Photo alteration has greatly impacted journalistic photography. Here’s an example I found online; Martha Stewart gets out of jail March 2005, her coming out from behind the bars was a huge deal because she was a celebrity. Especially Martha Stewart the one that bakes cookies and looks like your grandmother? A photo-illustration was made, it was Martha’s head, but on the body of a model. Is that ethical or acceptable? We are already in a world where we see disturbing or general things we may not want to see, it’s not really a surprise because now we have the technology people can alter their photos how ever they want. In our society it is likely that no one can or will do anything about it but we know as humans it could be cruel and we know it’s not right. However that is how they may alter it. Depends, if someone is altering a photo for better quality, than its great! We use an old photo where it’s a bit blurry and we use-editing techniques to make it clear. This topic causes many debates with a lot of photographers and even just the general public.
Another example is a man name Ian McKellen was at a protest against Pope Benedict XVI, who was on his first state visit to the United Kingdom. A photo was taken of Ian wearing a shirt that said “ I’m Gandalt and Maneto. Get over it!” The original photo where Ian’s real shirt reads “ Some people are gay. Get over it!” Clearly the photo was edited and posted on the Internet. Greg Stekelman, the jokester, doctored the photo purely for fun and posted it on a personal twitter account before it went viral. He wrote in an e-mail to Stinky Journalism that he has "nothing to do with either the 'Lord of the Rings' or 'The X-men' and I have no connection with Stonewall." Gandalf and Magneto are two characters McKellen has played in the movie series for Lord of the Rings and X-Men, respectively. "They all had a variety of reasons for turning up - some wishing to take a stand for secularism, others supporting feminism or gay rights and those who were primarily angry with the Vatican's stance on contraception and the way it handled sex abuse cases," The BBC wrote. Okay, now the question is: Is it right or not? Some may say yes of course because this is a free country we are titled to our own freedom. And some may say hell no its not right to alter a photo in a negative way. My answer is yes and no it just all depends how someone may alter the photo. Photography is a language.
Sources :
http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/editordetail.php?id=886
http://repository.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/85719/Photo%20Thesis%20Rasior.pdf?sequence=1
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