Contemporary Photography: Assignment 1

The most important issue raised in this text was what is considered acceptable in terms of documentary photography. For example, the manipulation of an image to tell a story, or to support a story, that was never actually in the photograph. Within photojournalism, telling the whole truth is very important and people have lost their jobs in the past over photo manipulation. With the advances of photoshop it is very easy to change an image, however, you then start to cause your audience to question the truth. Manipulation can also change the way a viewer responds to an event/article. A supporting argument for this would be the cover of TIME magazine with a picture of O.J. Simpson. His face has been made a lot darker than the original, and in American society, darker skinned people are often associated with serious crimes, more so than white people.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19940627,00.html