Exercise - Guerreros Photograph by Claire Cozens

Guerreros Photograph

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/mar/12/pressandpublishing.spain


The discussion here is about a photograph that was given to our press to publish, it was a photograph of the Madrid Bombing in March 2004.  The picture was altered by some, and the discussion is whether this is right or wrong.  Print or not to print..

The harrowing image was of the Madrid train bombing which appeared on the front of several newspaper front pages.  The picture had been altered as many had removed a limb which was very visible and its was thought  that it would offend the readers.

Many papers removed the blood soaked limb via photoshop, the bodies were still strewn about but this
limb seemed offensive.  Other papers changed the image to black and white so the colours were not too graphic, this seemed to them as a good alternative.

This extraordinary picture was just within the boundaries of a front page photo, and this body part
put them over this threshold.

Cleaning up this image didn't change the context in any way .. but it didn't add to the picture.  Sometimes you need to see all the horrors and a photograph should remain untouched, but this was a good photograph any way and the alterations made no difference - not in a negative way.

Questions were asked why had the limb been removed .. I would have thought calls would have been made the other way, asking for it to be removed.  They try not to alter an image if possible.
The french papers printed the unaltered picture and also other more horrific pictures of people and the internal shot of the train.  I have seen some of these images on the internet and they are truly awful and although they are making a point i'm sure these people do not want, or would not have wanted these images of themselves blasted to pieces all over the papers.   Im glad we were protected from them by Reuters.  Although I feel a bit sheltered.

Removing items isn't really acceptable.  The Press Complaints Commission bans newspapers from publishing inaccurate, misleading, or distorted material, including pictures.

Celebrated artist David Hockney said of modern photography, that it is now so extensively and easily altered that it can no longer be seen as true or factual.
You cant believe a photograph taken after a certain date because of this.  

Having seen the picture, the limb makes it quite gory and removing it doesn't make a lesser picture so perhaps for the mass media it should be done.  But the truth is that this awful bomb did blow off someones arm and thats a fact.  The truth shows how bad this bomb really was.

I am undecided,  I like to be protected by the alteration, but we need to see the truth to truly understand the horror.














Should you print it ..

http://www.oca-student.com/sites/default/files/ShouldYouPrint.pdf