Photojournalist excluded for excessive photoshopping

[bajasurf]

The following is from "The Online Photographer" website.

" The Danish Press Photography Union has excluded photojournalist Klavs Bo Christensen from the judging for this yearīs Press Photo Awards due to excessive photoshopping. I donīt read Danish, but the comparisons of the submitted pictures and the raw files in the online article are pretty elequent all by themselves."
The link to the Danish press release including photos.

http:http://www.pressefotografforbundet.d...x.php?id=11374

[tdesanto]

The following is from "The Online Photographer" website.

" The Danish Press Photography Union has excluded photojournalist Klavs Bo Christensen from the judging for this yearīs Press Photo Awards due to excessive photoshopping. I donīt read Danish, but the comparisons of the submitted pictures and the raw files in the online article are pretty elequent all by themselves."
The link to the Danish press release including photos.

http:www.pressefotografforbundet.dk/index.php?id=11374

The photoshop editing does seem a bit heavy-handed, but no more than can be done with other, legacy tools of the trade.

Maybe it's because the end result is more artistic rather than journalistic. I mention that, since the award appears to be strictly for photojournalism.

[Colorado David]

The finished photos looked a little over saturated and perhaps a little heavy handed with the HDR. That said, his raw files appeared to be under-saturated. I think that a post processing program can be used to give the finished photograph the effect that the photographer saw at the time of taking the photo and still be considered photo journalism. These may have crossed that line, but he did not use post processing to remove anything that was there or put in elements that weren't there. Some time ago the Arizona Magazine printed an apology to its readers because they had discovered that the photographer of one of their cover photos had cloned out a distracting foreground twig. If you were bound by the NANPA truth in captioning guidelines, you would have to caption that photo as a Photo Illustration. I think that might go a little far. I have a photo of a very nice bull elk, still in velvet, in heavy cover. I cloned out a twig that went right across his eye.

[ThomD]

Good call. That editing is too much for a journalist.

[TreeTopFlyer]

Had those photos been in black and white and the photographer used heavy contrast dodge and burn to give a more dramatic effect would the same be said?

I shoot a lot of both color and B&W, as most of you know you can take a simple color pic and make it MUCH more dramatic by putting it in black and white, tweak the contrast etc. You can bring out deeper emotions in my opinion. Had those photos been in black and white and the photographer used heavy contrast dodge and burn to give a more dramatic effect would the same be said?

I shoot a lot of both color and B&W, as most of you know you can take a simple color pic and make it MUCH more dramatic by putting it in black and white, tweak the contrast etc. You can bring out deeper emotions in my opinion.

Some of the raw files are so flat and bland that I wouldn't bother using them. If this guy was trying to evoke despair, the raw files didn't do it for me. It was a bit much, but to each his own.

I love these arguments, photoshopping, digital processing. I had a 30 minute debate with an 80yr old woman named Betty. Sweet as could be, nice, polite, the stereotypical grandma. She was a photographer, had been doing it for quite some time. When we started talking shop and I pulled out my D200, the gloves came off and we went at. She was firmly against digital, she contended that the computer did it all for me, all I did was push a button.

I think she saw that I was a young guy and assumed I had never shot film. Hell I cut my teeth on film for years, won state awards for my photos in my school newspaper columns and such. But even with her knowing I was an avid photographer she still remained a purist.

I went off on that tangent because I wonder if the people who excluded that journalist are bent about using digital post processing and have a hard time breaking away from the tried and true smell of developer. Would they have been so critical if it were a more traditional B&W photo, but yet still heavily processed with deeps shadows and blacks to bring out that emotional tug that you see in Life magazine photos? Processing is processing, you manipulate in a dark room or on a screen. Doing it on my computer actually take me more time often I think.

Perhaps I am off base, but the purist argument is always the first place my mind goes when I hear the PS word.


Some of the raw files are so flat and bland that I wouldn't bother using them. If this guy was trying to evoke despair, the raw files didn't do it for me. It was a bit much, but to each his own.

I love these arguments, photoshopping, digital processing. I had a 30 minute debate with an 80yr old woman named Betty. Sweet as could be, nice, polite, the sterotypical grandma. She was a photographer, had been doing it for quite some time. When we started talking shop and I pulled out my D200, the gloves came off and we went at. She was firmly against digital, she contended that the computer did it all for me, all I did was push a button.

I think she saw that I was a young guy and assumed I had never shot film. Hell I cut my teeth on film for years, won state awards for my photos in my school newspaper columns and such. But even with her knowing I was an avid photographer she still remained a purist.

I went off on that tagent because I wonder if the people who excluded that jounalist are bent about using digital post processing and have a hard time breaking away from the tried and true smell of developer. Would they have been so critical if it were a more traditional B&W photo, but yet still heavily processed with deeps shawdows and blacks to bring out that emotional tug that you see in Life magainze photos? Processing is processing, you manipulate in a dark room or on a screen. Doing it on my computer actually take me more time often I think.

Perhaps I am off base, but the purist argument is always the first place my mind goes when I hear the PS word.

[ThomD]

Had those photos been in black and white and the photographer used heavy contrast dodge and burn to give a more dramatic effect would the same be said? <snip>

Perhaps I am off base, but the purist argument is always the first place my mind goes when I hear the PS word.

Yes, the same would be said. Journalists are held to a very high standard that severely limits how they can manipulate a photo.

When it isn't a question of journalism, do what ever pleases you.