Fake Photographs from Middle East

Reuters after getting busted for a fake photograph of Beirut bombing has since then apologized, and taken off all the 920 pictures by that photographer from its database.

The photographer, Adnan Hajj, a freelance Lebanese photographer used to manipulate and doctor his photographs from the Israeli attack on Hezbollah. His photographs has even appeared on the front page of 'New York Times' along with 'Yahoo'.

The fraud was busted by bloggers at Little Green Football. Read the full description here. He had cloned the smokes and used digital manipulation in his picture of Israeli air strike on buildings in Beirut. Wonder how Reuters could not see such easy perceptible manipulation! Another of the photographer’s image in Reuters, showing an Israeli F-16 dropping flares was manipulated in photoshop to show three flares, instead of one.

Reuters in a statement said, “There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image”.

A series of pictures appearing in New York Times, shows one man buried in debris (Tyre city) with not as much a speck of dust on his body. The photograph is attributed to Taylor Hicks/New York Times. On the Gateway pundit blog, an anonymous commenter further showed other pictures from New York Times, which shows the same man moving around before posing for the ‘dead man in rubbles’. Wonderful modeling assignment in a hot zone!

There are photographs of 'Qana' civilian tragedy being doctored as well, by the same Lebanese photographer appearing at Yahoo News Photo. Yahoo has since then removed those photographs but you can see them in the Little Green Football blog(Scroll down for the picture). What a good way to whip up passion!

Next time you see a picture from Middle East, of a dead man buried in the debris, or a toddler being pulled out of a destroyed building, just remember, they could be fake ones.

(Click on the links for the 'original' news-source)