"Frozen Moments In Time"

      In light of this week's reading, I decided to explore the idea of photography ethics, as this topic was what jumped out to me the most from the reading. I found a video of The National Press Photographer Association's compilation of digital photography manipulations, and I thought it was interesting that they quoted: "As journalists we believe the guiding principle of our profession is accuracy; therefore, we believe it is wrong to alter the content of a photograph in any way that deceives the public."

    Normally, I'll admit, I love photoshop, and even the Camera Plus application on my iPhone that lets me digitally alter pictures in a way that makes it much more appealing; almost 3-D. I can even fool other people into thinking that I am a good photographer, when in reality it's photoshop and the filters that are essentially the masterminds behind the attractiveness and quality of the photograph. I do even believe that alterations of photography in some cases, aren't necessarily negative. However though, in some contexts such as war photography, I find it incredibly not only deceiving and unethical, but also a complete abuse of their job as a photojournalist. 

   As NPPA stated that their principle of profession is accuracy, I think that a photojournalists job is really to capture the story, which when done ethically and correctly can be extremely powerful. When pictures are altered such as the one below, it seems to me that they are almost in a sense manipulating history. Although that sounds incredibly dramatic for just a few differences in a photograph, I think that it is the photojournalists responsibility to report back to the rest of the world with exactly the way history presented itself in reality, because that is all the rest of us who were not at the scene of the event have to look back upon and maybe even someday use those photographs as a learning tool for other generations to come. It's also even more upsetting because the photographer who took this picture used it for his benefit to put himself higher on the photography spectrum, as the photograph ran on Page One of Times, which I would say is quite an honor. 

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030409.htm

     I also found another article on BBC, called "How Fake Images Change Our Memory and Behavior," about how people think of memories as a transcript - basically a compilation of everything they have experienced from when they were a child to their current experiences, but in reality our memory "is far more like a desert mirage than a transcript – as we recall the past we are really just making meaning out of the flickering patterns of sights, smells and sounds we think we remember." Science has also proved through dozens and dozens of research that our memory actually is not very reliable - when we see pictures, we remember them but not necessarily all the details so when we recall things, our imagination may be filling in the gaps of what we don't remember. In the article, there was also one study done where some people were shown photographs from their childhood, along with several pictures that were photoshopped to make it look like they were doing things that didn't actually happen (i.e family on a hot air balloon), and half of the participants said that they recalled those events happening in real life, even though they didn't.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121213-fake-pictures-make-real-memories