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Reuters Reign

21/11/2015

4 Comments

 
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Reuters recently placed a ban on photos processed from RAW files. Photographers working for the news organisation must now only send photos that were shot in camera as jpegs. Reuters offered this explanation: "as eyewitness accounts of events covered by dedicated and responsible journalists, Reuters Pictures must reflect reality. While we aim for photography of the highest aesthetic quality, our goal is not to artistically interpret the news.” 
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Gaza Burial, Paul Hanson, 2013.
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Chen Qinggang, 2009.
A RAW file has long been regarded as the digital equivalent of the film negative. It contains the original image data captured by the camera and provides the photographer with more flexibility in their image editing. While creative image editing is accepted in commercial and art photography it is more problematic in documentary forms. And this is precisely what Reuters wants to limit.

Photojournalists, in recent years, have been employing image editing practices more common in the creative industries, like HDR and image stacking. Under the new protocols Paul Hansen's HDR inspired photograph would no longer be accepted. 
With only a compressed jpeg file available to Reuters photojournalists, the trend to create news in chiaroscuro will be restricted.

​This is one positive outcome from Reuters' decision. However this is more a question of aesthetics, than ethics. Its a bad visual trend that will eventually fade. While limiting a photojournalist's ability to edit their pictures in post-production may improve aesthetic integrity, it will do little to move us closer to any objective reality in photography. 
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The king and queen of photographic objectivity were Bernd and Hilla Becher, who for many decades employed the same neutral, objective gaze to various industrial structures around the world. Unlike Reuters, their move toward a photographic objectivity was largely an aesthetic decision, not an ethical one.

​The absence of any formal variation in their work inadvertently highlights the many aesthetic choices a photojournalist must make every time they go out on assignment. The creative process starts well before the photographer begins to play around with a RAW file. If this were the case all photojournalists would be little more than snapshooters. 

We shouldn't burden photojournalists with the impossible task of acting impartially and objectively. It is enough to ask them to be honest. Preventing photojournalists from accessing their RAW files implies they are an untrustworthy  mob. We cannot expect photojournalists to work objectively, all we can ask them to do is work ethically.* 


* (I think Susan Sontag said this). 
4 Comments
James link
22/11/2015 01:35:55 am

Hi Julia, just come across your work.

I think I missed the point here, is it the use of photoshop and not the RAW file that is the problem? After all jpegs can be manipulated as well so are they banning jpegs that have been processed from jpegs? And if so how will they know, exif data can be manipulated as well.

PS you referred to a book by Robert Frank that got you thinking about photography, can you tell me which book this is?

Reply
Juha
22/11/2015 07:46:40 am

Hi James,
I see no problem with photojournalists using photoshop, jpegs or RAW files in their image editing. Photoshop is just one operation available to the photojournalist that affects the meaning of an image, or a news story. All photographs are subjective, regardless of the level of manipulation in photoshop. The best we can hope for is that the photojournalist acts honestly and with integrity.

The book was by Robert Adams, titled "Why People Photograph".

Reply
James link
25/11/2015 11:58:00 pm

What I meant to say was hasn't Reuters missed the point here? Anything can be manipulated, I was using photoshop as an example, but every piece of media is editorialised in some way, it could be what's outside the frame, choosing not to publish a certain picture, or choosing to publish a certain picture. Using a certain photographer because you like the way they shoot images. It's all been editorialised in some way. Just to pick on the technical aspects of a file type, well do they actually matter?.

I think the layman believes what they see in Reuters to be a factual account and while some may think they want honesty and integrity, I think they just expect that what they see is real.

Apologies about the incorrect name, my auto correct changed "Juha"

Reply
Juha
26/11/2015 02:01:25 am

I agree, the file type should not matter. I can understand Reuters position, although I don't agree with it, they are simply protecting their product. News organisations have always relied on the myth of photographic truth.

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    Sometime in the last century Robert Adams published a book which explored the motivations behind the photographs people took. It went some way toward helping me identify my own reasons for pursuing a life in photography. This blog is intended to discover the many other reasons why photography matters, to me, and the rest of the world. 

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© Juha Tolonen
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