[Leica] Another Altered Photo

[leica at rcmckee.com (R. Clayton McKee)]

On 7 Aug 2006 at 13:40, John Sluss wrote:

> Seems like this gentleman that altered the photograph was making an 
> editorial comment, or perhaps propaganda. His photograph should have been 
> on 
> the editorial page.

I'm going to trot WAY out onto this limb here, with the same evidence 
everyone else on the list has (which is to say no evidence at all 
except this explanation makes sense to me personally), and say that I 
suspect this was probably more marketing than editorial.  

Look, the guy's a stringer for a major service in the middle of a 
MAJOR event.  There are probably a couple of hundred other major 
shooters there, probably a fair number standing within a few meters 
of him when he got this, all shooting merrily away at the same 
skyline with the same smoke.  And so one of two things happens... 
either before or after this shot, there's a moment or two when 
there's honestly more smoke in the sky -- and he missed the shot (but 
a bunch of the other guys with bigger cards and batteries got it) OR 
he knows everyone else has pretty much the same thing he's got.  

Thing is, if you're freelance, if you're in the same place as the 
bigfoots and you DON'T get stuff as good as they do (especially in 
situations like this that are probably fairly simple shots with 
comparatively low risk) you get no more phone calls, especially if 
you're tied to one of the major wires.  And if you don't have BETTER 
than the staffers and the contract guys have,  you don't sell much in 
today's world, because the OTHER guys' work is already paid for and 
you're an extra expense. 

So he's got to have at LEAST as good as theirs to keep his string, 
and better than theirs to get much in reuse in those conditions, and, 
well,  what's a desperate, on-the-edge-of-nowhere stringer to do?  
"Well, it WAS like this two minutes later; nobody'll know..."

And I suspect that if his laptop were better his shot probably 
wouldn't look that much different from everyone else's....

And nobody would know he was a fake and a liar.  With the right 
connections he could even run for the presidency in most places...




--


R. Clayton McKee                           http://www.rcmckee.com
Photojournalist                               rcmckee@rcmckee.com
P O Box 571900                           voice/fax   713/783-3502
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