(See update at the bottom of this post.)
A photographer whose work appeared in the New York Times Magazine has been accused of digitally manipulating his images. Edgar Martins produced a photo essay entitled "Ruins of the Second Gilded Age." It showed abandoned buildings/construction projects and was featured in the magazine and on the Times website. After commenters on MetaFilter raised questions about the authenticity of the images, the magazine pulled the slideshow from the website and inserted this text in its place:
Editors’ Note: July 7, 2009
The pictures in this feature were removed after questions were raised about whether they had been digitally altered.
Adam Gurno, a MetaFilter user, is being given credit for helping expose the manipulations. He’s posted some evidence on his personal website and also did an interview with Minnesota Public Radio:
"It was an excellent photo essay," he told me this afternoon. "The picture of the framing is actually pretty striking. I looked at it and I said, ‘this doesn’t look right.’"
Gurno says he sent his proof to the Times but he only got a form e-mail in return. Nonetheless, the Times has removed the photo essay from its Web site.
How the ethical lapse came to light should be a warning to all journalists.
"When you work in computer programming…there’s a maxim in the programming world that says ‘all bugs are shallow to 10,000 eyes.’ It means if you have something open source and you let 10,000 people look at it, they’re going to find all the little things about it. Everybody’s going to approach it from a slightly different angle. And I think it’s the same with this picture," he said.
"I understand magazines Photoshop models on their covers and that’s neither here nor there. But when they actually call it ‘journalism,’ that’s when I decided to dig in a little bit extra," he said.
Gawker notes that Photo District News claims to have uncovered other examples of manipulation within the same photo essay. PDN also reprinted the text from the magazine that introduced the essay. Note the emphasis from PDN:
Last fall, The New York Times Magazine commissioned Edgar Martins, a 32-year-old Portuguese photographer based in London, to capture on film the physical evidence of the real estate bust in the United States. Martins, who creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation, traveled from rural Georgia to suburban California, visiting large construction projects that began during the speculative boom years and then came to a sudden halt, often half-finished, when the housing and securities markets collapsed.
Other media watchdogs are trying to get an official comment from the Times.
My guess is the magazine is examining the photos and talking with the photographer, and that it will publish a more detailed Editors’ Note once it makes a final determination. At this point the general consensus seems to be that the photos were altered, but the magazine and photographer have yet to confirm this. Either way, they should move quickly to make a more detailed statement. The story has already taken shape and doesn’t look good for the magazine.
UPDATE July 9: The Times has acknowledged that the images were altered by the photographer. As expected, here’s the Editors’ Note:
A picture essay in The Times Magazine on Sunday and an expanded slide show on NYTimes.com titled “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age” showed large housing construction projects across the United States that came to a halt, often half-finished, when the housing market collapsed. The introduction said that the photographer, a freelancer based in Bedford, England, “creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation.”
A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show. Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com.
And a post on its Lens blog offers this admission, in addition to other background:
A picture essay in The Times Magazine on Sunday and an accompanying slide show on NYTimes.com, “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age,” have been found to include digital alterations. The photos showed unfinished or unoccupied construction projects around the United States that came to a halt — at least in part — because of the financial crisis. They were taken by Edgar Martins, a 32-year-old freelance photographer.
