Steve Mccurry is one of the biggest names in all of photography. He traveled all throughout the world and photographed things to show and explain different cultures. He took photographs to document war, other conflicts, and everyday life in foreign places. He never had one specific employer, instead he captured things on his own and major magazines, like national geographic, bought his work. His most famous pieces include “The afghan girl”, which depicted a young girl in a war struck country with piercing green eyes that stare right through the camera. This piece, along with many others, ended up on the cover of National Geographic.
The purpose of photojournalism is to tell a news story through the use of images. Because the images are telling news, they have to be honest and depict the subject as close to reality as possible. Photojournalists can edit their images by changing light and contrast ect, so long as the meaning of the photograph is not changed. This results in a gray area regarding how far an image can be altered as long as the meaning behind it stays the same.
Steve Mccurry became familiar with this gray area when a poorly edited photograph of his was exposed. The original picture showed a man with a yellow sign post directly in his foreground cutting him in half. To fix the awkward image the sign was moved digitally so the man could be seen in full, except for a small piece at the base of the post that stayed at the original spot and blurred out a section of the man’s foot. Moving the sign to the right did not change any message that Steve Mccurry was trying to say with the photograph, all it did was make the picture more appealing. The photojournalism community was outraged by this and called him out for manipulating his images and creating “fake news”.
I do not think Steve Mccurry deserved the backlash from the sloppy photoshop job. The image was altered in a way that did not change its meaning or the message behind it, but only to change the aesthetic it had. Moving the sign in the cuban picture was not the first or last time he made an edit in that way. Other pictures surfaced in which he removed light poles, carts, limbs and even whole people. None of these digital changes significantly altered the stories behind the images however, they only made them better to look at. Steve Mccurry said that he never worked for one specific newspaper or magazine and instead he was a freelance photographer whose work was bought by such companies. In that case, the images he created were his and he is free to do whatever he wants to them. After being under fire for his altered photographs, he said that he will no longer be a photojournalist and is now a visual storyteller. This title lets his work be considered art and not news, which allows him the freedom to edit his images however he pleases without the strict guidelines that photojournalists are held to.
I think Steve Mccurry was in the right by altering his own images the way he did. He didn't change their meaning and was not misleading people by telling fake stories. His work tells stories through the perspective of camera about the places he travelled, and telling stories is not that far off from telling news. His photographs don’t mean anything less after being altered, they just have clearer messages.
Cade, DL. “Botched Steve McCurry Print Leads to Photoshop Scandal.” PetaPixel, 7 May 2016, petapixel.com/2016/05/06/botched-steve-mccurry-print-leads-photoshop-scandal/.
Laurent, Olivier. “Steve McCurry: I'm Not a Photojournalist.” Time, Time, 30 May 2016, time.com/4351725/steve-mccurry-not-photojournalist/.
Agtmael, Peter van. “Why Facts Aren't Always Truths in Photography.” Time, Time, 12 May 2016, time.com/4326791/fact-truth-photography-steve-mccurry/.
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