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Physical perfection used to be exclusive to celebrities and models on magazine covers. Photo editing features on apps like Snapchat and Instagram, however, made it possible for everyone to look like a celebrity within a matter of taps and clicks.
We might be living in what MP Dr Luke Evans calls "a digitally warped reality," in which we are creating online personas that drift further and further away from our actual, physical selves.

With depression and eating disorder rates on the rise, our obsession with false physical perfection might also fuelling a mental health crisis and is the reasons why we decided to investigate if social media is leading to a rise in body dysmorphic disorder conditions:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder And Social Media

Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a body-image disorder characterised by the persistent preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in one's appearance. BDD most often develops during adolescence and young adults are regarded as the most vulnerable for developing it. Statistics show that it occurs in about 2.5% of males, and 2.2 % of females. A range of genetic, biological and cultural factors are involved in what causes it, but one immensely important cultural factor for young adults that has been massively expanding in recent years is social media. 91% of 16-24-year-olds are using social platforms daily, and it is influencing their attitudes, beliefs and actions.

This is especially true where body image is concerned: In a recent subject study, 144 girls (Aged 14 -18 years old) were randomly exposed to original and manipulated pictures. The results showed that the manipulated images directly lowered their self-esteem and perception of their own bodies.

"It just makes it so much easier to compare yourself to others," is what Emma said, a young woman suffering from BDD, whose name has been changed at her request. Emma explained that her condition began when she started obsessively comparing herself to someone she was following on Instagram.
"To me, Instagram and TikTok are the most toxic. I mostly go on there to punish myself, I think. Since everything is also altered and airbrushed you don't know that what you are comparing yourself to is unrealistic."
What Emma described is what the Royal Society of Public Health called a "compare and despair" attitude caused by social that might have likely gotten out of proportion with the rise of FaceTune and AI filters.

For this reason, MP Dr Luke Evans proposed the "Digitally Altered Images Bill," calling for modified images to be labelled in the future. After reaching out to him, we learned through his office manager Victoria Stapleton that prior to proposing the bill Dr Evans met with several patients with mental health issues, who experienced a loss of self-worth due to negative body image perceptions after viewing photoshopped images shown in the media.
According to Ms. Stapleton, Dr. Evans believes that a label can help people gain self-confidence and not make unrealistic and detrimental comparisons.

Next to MP Luke Evans, we reached out to the charity Girlguiding, who supports the bill.
The charity provided us with self-conducted surveys that showed that 52% of young girls and women polled in 2018 claimed that they sometimes feel ashamed of how they look because they don't resemble girls and women in the media.
When it came to social media use, 71% of respondents said that they alter the pictures they post online "most times" or "sometimes."
So labelling digitally altered images might therefore be essential to disillusion us from the false reality we have created. A dangerous reality, almost indistinguishable from the real one, where perfection is achievable and young adults risk their physical and mental health in the desperate attempt to acquire to it ...

The Growing Phenomenon Of Snapchat Dysmorphia

"Snapchat Dysmorphia" describes the growing number of patients coming in and asking to look like filter edited versions of themselves. To get a deeper insight, we reached out to aesthetic physician Dr. Wassim Taktouk who was featured in the BBC documentary "The Truth About Cosmetic Treatments."

When asked if he thinks "Snapchat dysmorphia" has contributed to the growing popularity of cosmetic procedures, he replied: "Yes definitely. We are in dangerous territory now. Patients are posting pictures of themselves with filters and are liking the way they look. When they put out that edited image that they deem to be a more attractive version of themselves and get more likes and interactions, they start internalising that is what they should look like. I do see patients coming in with these photographs, asking "Can you make me look like this," "Can you make my jaw look more like this," "Can you make my eyes bigger like this." It gets problematic when you start thinking about the nose to mouth lines, for example, the lines that go from your nose to the corner of your mouth. These filters entirely wipe them off their face. Therefore, some of these asks are not even achievable anymore because these are not the characteristics of a natural human face.

Removing blemishes and spots is completely possible but when it comes to rearranging your face so you can look like a filter we are moving into dangerous territory."
Nonsurgical facial procedures are more commonly known as "tweakments," and they have boomed in 2019.
This is partially due to the impact of influencers and what has been called "The Kylie Jenner Effect", or " The Celebrity Cosmetic Surgery Effect." After Kylie Jenner confessed to having lip fillers in 2016, UK clinics saw a 70% increase in requests for filler 24 hours after.
When we asked Dr. Taktouk about "tweakments" and the "Kylie Jenner Effect" he replied:

"Now that you can walk into a clinic and have your nose altered within five minutes, it installed this "quick-fix mentality", spearheaded by celebrities and social media stars. Kylie Jenner completely transformed her face and showed young girls that transformations are absolutely achievable and that you can easily go from "A" to "B." She still uses a lot of filters and airbrush tools though so again; these are unrealistic photographs."

Reaching out to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons we learned that one of the biggest concerns for the organisation's president Mary O'Brien was the "trivialisation" and "glamorisation" of aesthetic procedures. "The promotion of unrealistic expectations (...) concerns me. We live in a society that increasingly connects via a virtual world, and Instagram posts don't always represent reality!"
When we asked Dr. Taktouk if he thinks that labelling altered images would help eradicate the issue, he replied: "I think it would make sense. Older audiences probably would not care as much, but the younger audience who is really impressionable and is constantly being bombarded by these photographs that are unreal might benefit.

It might help them to see that maybe this person looks great here, but they did X, Y, Z. I also think there should be an option on social media to exclude younger audiences from seeing [cosmetic surgeons] "before and after" posts as they might have a negative impact on their body image."

Young adults tweaking on their actual faces has almost become as normalised as making little tweaks on a selfie.

A Recent Study shows That Body Dysmorphia Is on The Rise

Due to its hidden nature, BDD is very hard to diagnose. However, a 2019 study by the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, showed that BDD is on the rise among young adults. The study assessed ranging body dysmorphia signs among 186 male and female students and found that 47.84% of males and 52.13% of females showed signs of BDD. This is clearly more than the 2.4% previously assumed to be suffering from the condition.

The study linked the findings to "Snapchat Dysmorphia" and the increased screen among young adults.

With about 10 million new photographs uploaded to Facebook every hour alone, there is endless potential for younger audiences to be drawn into appearance-based comparisons, to bodies and faces that just are not realistic.
Social platforms have already made it easy to only love ourselves in certain pictures, moments, and angles rather than doing it consistently and unconditionally.

Filters on apps like Snapchat and Instagram, however, and the idolisation of certain people and body types have made the beauty standards, by which some measure their self-worth by, completely unattainable. It created a culture that is unhealthy for many but toxic for a vulnerable few, thus causing a rise in BDD signs.
If the law MP Luke Evans and the Royal Society of Public Health suggest can actually be passed, we might be able to pull back the curtain on the beauty standards we have been setting for ourselves, due to a culture that has normalised the modification and distortion of our natural features.

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Are FaceTuned Images on Social Media Leading to a Rise in Body Dysmorphic Disorder?

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Physical perfection used to be exclusive to celebrities and models on magazine covers. Photo editing features on apps like Snapchat and Instagram, however, made it possible for everyone to look like a celebrity within a matter of taps and clicks.

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Many of us suspect that the beautiful, often highly-edited images of people we see on social media make us feel worse about our own bodies. But what does the research say?

If you mindlessly scroll through Instagram or Facebook whenever you get a few seconds of downtime, you're far from alone. But have you ever wondered how all those images of other people's bodies - whether your friend's holiday snap or a celebrity's gym selfie - could be affecting how you view your own?

Much has been made over the years about how mainstream media presents unrealistic beauty standards in the form of photoshopped celebrities or stick-thin fashion models. Now that influencers fill up our feeds, it's easy to imagine that social media, too, is all bad when it comes to body image.

But the reality is more nuanced, and there may be ways to curate your Instagram feed to make you feel happier in your own skin - or, at least, stop you feeling worse.

You might also like:

● Is social media bad for you? The knowns and unknowns

● Why it pays to declutter your digital life

● How much is 'too much time' on social media?

It's important to note that research into social media and body image is still in its early stages, and most studies are correlational. This means we can't prove whether, for example, Facebook causes someone to have negative feelings about their appearance, or whether people who are concerned about their appearance are more likely to use Facebook.

That being said, using social media does appear to be correlated with body image concerns. A systematic review of 20 papers published in 2016 found that photo-based activities, like scrolling through Instagram or posting pictures of yourself, were a particular problem when it came to negative thoughts about your body.

Photo-based activities online, like scrolling through Instagram, have been correlated with feeling more negatively about your body (Credit: Getty)

But there are many different ways to use social media - are you just consuming what others post, or are you taking, editing and uploading selfies? Are you following close friends and family, or a laundry list of celebrities and influencers?

Research suggests that who we compare ourselves to is key.

"People are comparing their appearance to people in Instagram images, or whatever platform they're on, and they often judge themselves to be worse off," says Jasmine Fardouly, a postdoctoral researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.

In a survey of 227 female university students, women reported that they tend to compare their own appearance negatively with their peer group and with celebrities, but not with family members, while browsing Facebook. The comparison group that had the strongest link to body image concerns was distant peers, or acquaintances.

Looking at celebrities made women feel worse about their bodies - but images of acquaintances came with an even stronger link to body image concerns (Credit: Getty)

Fardouly puts this down to the fact that people present a one-sided version of their life online. If you know someone well, you'll know they're only showing the best bits - but if they're an acquaintance, you won't have any other information to go on.

When it comes to the wider circle of influencers and accounts you follow, not all types of content are equal.

Research suggests that "fitspiration" images in particular - which typically feature beautiful people doing exercise, or at least pretending to - might make you harsher on yourself.

Amy Slater, an associate professor at the University of West England, Bristol, published a study in 2017 in which 160 female undergraduates viewed either #fitspo, self compassion quotes, or a mix of both, all sourced from real accounts on Instagram. Those who viewed only #fitspo scored lower on self-compassion, but those who viewed the compassionate quotes (e.g. "You're perfect just the way you are") were nicer to themselves - and felt better about their bodies.

For those who viewed both the #fitspo and the self-compassion quotes, the benefits of the latter appeared to outweigh the negatives of the former.

Looking at self-compassion quotes on social media made people feel better about themselves (Credit: Getty)

Another study published earlier this year involved showing 195 young women either body-positive content from popular accounts like @bodyposipanda, photos showing thin women in bikinis or fitness gear, or neutral images of nature. The researchers found that exposing women to #bodypositive Instagram content appeared to boost their satisfaction with their own bodies.

"Those two things together are starting to build a little bit of a story that there may be some content that actually is useful for body image," says Slater.

But there may be a downside to body-positive images, too: they're still focusing on bodies. The same study found that women who'd seen the body-positive photos still ended up objectifying themselves - measured when, after looking at the images, the participants were asked to write 10 statements about themselves. The more the statements focussed on their appearance rather than their skills or personality, the higher that participant scored on self-objectification.

When study participants viewed body-positive content, they felt better about their own bodies - but there was a catch (Credit: Getty)

That means when someone wrote "I am beautiful" it got lumped in with negative things people said about their bodies. But those people could be taking a broader view of where their beauty comes from, including internal as well as physical attributes, says Slater.

Either way, this fixation with looks is a criticism of the body-positive movement that does seem to hold true. "It is about loving the body, but it is still very much about a focus on appearance," says Fardouly.

When it comes to posting our own pictures on social media, selfies tend to be the focus.

For a study published last year, Jennifer Mills, an associate professor at York University, Toronto, asked female undergraduates to take a selfie on an iPad and upload it to either Facebook or Instagram. One group could only take a single picture and upload it without editing, but the other had a chance to take as many as they wanted and retouch their selfie using an app.

Mills and her colleagues found that all the selfie takers felt less attractive and less confident after posting than when they'd walked into the experiment - even those who'd been allowed to edit their photos to their heart's content. "Even though they can make the end result look 'better', they still are focused on aspects of what they don't like about the way they look," she says.

In one experiment, women felt worse about themselves after posting a selfie online - even if they'd retouched it (Credit: Getty)

Some of the participants wanted to know if anyone had liked their photo before deciding how they felt about having posted it, although looking at interactions wasn't part of the study.

"There's this rollercoaster of feeling anxious and then getting reassurance from other people that you look good," says Mills. "But that probably doesn't last forever, and then you take another selfie."

In previous work published in 2017, researchers found that spending a lot of time perfecting selfies could be a sign that someone is struggling with body dissatisfaction.

Still, some big holes remain in the research on social media and body image.

Most of the work so far has focused on young women, as traditionally they have been the age group most affected by body image concerns. But research including men is starting to show they're not immune. For example, a study found that men who reported looking at male #fitspo content more frequently said they compared their own appearance to others more often and cared about having muscles more.

Men who look at #fitspo content more frequently cared more about their own muscles (Credit: Getty)

Longer term research is also an important next step, because lab experiments can only provide a snapshot of any possible effects. "We don't really know whether over time [social media] has a cumulative effect on people or not," says Fardouly.

So, for now, how should you curate your own social media feeds if you don't want to come away feeling bad about your body?

Mills has one takeaway that should work for everyone: put down your phone.

"Take a break and engage in other activities that have nothing to do with appearance and comparing yourself to other people," she says.

The best advice? Put down your phone (Credit: Getty)

The next best thing would be to think critically about who you follow - and, if you find yourself facing an endless stream of appearance-focussed photos next time you scroll, add some nature or travel into the mix.

After all, giving up social media altogether is probably too big of an ask for most people - especially while the long term effects of using it are still unclear. But finding inspiring landscapes, delicious food, and cute dogs to fill your Instagram feed might just help you remember there's more to life than what you look like.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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Many of us suspect that the beautiful, often highly-edited images of people we see on social media make us feel worse about our own bodies. But what does the research say?

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When you don't like those people or objects in the background, you just remove them.

Using a filter, after the snap, to make a regular photo look vintage, is as easy as a mouse click. So is removing a light post that seems to be shooting out of someone's head by using photoshop.

But in the world of photojournalism, these alterations are the subject of intense debate. And using photo shop can land you in hot water. Like it did for The Economist when it removed people from this beach photo of President Obama.

Or for an Orthodox Israeli newspaper when it cut out the female leaders in this photo.

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What happens when Photoshop goes too far?

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A New York exhibit chronicles prominent cases of images altered by journalists and asks: If seeing is believing, how often are you, the viewer or reader, being misled? Saskia de Melker reports.

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People

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Add this article to your list of favourites

"My real knees look like a vagina, and that's fine!"

We love that Jameela Jamil continuously tries to rub away the gloss and sheen that surrounds celebrity status, calling out the beauty standards that those in the spotlight feel forced to live up to, and those at home the media is broadcasting to.

It's what's made her one of the most-loved voices of the moment, and why we made her our Woman of the Year at the Stylist Remarkable Women Awards.

And now she's done it again, this time unpicking an airbrushed photo of herself to make it absolutely crystal clear that no one should be made to feel rubbish about themselves, trying to compare to an image that just isn't real.

Taking to Instagram Jamil posted an image of herself posing in a leopard-print mini dress and heels.

Writing in the caption she starts: "I was just doing a new spoof motivation sultry pic and was struck by how edited this picture of me is."

Alongside the image, Jamil annotated every part of her body that had been airbrushed, and exactly why this is so damaging.

"Where are my titty stretchmarks?" she asks in one annotation.

In another, she calls out the ridiculous practise of softening the shape of celebrity's knees, writing: "This airbrushing is why women hate their normal knees. My knees look like a vagina and that's fine!"

Writing, "I am darker skinned than this" she also highlights the inherent racism in the media which has seen her skin lightened after photoshoots, something which she called out before.

Speaking to Krishnan Guru-Murthy last year, Jamil explained the extent of how her skin tone and features have been altered by photoshop, saying: "People have made look white in so many of the magazines and campaigns I've shot for. That hurts me. That hurts me from a cultural point of view.

She also explained what seeing this feels like to her personally: "It hurts my feelings. Airbrushing and changing my ethnicity is bad for my mental health. It's not just bad for the mental health of the girls who are looking at it, it makes me then dislike what I'm seeing in the mirror. It sends a direct message from the editor to me, from whoever photoshops my image, to me, that I am not good enough as I am."

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Jameela Jamil blames social media for women's "out of control" body image issues

Ending her Instagram post, she echoes this point and reinforces how not only damaging it is for girls to see this growing up, but how toxic it is for her trying to live up to an impossible standard, writing: "It made me so mentally unwell trying to live up to this image in person. Airbrushing is the DEVIL."

The more society gets to grips with the idea that these types of images aren't real, the better chance we have of erasing these painful beauty standards for good. So here's to Jamil, for once again doing away with the smoke and mirrors.
Images: Instagram / Getty

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Megan Murray

Megan Murray is a senior digital writer for stylist.co.uk, who enjoys writing about homeware (particularly candles), travel, food trends, restaurants and all the wonderful things London has to offer.

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Jameela Jamil has had it with body-shaming

The actress and presenter called out negative social media behaviour and started a body-positivity revolution that will make you feel empowered.

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Jameela Jamil criticises Kim Kardashian for promoting appetite suppressants

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Jameela Jamil blames social media for women's "out of control" body image issues

"We are in a crisis."

People
Jameela Jamil has had it with body-shaming

The actress and presenter called out negative social media behaviour and started a body-positivity revolution that will make you feel empowered.

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Jameela Jamil criticises Kim Kardashian for promoting appetite suppressants

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Jameela Jamil calls out everything wrong with this airbrushed photo

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People background Layer 1 Add this article to your list of favourites "My real knees look like a vagina, and that's fine!" We love that Jameela Jamil continuously tries to rub away the gloss and sheen that surrounds celebrity status, calling out the beauty standards that those in the spotlight feel forced to live up to, and those at home the media is broadcasting to.

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With the advent of powerful desktop publishing software like Adobe Photoshop, digital image manipulation has become mainstream. However, even before the invention of such software, doctored and tampered photos were used to alter perception and shape history. Fourandsix.com has chronicled these occurrences in their brilliant series, ' Photo Tampering throughout History '. Below you will find a curated list of 12 famously doctored photographs from the history books, enjoy!

This iconic portrait of U.S President Abraham Lincoln is actually a composite of Lincoln's head and the Southern politician John Calhoun's body. [Source: fourandsix.com]

Researchers at the Library of Congress uncovered this gem after extensive detective work. The image appears to show General Ulsses S. Grant in front of his troops at City Point, Virginia during the American Civil War. Investigation now shows the image to be made of three separate prints: (1) the head is taken from a portrait of Grant; (2) the horse and body are those of Major General Alexander M. Cook; and (3) the background is of Confederate prisoners captured at the battle of Fisher's Hill, Virginia. [Source: fourandsix.com]

In this famous photograph taken by Matthew Brady, General Sherman is seen posing with his generals. General Francis P. Blair (standing far right) was added to the photograph as he was not in attendance for that specific shot. His image was taken from the second photograph shown, which was taken during the same sitting. [Source: fourandsix.com]

Stalin was notorious for routinely airbrushing his enemies out of photographs. As people fell out of favor with Stalin, so to did their photographic identity. In this image we see a comissar removed after falling out of Stalin's good graces. [Source: fourandsix.com]

Just like Stalin, Mao Tse-tung was known for removing people after they fell out of favor. In this image we see Po Ku removed for just that. [Source: fourandix.com

Not to be outdone by Stalin and Mao, Hitler also liked to tamper. In this doctored photograph we see Joseph Goebbels removed, though it is unclear why Goebbels fell out of favor with Hitler. [Source: fourandsix.com]

Prime Minster of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King, removed King George VI from the original photograph with the PM alongside Queen Elizabeth. The photograph was used on an election poster for the Prime Minister, so the theory is that an image of just Mackenzie with the Queen put him in a more powerful light. [Source: fourandsix.com]

Benito Mussolini had the horse handler removed from the original photograph to make himself look more epic and heroic in this iconic capture. [Source: fourandsix.com]

The editor-in-chief of Russian Magazine Ogoniok, removed a soldier's watch as they raised the soviet flag atop the German Reichstag building during WWII. The reason? If you look closely, the soldier has a watch on his other hand as well. This suggests that 'looting' may have occurred before this photo was taken. [Source: fourandsix.com]

In this rather obvious tampering, the faces of Bill Cleary (front row, third from left), Bob Cleary (middle row, far left), and John Mayasich (top row far left), are superimposed onto the bodies of Bob Dupuis, Larry Alm and Herb Brooks. It's unclear why those players were selected as 'replacements'. The US Olympic Hockey team defeated the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia to win its first Olympic Gold Medal in Hockey. [Source: fourandsix.com]

On April 12th, 1961, a Russian team of cosmonauts led by Yuri Gagarin were the first humans to complete an orbit of Earth. One of the cosmonauts, Grigoriy Nelyubov, was removed from a photo of the team taken after their journey. Nelyubov had been expelled from the program for misbehavior. [Source: fourandsix.com]

In this Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by John Filo, we see Mary Ann Vecchio screaming as she kneels over the body of student Jeffrey Miller at Kent State University. The Kent State Shootings occurred when National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine. The photo originally featured a visually distracting fencepost behind Mary Ann Vecchio's head, but this was removed by an unknown photo editor in the early 1970's. The modified photo then was published in Life magazine and other publications. [Source: fourandsix.com]

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12 Historic Photographs That Were Manipulated

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With the advent of powerful desktop publishing software like Adobe Photoshop, digital image manipulation has become mainstream. However, even before the invention of such software, doctored and tampered photos were used to alter perception and shape history. Fourandsix.com has chronicled these occurrences in their brilliant series, ' Photo Tampering throughout History '.

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Journal Information

Aperture is required reading for everyone seriously interested in photography. Founded in 1952, each issue examines one theme explored in two distinct sections: Words, focused on the best writing surrounding contemporary photography, and Pictures, featuring immersive portfolios and artist projects.

Publisher Information

Aperture, a not-for-profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other-in print, in person, and online.

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ERROL MORRIS'S "BELIEVING IS SEEING" on JSTOR

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Journal Information Aperture is required reading for everyone seriously interested in photography. Founded in 1952, each issue examines one theme explored in two distinct sections: Words, focused on the best writing surrounding contemporary photography, and Pictures, featuring immersive portfolios and artist projects.

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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.

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Edgar Martins has released an essay that constitutes his response to the controversy and has annotated a number of his photographs, discussing some of the methods he used and why he used them.

Edgar Martins, the photographer at the heart of the current controversy, has told Lens and at least one other blog, Jain, that he will be telling his side of the story soon. The text of his e-mail response to requests for interviews, identical to both blogs, is shown below in italics.

There's probably no more troubling issue facing photojournalism than the digital manipulation of images that are supposed to faithfully represent what's in front of the camera.

Digital technology permits so many interventions - some acutely obvious, others so subtle that only computers can detect them - that the line has blurred between manipulation and the kind of enhancement and editing that viewers customarily expect; like cropping, color correction, burning and dodging.

Blurry as it may get, there's no question that the digital rearrangement or insertion of physical objects constitutes manipulation that The Times will not accept. (In the 1930s, it was another matter.)

The longstanding policy is unambiguous:

Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions).

That's not to say it doesn't happen.

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.

By Tuesday, sharp-eyed readers were calling the pictures into question. One comment on the MetaFilter blog included an animated dissection. The PDN Pulse blog also pointed out five instances in which objects had apparently been duplicated.

In response, The Times published an editors' note, noting that the introduction to the essay "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.

Kenneth Irby, the visual journalism group leader at the Poynter Institute, had no comment Wednesday on the Magazine essay, which he hadn't yet seen. Speaking generally, however, he noted the "tremendous competition in the marketplace for imagery," while at the same time, "with a click of a mouse, a perceived imperfection can be adjusted and modified."

He continued, "To distinguish oneself with a great photo or powerful reportage - that's a temptation."

Following is Mr. Martin's e-mail response on Thursday to a request for an interview:

Absolutely!
However, I will not be able to do share my views with you for a few more days.

I have been informed of the discussion that is currently taking place concerning the feature, which I had anticipated to some degree, but which I have not yet been able to acquaitance myself with it, as I am travelling and so unable to access the internet. (Yes, believe it or not there are still places in this world with limited or no internet connection..)

I will no doubt be discussing this issue you with yourself, your readers and readers from other blogs fairly soon.
In the meantime let the debate rage on... no doubt this will open up a healthy dialogue about Photography, its inexorable links to the real & its inadequacies. Or so I hope...

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Edgar Martins has released an essay that constitutes his response to the controversy and has annotated a number of his photographs, discussing some of the methods he used and why he used them. Edgar Martins, the photographer at the heart of the current controversy, has told Lens and at least one other blog, Jain, that he will be telling his side of the story soon.

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I will begin by saying that my intention is not to attack Steve McCurry or defame him in any manner. It is only an attempt to clear certain facts that have come to light regarding his work and to also raise certain questions on aspects that may or may not have been missed, but certainly have not been expressed till now, atleast not publicly. McCurry is an inspiring figure to many, therefore in the light of recent events, a close examination of his photographs and his practice has already been done, I only want to take it a few steps further.

Steve McCurry has come to India on numerous occasions to photograph. It has a special place in his work and in his life. He has expressed his love for India many times over the years. Some regard India as his 'Karma Bhoomi' (the land where one works). It is a place that has provided him with countless iconic images and it is the place where he returned to, to shoot about half of the last roll of Kodachrome.

It is also the depiction of this place that has attracted him the most criticism, both in India and internationally. He is often accused of depicting a certain stereotypical, exotic, almost "slumdog millionaire-ish" version of India that panders to western audiences. This is a criticism that Teju Cole of the New York Times also levied on McCurry's recent volume of photographs titled 'India' which is a compendium of all the images he made here in between 1978 and 2014. He was also faced with the same criticism on stage at the launch of the same book in New Delhi. Further, in the review of his book, Cole goes on to remark "The pictures are staged or shot to look as if they were." Again, McCurry was faced by these same questions at that launch event in January, which he chose to ignore then.

Five months on, a number of things have come to light regarding his work with many questioning his ethics, while others calling it a "targeted witch hunt." Some of the things that he has come under fire for are astounding, while there are a few details that photographers and fixers in India have always known.

The controversy began with a so-called "botched print" as PetaPixel reported it citing photographer Paolo Vigilione who went to an exhibition of McCurry's work in Italy and posted about what he had seen on his blog. While he "had no intention to attack McCurry" he certainly got the ball rolling on what has now snowballed into a full-blown controversy.

The images have since been removed from McCurry's website as well as by Vigilione from his blog. These images were taken from PetaPixel's article detailing the issue-

A further cursory exploration into his work lead to the following few images that PetaPixel too published in its article. These images too have been removed from McCurry's website, in fact the entire blog seems to have been removed.

The shot of the children playing football was from a series of personal pictures, however a version of it was also published on Magnum Photos' website, but has since been removed.

After the initial bit of articles were published in publications and blogs online, Indian photographer Satish Sharma made the following comments on his blog-

"I am not at all surprised at the digital manipulation (done by him) to create the perfect frame.

I have watched him rig (stage) his pictures. (He) Arranged the subjects (back then) because chromes (slide film) could not be that easily manipulated. "

Sharma goes onto cite an important and iconic image, that of the railway engine in front of the Taj.

Regarding this image Sharma says. "This famous cover picture of his National Geographic story on the Railways was a special case that I remember. He actually had to reshoot it and got the railways to take the engine back again, because the first shoot was not sharp enough"

Further elaborating Sharma says-

"For a shot of the kitchen in 'The Great Indian Rover' he actually had the railing around the work bench removed. I know because I was there. The last time I saw him he was arranging a picture in Delhi's Lodi Garden directing a waiter where to stand. "

Perhaps, most perturbing of Sharma's claims is the following image which also appeared in the same NatGeo issue of 1984 on travelling across India by rail-

Regarding this Sharma writes- "This apparently off the cuff moment was arranged too. The lady is the wife of a photographer friend and the suitcases the coolie (porter) is carrying are empty. They had to be because the shot took time and lots of patient posing. McCurry's pictures have been called STAGED CANDID MOMENTS by Avinash Pasricha , a photographer friend who knows how he works because he helped him with the pictures like the one above. The lady is his sister in law. "

In a bid to investigate and ratify Sharma's claims, I made a call to Avinash Pasricha, veteran photographer living in Delhi. He had the following to say-

"Yes, from what I can recall, Steve used to stage quite a few shots back then. He needed help whenever he came to India and people obliged. Since my house was and still is centrally located in the city he would come here often. He was always passionate and longing to go out and shoot again. On one occasion that he had come, he told me of a particular shot that he wanted to take on how people travel in India. He requested my sister in law Vanita to accompany him to New Delhi Railway station" says Pasricha. On asking him about the suitcases on the porter's head, he confirms that they are indeed empty.

A little bit of searching lead me to the lady in the above said image, Ms. Vanita Pasricha who briefly told me the following regarding the image-

"This image is from about 32 years ago. He was a very polite man, a thorough gentleman who wanted a picture on how people travel in India. I went with him to New Delhi Railway Station in the morning for a few quick pictures. Those suitcases are my suitcases and that is my son Mithil that I am holding, who is now infact 38 years old now. I only met him a couple of times, I did not even know whether the photo was published or not. It is only when my brother called from the states did I get to know that it was published in National Geographic."

The image was indeed published in the June issues of 1984 of NatGeo in the following form, according to this archived copy.

It was published with the following misleading caption-

While the claims of these people are compelling, damning and perturbing what has been equally perturbing is McCurry's own handling of this matter and his ultimate defence that he put forward in an exclusive interview with TIME. (The unedited copy of the interview was made available to me on contacting McCurry's studio in New York for a brief statement. I was informed that Mr. McCurry is presently travelling and is difficult to reach, we will publish a follow up with his responses on these questions as soon as he becomes available.)

In a press conference held at an exhibition of his work in Canada on the 27 th of May, he said the he was not in favour of "Photoshopping" or "adding and subtracting elements from a picture" and that the software should only be used as means of colour balance and correction. Three days later though in the interview with TIME he said that he will "rein in his use of Photoshop" when asked about the controversy, while not directly making a reference to the fact that he has done so in the past or what exactly lead to the glaring differences in between the different versions of the published images. The removal of his entire blog and subsequent silence for a number of days raises further questions.

The most perturbing of McCurry's statements is his claim that he is no longer a photojournalist and more of a "visual storyteller". The statement in itself is very alarming when you take into account the context that it was said in. The majority of McCurry's career has been spent photographing subjects for journalistic stories and features, though he now believes otherwise- "The years of covering conflict zones are in the distant past. Except for a brief time at a local newspaper in Pennsylvania, I have never been an employee of a newspaper, news magazine, or other news outlet. I have always freelanced" he said in the interview.

One must surely argue that by merely categorising himself now as a visual storyteller, does not absolve McCurry of the ethics of simple photographic practice, i.e. depicting things the way they are, something he claims to always strive to according to this Ted talk from just a few years ago. Moreover, this is especially important as his work has been continually published in publications such as National Geographic that are bound by a strict code of journalistic ethics. While the days of photographing conflict may well be over, and while he is exploring these new ways of telling stories, his new and recent work continues to pop up in journalistic publications leading to a simple yet perturbing logical anomaly. To add to that anomaly, his own website continues to reference him as a Photojournalist, even though he is out exploring new ways of "visual storytelling."

Further still, as a practicing photojournalist myself, I must also argue that while McCurry has the freedom to explore new ways of story telling and the freedom to alter images from personal projects (just like any other photographer) surely the publication of these images with a clarification detailing the extent of alteration is necessary considering the fact that the viewer will in most cases connect it to McCurry's photojournalistic aesthetic, especially when the subject matter of these images(people/ travel/ street etc.) is so similar to McCurry's photojournalistic work.

On the note of issuing a disclaimer, I must also add that McCurry also cites a previous iconic cover image of monsoon in India from 1984 for National Geographic, which was to an extent altered. The original image was of a horizontal orientation and could not be published in the magazine's vertical format. NatGeo decided to extend the water to fit the format.

A critical piece of information not shared in the interview is that the image was published with a disclaimer detailing the alteration according to a copy of the issue that I found in an online archive. Further, the reason that NatGeo was legally bound to issue that disclaimer is the fact that just two years prior to that in February 1982, NatGeo was in the middle of a serious controversy where they used an image altering software called 'Scitex' to fit a horizontal image of the pyramids in Egypt onto their vertical cover resulting in a squeezed and altered view, different from the original photograph. The action lead to widespread criticism, which NatGeo finally agreed with and decided to change its policy whereby it declared any digital alterations of that nature.

Infact the editor of NatGeo wrote the following at that time- " At the beginning of our access to Scitex, I think we were seduced by the dictum, 'If it can be done, it must be done.'
But there's a danger there. When a photograph becomes synthesis, fantasy, rather than reportage, then the whole purpose of the photograph dies. A photographer is a reporter - a photon thief, if you will. He goes and takes, with a delicate instrument, an extremely thin slice of life. When we changed that slice of life, no matter in what small way, we diluted our credibility. "

What truly needs to be examined is the state of McCurry's legacy, especially for those that he has inspired over the years, especially in India where he has had a lasting and inspiring footprint. The apparent staging and subsequent publishing in NatGeo raises further more questions for him and NatGeo to answer. Especially if we take into account the stringent rules imposed on photographers by publications in their written contracts, even for freelance basis as well as the close examination of work done by World Press Photo in the past few years, leading to many awards being rescinded and photographers and publications being forced to issue clarifications and apologies subsequently.

In a casual conversation with my father on the issue, he said the following " I am very pained by this. This is almost unbelievable. I remember going out during the monsoon seasons with my Asahi Pentax in hand, just to see if I could get a picture like McCurry's. It really pains to even think about this." Later, on pondering over McCurry's most iconic image, that of the "Afghan Girl" he also found another, small discrepancy. The dirt,muck and glare from her right eye seems to have disappeared. Below on the left is the original image published by NatGeo and on the right a screen grab from a poster that McCurry is currently selling on his website.

Ignoring the obvious difference in the colour of the two images due to different scanning/ printing processes, the difference in the eyes is a bit difficult to miss when kept side by side. The flesh around the eye orbit is flatter and cleaner as compared to a more natural inwards concave shape. The dirt and muck (a vital element to the picture and the character trait of this girl as well the area she was living in) is missing too.

Interestingly though, the glare/ muck is back in the version printed by NatGeo in the 100 Best Pictures commemorative issue.

The variance in between different versions of published images seems to extend to McCurry's most iconic image too, just like his other work.

In a polite exchange with his studio over email, seeking a statement from him, I was informed that Mr. McCurry is presently travelling and is difficult to reach, we will publish a follow up with his responses on these questions as soon as he becomes available.

About the Author

Kshitij Nagar is an independent photographer, videographer & journalist based in New Delhi, India. He's also the Editor in Chief of the photography blog Writing Through Light. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram as @kshitijnagar. This article was also published here, and used with permission.

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Eyes of the Afghan Girl - A critical take on the "Steve McCurry Scandal"

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I will begin by saying that my intention is not to attack Steve McCurry or defame him in any manner.

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There is hardly anyone who doesn't know about "Migrant Mother," an iconic photo by Dorothea Lange. The 1936 portrait depicts Florence Owens Thompson and her children, and there are many true and untrue facts we've heard about it. But did you know it was altered? Or "photoshopped," as we tend to say nowadays? Thanks to a new book from the Museum of Modern Art, this interesting fact has recently seen the light of day.

Dorothea Lange: Migrant Mother was written by Sarah Meister, a photography curator at MoMA. In addition to the already known facts, this book contains many new ones and it tells about some little-explored details. And among them, there is the story of "the missing thumb," which was at some point edited out from the image.

As The New York Times writes, Lange had an assistant retouch the negative in 1939 and remove Thompson's thumb from the bottom right corner. The reason for this was simple: the photographer thought it was a distraction and she reportedly didn't have any doubts that it should be removed. However, Roy Stryker, Lange's boss at the Farm Security Administration, wasn't happy about her decision. He believed that it compromised the authenticity of the photo and of his whole F.S.A. documentary project.

In her book, Sarah Meister argues about different interpretations of the iconic image. For some people, it represents "the pinnacle of motherhood," for the others, it represents "represent the depth of the Depression," or "a suppressing of racial identity." It's important, however, to establish the facts and stick to them, regardless of the interpretation.

Generally speaking, documentary images like this shouldn't be altered, because they need to reflect a real situation. However, I believe that editing out the thumb doesn't affect the story Lange captured or the viewers' interpretation. It wouldn't add to the story even if it were left in place. Since we now know that it was removed from the negative, it helps us determine whether a print was made before or after 1939, and it's definitely an interesting fact about the well-known image.

[via The New York Times]

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The iconic photo "Migrant Mother" was "Photoshopped" - DIY Photography

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There is hardly anyone who doesn't know about "Migrant Mother," an iconic photo by Dorothea Lange. The 1936 portrait depicts Florence Owens Thompson and her children, and there are many true and untrue facts we've heard about it. But did you know it was altered? Or "photoshopped," as we tend to say nowadays?

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How Can You Maintain Ethics in Photo Manipulation?

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With the contemporary ability to manipulate photos by using Photoshop and other methods, it is only natural for you to wonder what the proper ethical boundaries are. After all, photo manipulation typically involves editing images in a way that creates an illusion. Photo manipulations can occur during a shoot based on equipment settings.

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April 15, 1998 Nlsearch Excite Infoseek Lycos

Introduction Photography today is no longer what it used to be. Traditional photography was usually a good reflection of reality. The photographic medium did not lend itself well to realistic manipulations of the facts. However, with the advent of photo-editing software and digital photography, photos can now be distorted in such a way that the casual viewer can't detect these changes. This has raised some very interesting questions about ethics.

This project contains 3 main sections:

Examples of Manipulated Photos
Changing Reality in Trivial Ways
Ethical problems arises when photos are manipulated in ways that trick the public into believing that they are seeing something which is not real. Examples of this type of deception include:

Time's cover with OJ's skin darkened (June 27, 1994);

National Geographic's cover of the pyramids;

Ford's advertisement in which a black person was changed into a white person;

a photo of Bill Clinton together with Ronald Reagan... published before the two ever met;

A lesser known example is that of a Texas Monthly cover in which Senator Anne Richards (Texas) is portrayed on a Harley Davidson bike;

These are all examples of manipulations that could easily be considered unethical. The National Geographic, as a premier authority on geography, should not have distorted a picture of an important monument just because the change makes it look better as a cover.

Time magazine and Ford did not mean to be racist when they manipulated their pictures, yet racism is a sensitive issue, making it a dangerous area to fool around with. Ford changed its ad for use in a country where there are almost no black people and they thought this change would make the ad more appealing to their target audience. Time manipulated its cover photo because the OJ mug-shot that they had was not of high enough quality to go on the cover without any manipulation.
Changing Reality in Nontrivial Ways
Another example of a digitally manipulated news photo can be seen here. A pole which was distracting attention away from the subject was removed. While the manipulation makes the picture more appealing, it does not change the essence of the story that the photo is telling. While this is not as objectionable as other manipulations, the viewer should still be informed that the photo was manipulated to look better.
Graphical Examples

President Bush and Margaret Thatcher were having a normal conversation, but image manipulation made it look as if they had an argument or as if they were whispering.

This picture comes from a web-page that contains several examples of how pictures have been manipulated in the past to change stories or to make someone look more attractive than they are in reality. Go there

Technology Making Photo Manipulations Possible
A brief history of digital photo manipulations (from Pixelphoto.com )
The history of digital photography started with the advent of drum scanners, a system in which "the original image was taped to a transparent cylinder which was spun in the path of an extremely narrow beam of light. The signal from the light sensitive Photo Multiplier Tube that received the light beam was electronically processed and used to expose the separation film which was
attached to another cylinder spinning on the other end of the same drive shaft inside the scanner."

This process of using a drum scanner was taken one step further by the "Scitex company [who] took the signal from the photo multiplier tube and stored it in a computer where the image could be manipulated before being output onto separation film. These machines were tremendously expensive and hideously complex." This technique was developed in the mid 1970's.

"Around this time Apple arranged the marriage of the desktop computer, the laser printer, and the Postscript language. This was the birth of desktop publishing. Initially this only really effected typesetting, but soon grew to encompass page layout and composition.

As desktop computers became much more powerful and much less expensive it began to be possible to use them for imaging applications.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....Skywalker Ranch that is; George Lucas sold a software application he'd had developed for the production of Star Wars. This specialized program was redeveloped and repackaged for the commercial market and was called... Photoshop.

As the price of all this technology has collapsed from a high of several hundreds of thousands of dollars down to a few tens of thousands of dollars these amazingly powerful tools have become available to designers, illustrators, and photographers. This has resulted in a substantial blurring of roles and shifting of responsibilities."

The modern technologies used for manipulating photos include scanners, digital cameras and storage devices that can hold a vast amount of these photos in their digital form. These technologies are explained more in-depth.
Widespread Availability of Photo Manipulation Services
While professionals have the equipment and skills to manipulate photos using a computer, this technique is accessible to virtually everyone. There exist commercial services that specialize in digitally changing photos by cutting out certain "unwanted" people or by taking a person and placing them in a new environment. Go to this service-bureau.

Apple Computers has an excellent page that explains the possibilities of digital photography for the average computer user.

Codes of Ethics and Digital Photo Manipulations

While digitally manipulated photos are a legitimate form of art, journalists have a duty to portray reality. This is pretty much the general feeling of both the press and the public.

An excellent and very comprehensive code of ethics for journalists can be found at the web page of the Society of Professional Journalists. With regards to photo manipulations the SPJ says: "Although photographic enhancement for purely reproduction purposes is a traditional and accepted practice, any more extensive photographic manipulations, whether rendered digitally or by hand, must be identified as such and should not alter the content or meaning of the moments they depict."

Guidelines to test whether it would be ethical to print a manipulated image without informing the public are given here.

A proposed solution to the problem of how to identify manipulated pictures is offered by the National Union of Journalists. They offer this solution: "All NUJ publications adopt a "not a camera" symbol, placed discreetly but clearly within the image area, when they run manipulated images." They also propose to distinguish between 3 different types of photos: genuine photos; retouched photos; and composites.

Conclusion
The ethics of digital photo manipulations are complicated because it is not always easy to differentiate between good journalism and good reporting of reality. Take for instance the example of an airplane crash site where no photographers and no cameras were present. The following day, newspapers ran photo illustrations with the story of the crash. While these photos were made on the computer using elements from existing pictures, they did give a good portrayal of the crash site as described by the survivors. Was it ethical in this case to run this photo on the front-page, even when saying that it was a composite?

For an extended discussion of this issue between several professionals, read the article: "Little photoshop of horrors: the ethics of manipulating journalistic imagery." [(v49 n6) Start Page: p24(25) ISSN: 0032-8510] It can be purchased from NLSearch.com. The article is not so much trying to offer solutions as it is trying to clarify the point that this issue has many nuances and can not be treated as a black and white issue. Read some interesting thoughts that are in this article.

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April 15, 1998 Nlsearch Excite Infoseek Lycos Introduction Photography today is no longer what it used to be. Traditional photography was usually a good reflection of reality. The photographic medium did not lend itself well to realistic manipulations of the facts.

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Photo manipulation is altering digital images by using image editing software, usually Photoshop or an equivalent program. It's almost an art form in its own right, and enables digital artists to get some really strange and wonderful results.
When used for good, image manipulation can do a lot of cool things. It can enable companies to save money by not having to pay for an entire photoshoot when images can be altered to fit their needs. It can emphasize or remove elements from photographs, which is a great help to photographers, as well, and manipulation (called post-processing when done by a professional photographer to improve the quality of his pictures) can be used to improve the quality of professional photographs and add effects to them.

It can be used to make people look better or to fit an image - for example, most pictures of female celebrities in magazines are manipulated to make them paler and thinner, with larger busts and smaller waists. When used for evil, image manipulation can sow chaos. You can use image manipulation to make it look as though a person is wearing a t-shirt that supports something that they are opposed to.

You can use image manipulation to create false situations - one of the most common ones is Photoshopping people into compromising positions. You can manipulate an image to make it appear that something is happening when it isn't. The above-mentioned manipulation of celebrity photographs, for example, can be considered 'use for evil' because medical professionals believe that it has a very negative effect on women's self-esteem.

So now that we know that image manipulation can be used for good and evil, let's compare some to make sure that you know when you are on the line between using and abusing your powers of image manipulation.

You are using image manipulation if:

1. You are improving the quality of a photograph.

For example, you have taken a stack of holiday pictures, but you used a terrible camera. The photographs that are not blurry, are overexposed. You can use image manipulation to fix the overexposure and salvage some of your pictures.

2. You are combining two or more pictures you own for advertising purposes.

As an example: You are a digital artist, and a company approaches you. Their advertising campaign features a woman eating an apple while using a go wild promo code. They like one of the pictures you showed them, but the model is eating a peach. You can use image manipulation to replace the peach with an apple. This is one of the simplest uses of image manipulation, and one of the ones most often done badly. It is also important to make sure that you have the legal right to use the pictures, exactly as you need to know if it's legal to play on Heart Bingo in your country.

3. You are using image manipulation to amuse or entertain.

Your audience might understand that these are manipulated photographs. This happens a lot in fandom, where fans will edit together images or even videos to make a new narrative from a TV show or a series of promotional photographs. This is allowed under 'fair use' according to copyright law, and is considered harmless.

You are abusing image manipulation if:

1. You are presenting your manipulated image as reality.

A common example of this is someone will Photoshop slogans and logo's onto a public figure's clothing in an effort to damage their reputation. These pictures are definitely uses for evil, since these images often go viral on the internet, doing sometimes-irreparable damage to a person's image.

2. You are manipulating images in order to lie to people.

For example, some photographers have been found guilty of having a heavy hand with Photoshop when it comes to war zones, detainee torture, and missiles. This is wrong because we rely on images to tell us the truth. If you are manipulating an image in order to fool people into believing a lie, that's definitely using your powers for evil.

3. You are manipulating images in order to damage someone's reputation.

For example, FHM magazine published images of Pakistani actress Veena Malik in the nude, with an ISI tattoo. The picture was harmful to her reputation in the first place, because it implies that she would pose in the nude, and in the second, it implies that she supports ISIS. Malik insists that she never posed nude, but the damage to her reputation has probably been done.

These are six of the most common cases and examples of image manipulation. In the end, it's pretty simple to figure out which is use, and which is abuse: Abuse is when you are manipulating images in order to hurt someone's feelings, to hurt someone's reputation, or to back up a lie. Use, on the other hand, is when you are using photo manipulation to improve quality or to entertain.
Now you know how to tell, it's up to you to use photo manipulation wisely.

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Photo manipulation is altering digital images by using image editing software, usually Photoshop or an equivalent program. It's almost an art form in its own right, and enables digital artists to get some really strange and wonderful results. When used for good, image manipulation can do a lot of cool things.