Steve Mccurry Research Paper

I believe Steve McCurry’s conduct of using Photoshop to edit his works which are order to publish is unethic. And it becomes serious when the photographer is a photojournalist and working for newspwapers. As a professional photojournalist, he should totally avoid using Photoshop to edit his works, though this way will make those works better.
Originally, taking photos is an art that people are trying to express their idea or thoughts to their audiences. In order to make their works accord with their actual thoughts, people can edit the pictures to make it deliver ideas effectively. That’s why picture editting software has become so important these days, like Photoshop. Thanks to Photoshop, lots of minor defects inside a photo can be eliminated, even including erasing a whole human being. However, ethtic problem arised as long as those photo editting softwares are getting widely used. For normal people, they could take themselves to edit
photos. However, things go totally different when professional photojournalism gets involved. As we know, the purpose of journal and newspaper is always to show publics the truth and accuracy. “Getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism.” Said by Ethical Journalism Network. Thus when the content of a photo has been editted and people accpted the materials showed in the photo, they will get fake information, resulting in losing truth in this photo. As an iconic figure in photojournalist industry, what Steve McCurry responded to media is just denying the authority of those editted photos. However, the denial is weak and he took no action on theose “unauthorited” magazines. I think if those media groups really did wrong on editting his works, he should probably make some filesuit on that. With the simple sentences “ I will rein in his use of Photoshop”, nothing can be explained.
Another ethic problem is that the editting photo will sometimes offend people by comparing to the original work. For example, in one editted photo of Steve McCurry, a group of boys are running in the river. But in the editted photo, it is very obvious that a one boy was erased from the photo. Maybe Steve wants to keep the boy throwing stones standing out from this group. Think about it, if the boy who was removed from this photo saw this, how despressed would he become. For example, when I was in middle school, we had a field trip to zoo and took a wonderful group picture. Everyone was surprised when we got this photo printed – one classmate was removed by photography editor because he stood a little bit away from group. Seems the editor thought he was an irrelated person and just removed him. He was strongly shocked and was upset for a long time. Thus through this experience, I can probably understand the feeling of being removed from finished works. For this African boy who was removed, I think Steve McCurry should take the resoponsibility of mentally hurting him.
This conduct of editting photo also influenced the publics’ image of photojournalists.
As everyone know before, this position is honorly and respectively helping people know the truth happened in all the world. The use of Photoshop would definitely shaked people’s mind on believing these journal photos. How can we believe the truth in a article which uses editted photos as evidences? Absolutely, the scandal of Steve McCurry destoried many photojournalists’ efforts. Because after this event, the audiences of newspaper and jornal magezines will doubt every photo’s reliability. That’s a very bad influence to this whole industry and lots of photographers would be doubted for many reason, because people’s first image to a photo would become “whether it is editted” but not “It is an awesome orginal creation”. After all, “This isn’t good for the most famous photographic agency in of all time, Magnum Photos, (which McCurry is a member of) and it is not good for photography as a whole.” Said by Tom on The Photo Foundamentalist
website.
In conclusion, I think the conduct of Steve McCurry is inethnic and he should take responsibilty of that. Because he was not only opposite the norm of his occupation, but hurted the feeling of many people.