Observer photog fired

That is such horseshit.

 

That's tough. ...

On a couple of those photos, the fire in the woods, I couldn't tell what he did to it.

 

He lost the original color when he "underexposed" the film? You mean Charlotte's not a big enough boy to be digital?

 

There's got to be more to this story.

 

I'm always saddened to see a veteran journalist lose his job.

 

Because he did it once and got suspended, he was stupid to repeat it. At the very least, he could have gone to a boss and said, "Here's the original print, and here's what I want to do to it." Why not be safe?

But this isn't as, ahem, black and white as it seems generally. He says he was trying to make the picture more like what he saw through the lensefinder; who's to know but him? And the sportsshooters.com board has a lot of people noting what a difficult call this can be.

But the previous deal put him in a tough spot, and he should have bent over backwards to do this the right way.

 

Really, I think it is pretty black and white.

He adjusted/burned photos three years ago. The paper suspended him for it. He said he wouldn't do it again. He does it again. What's the paper to do?

He should have been working with a manager on this stuff, especially after it happened the first time.

I don't think the paper had a choice.

 

Here's a link to the message board posting about this subject on SportsShooter.com ... see what the photographers think about this ...

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=21220

 

To me, a photographer changing the color (because it really looked that way!) is just trying to spice up a photo to make it better than it is -- not make it more realistic.

It is akin to a reporter spicing up quotes because to make them sound better.

 

As long as it's not egregious --- like making OJ Simpson seem either more or less black, for instance --- this is a crock of shit.

Ye gods. If papers start firing everybody who fiddles with the histogram function or Filters menu in Photoshop, there are going to be thousands of openings on J-Jobs.

Something else is happening.

(Film? FILM?!? Who the fuck uses film?!?)

 

Anybody else feel just a little skeeved over the public airing of the contents of his personnel file?

 

No, this is not just like anything reporters have to watch for.
Our industry wants photos to look good. It enhances the overall look of the paper.
Yes, if you amp up the color to make an everyday photo full of sunbeams, etc., it's questionable. Particularly if you use it in a contest.
But this is not remotely close to using fake quotes or made up scenarios in a story. Not even "spicing up" quotes. That's flat-out wrong and we all know it.