I believe Steve McCurry, as a photojournalist, had no right to manipulate his photographs the way he did. The whole point of a photojournalist is to report your surroundings (whether it be an event, people, animals, etc.) truthfully. Steve McCurry however, failed to do this. In Photojournalism, it isn’t acceptable to remove or change around objects in a photograph. It is however, allowed for one to make minor color, contrast, and saturation adjustments, but that’s about all. Others in his profession, such as Narciso Contreras, who digitally removed an object from a photograph, was fired for this behavior. Thus, why was Mr. McCurry spared the same fate?
It sounds like McCurry is trying to cover up his tracks, by calling himself a visual story teller, instead of him being a photojournalist. When he was called out for an altered photograph at an art Gallery, people started digging into his work and found more and more examples of manipulated photos. When he was approached with this he replied that he’s a visual story teller, not a Photojournalist. Even when you’re a visual story teller, like in the photo of the boys playing soccer, it was found that he’d cut a person from the photo. This isn’t truthfully representing the story accurately, which I feel a visual story teller is supposed to do. In either event, it was unprofessional for Mr. McCurry to represent himself as he did when employed by them. He knew he wasn’t being truthful and accurate about what he was representing, rather he felt that he was bettering the images. For the type of work he was doing then, it doesn’t lend itself to an artful interpretation, when the magazine prides itself on presenting faithful images. He tells us that when he used Photoshop to ‘enhance’ a photo, but he always maintained its integrity. These practices he states were in his past, and that such behavior wouldn’t be practiced now.
Time magazine points out that when there isn’t transparency in how the photos were taken, then the difference between “…commercial and fine art photography” and so called “editorial photography” is blurred. You can’t practice one type of photography while working in another, without causing the public to become confused. Therefore, I believe McCurry should have let people know of his change in how he photographs so that it doesn’t sound like he was trying to cover up his mistakes, ruining his reputation.
I don’t doubt that Steve McCurry is very talented and that he created visual and digital photos that were accurate and appealing. I think that his photos are amazing, but it is unethical for him to move people and objects around when it changes the scene.
Works Cited
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/.
Letzter, Rafi. “The 'Afghan Girl' Photographer Faked Some of His Photos. Does It Matter?” Business Insider, Business Insider, 21 May 2016, www.businessinsider.com/steve-mccurry-photo-editing-scandal-2016-5.
No comments:
Post a Comment