2Souvid Datta Admits to Doctoring and Appropriating Photos
Yesterday, we revealed that award-winning photographer Souvid Datta had published a photo back in 2014 in which a woman had been copied-and-pasted from a 1978 photo by renowned documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark. Datta today admitted that he had indeed doctored that photo, as well as “appropriating” other photographers’ work as his own.
While Datta did not respond to our requests for comment, he did give an interview with Olivier Laurent of TIME.
Datta, an up-and-coming photographer who has received many top awards and grants in the photo industry in recent years, says the photo in question came about while he was documenting sex industry violence in Kolkata, India. After following a girl into a brothel, Datta was dismayed that the girl’s mentor, Asma, asked not to be photographed.
The photographer, who was around 23 years old at the time, then came across Mary Ellen Mark’s photo back in London at his university, and he decided to Photoshop Mark’s subject into his photo to see what it would have looked like had Asma agreed to be photographed.
3Souvid Datta’s Plagiarised Photos Point to an Industry That Needs Higher Standards
Plagiarism is not a new phenomenon in photography or photojournalism. Call it ‘inspiration’, ‘motivation’ or ‘reproduction’, it has been seen over the years; copying another person’s work is far from uncommon. But the recent controversy surrounding photographer Souvid Datta and his manipulation of images brought out just why this is such a grave concern, and photography institutions across the world have been forced to sit up and take notice of it once again.
In the 1990s, when I first picked up photography, there was a thin line between fine art photography and photojournalism. Photojournalists would never venture into the world of montage work or ‘cut and paste’, which in photojournalism is regarded as manipulation. This was a no-go zone. In 2006, Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj altered a photograph he took of a bomb blast during the Israel-Lebanon conflict. He manipulated the density of the smoke caused by the blast to make it look gorier and more intense. Once this became public, a debate around a photojournalist’s duty to document the truth gained propensity. Reuters had to pull all images taken by Hajj from circulation.
Renowned photographer Steve McCurry, who is known for his saturated color images, found himself entangled in a major controversy after it was found out that he used Photoshop to alter images and their composition post production. The photographic community was outraged. McCurry had to render a public apology. His images, widely circulated by Magnum Photos, are still published and can be found in museums around the world.
4Industry Photography
Czech photographer Viktor Macha is determined to capture “the beauty of steel and iron making” before automation takes over and the sight of men working in the glow of molten metal is lost forever.
5Armenian Photographer’s Stunning Street Photography reveals life in Russia
Russian photographer with Armenia roots Alexander Petrosyan captures the raw street life in Russia, and the result is truly amazing. You will never see photos like this taken in any other country.
The pictures he takes feel like short stories – vignettes layered with detail and loaded with contrast, whether it’s a meeting of unlikely characters or just a comic scenario – but they’re not limited to chance encounters.
6What is the fastest Camera Setup for Street Photography?
Some of the biggest problems with mirrorless cameras for photojournalists, street photographers, wedding photographers and others has to be the performance. Sometimes it’s just too slow when they need to capture a moment super quickly lest they completely miss it. In street photography, if you’ve already seen the moment, it’s gone. Surely, anticipation can help, but it can only do so much.
To get the most from your mirrorless camera, we’ve put together a number of tips on how to get faster performance.
