Speaking as a photojournalist and editor whose work is entered in contests every year, the pressure to produce prizewinning photos is immense. The photographers are usually awarded substantial bonuses for winning photos, plus the paper in question (or its parent company) gets bragging rights. Most will overlook a lot for a good contest entry. It seems his parent paper is being a bit disingenuous in suspending him when I'm sure they knew very well what was done to those photos, and may have actually directed him to do it. As you can see, there is also obvious incentive for competing photographer to either rat out another or at least try to cast some doubt over the photo. Sadly, if they go back and look at the runners-up in his category, they'll probably find the same thing.
I don't think what he did was terribly wrong, but I don't think it was terribly right, either. I hate to say this, but when you see a news photo that appears too perfect, the timing too fortuitous - just too good to be true, it probably is. It's especially apparent when you've covered the same event at the same time, and you know for sure what you see in the other guy's photo didn't happen that way. I knew one photographer who staged every photo he took. It's not just the photographer's fault. The name of the game is circulation, which leads to ad dollars. Once you win, they expect you to keep on winning. It's especially bad at the dailies, where the stakes are the highest. And a lot of those editors, if they smell a winner, will be more than happy to make that "little" alteration for you, if you haven't done it yourself. ----- Original Message ----- From: "tom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 10:59 AM Subject: RE: PDN article > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Mark Roberts [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > "T Rittenhouse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > >I wondered why Schneider was singled out to be made an > > example of, the PDN > > >article makes that clear. A jealous competitor in the > > contest complained. > > > > I don't know if the photographers who complained were > > competitors, but > > there certainly seems to be some political sub text of this > > kind going > > on. I find it very suspicious that the Charlotte Observer won't let > > anyone see the unaltered files so they can be compared to > > the published > > photos. > > On the way out of town I picked up a copy of the Observer to read the > article Patrick had mentioned would be coming out. The article is on > the editorial page, and shows the unaltered version of the shot of the > 2 firefighters commiserating at a funeral. You can find the altered > version on the Observer site. > > In the background you can see some "stuff", thrown way out of focus by > DOF. If you look at it for a second, one is obviously a person in > uniform, from the neck down. There might be a head above one of the > fireman's heads. > > In the final version, the background is black. It's also been cropped. > > tv > > >
