My Camera Has Issues With You

For the ethics of digital photo manipulation I’m first going to explain my views on some of the example images we were given.
In the photo with Stalin in, a person has been removed after falling out of favour with him, I don’t think this should be done as it is faking the truth by removing someone who was there, it could be a neat trick for a fun photograph maybe but for most purposes, especially if the image is being published as part of a news story or for factual reasons it’s distorting the actual truth and shouldn’t be done.
The Time photograph of OJ Simpson has been manipulated purely for extra effect, the darkening of the image definitely gives it a more sinister feel that I believe could be useful for a movie poster or TV advertising but again I think that it shouldn’t be used in news publications as it’s attempting to influence opinion through altering images.
The Reuters image of Lebanon is one of the most ridiculous I’ve ever seen, it has been blatantly edited, there was also no need for the original image to be edited in any way for the news story, again another example that news and factual based publications shouldn’t use edited images. On the whole I know some amazing images can be produced through digital editing, but I think it should stay in the artistic and entertainment areas. I strongly believe that news publications should never use edited images as they attempt to alter the truth and our view of what is really happening, we trust news companies to deliver news to us in full truth but you can’t get that from edited photos. I also don’t agree with digitally editing photos of models, we must be the most self-conscious generation yet and you only need to take one look at any magazine on or offline to see why. So many people now feel they have to compete with these models yet in the end they only end up competing with Photoshop.