truth

Vietnamese photojournalist Doan Cong Tinh is apologizing for a Photoshopped Vietnam War photo that he "mistakenly" sent out and had published in an international exhibition.

Charleroi is a town of about 200,000 people in Belgium that has fallen upon some tough times in recent years due to increases in unemployment, poverty, and crime. Italian photojournalist Giovanni Troilo pointed his lens at the city last year, capturing a gloomy photo essay titled "The Dark Heart of Europe." The images were recently awarded 1st prize at the prestigious World Press Photo contest in the Contemporary Issues category.

The contest, which already got a black eye after 20% of the finalists were disqualified for unethical photo editing, has another messy problem on its hands: the town is accusing Troilo of staging his winning photos.

Is it the best job ever? Well yeah, sometimes, most of the time really, but it also comes along with some bullsh** that not everybody realizes. I know that most people would imagine being a photographer is all glamour, all fun, all exciting... well here's some things that really happen...

While covering the "re-occupation” protest in Mong Kok on Thursday night, an Apple Daily cameraman was arrested by police after he allegedly assaulted a police officer with his camera and then resisted arrest.

There's just one problem with this story, told to the press by police: it's not true. The video above captured by a South China Morning Post reporter paints a very different picture.

If you browse around online, even if you stay away from the magazine covers with their models liquified into long-legged oblivion, you will be hard-pressed to find professional portraits of women that are as honest and raw as the ones featured on RAW Beauty Talks.

That's because this organization, dedicated to empowering women through portrait photography and an honest conversation about beauty, doesn't just do away with photo manipulation in its portraits... it does away with anything meant to enhance or cover up the way the models actually look.

Yet another prize winning photographer has been accused of visual deception. Subsequently, Paul Hansen’s World Press Photo of the Year passed the forensic review that was set up hurriedly -- by WPP -- to address the scandal, but it has become clear that the image was substantially “improved” in post-production.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence may be fine with excessive Photoshopping, but advertising regulatory authorities in the United States aren't of the same opinion. We reported back in 2011 that the UK had banned certain advertisements for excessive Photoshop work, and that the US was moving in the same direction.

On April 8, 2011, Senator Jon Kyl was quoted on the Senate floor as saying, "If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that’s well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does."

This is not a post about abortion or Planned Parenthood. This is a discussion about veracity and why it matters in photojournalism. In fact, about 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services are abortion-related. When Sen. Kyl was confronted with the facts, his office responded with “his remark was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Back in 2009, Popular Photography announced the winning photos of its latest Reader’s Photos Contest. Two of the winners (shown above) had some photographers scratching their heads, due to the fact that they're "Photoshop jobs" rather than non-manipulated stills.

Jonathon Keats of Forbes has a great piece discussing truth in photography and …

In the beginning of last month, Nokia was caught faking sample photos and footage in a promo video for the camera on its new Lumia 920 phone. A couple of weeks later, bogus information about camera sensors was found on the official website for Hasselblad's new Lunar mirrorless camera. This week, we have a new episode of "camera marketing fail" for you, this time brought to you by Phase One.

Photographs of of Syria these days are filled with grim sights of pain and suffering. One Austrian newspaper apparently …

The New York Times has an interesting article examining how retouching has spread …

During the 9/11 attacks in NYC, Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker shot what is perhaps the most controversial image created that day: a photo that appears to show a group of young people casually enjoying themselves while the World Trade Center burns in the background. Hoepker kept the image under wraps for four years and then caused quite a stir after publishing it in a 2006 book. Columnist Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that "The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American."

Photography author Ben Long has a thought-provoking article over at CreativePro in which …

Here's an interesting video in which acclaimed documentary filmmaker Errol Morris (the guy who directed The Fog of War) talks about the issue of truth in photography, and how he thinks we've forgotten that there's a connection between photos to the physical world.

The debate regarding what makes a photograph "truthful" or not is probably as old as the art of photography itself. By sheer coincidence, there were a couple interesting articles published today on this issue, and written from two different points-of-view.