viz.

Rachel’s post this past week about the low-fi appeal of recent music videos raises similar questions to those surrounding a recent controversy over a digitally altered image stripped of its status as a World Press Photo contest winner.  And, what was the alteration that led to this disqualification?  Third prize winner in Sports Features, Stepan Rudik removed a foot from the finished photograph.  World Press Photo, an organization known for promoting professional standards in photojournalism largely through the means of awarding one of the most prestigious photography prizes, disqualified Rudik because the jury discovered that he had digitally altered one of the images in his photo-essay submission. Both the low-fi aesthetics of the OKGO video and the field of professional photojournalism privilege a definition of technical prowess that does not include manipulation of the image beyond much capturing and cropping.  The value of the image and the skill of the image-makers, in both of these respects, reside in the moment the photograph is shot and not at any other point in the process in which the photograph is made.