

Unbelievable - Garbage
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/549-Unbelievable.html

======
ysapir
These children are dead, there is nothing fake about that, and there is also
nothing fake in that they are victims of a variety of factors, including Paul
Hansen who manipulated their funeral images to cheat his way to an award.
There were over 100,000 photos up in the competition, and prizes were awarded
to photographers of 33 nationalities (with a notable absence of Israelis).
Other photos bringing other stories (and maybe even the same story) from Gaza
and elsewhere in the world could have won instead. The whole point of a
photography contest is to identify and recognize those photographers who can
skillfully identify and catch dramatic moments and angles in split second, not
those who take otherwise normal pictures and edit them later.

To give some balance, the day these two brothers and their father died, there
were continuous rocket attacks on Israel. At around 7pm, a rocket hit a high
school in Ashkelon. A student from the school told the reporter, "We were
playing soccer near the school and suddenly there were sirens, and we saw the
Iron Dome rocket fire above us, and then we heard a large explosion and we
realized it fell just near us. The police came and we directed them." The
rocket fell on the rooftop of a nearby school building unexploded and was
disarmed by the police. The IDF later released a statement saying it attacked
over 50 tunnels and tens of hidden rocket launchers. The Hamas often places
the rocket launchers near civilian homes for protection and this might have
been the cause of the attack. The civilians, as perhaps the Hejazi family in
this case too, have no real say and are sometimes forced to remain near the
weapons against their will.

[1] [http://www.worldpressphoto.org/content/swedish-
photographer-...](http://www.worldpressphoto.org/content/swedish-photographer-
paul-hansen-wins-premier-photo-contest-award)

[2] <http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/2689/2587705> (live blog from the day of the
attack, Hebrew)

------
josephlord
I think it is slightly unfortunate that the topic of the photo triggering this
debate is a controversial political topic with many contradictory truths,
claims and counterclaims of distortion and deceit. In this case there seems to
be legitimate journalistic photography of the event that should be the focus
of any debate about the event itself.

The real issue with this photograph are whether the digital processing applied
exceeded that which is appropriate for a photography competition. Specifically
there seems to be a suggestion that it may be composite of different photos
from the same event although that seemed far from proven to me.

What do people feel are acceptable digital edits to be applied?

1) Global filters/brightness/contrast/sharpening

2) Similar filters applied to local areas to to ensure all wanted areas are
properly lit and visible

3) Actually touching up/smudging or otherwise directly manipulating particular
pixels.

4) Actually combining different photos (e.g. you have ten photos but someone
(different) has their eyes shut in each one so you grab one face and merge it
back onto the correct body).

Personally I don't see a single clear line where you should stop so I think
that it should probably be spelled out in the competition rules.

~~~
Goladus
_Personally I don't see a single clear line where you should stop so I think
that it should probably be spelled out in the competition rules._

I think it's fairly easy to describe either side of the line even if the line
itself is a little blurry.

When post-production edits of a _documentary photograph_ change the time and
location of relevant people and objects, the journalist has some
responsibility to disclose those edits to the viewer/judge.

When post-production edits merely enhance the clarity of the image, or the
image is clearly not meant to be documentary, there is less need for such
disclosure. Even though bias is present at all stages of the process, that
includes even shot selection to begin with so presence of bias alone is not an
indicator of which side of the line a particular image might be.

Obviously the first step is to determine whether an image is being passed off
as a documentary photograph or an art photograph. Almost no one cares whether
a photo of Sheryl Sandberg in TIME is heavily doctored
(i.imgur.com/lFwMNia.png). Presumably, the photos in the contest were. This
was a photographic report of a real and notable event.

Then the question is whether the modified elements of the photograph are
relevant to the associated story. In most cases, filters and contrast are not
relevant; although they could be in some edge cases. For touch-ups and
smudging, the question is what are you touching up and smudging? A minor
blemish on someone's face might not be relevant, but replacing a rifle with
flowers could be substantial. A composite to eliminate someone's eyes being
closed doesn't change the substance, but eliminating someone's presence
entirely would be substantial.

Of course, a competition might have even stricter standards but from a
consumer standpoint, that's where the line should be. An artistic collage
photo meant to concisely tell the story of an event is fine, even if it LOOKS
like it's almost real, but the nature of the photo should be disclosed. It
shouldn't be passed off as a documentary photo.

~~~
AnIrishDuck
> In most cases, filters and contrast are not relevant; although they could be
> in some edge cases.

This makes me think of the infamous Time magazine cover featuring O.J.
Simpson:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OJ_Simpson_Newsweek_TIME.p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OJ_Simpson_Newsweek_TIME.png)

------
jgrahamc
The most striking thing about the Gaza photo is that it looks fake or staged.
It's weird that this won a competition because it looks like someone set the
whole thing up and positioned lighting to get the effect they wanted. This is
particularly true of the guy on the left who looks artificially lit.

~~~
amasad
Congrats, you've done what most top HN comments do, contribute nothing but
uninformed speculations and hearsay.

I think you misunderstood the point of te article, it's not trying to prove
that the scene was fake nor staged, but the photo was digitally edited and not
worthy of the award.

Digital editing aside, the scene seems to be quite real as it was covered by
multiple news outlets and with different photos. Here is the link from the
article to the time's photo (by the Reuters) :
[http://world.time.com/2012/11/15/a-new-gaza-war-israel-
and-p...](http://world.time.com/2012/11/15/a-new-gaza-war-israel-and-
palestinian-militants-trade-fire/photo/palestinian-carry-the-bodies-of-two-
boys-during-their-funeral-in-beit-lahiya-in-the-northern-gaza/)

~~~
Skibb
Of course it was digitally edited. Since the advent of the digital
photography, the very act of taking a photograph (i.e. digitalised version of
it) is editing of sorts.

~~~
Bud
I think you're confused. An original digital photograph is no more
intrinsically "edited" than a photograph taken on film. Would you say a film
photo is edited just because of the limits of the film grain? Because the
limitations of a digital sensor's pixels are really no different.

So no. Not all digital photos can accurately be said to be edited; there is
such a thing as an original digital file, and a distinction to be drawn
between that file and an edited version of the original.

~~~
Skibb
You are the one confused. Do you understand the difference between analog and
digital? Analog is a direct imprint of the photons that pass through the lense
of the camera and have a chemical reaction with the film (simply put). A
digital version is a COPY of the image that passes through the lens in the
digital camera and by way of that it is already one time manipulated. In any
case, I'm not saying I am the only one right here but that it's possible to
look at it from different points of views. My overarching goal was to show
that the whole claim of the edited photo not deserving a prize was irrelevant
- photos are edited daily, every time and that does not take away from their
aesthetic, documentary or other value if they are pulled off greatly. Short
version: yes, even looking from your angle, the writer could have said the
same about ANY photo, analog or digital, arguing that because the light in the
photo looked different than what it would look in reality (and don't forget
that a human eye is a sort of an imperfect camera itself) it isn't worthy of
recognition.

------
subsystem
"Now, you might be thinking "why are there two conversions on two dates"? This
is what you typically see when a picture is spliced from two sources."

"The January 4th date is interesting because the deadline for submissions to
the World Photo Awards was 17 January 2013. So although the base photo was
taken in November 2012, it wasn't edited until about two weeks before the
contest deadline."

This whole theory pretty much fails as it was published in "Dagens Nyheter" in
November 2012. The lower image is what it looked like:

<http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/gunthert/8485283411/sizes/o/>

~~~
Confusion
The photo that won the award (was physically available to the judges) may have
been significantly different from the photo that was originally published.

~~~
sesqu
Indeed, I can see several differences. The colors, obviously, but also the
child in the foreground is dirtier, the men at the edges are darker, the men
at the center are lighter, and all faces are clearer, and the sky is darker.

------
draugadrotten
Fake photos like these are called "terja" in Sweden after the Swedish wildlife
photografer of the year was busted in 2011.

Verb: _Terja_ \- to manipulate photos Adj: _Terjat,Terjade_ \- fake
photo,photos

[http://terjadefoton.wordpress.com/english/international-
medi...](http://terjadefoton.wordpress.com/english/international-media/) and

[http://petapixel.com/2011/09/05/swedish-wildlife-
photographe...](http://petapixel.com/2011/09/05/swedish-wildlife-photographer-
of-the-year-admits-to-faking-photos/)

------
davidjohnstone
To my eye, the Gaza photo appears to be illuminated by an off camera flash
above and to the left of the camera. The man at the front on the left has a
very bright left side of his face, and a very dark right side (also notice the
shadow and light around his ear). Everything else in this photo seems
consistent with this.

The reason for there appearing to be more dirt on the child's face is simply
because it's a higher contrast image.

Maybe it has been manipulated more than is allowed, but I'm not seeing it.

EDIT: I'm not sure that there's only one artificial light source — notice how
the front left man's visible ear is red? That's because it's being brightly
illuminated from behind. Also notice that the top of his back (his left —
photo right — shoulder) is illuminated, and that would be in shadow if the
photo was only being lit by the flash that is lighting the left (his right)
side of his face. Finally, there's another light source (maybe the sun?) that
is causing the shine on the top right section of many of the heads (such as
the bald man carrying the dead child).

~~~
sengstrom
The striking photographic detail about the photo is how the faces appear to be
artificially lit. The arguments about the sun's position may actually explain
that if you consider the possibility that the light on their faces is
reflected light from the left wall plus the photographer's off camera flash.

~~~
slantyyz
The faces could be the result of some aggressive shadow recovery.

I find that being overaggressive with shadow recovery can result in fakey,
HDR-like images where the lighting on the subjects' faces can seem... off.

------
rickdale
In college I lived with one of the greatest people I have ever met, and he was
from Palestine. My late father was born and raised in Israel, so the roommate
and I definitely had our share of conversations about the situation. Just as a
note, his dad was a high ranking official in the Palestinian political
movement. He once told me, "If you give the people food, water, shelter, and
don't steal their opportunity for a better life, there will be no problems."
That always stuck with me and I think it is resoundingly true.

When I went to Israel in 2008 for the 20th time in my 26year life, I learned
that in Israel the average income is almost $30000, while in every neighboring
country the average income is well below $5000, some under $1000. Palestine
included. Israel is a completely different world than the countries that
surround it. The situation over there is crazy and though it didn't end to
well for my dad here(check my posts to figure that one out) I can see why he
snuck out of the army 6 months early to get the f out.

------
coldtea
The image is 100% real in the thing that matters, that that the photographer
captured this scene.

The photographer has played with levels, dodge & burn et al, so the aesthetic
output is "fake", but those are actual people, holding their actually dead
children.

The editing might mean he is not worth the prize.

But that's it -- nothing more to discuss. Not "where is the blood?", "why
aren't they curled", "they're holding their eyes closed", etc. I do hope those
are just the opinions of one disturbed individual.

Try reading some World News, from world sources (European, African, Arab,
etc), outside the US media, and you would see tons of similar photos.
Including tons of similar unedited photos from Gaza.

People would have defended more and have shown MORE respect for the moon
landing photos.

~~~
maaaats
No, you're missing the point of the article. According to the article the
photographer didn't capture the scene. It says he took the people standing
with their dead children from a photo and pasted them into a crowded street.
E.g. merging pictures. A bit more dramatic than playing with lighting etc.

~~~
streptomycin
No, that's not what the article says. It says the image was probably based on
more than one picture merged together, but it doesn't claim the specific
things you say it does.

~~~
namdnay
The HDR effect usually implies taking the same photo several times with
different lighting and merging them all together. I wonder if this is the
manipulation he's detecting, or if there's more as the parent suggests

~~~
coldtea
Not necessarily, you can get the HDR with most image editors from a single
image nowadays.

E.g:

[http://digital-photography-school.com/correcting-and-
creatin...](http://digital-photography-school.com/correcting-and-creating-hdr-
images-in-lightroom)

<http://www.topazlabs.com/adjust/>

------
curveship
When this was being debated on photography blogs, someone dug up the
originally published version of Hansen's photo, published just the day after
the event. Here's a side-by-side:
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunthert/8485283411/sizes/o/in/...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/gunthert/8485283411/sizes/o/in/photostream/)
.

While the earlier version could also have been edited (quickly) before
publication, there's no doubt that it had much more believable lighting and
coloration. For the WPP submission, Hansen desaturated the photo globally,
particularly the blue and yellow. He also locally edited the luminance of the
left wall to be consistent with the right. The effect of both changes was to
isolate the marcher's angry red faces as the primary point of interest.

------
praptak
I don't buy his argument about inconsistent left-right lighting in the Gaza
photo.

Assuming the sun is really top-right, it is actually expected that people's
faces are illuminated from the left, given the setup: the people are between
two walls, the left one being illuminated, the right one in shadow. The light
you see on their faces is reflected from the left wall.

~~~
davidjohnstone
The light isn't from sunlight reflecting off the wall. It's too...
directional? It's also too bright, and the colour might be too warm. I'm not
entirely sure how to explain it, but I've done enough photography to recognise
that as an artificial light source.

But using an off-camera flash is not the same as Photoshopping three photos
into one, and the OP not even mentioning a flash as a possibly explanation for
the "inconsistent" lighting leaves me with significant doubts.

~~~
slantyyz
If it was a known "event" at the time (i.e., all the photojournalists knew the
procession was coming and planted themselves in an "ideal" location), and you
imagine a TMZ-like throng of photographers with their flashes firing from all
angles, the inconsistency of the lighting might make sense.

Note: I don't have an opinion of whether the image is fake or real, but I am
not sure the OP's analysis considers all possible lighting situations.

------
nkurz
I know little about image forensics, but am just old enough to have done some
black and white film development. What would a skillful dodge-and-burn when
making the "Eddie Murphy" print look like in an analysis like this? Or any
other creative highlighting by the developer? It seems a bit of a stretch to
go from "some regions of the photo are different than others" to "it's a
fake". I'd be interested in seeing a similar analysis of some other photos
known to be "authentic" for comparison.

I put "authentic" in quotes mostly in homage to an excellent series of Errol
Morris' essays on nature of documentary truth and history of photographic
manipulation. Worth reading. If you like it, you probably should watch some of
his films too. [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/which-
came-f...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/which-came-first-
the-chicken-or-the-egg-part-one/)

~~~
masto
The differences he's looking at are digital breadcrumbs left behind by editing
software. It's not so much an analysis of the photo as it is of the JPEG file.
JPEG is lossy, and repeatedly saving the same image changes the data in a
predictable way, such that it's possible to identify regions of "newness" in a
photo based on how their compression error differs from other parts of the
same file.

------
blowski
Could the title here be changed to something a bit more informative?

------
solarexplorer
The argument about peoples faces being illuminated on the wrong side is
flawed. The light on their faces is reflected from the wall on the left or
hits them from behind. It cannot illuminate the right side of their faces
because the building on the right casts a large shadow and because the sun is
in peoples back. There has been some serious dodging and burning going on this
picture but you cannot conclude from light alone that it is a composite.

~~~
pygy_
That is also my analysis.

The only character that looks odd to me is the one at the bottom left, and
even then, it could be genuine.

------
auggierose
It's funny how many people here latch onto the "fake" argument so quickly. I
read through the whole piece, and the only thing that sounded plausible was
the three sources thing in Photoshop. All other arguments I cannot really
follow.

------
randallsquared
Gaza looks like it follows GMT by about 3 hours, which would make this photo
taken at about 11:40am solar time. I think that at least roughly fits with the
angle.

------
mistercow
The thing that really bugs me about ELA is that while there is validity to the
technique, and it can identify certain images as clear fakes, any asshole can
plug any image into it, point at the bright points near some edges in the
image (which will be there regardless of authenticity), and smugly act like
they know what they're talking about.

~~~
mnicole
Yeah, I've seen various people use these types of methods to prove a point,
and each of them were able to come to their own conclusions based on the
results. Ultimately you can manipulate any photo to look like this in the end,
and some photos even just naturally look this way when processed even if they
are the real deal. I think we're putting too much credence into one-click web-
based tools and unreliable Photoshop methodologies.

------
joosters
I'm not going to express an opinion about the photo other than general
surprise about how varied a concept of 'faked' appears across all
commentators.

What really interested me was the article's description of Photoshop's XMP
metadata block, giving a history of saves/exports/edits. I never knew this
level of detail was stored with the images. It also makes me think, how long
until there are tools to easily edit such metadata? The website takes the
metadata as gospel truth. At some point in the future, this is not going to be
a reliable position to take.

~~~
nightpool
Well, to be honest, they really just use it as a starting point. I'm sure he
wouldn't have just concluded it was totally genuine if he had seen a clean
metadata block. Its a good starting point, but by far not the "gospel truth."

~~~
joosters
I've no problem with how they used it in the article. At the moment, the
overlap of 'professional photographers' and 'people skilled in metadata
forgery' is pretty slim and (IMO) the data is unlikely to have been altered in
this case.

My point is, in the future, you won't be able to even use the metadata as a
starting point because all of it could have been changed with easily-available
and well-known tools.

------
mikecane
It 503s for me and I can't find it in Google's cache. Any mirror?

~~~
zackkitzmiller
Coral Cache never fails

[http://www.hackerfactor.com.nyud.net/blog/index.php?/archive...](http://www.hackerfactor.com.nyud.net/blog/index.php?/archives/549-Unbelievable.html)

Edit: It's failing.

~~~
cema
Failed for me.

------
cema
403, and the offered alternative location is not available either. Is this
another salvo in the Middle East propaganda war? Please enlighten.

~~~
toyg
World Press Photo Award-winning picture is found to be significantly
retouched, "cleaning" dirt from faces of dead kids and adding light and
shadows in Photoshop. Picture happens to be of Gaza men mourning dead children
in their arms, likely as result of some Israeli military action.

I believe the main argument is entirely about photography: clearly composition
was great on its own, but lighting was heavily edited; _when is a picture
still a picture_ , so to speak? It's an important question for
photojournalists and their awards.

Whether this overlaps with the customary Israeli pushback on this sort of
material, I honestly don't know.

~~~
gbog
Why no, the point of the article is that this is not one photo, it is a
collage.

------
j_s
The recent history of conflict photography in this region is worth digging
into. I believe there was an HN discussion of the following documentary, but I
can't find it:

[http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournal...](http://www.rubensalvadori.com/index.php/project/photojournalism-
behind-the-scenes/)

"an auto-critical photo essay showing the paradoxes of conflict-image
production and considering the role of the photographer in the events"

------
btipling
Warning, graphic pictures of dead children in this post. Not safe for mind or
work. It is horrifying. Posts like these are why I stopped using reddit,
because "surprise! Here's a horrible picture, now feel like shit for the rest
of the week/month/forever!"

If there were some place else to get programming or startup news like you can
get here I would never come back. I wish there were such a place or that HN
stopped allowing politics and NSFL stuff like this.

~~~
josephlord
Now the link title and site don't give you any useful information about the
topic it is fair but the photo is not a graphic one of the children. I fear
that if you sanitise your life to the extent of avoiding such photos you risk
a severe shock at some point and possibly in real life.

The graphic part is the visible emotions of those in the crowd.

Looking at your posting history you submitted a before and after [edit: Google
Earth satellite] photo of the earthquake in Japan 2011. To me that is far more
shocking as I can't help but imagine briefly at the impact on those there,
hundreds of children lost and others orphaned.

~~~
btipling
Yes, that wasn't a good submission by me. I aim to do better in the future.

~~~
josephlord
I wasn't really complaining about that but more commenting on the range of
what people feel shocking. The photo in this case was not in my view
problematic.

Death, pain and suffering happen all the time and while it shouldn't be
fetishised it also doesn't seem a great idea to hide or deny it either.

------
ilitirit
How could they not see that this was fake/manipulated?

------
twapi
getting 403 error :(

~~~
Aardwolf
It's so unbelievable, even the server can't handle it!

------
wishbear
Oh, the side is blocked in Russia

~~~
aleyan
The the site is blocked in Russia? Can anyone else confirm? It may just be
poor connectivity. Hackerfactor would be an interesting addition to the known
Russian blacklisted sites[1] though.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_blacklist#Know...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Internet_blacklist#Known_sites_blocked_by_the_blacklist)

------
Skibb
So the photo someone took was later edited in order to look better? Shocking.

------
broxlone
hmmmmmmmm

