photo by Jim Wilson/ New York Times
This image by New York Times veteran photojournalist Jim Wilson has been raising eyebrows this week after some critics thought they had detected another case of image foul play. In the picture the singer's microphone cable appears to be missing. I have provided a series of englargements of the area suspected of being altered.
With all the recent blogospheric blather going on, especially from the conservative camp, looking to attack the media whenever it can, The New York Times, and the photojournalist, took pains to make sure to explain themselves. The original attack took place by a blogger called "ALLAHPUNDIT" who is affliated with Michelle and Jesse Malkin's Hot Air blog.
Within a day of the image appearing on a New York Times Website, Wilson responded to charges that he had doctored the image.
If you look carefully at the frame, you will see a slightly wide band of dark area that runs from the head of a marine with dark hair in the back row up to the singer. Look carefully at the wall from that marine’s head up to the top of the frame and you will see the blurred cable that was in motion because the dancer was moving it as she spoke to the marines. The full cable is in the shot but is blurred. The reason it isn’t sharp is because the frame was shot at 1/6 of a second in a room that was dark. The flash filled in the frame but wasn’t the main light, the room light provided the main light for the frame. The long exposure balanced the light from the strobe on my camera with the ambient light in the room. The cable was moving as was the singer and the marines. If you look carefully at the frame, you’ll see that nothing in the frame is tack/crisp sharp. I looked in the paper that I got out here and know that the reproduction left the wire virtually invisible.
Wilson's explanation is clear and logical. Hopefully, even those people with little knowledge of how the camera works will get it.
Nevertheless, photojournalists must be on their toes because the wolves are at the door now. Like it or not, the blogosphere revels in trying to bring down the house, especially if it is a big house such as The New York Times.
Will photojournalists be less likely to take images that might raise even the most incrediculous questions who seem to know so little about the medium?
I should mention that Catherine Mathis, Director of Corporate Communications for the New York Times, promptly responded to my concerns about the image and pointed me in the directions I needed to go in terms of informing myself better. I think it is important to know that the NY Times takes these sorts of issues seriously and does not under estimate the power of the Web.