Darkening of journalistic photography

[warden]

Has anyone else been noticing this? I'm seeing frequent examples lately of quite dark photography in mainstream media outlets and I'm wondering if there is a technical reason or if there is something else going on. This picture was made in broad daylight on a cloudless day and yet the histogram is skewed heavily toward blackness. I'm seeing this from multiple news sources. Often in the same story there will be a quite dark image like the one below, but then there will be an image with normal illumination which highlights the issue.

This pic is from Faith Ninivaggi/Reuters/The Guardian:

 

[Arthurwg]

I'm reminded of the purposely darkened portrait of O.J. Simpson that graced the cover of Time magazine (I think it was). The picture you showed looks like a college campus, darkened to reflect dark days.

 

[Kino]

Some websites have preview images that are purposefully darkened until you run a mouse pointer over the image.

Just speculating, but maybe this web page function (filter or discreet seperate image) is improperly implemented or broken.

 

[warden]

I'm reminded of the purposely darkened portrait of O.J. Simpson that graced the cover of Time magazine (I think it was). The picture you showed looks like a college campus, darkened to reflect dark days.

I suppose it could be something like that, but I’m hoping to hear from people in the industry that might have firsthand knowledge. As Kino is speculating, there may be a technical problem. I have noticed, however, that some recent pictures of war exposed in broad daylight were dimly lit and desaturated, which looks intentional as an editorial decision. But it might not be that.

 

[Pieter12]

Carelessness, ineptitude and ignorance on the part of the underpaid, under-experienced people who are doing things now.

 

[MattKing]

Carelessness, ineptitude and ignorance on the part of the underpaid, under-experienced people who are doing things now.

The Guardian actively encourages you to be a paid subscriber. Perhaps this is an attempt to provide better value for those who pay, without putting everything behind a full paywall.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I believe it's because since they are meant to be viewed on a computer, they are calibrated to look normal when the computer screen is at full illumination. If they are posted too bright, if the viewing computer is at full illumination, they become unwatchable.

I don't think we realize enough how posting images for millions of computers with different illumination set-ups is a problem.

 

[Pieter12]

I believe it's because since they are meant to be viewed on a computer, they are calibrated to look normal when the computer screen is at full illumination. If they are posted too bright, if the viewing computer is at full illumination, they become unwatchable.

I don't think we realize enough how posting images for millions of computers with different illumination set-ups is a problem.

I kind of think the target is now mobile devices rather than desktops.

 

[Kino]

Too many variables in the production pipeline; could go wrong at any point without a solid, enforced image editing workflow.

1. Image in wrong gamut/color space.
2. Browser not properly color managed.
3. Image converted to wrong profile.
4. Image edited on non-calibrated monitor.

I had a supervisor who kept rejecting Rec. 709 digital scans of film elements because they "didn't look right" on his 10 year old laptop and couldn't be made to understand the problem...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Carelessness, ineptitude and ignorance on the part of the underpaid, under-experienced people who are doing things now.

+1

 

[joho]

Well here is one view,
reproduction - printing is not correctly used -- sample shown!!]
just my thoughts ...
A style for dense tones in color was used by Rene Burr -[Magnum] it was an a technique to implement to the color photos, with the strong and dynamics of b/w photography...just as
Abbas Attar--known simply-- Abbas --member of Sipa Press from 1971 to 1973, a member of Gamma from 1974 to 1980, and joined Magnum Photos in 1981 used for some images [heavy ] colors.
__The slides [used them days ] where exposed for strong thick and dense slides --one hitch, the printed offset lithograph reproduction needed a highly skilled master offset lithographic printer.
see the photo This pic is from Faith Ninivaggi/Reuters/The Guardian the tones are a part of inks/papers used [if printed] IF digital not a good representation the photographers work--- I did see her work on her web site..
WHERE is the color artist!!! WHERE is the art director !!??

 

[MattKing]

I doubt that much of what you see on the Guardian website is optimized for a print edition - almost all of the audience for the Guardian probably experiences it through the internet now.
It could be as simple as a glitch between how Reuters is distributing content and how the Guardian is making use of it.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I kind of think the target is now mobile devices rather than desktops.

They're both, and it makes no difference. As soon as I put the illumination up on my screen, the photo's brightness was fine. Same with the phone.

Contrary to you, I don't think people working at The Guardian are careless, inept and ignorant. Quite the opposite.

 

[Kino]

Maybe doom scrollers complained that images were too bright for bedtime viewing?

Who knows?

Try contacting the source and ask; seems the most logical thing to do.

 

[Pieter12]

They're both, and it makes no difference. As soon as I put the illumination up on my screen, the photo's brightness was fine. Same with the phone.

Contrary to you, I don't think people working at The Guardian are careless, inept and ignorant. Quite the opposite.

I meant that as a general comment on today’s state of e-journalism.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I meant that as a general comment on today’s state of e-journalism.

There's no such thing as "e-journalism". There's just journalism. Makes no difference if you write on a typewriter or on a computer, whether you publish it on paper or on an app. Good journalism is good journalism no matter the support. Same for bad journalism.

Now I'd say the same thing about photography, but I'd turn into one of those film vs e-photography debates we don't like here .

 

[Pieter12]

There's no such thing as "e-journalism". There's just journalism. Makes no difference if you write on a typewriter or on a computer, whether you publish it on paper or on an app. Good journalism is good journalism no matter the support. Same for bad journalism.

Now I'd say the same thing about photography, but I'd turn into one of those film vs e-photography debates we don't like here .

I think there is something one might call e-journalism. As access to the internet grew, people stopped subscribing or buying physical newspapers. Newspapers shut down presses, went digital, shrunk their staffs. The resulting reporting has suffered because of that and the low quality of other news sources online. Facts don't matter anymore, people complain if they have to pay to read the news, stories are possibly outsourced or just reprinted PR materials. A recent example: the local (and I stress local) online newspaper here lead with a story about the local beach. Now this beach is pretty iconic, having recognizable landmarks locals and others would know. The predominant photo they used to illustrate the story was of an adjacent town's beach, obviously not the one in the story. Lax editor? Careless journalism? Ignorance? This type of error probably would not have happened in a print publication, where everything is seen by a number of people before hitting the street.

 

[Harry Callahan]

Has anyone else been noticing this? I'm seeing frequent examples lately of quite dark photography in mainstream media outlets and I'm wondering if there is a technical reason or if there is something else going on. This picture was made in broad daylight on a cloudless day and yet the histogram is skewed heavily toward blackness. I'm seeing this from multiple news sources. Often in the same story there will be a quite dark image like the one below, but then there will be an image with normal illumination which highlights the issue.

This pic is from Faith Ninivaggi/Reuters/The Guardian:


View attachment 396613

Hm... i get what you mean but as this picture was shot in broad daylight it has a high range of contrast. Shadows are very dark but still you can recognize the stones on the ground - while the white shirt or window frames are juuust not blown... so it could be this dark to not blow the highlights. You could do better, but this needed dodging and burning - and this would require time.
This picture probably was too unimportant in the context of the article to get a HDR makeover. Also it isn`t meant to advertise a special vacation place etc. - since digital does offer more possibilities in the post, we`re getting used to shiny HDR pictures and when we see an untreated picture we may consider it odd...

... but intentionally darkening pictures started decades ago. At the end of the 90s, early 2000s, these zombie- and vampire-movies came up - and woops movies got dark. You even can see this on the Harry Potter movies. The first movie was colorful (depending on the subject, there of course also are darker subjects, but as long as there is sunshine outside colors are bright), the second movie still was, but the third or fourth movie - where Hermione has this travel-back-in-time-amulet to visit more classes a day - colors get darker and less saturated throughout the movie. Stepless.
At the end of the movie, when they managed to prevent a bad thing to happen by this time-travel-armulet woops colors get a little better again - but they are not as good as in the first movie.
And in the following movies colors never "get well again". Though these movies are supposed for kids.
If you look at a 90s action movie, where a villain does steal an a-bomb or whatever, colors are much more vital than in this Harry Potter-kids-fairy-tale from middle to the end.

And since then, zombies, vampires, Harry Potter, colors go everywhere. Dark and de-saturated often goes throughout the entire movie - even if it`s not a horror-movie. Selecting colors regardless the topic seems to be normal today.

So who knows, maybe this picture was selected by someone who was a big Potter fan 20 years ago and does consider this "normal". If this picture was taken with a 20 year old digital camera, it could look just like this, as these cameras had problems in color reproduction and contrast range. Maybe this picture has such colors because someone had early-2000s-nostalgia - unconsciously.
But i get what you mean.

 

[Don_ih]

When I searched for the photographer, there were a number of such muddy photos show up from various news sources - Guardian, Washington Post, etc. But the photos are atypical of that photographer. Is it possible the new agencies don't want to adjust the exposure or contrast settings of the photos? Reuters explicitly refuses to accept photos that have been processed from RAW and insists on only accepting the JPEGs the camera itself saves to the card, claiming that the latter is the least likely to distort the truth.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

They're both, and it makes no difference. As soon as I put the illumination up on my screen, the photo's brightness was fine. Same with the phone.

Contrary to you, I don't think people working at The Guardian are careless, inept and ignorant. Quite the opposite.

Alex, the histogram implies that the adjustment for brightness is not right. It's too dark. Viewers should not have to adjust their displays to correct for it.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I meant that as a general comment on today’s state of e-journalism.

The fact that the media uses cellphone pictures taken by the public could account for such bad photos. They no longer have professional staff taking or monitoring the picture part of the business. Even TV broadcast and cable show those portrait-formatted videos with blank or blurry sides when the videos should have been taken in landscape mode. It looks awful. That's what happens when you depend on the public.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

When I searched for the photographer, there were a number of such muddy photos show up from various news sources - Guardian, Washington Post, etc. But the photos are atypical of that photographer. Is it possible the new agencies don't want to adjust the exposure or contrast settings of the photos? Reuters explicitly refuses to accept photos that have been processed from RAW and insists on only accepting the JPEGs the camera itself saves to the card, claiming that the latter is the least likely to distort the truth.

The New York Times, which is very fastidious about its pictures and practices, allows adjustments for exposure. Cloning things in or out are not allowed. Here is their complete standard:

Integrity of Images​

Any published images that readers or viewers will understand as depictions of real events or situations must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, blurred, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping photos to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction. Pictures of news situations – as distinct from portraits or still-lifes – must not be posed or contrived.

If a photo has been posed, altered or manipulated to serve the same purposes as an illustration, editors should be confident that readers will recognize the device and will not mistake the image for a news photo. Such images should be labeled as photo illustrations.

Staff members uncertain about the appropriateness of an alteration or unsure how to label the image should consult the director of photography or the standards editor.

https://www.nytimes.com/editorial-standards/ethical-journalism.html

 

[Don_ih]

The New York Times

is not Reuters.

Digital photographers tend to want to avoid blowing highlights so may end up with something that looks underexposed. Levels adjustment easily clears it up. But if Reuters does not allow level adjustment, then they're stuck with a gloomy-looking photo. They seem to want straight-out-of-the-camera photos.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

is not Reuters.

Digital photographers tend to want to avoid blowing highlights so may end up with something that looks underexposed. Levels adjustment easily clears it up. But if Reuters does not allow level adjustment, then they're stuck with a gloomy-looking photo. They seem to want straight-out-of-the-camera photos.

Reuters standard. This is the only thing I found regarding their photo standards. It seems more flexible than the NY Times. So adjustments for brightness seem acceptable to Reuters as well. .

Quote from Reuters Standards:

• Do not alter still images or video footage beyond the methods normally used to prepare content for editorial use

Reuters Journalistic Standards

Explore the 10 hallmarks of Reuters journalism. See how we uphold trust and independence.

reutersagency.com

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Has anyone else been noticing this? I'm seeing frequent examples lately of quite dark photography in mainstream media outlets and I'm wondering if there is a technical reason or if there is something else going on. This picture was made in broad daylight on a cloudless day and yet the histogram is skewed heavily toward blackness. I'm seeing this from multiple news sources. Often in the same story there will be a quite dark image like the one below, but then there will be an image with normal illumination which highlights the issue.

This pic is from Faith Ninivaggi/Reuters/The Guardian:


View attachment 396613

View attachment 396614

Here's the photographer's portfolio for photojournalism. Her shots seem normal. Why not contact her and ask her why the publication messed up? Her phone number and email address are on her website.

faith ninivaggi

As seen in https://faithninivaggiphotography.com

faithninivaggiphotography.com