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Visually Speaking

Photo Ethics in a Brave New World

by Suzanne Salvo

"There were the huge printing shops with their sub-editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs."— George Orwell, 1984.

Photo manipulation existed long before the age of digital photography, as this famous quote written in 1949 implies. Photo technology may have changed since Orwell's day, but does that mean the ethics behind photo manipulation have also changed?

When George Orwell wrote those words nearly 60 years ago, news photography was in its early years. Cameras were still huge and heavy. Photojournalists carried sacks of flashbulbs that had to be painstakingly changed with each exposure. In the pre-digital world, it took hours in the darkroom to produce a single print.

And it took many more hours to successfully alter an image before Photoshop made it child's play. With only pre-digital technology, even experts with years of experience had trouble making photo changes that could pass for real. But that didn't stop them from trying, and succeeding.

What we now call photography was invented around the mid-1800s. For the first 50 years, hardly any amateurs and only a few "professionals" were willing to operate the giant, finicky and not very portable machines. At the beginning of the 1900s that changed when George Eastman developed the technology of film to replace the cumbersome photographic plates used until then. Cameras became smaller, more portable and quicker to use, heralding in the age of photojournalism. For the first time in history on-the-scene, real-life visual coverage of events and breaking news was possible, and people just couldn't get enough of it. High public interest and the money it spawned created heated competition among photojournalists and led to some extremely unorthodox photo-reporting techniques.

Test your ethics—what would you do?
Newspaper photographers back in the '20s, '30s and '40s were well known for their exceedingly competitive and questionable ethical practices. There are numerous stories of photojournalists manipulating crime scenes to make more dynamic images. Some were known to carry teddy bears or dolls in their camera bags to use in photos of house fires or train wrecks. By implying that a child was involved, the image became emotionally charged and more poignant—which helped sell more papers. There are even documented reports of corpses being repositioned to make better photo compositions.
Ask yourself: Is it OK for a photographer to change where he/she stands to take a news photo if that change provides a more dynamic or interesting view? What if the change of position naturally emphasizes only one aspect of the scene over other important details?

Politicians have long recognized the power of the image for propaganda purposes. Some have tried to literally change history by changing photographs. In one of the better known examples, Joseph Stalin had former comrades deemed enemies eradicated from life and either cropped out or otherwise removed from existing images.

On the other end of the political ethics scale is the photo treatment of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Very few photos exist showing FDR in a wheelchair. In most cases his image was shot or cropped to show him only from the waist up. As a result, a large percentage of the American public was unaware that he was physically disabled.
Ask yourself: Is cropping to fit a publication's format acceptable? Does cropping constitute unethical manipulation in one or both of the above political scenarios? Does the fact that in the case of FDR it was done to be nice change the ethical consideration?

Hard news photos were not the only images being manipulated in the pre-digital world. The classic Depression-era photos by Margaret Bourke-White and Lewis Hine are known to have been posed by the photographers in many instances.
Ask yourself: Using real people and real settings, the photographer directs a subject to straighten his tie, or asks the subject to look in a certain direction, or removes a distracting piece of trash in the background—is that unethical? Does it make the intended message less true? Does knowing the subjects and the situations were real but posed make the image less compelling to you? Does it render the image ethically unusable? Some of these images are credited with helping to rewrite the child labor laws in the U.S. When the cause is just, or is "soft" news, does the amount of allowable photo manipulation change?

The public's fascination with photography has led to some interesting and sometimes outlandish photo alterations. In 1917, 15-year-old Elsie Wright borrowed her father's camera and innocently took pictures of some paper-cutout fairies. She used a simple hat-pin device to cause the cutouts to fall over during the exposure. On the final print, this movement made it look like the fairies were realistically dancing. By a strange twist of fate, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, became involved in the fairy story, lending it credibility. The photos became internationally well known and for many years were widely believed to be proof of the existence of fairies. In more modern times, images of the Loch Ness Monster, now largely held to be fakes, have been used to promote Scottish tourism.
Question: Is it ethical to alter an image destined only for marketing or advertising purposes? Or should the same guidelines apply to both news and photo illustrations?

Each of these photo-altering scenarios was accomplished without a pixel in sight, using film, negatives and darkroom techniques. It is now much easier to alter images, making the temptation to do so greater. The question communicators face today is deciding if and how much they should manipulate, not whether it is possible to manipulate.

Has the ethics behind photo usage changed for corporate communicators? Digital technology didn't create the ethical dilemma, it only put a big spotlight on it. I've asked more questions than I've answered in this article. Where ethics are concerned, there are seldom clear-cut answers and that is certainly true with photo manipulation ethics.

The subject has sparked a huge debate with widely opposing viewpoints. The topic is so hot, Hollywood has picked up on it in films like Flags of Our Fathers and Spiderman III. As a professional communicator who uses images, you have a stake in the outcome of the debate. Won't you join the conversation regarding photo ethics? Post your comments on the IABC Commons, under the topic: Branding and Photo Ethics. And I hope you will join me at the IABC International Conference session: "Is it Real or is it Photoshop?" Leading communicators will be presenting and debating diverse viewpoints on the subject. See you there.

Suzanne Salvo and her husband/partner Chris are co-owners of Salvo Photography, an international award-winning studio with bases in Houston, Texas and near Milan, Italy. They specialize in location shooting, and assignments have taken them to over 50 countries. Typical projects include annual reports, ad campaigns and capabilities brochures. See their member photos on the IABC home page. For more information, visit their web site at www.salvophoto.com. For more fun, visit Suzanne's nationally recognized photoblog at www.salvoatlarge.blogspot.com.