Fauxtography

Legislators in Great Britain and France are out to protect reality -- or at least reality as portrayed in photographs.

Concerned that airbrushing alterations (often made with the software Photoshop) have gotten out of hand and that the practice is creating misleading expectations, both countries have proposals on the table that would require altered images to be labeled as such. The proposal in Great Britain, led by the Liberal Democrats, also aims to put a ban on...Go to full story

London Fog announces it has found a new use for Photoshop in their new media campaign. They openly used the software to "retouch" images of supermodel Gisele Bundchen's stomach area in order to remove her "baby bump." 

The Melbourne Herald Sun reports, “Nobody is sexier or more beautiful than Gisele Bundchen in nothing but a London Fog trench coat, even with her visible baby bump." So says London Fog’s Chief Marketing...Go to full story

Scott Kelby, president of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (yes, there is such an organization!), tells The Los Angeles Times that he believes "every single major magazine cover is retouched."

"Aside from U.S. newspapers, most of which do not permit photos to be manipulated," Los Angeles Times reporter Jeannine Stein writes, "it's quite possible that the vast majority of images seen in the public arena have been...Go to full story

In 2001, the Newseum in Washington DC first posted an ongoing online exhibition titled, "The Commissar Vanishes: The falsification of photographs in Stalin's Russia." They describe it as "a virtual exhibit exploring the censored history of the Soviet Union."

The Newseum describes itself as offering "visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits." In the...Go to full story

AFP reports that in June, TV Asahi Japan broadcast  "an exclusive image" of Kim Jong-Un from a "reliable person in South Korea." The image turned out to be a fake. Instead of a photo of Kim Jong Il's third son--who people speculate may be the next North Korean leader--TV Asahi had to retract the snapshot scoop they published as the image was of  "a South Korean construction worker."

Any image of Jong-Un would have great...Go to full story

Fred Towle Jr, director of sales and marketing for the weekly newspaper, The South Shore Press, told The Southhampton Press this week  that it's okay to doctor photos as long as you are adding stuff and not removing information from the image. 

The SH Press writes that Towle Jr. "a former Suffolk County legislator who resigned from his county post in 2003 after pleading guilty to receiving bribes in office, acknowledged this week that the paper...Go to full story

 Al Giordano's blog, The Field reports that "CubaDebate discovered the "white washing" of violence in Honduras by the "pro-coup newspaper, La Prensa."

Giordano writes: "The now-iconic photograph of the late 19-year-old Isis Obed Murillo, being carried by his friends to seek medical help moments after his shooting by gunmen during Sunday’s demonstrations in Tegucigalpa, was also published by the Honduran daily… Except...Go to full story

Chase Jarvis Blog reports that on June 24, "Two French students were awarded the annual Grand Prix du Photoreportage Etudiant last week to honor a photographic story that presented images documenting the precarious lives of students today and the things they must do in order to survive and succeed. The only catch is that the entire story was a fake." Guillaume Chauvin and Remi Huberr, enrolled as art students at Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of...Go to full story

Canada's National Post reports that the city of Toronto's summer "Fun Guide" cover was doctored to create an "ethnically diverse family." The image on top shows "the family" before the digital alterations, below which is the instantly more inclusive family after the photo surgery. The Post reports that John Gosgnach, a spokesperson for the agency that published the booklet, said an "African-Canadian" person's head "was superimposed...Go to full story

Mainstream media's new dependence on content from citizens opens new problems. Determining authenticity of weather photos is now part of a new job description for meteorologists, according to the blog Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal.  

Chief Meteorologist for WHNT NEWS 19 in Huntsville, Alabama, Dan Satterfield, writes: "I get hundreds of emails a week/sometimes each day. I try to answer as many as I can, but I and hundreds of my fellow...Go to full story