Sacramento Bee egrets the error – photographer sacked for cheating
THE Sacramento Bee has sacked Bryan Patrick for “violating the paper’s ethics policy”. Patrick, a photographer, claimed to have taken a photo of a great egret catching a frog, with a snowy egret trying to grab it. He didn’t. Somewhere along the line, two images wer merged to look like one.
The Sacramento Bee’s executives examined Patrick’s old photos. They found that one showing a wildfire had “exagggerated” flames.
The paper issued an apology:
“To maintain the credibility of the Sacramento Bee, documentary photographs will not be manipulated in any way that alters the reality of the image.”
Sean Elliot, president of the US National Press Photographers Association,said Patrick’s pictures were “violating a fundamental code of ethics in the name of something relatively minor…If he’s willing to move a couple of egrets around, if he’s willing to jazz up flames to make a photo more exciting, how do we know there aren’t more?… How do we trust the work?”
It was so much simpler when the snapper has negatives to back up his work…
Posted: 7th, February 2012 | In: Reviews Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
