifsdottir, who lives in Iceland, isn’t shy about posting images of herself (above, for example). She eventually became so popular on Flickr that she was hired to do a Toyota ad campaign.
      I’d be interested in hearing from Flickr members if they believe there is particular style of photography that defines a new aesthetic. Do film images really get shouted down because they seem out of focus? Is it wrong to game the Flickr system in order to become popular? (Analog artists have been doing that forever.)–David Schonauer

Opinions Fly About Julianne Moore Photos

The May edition of Paris Vogue features some very, very interesting images of actress Julianne Moore, shot by Mario Testino. Oh, the fashion blogs have been buzzing with opinions. Some people loved it. Others...more on that later.
    Moore has graced the covers of dozens of magazines--there is something about her alabaster skin, red hair, and ability to freeze a glacial expression that photographers and editors love. Her cool elevates what would be a fashion picture into something kinda artistic. (Helmut Newton could do it with just about any woman, but he really could do it with Sigourney Weaver.)
    Some bloggers really resented the crotch-on-the-cover thing. Lewd? With Moore's presence, I think the crotch was unnecessary. The inside shot of her in a sheer top is neither lewd nor unnecessary--it's brilliant.
    Several of the blogs I read seemed most upset with the fact that Moore is posing for shots like this at age 47. That's ridiculous. Sexy is sexy, and sometimes 47 is sexiest. 
    The important thing here is to note that this is Paris Vogue, and it fits perfectly into the culture and tradition of that magazine. Your opinion?
    Age aside, Moore looks a lot better than Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover of the May American Vogue. She's been Photoshopped into something unrecognizable.--David Schonauer
   

Is This Any Way To Treat An Iconic Image?

I saw this week's Time magazine cover while getting coffee at our local newsstand, and I must tell you, I felt odd about it. As a visual device, the idea of using Joe Rosenthal's famous World War II image of the flag raising at Iwo Jima as the basis for a cover about global warming...well, it seemed just over-labored. I can't quite bring myself to equate the bitter fight for Mount Suribachi with the effort to control climate change. I think for me it's an aesthetic thing, however, not an emotional one.  According to this report, some war veterans also object to the cover, on very emotional grounds. (I don't agree with the guy who says Time's editors are going to hell for this. I just don't like the cover.) Who's right? Should iconic images be off limits to other uses? --David Schonauer

The Little Lens That Could

The Lensbaby, an ingenious optic that brings view-camera style selective focus effects to digital, 35mm, and medium-format photography, just keeps on rockin'. The new movie-camera version of the lens, which we've covered in this space before, has been used by director Eric Schmidt to shoot a new music video for Bruce Springsteen's "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." Watch it (below) and you may long for something sharp!
--Russell Hart

Art Direction Run Amok: Great Photoshop Gaffs

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. Here's a very funny post about some ridiculously bad art directing judgments. Lesson: It's not always the photographer's fault! Oh, and let me add, it's Photoshop, not PhotoShop.--David Schonauer

The Lensbaby and the Diving Bell

Our Photography and the Movies issue, just out, proves that there’s a happily thin line between still and moving pictures—at least for the artists who ply both media. The respective technologies of film and photography have certainly crossed over in many ways. Canon’s D-SLR lenses borrow optical tricks from their video and film counterparts, for example. And going the other way, the Lensbaby (below)—which started life as an innovative still-photography tool—has now played a starring role in an Oscar-nominated French-produced film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
 

The Photo as Evidence: Female Life on Mars?

With the economy melting down and Heath Ledger dying, I nearly missed this photo, which apparently has been shooting around the Internet. Have you seen it? This unlikely report says it was taken on Mars by the Spirit Rover, which has been prowling around the Red Planet for a while. Lots of people think it's a female alien. Others think it's a rock. I'm suspecting some photo manipulation.
--David Schonauer

What Sucks in Photography, in Our Opinion

Does everything suck? Sometimes it seems so. (And almost always after a long weekend.) The new issue of Wired lists a number of things that suck, including air travel, batteries, spam filters, credit cards, vending machines, plastic packaging, and human knees. That got us to thinking of photographic things that suck. Here are a few suggestions from the American Photo staff. (Check them out and then send in your own suggestions. You can also tell us what you think doesn’t suck.)

Portrait of a Dead Man

When John Darwin, the "back from the dead" canoeist, turned himself in to British authorities five years after disappearing and claimed he'd suffered a bad case of amnesia, his story seemed a bit, well, fishy. But it was a photograph, and the power of Google, that got him arrested for fraud. The picture (above left) shows Darwin with his wife and is dated July 2006; its publication by the Daily Mirror prompted a feeding frenzy in the British Press and elicited a confession from the missus, as widely reported. Initial stories (such as this one by Time) included the possibility that the photo was rigged: "We all know it is not too difficult, in this digital age, to doctor photographs," said police spokesman Tony Hutchinson. But the image's date, like the photo itself, was recorded on the Web — and traced by a British woman using Google, according to this report. Funny how a single photo can undo a web of lies. Given their names and suspected deeds, the couple should definitely be eligible for next year's Darwin Awards. — Jack Crager

Cover Story, Part III: Ugly Betty Photoshopped?

How much photo manipulation is too much? The controversy still rages, and always will. The October issue of Glamour magazine featured actress America Ferrera--TV's Ugly Betty--on its cover, and she seemed suddenly slimmed. At least she did to Gawker's Jezebel blog, which compared the cover to a shot of Ferrera at this year's Emmy awards, which took place the same week the Glamour cover hit newsstands. However, as reported in this post on the blog of trade magazine Folio, Glamour denies that any retouching was done.
    Folio philosophically mentions that photo manipulation has long been a common practice when it comes to polishing up magazine covers. They back that assertion up with a quote from George Karabotsos, design director of Men's Health magazine, which got caught earlier this year adding inches to the biceps of tennis  pro Andy Roddick for a rippling cover shot. Karabotsos does err when he mentions that National Geographic was manipulating photos as far back as 1952, when the pyramids were moved around to improve the composition of a cover photo. That did happen, but it 1982. (We'll kindly assume it was a typo or a young reporter's poor dictation skills.)  My feeling is that consumers probably expect that cover photos are manipulated nowadays. I'm not even sure people even consider cover photos as actual photos. They look at them as illustrations.   
--David Schonauer

OJ: The New Mug Shot

It seems like only yesterday that we were dealing with the controversy surrounding Time magazine's use of the OJ Simpson mug shot. That was when he was arrested for murder. Time and Newsweek both ran covers, but Time's version was altered by artist Matt Mahurin to look darker and...more sinister. Accused of racism and poor journalistic ethics, Time's then-managing editor James Gaines had to issue an apology. In many ways the episode marked the coming of age of digital imaging technology, sparking much debate over the sanctity of reality in photographs. Now we have a new OJ mug shot to deal with. What a strange world we live in. I assume that all news outlets will just run picture just as it was distributed by the Las Vegas police.
--David Schonauer

Fun Photo Things You Can Really, Really Do

Well, we've just wrapped our November/December issue of American Photo and sent it to the printer, which means...we've have lots of time on our hands to waste. And there is no better way to do that than by cruising the Internet for fun photo tips. And there is no better place to look for ridiculously amusing things to do with pictures than Photojojo.com. This blog is just  full of useful projects and online tricks. Some of my favorites:

China Air-brushed

As a dozen or more Nikon executives and photo press boarded a Japan Air flight bound for Tokyo on Monday in preparation for Nikon’s big press conference and new digital SLR announcements, we were greeted with harrowing images of the China Airlines jet bursting into flames after landing in Okinawa that very day. This isn’t exactly the type of thing you want to see on the big video screen just before takeoff, but that’s what we were faced with.

Luckily no one was seriously injured, except China Air’s already tarnished reputation. Now news outlets in Japan are reporting that shortly after the fire, China Airlines officials had workers paint over the company’s name and tail logo on the burnt jet as a way to minimize the PR disaster of further news photographs. The whitewashing is an effective if dishonest PR move, and apparently it’s fairly common practice in these situations, though a quick web search couldn't turn up any other verified cases.

Although this is not the typical type of image manipulation we normally cover in this space, it is a very interesting and sophisticated case of media management. Soon (if not already) the destroyed plane will be concealed somewhere far away from news photographers as investigators look into the causes of the fire. My question is this: should newspapers and websites who run the whitewashed photo point out that fact in the photo captions? Has anyone seen this in their local papers?

-Jay DeFoore

(Photos found here.)

Annals of Airbrushing: How Much is Too Much?

My personal opinion is that almost everyone who looks at a celebrity portrait these days just assumes that it has been digitally retouched. And usually we just don't care. In fact, we actually want a degree of perfection in our celebrities, whether they're appearing in advertising or editorial layouts. I equate it with looking at cars in magazines. Who would want to see my dented Honda Civic (reality) when they could gaze at new Porche or BMW (fantasy)? Working in publishing, I also know just how much work a brilliant digital retoucher can do to a celebrity image. But retouchers (and the editors they work for) have to exhibit some sense of taste--we want our fantasies to be believable at some level. Clearly, the people at Allure went overboard in their new issue, which features a vastly slimmed down and cleaned up Britney Spears. (Go here for more images.) And now I read reports that beautiful actress Keira Knightly is unhappy about how she appears in the new Chanel campaign, in which she appear with ample side-boobage. Where do we draw the line on retouching? Or should we just shut up and accept it?
--David Schonauer

Yellow Journalism

And now for something completely different -- wait, wrong film! Before you go to the new Simpsons movie you might want to get in the spirit of D'oh! by simpsonizing yourself. Go to simpsonizeme.com, use the simpsonizing machine to upload a tight photo of yourself and answer a few questions about your appearance -- and, after some extended sound effects, you're rendered as a character from the best cartoon in history. We can't tell you what algorithm the site uses, but it did an uncanny job on one of our editors, as you can see below. (cell phone photo by David Schonauer) -- Russell Hart

When Do Photos Lie?

When I was a newspaper editor, one constant directive to photographers was to "give us good captions with your pictures." This wasn't because people on the copy desk didn't want the trouble of writing the text blocks; it was because the reportorial tasks of the photographer included the  who-what-when-where-why-&-how that any news event required (as taught in J-101) and because we figured without clear captions, the readers would be lost.

I recently came across a blog on the New York Times Website that delves further into the relationship between captions and photos, to the point of suggesting the meaning of a picture changes if it is not described with text. Titled "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire," this piece is by Errol Morris, a respected documentary filmmaker whose work includes The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line, and other provocative movies that explore the relationship between the press, public-relations machines, the real truth and manufactured appearances.

One of Morris's points about still photography is that a "captionless photograph, stripped of all context, is virtually meaningless," that the photo may or may not be true or false on its own, but the viewer cannot make a full judgment without words. Among examples he cites is the photo above which, Morris argues, doesn't mean much without a identifying label.

New Photoshop Contest: Medical Anomalies

I have a very bad feeling about this new contest. I'm afraid my doctor might want to enter! Sponsored by Worth100.com, it's a competition for those who really like messing around with Photoshop. The idea is to take medical images like x-rays, CAT scans, sonograms, etc., and manipulate them to show strange conditions. It's like The Island of Dr. Moreau for the high-tech set. I've got to figure that American Photo readers can ace this contest. The bigger question is whether we think this kind of manipulation work will eventually be considered an art form independent of photography? Or is it already one? Viewpoints, please!
--David Schonauer

Where to Go and What to See

It's official. Digital imaging has now been around long enough to warrant an "Evolution of" show -- and I for one am ecstatic. The Evolution of the Digital Portrait, opening June 28 at ClampArt in NYC, looks back at the last 35 years or so, during which digital portraits went from cutting edge to completely second nature. I'm really interested to see the techniques developed by Nancy Burson and MIT in the 70s to create composite portraits, not least of all because it was later purchased by the FBI to create "aged" portraits of missing persons. But I have to say I'm even more excited to see the opposing views artists have taken of the "meaning" of digital imaging, from bleak to innocuous, and to feel that we have come out safely on the other side. Because as happy as I am to see a curated selection of different photographer's attitudes towards "the digital," I'm a little sick of it being the major theme of too many projects. From the ClampArt press release: "Noah Kalina, the youngest artist in the exhibition, uses digital photography as a matter of fact, harnessing a technology that is so second nature, so innately ingrained, it requires no elaborate address." That's what I like to hear -- and see.

~Miki Johnson

(Photo: © Noah Kalina/Courtesy NoahKalina.com)

Aperture Event: April 11

Feeling Nostalgic, another Tip of the Tongue Heated Debate from the Aperture/Art+Commerce series, will examine "photographic" holdovers that still have sway in the digital age. What should photography keep from its analog past? What do we do with prints? Where is digital imaging and online sharing taking the industry? Moderator Charlotte Cottong, head of cultural programs at Art+Commerce will put these questions to panelists such as photographer Sze Tsung Leong, whose book History Images was voted one of American Photo's 10 Best Photo Books of 2006.

6:30 pm
Free and open to the public
Aperture Gallery
547 W. 27th St., 4th Floor
New York City

Bromoil with the Master

One of my favorite forms of “antiquarian” photographic printmaking, the bromoil process, is also one of the scarcest. That may be because of the difficulty in getting it right. Bromoil seems simple and direct—no need to make enlarged internegatives, for one thing—and that was partly why I was inspired to try it myself some years ago. I struggled with it, made a small group of pictures, then gave it up.

How Math Might Help Spot Photo Forgeries

Documentary photographer Ken Light, who now teaches photography in the journalism department of the University of California at Berkeley, sent us a tip about an intriguing article in this week's Science News Online. The article details how a computer scientist at Dartmouth College is using mathematics to determine when and how photographs have been manipulated. Apparently the software he's developed is pretty effective: The Associated Press has him examine potentially "fishy"  pictures made by the agency's photographers.

The story was of particular interest to Light, because one of the examples used in the article involved a picture he made long ago.

Lego My Atget

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what is it when you publish an entire book of historically important photographs recreated in Legos? Unfortunately, my knowledge of Spanish does not get me quite far enough into the Galician text to understand why they are made out of Legos. The simplest point of the book is to take us on a "journey" through the history of photography, beginning with Niepce and running through Robert Capa and Robert Frank. And because it makes my head spin to try to parse the layers of meaning in a photograph of a scene made from toys to represent an image that has reached iconic standing...I'll instead just praise the following Lego-ized images as especially accurate: Capa's "Falling Soldier" (above) and Frank's cover shot from "The Americans" (below). Originally via Kottke.
~Miki Johnson

Where to Go and What to See

As the darkroom seems to draw daily closer to obsolescence, The Camera Club of New York has done its small part to counter the trend with its Darkroom Residency Program. The one-year-old program gives jury-chosen photographers the chance to use the club's darkrooms for free for a month. The work of 19 emerging photographers who have participated in the program will be on display at the club's Alfred Lowenherz Gallery beginning Feb. 7. Saks Fifth Avenue is paying a separate tribute to the club, whose members have included Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, and Edward Steichen, in its show windows beginning Feb. 13. Three Saks windows on 5th Avenue and two on 50th Street will house plasma screens displaying photographs from the club's archives.

Follow the link for details on this event and others around the country.

Adding Pounds with Photoshop

Linda Wells, editor in chief of Allure magazine, says that models now are so skinny that her magazine needs to add pounds to them with a computer. See the article in Womens Wear Daily here.

Strung-out Stringers

This article in today's New York Times alerted us to the Reuters/Yahoo venture You Witness News, the newest in a spate of recent attempts to integrate "citizen journalism" into mainstream news organizations. Here's the gist:

"Starting tomorrow, the photos and videos submitted will be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News, the most popular news Web site in the United States, according to comScore MediaMetrix. Reuters said that it would also start to distribute some of the submissions next year to the thousands of print, online and broadcast media outlets that subscribe to its news service. Reuters said it hoped to develop a service devoted entirely to user-submitted photographs and video."

Another TV News Anchor Photoshop Job

Yet another case of a female news anchor being exhibited in a manipulated image. This time, apparently, it was a magazine, Marie Claire, that did the work, sticking the head of 20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas onto the body of a model breast feeding a baby while sitting at a news desk. As Borat would say, "Naughty, naughty...."
David Schonauer

Where to Go and What to See

We know you're all a little tired of hearing about the New York gallery scene, so this week's list is rich with listings from all the other art meccas that so often are unfairly overshadowed by the Big Apple.

This also seems to be the week of the concept exhibition. From predicting photography's movers and shakers for the next three decades to taking multi-faceted looks at war or the impact of a century of photography books, these shows remind us there are always infinite perspectives from which to view any topic—especially photography itself.

The Modern Photographer

Although the MoMA's latest photography exhibit is called "New Photography 2006," there is something that feels a little hashed over about the collection of works by three European photographers: Jonathan Monk, Barbara Probst, and Jules Spinatsch.

 

The Skinny on Thin

As a way to jolt the fashion industry out of its anorexic mindset, the banning of size-zero models from Madrid's catwalks was just fine in my opinion. I agree with Dave Schonauer's blog that the line should be drawn at a government mandate. But anyone who needs reminding that the female body-image crisis isn't limited to haute couture should check out Thin (Chronicle Books, $35), Lauren Greenfield's powerful new study of patients at a Florida eating disorders clinic.

Foreign Policy Meltdown

With all the negative attention being paid to photo manipulation these days, you'd think magazines would start to be a little more cautious when it comes to Photoshop work. But think again.

We were recently alerted to a shoddy piece of manipulation on the cover of Foreign Policy, an inside-the-beltway magazine that publishes essays on serious political and social subjects.

What is the proper position to assume when viewing a national tragedy?

Although it's been a long four days since Frank Rich wrote his column (now behind the TimeSelect pay wall) in the Sunday New York Times—centering on Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker's comments in David Friend's book  Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 about his 9/11 photo of five people watching smoke billow from the place where the towers used to be—I was finally compelled to join the fray today by Friend's own blog.

Ann Richards Rides Her Last Harley

Ann Richards, the flamboyant Texan, loyal Democrat, keen politician and all around good lady died Sept. 13 after a battle with esophageal cancer.

Having grown up in Texas I'll always remember Richards as "The Governor." But in the photo community, Richards will be remembered for an unfortunate Texas Monthly cover in which her head was spliced onto the body of a model striding a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.