World Press Photo Of The Year Was NOT Faked - Verified By Experts

Why would there ever be a question of this as being fake? Arabs slaughter their children every minute of every day- what's so hard to believe.

Signed,
Confused

Originally posted by Dumbspiracy
Why would there ever be a question of this as being fake? Arabs slaughter their children every minute of every day- what's so hard to believe.

Signed,
Confused

you

back to the OP:
you have two sources in a photo:
the event
or an artistic vision of an event

an enhanced shot of an event or a created picture to communicate the takers artistic vision

To me the pic accurately expresses the callous sociopathy that results in dead innocent children almost as clearly as the direct statement sociopath would

reply to post by Hopechest


There's a huge difference between a fake image and a re-touched image. It's a real photograph, but it has been enhanced for dramatic effect. Looks like they have played around with the color levels a bit to make the scene look more grim.

reply to post by Slugworth


Yikes and Yowza!, honestly I feel that if they would stop "enhancing" their photos such as sampled above perhaps this entire western culture would stop obsessing about the next best thing or top model. Tragic. Regardless of all the warnings about being brainwashed by TV.....whooooo, Booga Booga, well turns out. Too late.

Most people realities are about as real as a $3 bill yet we conspiracy nuts or the crazy ones. Ones reality is relative to oneself anyway. Seeing how the victors wrote our own history, to me means we ain't got a clue what real is.

Imagine going back to the Jurassic and seeing a velociraptor with a saddle ridden by a reptilian sentient. The good ol days when things were simple. We don't learn about that in school.

My concern is that someone is winning an award for a photograph of deceased Children and their grieving relatives!!!

Whether the photographs have been photoshopped or airbrushed or whatever - let's study the subject of the photograph.

If I took a photograph of deceased Children and won an award I would utilise that opportunity to educate people about the inequality of war - the wrongness of war and the insanity of war.

Much Peace...to all the Children killed in senseless wars ...

My concern is that someone is winning an award for a photograph of deceased Children and their grieving relatives!!!

Whether the photographs have been photoshopped or airbrushed or whatever - let's study the subject of the photograph.

If I took a photograph of deceased Children and won an award I would utilise that opportunity to educate people about the inequality of war - the wrongness of war and the insanity of war.

Much Peace...to all the Children killed in senseless wars ...

He -is- using his skills as a photographer to educate people just as you say. And winning an award for that photo brings it into light - and I think it's a great way to bring attention to the futility of war.

Do you think he is doing a happy dance because he won due to the nature of the photo or something? I imagine he like most of us, is saddened and disheartened by the nature of the photo. But a picture is worth a thousand words as the saying goes. I had seen this photo at all until this award / story came out. So yes.. it does help bring to light the injustice and horror or war.

reply to post by Slugworth


Those are not just "touch-ups", those are manipulation. They alter the reality of the image. By adding or removing things that are there.
The OP picture however was made into a hdr so the dynamic range is better and the peoples faces would show easier. Since it's a picture of people whose emotion is the subject of the image that is hardly anything but enhancement.
Also what is truly stupid that this "photography expert" doesn't even understand how ELA works. ELA works by analysing compression artifacts. Different images can have different levels of those. When stitched together that can be revealed by ELA. The OP photo was however a raw image therefore no compression artifacts were present and ELA would show nothing.
I'm going to have to make a mental note of the people who screamed fake about this so I take anything they say with a rather large grain of salt in the future.

Agree its the hdr that "oh its fake" but its a real picture and it is a powerful one

--- just adding ---
I do it myself and even made thread with some that I did from picts I took link if interested, the first post is later posted again down the page with the picts put into the pst instead of off site content

the old way I was doing it was with 3 images of 3 different settings camera not moved
but after I got my new camera it was easier with just a .raw file

I think photos are probably the single most powerful anti-war tool that exists. Much emphasis is put on video now but still photography has something special about it when it comes to driving home an idea without muddling it with words or movement. For example, if you compare the expressions on the faces of the two men carrying the bodies the one on the right looks heartbroken, the one on the left angry. If the photographer had instead written an article or produced a video about the mixture of anger and fear that Palestinians probably feel when their children are killed by Israeli rockets it would not get nearly the same attention that this photo will, and I doubt it would be as effective in conveying that thought. If it were a video that frame would have blown by in a fraction of a second.

There are very few people in positions of political or media power who seem willing to criticize Israeli policy in Palestine, and I can't help but wonder if the photo was attacked for purely political reasons. It is very difficult to rationally argue in favor of a policy that produces tiny corpses without looking like a monster. I doubt we will be seeing much coverage of this photo or this award in the news.

"Break the bones" strategy

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


It looks like it's merely an HDR photo to me...which I do quite frequently with landscapes. 3 different exposures combined with editing software, sometimes photoshop (though I don't use photoshop for mine). There are lots of ways to edit photos to give them more of an impact without compromising the integrity of the photo. Just because photoshop is used doesn't mean the photo isn't real. I could see if he somehow spliced together ENTIRELY different images to make this one...but, it doesn't appear the photographer did that. Heck, he could have even done this in PSLightroom, if he was processing the photo from a RAW format.

It really does look fake. Way too much "enhancement". I'm surprised so many in this thread discount it so easily and criticize anyone who sees how touched-up it is. It's a shame that, apparently, photographers feel they need to change (enhance/whatever) a photo so drastically. Since this was allegedly investigated and is real... then they should just post the untouched version to prove it. Should be pretty simple. Maybe I missed it?

I'm not saying it's fake. I am saying it looks fake. No attacks necessary... there are better things to invest your time in.

Originally posted by Amanda5
My concern is that someone is winning an award for a photograph of deceased Children and their grieving relatives!!!

Whether the photographs have been photoshopped or airbrushed or whatever - let's study the subject of the photograph.

If I took a photograph of deceased Children and won an award I would utilise that opportunity to educate people about the inequality of war - the wrongness of war and the insanity of war.

Much Peace...to all the Children killed in senseless wars ...

I think it goes without saying, that he IS using the photo to portray the "wrongness" of war.

That picture would break your heart.

I take it no one here has spent a few years in a dark room sloshing around prints?
Adjusting the light levels of an exposed photo, aka dodging and burning, has been a standard pratice since photography was invented. It's just a lot easier to do now.
What is frowned upon in the photojournalism world is cutting parts of a photo and moving them around.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed

Personally I have a couple theories but rather not speculate at this time.

Certainly has nothing to do with putting a human face on "them" now does it? Certainly has nothing to do with that at all.

It's a powerful picture, and a pretty darn good one, you can tell he used HDR techniques on the image and retouched it to bring up the colors and highlights in areas that would have been dark. Other than the timestamps on the edits on the file, the only thing the people calling it a fraud had was the fact that the highlights on their faces don't exactly match the direction of the sunlight, thus calling it a composite.

Well, technically, if it's an HDR image it is a composite, but not a splice of three seperate images to fake a single one, it's several images captured almost at the exact time, layered together to bring out the dynamic range, allowing the editor to provide an intense photo.

reply to post by dreams n chains

I'm not saying it's fake. I am saying it looks fake. No attacks necessary... there are better things to invest your time in.

Google HDR photography.

It looks to vivid and real it looks fake. Photoshop is pretty powerful.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


The other side of the coin...

This article contains info regarding the reasons the photo is thought to be a fake / edited / manipulated. Im not suggesting the OP / OP article is wrong. Im simply adding the other side of the story.The article raises some interestin points..

‘Manipulated’ prize-winning Gaza photo being investigated

A key point... Does anyone know if the origional photo has been loacted and turned over?

Hansen insisted that the photo captured the auspicious lighting in the alley, and that he did not alter the image. However, he failed to present the digital original of the photo, or RAW file, to the awards ceremony on May 1, saying that he simply forgot to bring it along.

My other question is who did the analysis to confirm it was real? I know we have the name of one person who reviewed the photo, however the other names were left out of the OP article. I am curious as to who the others were and what their background is.

Again, just raising the other side of the story for debate / conversational purposes.

Originally posted by Hopechest
It looks fake to me.

Just seems to perfect...even the children don't look real. They look like dolls.

I would have preferred to see it the way it was actually captured, without any touch-ups.

To all

Hopechest is an admitted contrarian (not that there is anything wrong with that). An angle is taken to respond with comments contrary to the OP, and early in the thread (most often on the 1st page) to get as much exposure as possible & to gain as many stars as possible. And Hopechest's current mood reads "God complex". Read into that as much as you wish.

The press image of the year...looks fake...The reason it looks fake is because it looks like a painting. Unreal. It also looks composed and staged. This is a big problem, because to my eye there has obviously been some additional working to the image, at the very least, retouching, tinting, etc.

The real issue here is this. Digital photography, is made up of pixels, same as digital TV. Pixels are easily interchanged and images can easily be manipulated. I have had suspicions for years that the reason we see so many faked UFO vids on youtube, is because they are beta tests, because one of these days there will be a video that the human eye wont be able to detect as a fake...after that the lid will really be off the can of worms and you wont know what the hell your watching on the news..as this picture demonstrates.

The other issue is this...whoever took and edited this image, and whoever spawned the controversy it caused has damaged the REALITY of the Palestinian suffering. Because this image depicts such a sensitive real world issue, and the image has been the subject of controversy...as to its authenticity...this then can aid Israel in stating its just Palestinian propaganda...To me its easy to see the purpose behind this image..the purpose to making it the winner of the year...then the purpose is an attempt to discredit the Palestinian suffering. the image is delibretly staged to appear unreal and fake, no matter what the judgement is now, people including myself will see it does not look real...the public opinion might be swayed into thinking that if this is faked then the Palestinian suffering is fake...I am sure this is the real intention of this image.

What I would find more interesting is, who took this image..and who made it the press photo of the year...Because I am guessing I already know the answer to what country those involved break bread with..and its not Palestine.

Originally posted by minkmouse

Originally posted by Hopechest
It looks fake to me.

Just seems to perfect...even the children don't look real. They look like dolls.

I would have preferred to see it the way it was actually captured, without any touch-ups.

Without having the before and after shots to compare, your statement is folly. You have no idea what the original image looked like or if indeed it would have been something you would prefer....Faulty logic!

Yeah hopechest is notorious for faulty logic