InfoD-Cafe: Ethics of PhotoShop

[Gunnar Swanson]

Randal,

They removed Bush's podium, not Bush. I assume the reason was to make 
the image more dynamic and to make the connection between the 
President/speaker and troops/audience more visceral.

Someone trying to rationalize it might say that it was not 
fundamentally different from shooting the scene from an angle that 
showed people but not the podium but that would display the general 
contempt for the notion of actual factual truth that pervades our 
culture and is highlighted by the current campaign.

Gunnar

On Oct 29, 2004, at 11:12 AM, Randal wrote:

> As someone who has fixed many photos to make them work in a 
> presentation, I never criticize designers who do this sort of thing, 
> and this example looks relatively inconsequential.
>
> But I don't quite understand -- why would you take out Bush from a 
> photo of soldiers for a Bush ad? It doesn't make any sense to me. I 
> would have assumed they would have put Bush into the picture, not the 
> other way round.
>
> -- Randal
>> http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/bush.ad.ap/index.html
----------
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
536 South Catalina Street
Ventura California 93001-3625 USA

+1 805 667-2200
gunnar at gunnarswanson.com