How a Minnesota programmer figured out that a NYT photo was altered | Hacker News Reader

How a Minnesota programmer figured out that a NYT photo was altered

minnesota.publicradio.org

33 pointsams110 comments

This story is particularly juicy because in the Metafilter thread in question (you can read it at http://www.metafilter.com/83061/Ruins-of-the-Second-Gilded-A...) the commenters pointed out a lot more work by this same photographer (Edgar Martins) which is apparently doctored in the same fashion. The funny thing is that Martins makes a public point of claiming that he doesn't do any "digital manipulation" on his pictures, which appears to be a total joke.

Here are some more of his images which he claimed to have shot naturally that appear photoshopped to be symmetrical:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/06/30/magazine/05gi...

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/06/30/magazine/05gi... (orange fence in front)

http://www.jmakes.com/spfo/dimpresent1.gif

http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=0E9A... (plants are mirrored)

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/images/thumbnail1.php/d4d7a...

"The funny thing is that Martins makes a public point of claiming that he doesn't do any "digital manipulation" on his pictures [...]"

Is that for real? I'm almost certain that http://www.capricehorn.com/images/wwwArtworks/LATEST_2-(F2C7... and http://www.capricehorn.com/images/wwwArtworks/The_Accidental... use the same mirror technique, albeit with foreground elements added (again digitally).

However, he doesn't appear to claim not to use post-production digital manipulation AT ALL, no mention at eg http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/... of that. There is a quote about this here, http://themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/topologies/ :

"This is especially evident in “The Accidental Theorist” series. Most people assume that these image are manipulated. Or perhaps even staged. In reality, there is no post-production work, no darkroom or computer manipulation."

But it's clearly referring (here) to just the Accidental Theorist show. That said the above 2 examples _are_ from that show and do appear to be 'shopped.

Perhaps in the photographer's house you can climb a flight of stairs five steps only to find another flight of stairs that lead you back down. He likes to exercise, but only just.

He seems to also like the build beams that connect to form a triangle that in no way assist the ceiling.

I find it quite amazing that the photographer even bothered to 'shop the photo. It seems to me as irrationality on his or his editors' part.

In this case, I don't think the doctoring of the photo affects the substance of the article. However, that said, this is certainly an ethical lapse that should be soundly rejected by the New York Times' readership.

I'm confused as to why the photo was altered in the first place - even without the shop job it was quite striking in its symmetry.

From what I understand, you aren't seeing the truly original photo in either of those examples. You are seeing the published versions, and the 'mirrored' version. They are attempting to prove that the published version was also mirrored by looking at the comparison of the 2.

Reminds me of the time the NYTimes swiped a collage illustration I made on my blog and ran it without attribution:

http://gojomo.blogspot.com/2005/04/nytimes-republishes-my-ar...

It took two emails of gradually-increasing emotional load -- I added the 'plagiarism' label to the second -- to get them to run a correction.

It wasn't a giant deal -- a recreation of another blogger's (Niall Kennedy's) concept -- but to see that just like any blogger, the NYTimes may just carelessly clip things from the web was eye-opening.

Uuhh, yeah. I don't think you'd need to be a programmer to that is altered. Also, I can tell from seeing a few shops in my time.

The pixels are a dead giveaway.

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