I just got a personal reply from the NYT editor, with explanation:

[Atman]

Dear (Atman):

Thank you for taking the time to write us and ask about the photograph by Jim Wilson. I wish someone had done so before posting inaccurate information.

The simple answer is: We do not alter or doctor photos at The New York Times. But a more thorough answer from Jim is below. As soon as we alerted him to the accusations, he replied to our senior photo editor. His note reflects the dedication he has to his work and the commitment he has to upholding the standards of The Times.

Feel free to share this with anyone who has questions about the photograph.

With best regards,

Greg Brock
Senior Editor


From Jim Wilson, photographer for The New York Times.

I did no modify this picture in any way.

If you look carefully at the frame, you will see a slightly wide band of dark area that runs from the head of a marine with dark hair in the back row up to the singer. Look carefully at the wall from that marine's head up to the top of the frame and you will see the blurred cable that was in motion because the dancer was moving it as she spoke to the marines. The full cable is in the shot but is blurred. The reason it isn't sharp is because the frame was shot at 1/6 of a second in a room that was dark. The flash filled in the frame but wasn't the main light, the room light provided the main light for the frame. The long exposure balanced the light from the strobe on my camera with the ambient light in the room. The cable was moving as was the singer and the marines. If you look carefully at the frame, you'll see that nothing in the frame is tack/crisp sharp. I looked in the paper that I got out here and know that the reproduction left the wire virtually invisible.

The reason the cable on the platform is readable is because that length of cable wasn't moving. The dancer's body wasn't moving alot but her upper body was moving enough to blur the cable in the shot. Had the dancer not been moving ( or had I shot with a higher shutter speed which would have presented a whole other set of issues) the cable would have been sharp at that point. I chose to shoot this way because I didn't want the picture to have the look that a direct flash frame shot at high speed would have had (the dancer would have been lit and the rest of the frame would have been completely dark).

I wanted to picture to look like the performance actually appeared instead of like a moment frozen with just a enough light on the performer to illuminate her and not the rest of the frame. I wish I could have set the room with lots of lights to evenly illuminate it but I had only the strobe gear (one 580) that I carried in my bag. It wasn't nearly enough to properly light the room. There were no spot lights of any sort on the stage, just a few florescent lights in the ceiling of a room that was probably 30-40 feet tall and approximately the size of a gym.

I can understand how a reader might look at this and conclude what these readers concluded but absolutely no modification, manipulation or photoshop tricks took place on this or any other images I shot.

.

[Ian David]

1. It sounds plausible. What do you guys think? n/t

[SmokingJacket]

2. Well, I buy it.

I think it's a stupid photograph, though.

[Beelzebud]

3. I believe them. Look at it closely.

There are no artifacts on the marine's coat right behind the cord. No hint of photoshopping, and the vertical line really doesn't look like the effects of a blur tool. After hearing the explaination that the wire is blurred because it is in motion, I can more easily see that, than evidence of manipulation.

[readmoreoften]

4. Dumb choice of photo to publish.

I see the vibrating ghostly cable above the head now. Just a bad photo, not necessarily photoshopped.

[whistle]

5. What photo was this? Can you post or provide a link....thanks

[Atman]

7. Link

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1997264&mesg_id=1997264

[Atman]

6. It is a plausible explanation

The patch on the guy's arm and the unfortunate coincidence of the blurring starting exactly at that transition point are the "ammo" most of us are using. Given the photog's explanation, and my limited experience of photography, Wilson's explanation should certainly be considered. I am not 100% convinced, but then I have to weight the "whys" and "wherefores." WHY would they do this to such an innocuous photo, and risk further controversy? That is the toughest one to answer.

So right now, I'm conditionally withdrawing my "absolute certainty" that this pic what Photoshopped. In retrospect, perhaps it should have been...so people wouldn't think it was! }(

[Cronus Protagonist]

12. I buy it, but he didn't explain the guy with the basketball sized head

that one is harder to explain, other than the guy just happened to have a head almost twice the size of everyone else.... I suppose such people do exist.

:)




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[reichstag911]

8. I don't believe it,...

...but I can't imagine any reason to Photoshop it. If it were just blurring caused by the cord's movement, the blurring (and virtual disappearance) of the cord would be more gradual. Instead, it just abruptly stops -- no apparent motion to the girl's body or to the length of cord rising from the stage, but above that, so much movement that the cord disappears? I don't think so.

[Richard Steele]

10. That's really not unusual. If you take a lot of photos....

You will see things like that sooner or later.
I have taken pics of moving objects, and had some
areas appear motionless in the middle of a blur.

I don't know exactly how that happens, but it happens.

[Richard Steele]

9. That's EXACTLY what I said when I saw it- just a long exposure.

Some moving objects are blurred, that's all. No PhotoShopping
is evident.

[JHB]

11. If you look at a lot of old photographs...

...i.e., from the 1800's, early 1900s, you'll see a similar effect. The chemicals used for film then required longer exposure times, so you'd see things like a guy who's arms blur to nothing, just because he was standing still long enough to register, but he was doing something with his hands that was too qick for the exposure.

You still occasionally see it in poorly-lit pictures, but with pros it's pretty rare unless they're doing it deliberately, but the circumstances presented appear to have been beyond his control.

[Generic Other]

13. Makes sense to me and explains

why the background figures don't look photoshopped which they would have to be if something had been erased in front of them.

[Atman]

14. But that is what threw me off...I thought they DID look PS'd

Especially the guy behind the wire. His arm is all messed up, and he has patches like no one elses and it even appears to be darker. But I've been using PS since version 1, and I think I know it pretty well. What looked clearly fake at normal screen resolution actually holds up pretty well when you zoom in. Usually it takes some serious work to make every pixel match just so, and I can't believe they would have taken the time to match up half of it perfectly, then leave the "slug trail" (the blurred wire) going up the middle of the picture.

Greg Brock of the NYT wrote me back again, after I sent an thank you for his explanation:

----

(Atman), this day and time, it seems that every word or picture we publish is scrutinized. But that is not all bad. These queries raise our collective consciousness here at The Times and remind us, once again, that we must constantly strive to uphold the standards that Times readers have come to expect.

Although the First Amendment may give or guarantee certain rights to the press, we ultimately must earn the respect of Americans and never forget the responsibility that comes with being a free press.

Again, thanks for writing.

Greg Brock.

----

Still, though, no one has offered a good explanation for Ed Gillespie being there. Maybe these are the Brooks Brothers protesters from Miami, shipped in for another photo op? :)

[walldude]

15. Not buying it...

the cord stops being visible at a specific point, if the cord was moving then that point would have been at the floor not 12 inches above the floor. Don't see why the pic was fixed but I don't buy that it wasn't..

[otohara]

16. Bring on the Dancing Girls

the US of A is here and this is what we do, no matter what the culture of the country may think.