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Body doubles in SI
The Oct. 29 issue of Sports Illustrated featured their NBA preview and included a dazzling fold-out on the "Alltime, All-size, All-Stars" with an illustration by Aaron Goodman.
From Manute Bol (7-7) to Mugsey Bogues (5-3), it's a fantastic slice of history. The detail in the illustration is truly amazing.
I emailed Aaron for a Q&A:
- I'm guessing you created the bodies and placed the heads on them, at least that's the way it looks. Did you use a 3D illustrator of some kind or search through a zillion photos for the bodies?
We had some experience going into this project as we had created an image for the SI Baseball Book last year with the 28 greatest players of all time.
For that piece, the 25 players and 3 coaches were posed in a dugout in full period uniforms ... no easy task to get those uniforms together and all credit goes to my stylist Allyson Vieira for pulling it all together.
The basic idea is we were provided with a library of photos from the Sports Illustrated archives and from those photos created a library of heads to choose from. Attention was given to choose heads that had similar lighting (although, in some cases it was impossible) and black and white heads needed to be colorized.
Then, we broke down the body types of the players into 10 categories - tall and skinny, short and stocky, etc. - and cast 10 body doubles to play all the 28 players. The results of the shoot were combined in photoshop into the finished piece.
Now, when they called me to do the basketball piece, I realized it would be much harder than Baseball.
Baseball players are mostly covered by their uniforms while basketball players are identified as much by their arms and legs (who could not identify Michael Jordan by "wingspan" alone?) as they are by their uniforms.
I considered trying to use 3D for parts of the image, but in the end, I felt it would actually be too costly in both time and money ... and I was worried that we would have problems matching the "perfection" of 3D rendering with the grittiness of a lot of the original photography. I realized we would need to cast body doubles for almost every player, a huge task considering almost half the players were of exceptional height!
Maggie Soladay, a producer in New York, handled the casting, placing ads, calling every model agency in New York ... in some cases accosting tall guys on the subway. In the end, a day-long open call was held in New York and over 90 men, and women, were considered for the 28 players.
A three-hour meeting was held in the conference room at Sports Illustrated as photos of the prospective players were projected in front of several editors and designers. Eventually, in some cases, after much argument, body doubles were chosen for all the players.
- The lighting effect is excellent. This is key to a good photo illustration, yes?
Lighting is a big part, as well as color balance. It is actually easier to hide incorrect lighting than it is to hide bad color matching. After individually color balancing all the various elements, translucent layers of color were "washed" over the entire image to bind it together even more.
- How many elements were actually photographed?
In the end, we shot 28 body doubles and the gym floor at St. John's in New York (Thanks again guys!)
Sports Illustrated provided all the archive heads of the players and the beautiful gym image was actually a stock photo that I tweaked and manipulated to fit our purposes.
I realize I keep saying "we" ... and I want to say that no project like this is done by one person. It is the result of the hard work of myself and everyone I am very lucky to get to work with.
Again, Allyson Vieira saved us by gathering all the uniforms, in some cases hand coloring modern sneakers with magic marker to get them to the proper colors.
The players' bodies were shot over three days and the final digital compositing took just under 2 weeks.
--
Wow. Be sure to grab the issue for a good look.
Thanks, Aaron.
Posted by Rich Boudet
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Comments
Thoughts from the SD.com nation?
If you, as say, a Magic Johnson fan, were to buy this issue and save this as a poster because of Magic, would you feel any differently to learn it's only Magic's head? At that point, does the intricacy of the illustration matter to you?
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 8:08:42 AM
I am constantly and consistently amazed at what passes for OK at news magazines. And I am also amazed at how many journalists are not at all bothered by what they did here.
While the execution is superb (and this is certainly not a flame on Aaron), the ethics of it bothers me a great deal. But I fear the "screw that, it's cool" crowd will shout me out of the room.
It's amazing that while they have no problem screwing around with archive photos and throwing them on others people's heads, that they won't screw with the typography or spacing elements to actually line up the names with the photos. So by the time you get to Magic, you are one person off.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 9:53:32 AM
This certainly is in stark contrast to the NYT situation of a few days ago, as far as SD.com goes.
You know what? I'm going to jump into the same end of the pool as Rob. This bothers me on many levels, and none of which have anything to do with what is standout work by Aaron.
Level I: Keepsake value. Basically, the hard-core fans who are going to keep this need to know straight-up what they're getting. Obviously, all these players weren't posed together. But the only thing about them that's real is their heads.
Level II: What makes it "special" is that it's fake. Couldn't a really high-level, hand-drawn illustration have accomplished the same thing, but instead of masking its fake-ism, it would embrace it? That's a hell of a lot of effort, time and trouble to go through to fake something. (Also, it could pass for an ad with little effort.)
Level III. The ethical gray area. I know that WE all know what this is and what was done. But I just don't know what Billy Bob Joe Reader from Stephenville, Texas, is going to know or think about it.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 10:18:39 AM
How that posted twice, I'll never know.
But also, LARRY BIRD isn't on this list.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 10:19:59 AM
There's no way any one thinks that picture is real.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 12:50:56 PM
I mean, what, you put Bill Walton and Bill Russell in a time machine?
How does doing it as a drawing change anything?
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 12:55:04 PM
Doing it as a drawing changes EVERYTHING. And labeling it an illustration clears up NOTHING.I'd be just as confused and pissed off if this were Time doing a retrospective of presidents. It's about telling the truth, why can't we just TELL THE DAMN TRUTH? And it's about saying, is this the right thing to do, or is this the cool thing to do? You can give me whatever reasons you want. You can say, "There's no way anyone thinks that picture is real." But it's also not transparent enough to be clear to everyone. Sure, I never thought they were all lined up together, but I at least thought they were well placed cutouts. THEN I found out they are well placed cutouts of body doubles?!?! Come on. It amazes me that that this went through as many people as it did and this issue didn't come up once. That either makes everyone at SI crazy, or just Josh, Rob and I (and yeah, ok, the three of us a probably a little nuts), but I'd really like to know what the arguments FOR this treatment are. Obviously, I can give you myriad reasons NOT to do this, but pretend I'm your editor. Tell me why we HAVE to this. And, as we all know, "It looks really neat," is not an acceptable answer. What do I, as a reader--regular or casual--gain from this type of treatment? What am I taking away from this that I couldn't take away from an illustration, a page of mug shots. stick figures, even?
Posted by: nicole bogdas | Nov 5, 2007 1:17:22 PM
I thought of the Presidents analogy, too.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 1:22:33 PM
I'm not rallying for this because it "looks really neat" but because it's an artistic piece. The way it was done should be put aside. Journalists in our field often assume that photoshop creations are inherently unethical.
That's bull&*^%.
We run feature photos by staff that are staged, all the time. Is that ethical?
An illustration is an illustration. Can we agree that it is clearly an illustration? I suggest you guys look at the real image in the magazine, if you haven't done so.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 1:28:54 PM
Doing it as a drawing is better (debatable), easier (slam dunk) and better ethically (but I honestly don't think the mag that did this is really worried about that).
Why did they do it this way? Because they could. It's all about the coulda and not about the shoulda (blatently ripping off Patton Oswalt, also not ethical).
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 1:30:35 PM
The thing that changes with hand-drawn is, nothing was digitally altered so as to appear real.
Truth is, Sports Illustrated, like Time, Newsweek and so many others who have no problem doing this, exist solely because they present reality.
Their entire pretense as magazines is that they present reality. Without that, they do not publish once.
But in my mind, that's exactly the problem with the fact nobody in their right mind thinks this is real, and that fact alone makes it a reason not to do this. Not in SI, at least.
"We exist to present reality."
"Nobody will think this is reality."
"OK. Then, we won't do it."
There are just so many ways to accomplish this same goal without faking it. Hand-drawn is one.
...
ON THE OTHER HAND ... This is all entirely and completely turning into a photojournalistic ethical debate over this illustration as a whole, and I think that's way way WAY overthinking things.
The real point is, there are two types of SI readers who will encounter this page:
1. THOSE WHO DON'T CARE: These people will look at it, maybe even read it, and then they'll turn the page not feeling any more or less for the reading.
2. THOSE WHO DO CARE: These are the fans. Olojuwon diehards. Magic lovers. Jordan devotees. These people may just want to clip this out and keep it. Or order a re-print from SI. Or hang it above their bar.
And to those people, it is entirely possible that those feelings would be drastically, completely different if they knew the only part of their heroes in the photos were their heads. Not their bodies. Not their jerseys. Not their balls.
Whether you, or me, or any individual reacts that way is irrelevant. The only part that matters is that such a feeling and reaction is possible.
And for that reason, and solely in the name of "2. Those who do care," I would not have done this in this particular way.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 1:36:43 PM
heh heh. you said balls.
Posted by: nicole bogdas | Nov 5, 2007 1:40:29 PM
I don't think Photoshop creations are inherently unethical.
I do think that Photoshop creations that are painstakingly done to falsely portray themselves as realistic are pretty unethical. Just because you can do it on a computer means that it's the right thing to do.
Making the blanket statement that no one could ever think this is a real photo isn't a good bail out either. You could make the same argument about literally any photo illustration.
Fact: If someone looks at this page and thinks, "Wow, someone took a vintage photo of Bill Russell in that exact pose and put it together in Photoshop with all of these other players! Cool!"
They don't think, "Wow, SI must have hired body doubles for all these players and then plopped Russell's head on his, because clearly his body type wasn't the same as the person in this photo. But that's OK, because I don't care about that because it's clearly an unrealistic photo and clearly an illustration."
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 1:43:45 PM
Let's not forget: SI has done photoshop before. Reggie Bush wearing a Saints uniform in their draft report? Etc.
In comparison, I think this is a good usage. It's done as art, not as a gimmick.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 1:45:19 PM
I appreciate that it's cool and really, really well done.
But it's frustrating that we're playing the same sport and their book of rules is about 200 pages shorter than ours.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 1:45:28 PM
I appreciate that it's cool and really, really well done.
But it's frustrating that we're playing the same sport and their book of rules is about 200 pages shorter than ours.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 1:45:28 PM
So Rob, you're saying readers realize it's an illustration but not that much of an illustration. They want to know it's still mostly real. Uh, it's an illustration. It's not real. Real. Not real.
Posted by: RIch | Nov 5, 2007 1:50:22 PM
If Bird had been on this, I might want to keep it. And I'd feel dramatically differently about it to know that's not Bird. Only his head.
That's what bothers me.
Even a little box with 6-point type explaining what was done would help immensely.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 1:50:24 PM
And let's not forget the uproar surrounding Reggie Bush in said uniform.
Just because it's been done before doesn't make it a good idea the second (or third, or whatever) time around.
And let's not elevate this to the level of art. Talent, sure, but art...ehhhh.
And in regards to rob's comment about body type, the whole thought behind this process smacks of creating an illusion...it's not that the body doubles had DIFFERENT body types, it's that SI spent the time, money and effort they did to find SIMILAR body types. My point: They wanted it to look AS REAL AS POSSIBLE.
All of this aside however, Rich, you seem to have contact with the artist, any chance he could shed some light on the editorial process?
Posted by: nicole bogdas | Nov 5, 2007 1:52:29 PM
Rich, I don't know anyone out of our industry uses the word "illustration" or cares what it means. My sarcasm logic gets twisted pretty easily and just becomes confusing.
I do have a problem when you painstakingly shoot a photo to make it look real. And that's exactly what they did. There's really no arguing that. That's what I have a problem with.
They then put it together in an unrealistic way. I have way less of a problem with that.
But as I've said, I feel like the guy supporting Nader on Election Day. I'm pissed about it, but I fear no one else cares.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 1:55:45 PM
No, this is fascinating, Rob. I told Aaron there's a debate going on. Perhaps he'll comment.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 1:57:04 PM
I realize a full explanation is as long as the original post here. But, something like, "Illustration created using models and file photos. Jerseys digitally altered by SI," would shut me up.
As would, "Saints jersey added to Reggie Bush by SI imaging." ... or "Sky added to photo by SI imaging."
Even in tiny type. It's transparent, and that's all I want.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 1:57:42 PM
Everybody has gone absolutely bitchcakes today.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 2:06:41 PM
I'm not going to tolerate that kind of language, young man, now go sit down on the assbasket in the corner until you can clean up your mouth, you hear?
Posted by: nicole bogdas | Nov 5, 2007 2:20:32 PM
Crap, now Aaron is going to bitchcakes on our asses.
That word was spoken on broadcast TV (NewsRadio) so it must be OK.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 5, 2007 2:27:24 PM
Oh god. there's more than one of you NewsRadio freaks?!
Posted by: nicole bogdas | Nov 5, 2007 2:28:53 PM
It was spoken on broadcast TV. In fact, it was used in that exact sentence, verbatim.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 2:29:57 PM
This one's fake, too.
http://i.cnn.net/si/si_online/covers/images/2006/0227_large.jpg
Posted by: Olds | Nov 5, 2007 2:36:08 PM
If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 2:40:09 PM
The Winter Olympics cover is a composite of each athlete shot separately.
This pairing makes me wonder. Anybody care to find and check the cover credits?
http://i.timeinc.net/subs2/images/si/sistore/products/2006/1023L_mid.JPG
http://i.timeinc.net/subs2/images/si/sistore/products/2006/1023W_mid.JPG
Posted by: Olds | Nov 5, 2007 2:41:33 PM
I understand the logic, Rob. An image where the "hook" is that it fools you into thinking of reality, that's uncomfortable. I think this is just an artform that we are having to deal with now.
FWIW, the Seattle papers have had a couple of photos recently that made us wonder if people assumed they were fake, instead of starting from the assumption that everything is real.
I think more readers think we're fake than we acknowledge, and no amount of posturing by us will switch that attitude. Maybe we should explain how something real was done.
Posted by: Rich | Nov 5, 2007 2:53:12 PM
Rich,
I presume one of those instances was the Kevin Durant portrait, of him "jumping over" the Space Needle?
What I found fascinating about that was Rod Mar's detailed blog entry explaining how it was REAL.
(Here, for those who haven't seen it: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/bestseatinthehouse/2007/10/30/)
I think you hit the nail on the head with the explaining-how-it-is-real bit. Same goes, in my opinion, for explaining how something is fake, like in this SI instance.
Posted by: Tim | Nov 5, 2007 8:07:09 PM
Remember when the society wrote this? http://snd.org/about/organization_ethics.html
Our own ethics guideline here at The Post says if an illustration looks too much like the real thing, you're crossing the line -- no matter how you label it.
Posted by: damon | Nov 5, 2007 8:16:41 PM
I rarely chime in on here, but this topic had me facinated.
First thought, I think most of us who are worried how the average fan would take it are overworrying. We worry about whether it's the whole guy or part of him. It's our job. I would be willing to bet that if you found the average Jordan fan or Magic fan who thought this was really cool and told them how it was done and that only their hero's head was on it, they'd say, "Really. Wow. Still looks pretty cool." I don't think many would be too shaken up by the digital manipulation. They already realize some took place. In today's world, they wouldn't be too shocked to know a little more took place than they realized. (Maybe that's where the concern lies really.) Heck, some would think it was cool.
Second, I've gone back and forth on the ethics of this. For the most part, I side with not doing it, but almost for as much a financial reason as ethical. As it's been said, a drawing would be cheaper and serve the same purpose, though I think this is much cooler in a lot of ways. Shows more time and thought went into it.
Third, touching on Tim's post, I find it interesting that papers are now posting thing's like the Seattle Times blog, seemingly as much to head off criticism as much as give a glimpse into the process. The Oklahoman had some awesome, old-timey photos in their football previews, and I loved the accompanying video on their Web site about the process used to get the pictures. But in hindsight I could see how that video, instead of just being a look at the process, could be as much to say, "Hey, look, We really shot these with old-time cameras and film. It wasn't Photoshop, which could've gotten a similar effect with less effort. Instead, we did something really cool to make this special." Maybe we'll see more papers and magazines doing things like that on their Web sites, sort of letting readers know just what they've done, whether to show them they haven't done anything or to come clean when they have done something.
And man that post was long.
Posted by: James Royal | Nov 5, 2007 8:34:29 PM
I have a problem with the argument that this would have been better if it were a hand drawn or painted illustration. While those are certainly more traditional mediums for drawing and creating an illustration, that doesn't mean that photoshop or any other imaging software is not a legitimate artistic medium.
I think the goal of most illustrations is to make a contrived image look realistic. The fact that photoshop was used so successfully here in the artist's attempt to create a beautiful realistic image is cause to congratulate Aaron's talent and effort as well as the possibilities of a new art form.
I could understand questioning the thought process behind using manipulated photos or any illustration for that matter to tell a hard news story visually. But, this is a feature on the greatest basketball players for each height listing in one-inch increments. At best this is a quarky feature that may or may not interest the casual sports fan. It's not like they're splicing a couple extra gunmen in the grassy nole ...... ok, that was bad. Anyway, you can put me in the, this doesn't offend me as a designer or a sports fan category.
Posted by: Mark | Nov 5, 2007 8:51:15 PM
Good points, Mark, but I think the goal of an illustration is to be expressive and -- at best -- original.
Posted by: damon | Nov 5, 2007 9:03:56 PM
I'm not sure a casual sports fan is going to pick up Sports Illustrated. And I'm also not sure that a reader who picks up Sports Illustrated could give a hoot about how this was done, or whether it's right or wrong.
But I'm pretty sure a lot of 10-year-old kids have it on their bedroom wall.
Maybe this kind of thing is a line in the sand between "us/newspapers" and "them/magazines". But who is winning this battle in the sand? I'm pretty sure it's not us at the moment. But we've got standards though.
Posted by: Matt Clayton | Nov 5, 2007 9:07:35 PM
And I'm pretty sure magazines are having similar problems to newspapers: http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=121700
And, yes, we do have (or should have) standards -- thank God. (An editor long ago told me that newspapers have their credibility and their comics -- and without the first they're just kinda funny.) But that doesn't mean we can't be creative and original and produce something 10-year-olds would hang on their bedroom walls.
Posted by: damon | Nov 5, 2007 9:22:44 PM
Speaking as a fan of some of these players, and NOT as a journalist ... speaking as a reader of SI and not as a designer ... it damn well bothers me that the only real part of the players are their heads.
OK. I'm a fan of these players and I'm a reader of SI.
Tell me I'm wrong. Start a sentence with "Fan of these players and reader of SI, you are wrong because ..."
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 5, 2007 10:16:35 PM
Fan of these players and reader of SI, you are wrong because the real ethical dilemma here is how they can sleep with themselves having chosen Zydrunas Ilgauskas over Arvedas Sabonis as the best 7'3 player ever. Laughable.
Posted by: Ben | Nov 6, 2007 2:34:01 AM
In all seriousness, though, I think this approach only works so well for the casual fan BECAUSE it's a photo illustration. And because it's so nearly flawlessly executed. (Yao's right arm is a little too big, if you ask me.)
SI could have easily taken a square file photo of each player and set them all in a grid on this same gatefold. But how many people are going to hang that on their wall? A composite drawing of all the players is only slightly better because it's not real ENOUGH. As a photo illustration, an only as a photo illustration, does the reader get a real sense of how big these players are, and isn't that the point? The fact that it's so well done makes it BELIEVABLE.
And if anything, I think clarifying the body doubles and computer manipulation of the players for the sake of transparency would only make this MORE appealing to the casual reader. "Holy cow, they took the time to find 30 guys of the right size and shape JUST for this image? And then they put Michael Jordan's head on that guy and it looked REAL?!" For us, the process behind this image is second nature, but for anyone who's never heard of the healing brush, the fascination is going to be with the EFFORT, not the ethics.
In the end, I imagine most SI readers aren't going to spend long enough with this illustration to even consider the possibility that it was a complete fake. We discuss it because we all wish we had the editorial freedom and budget to pull off something this cool in our papers.
OK, that's enough from me. I have to get to work on a list of the greatest Husker football players, ordered by GPA.
Posted by: Ben | Nov 6, 2007 3:19:45 AM
Ben, at least you won't have to worry about your Husker list going over 2.5, if it even goes that high.
Posted by: James Royal | Nov 6, 2007 6:19:33 AM
I'm 100% sure Kevin Durant actually did jump over the space needle for that photo.
Posted by: Harrison | Nov 6, 2007 7:18:17 AM
"As a photo illustration, an only as a photo illustration, does the reader get a real sense of how big these players are, and isn't that the point? The fact that it's so well done makes it BELIEVABLE."
Thank you, Ben, for providing, at least for me, a viable option TO do this.
Gotta argue with you about sour grapes, though. There are a lot of things I wish we had the budget to do, but..
1.) Walking the ethical line isn't one of them.
2.) I do my job better because of its limitations, and wonder what would have come out of SI if they DIDN'T have the budget. We assume it would have been lame-er. I'm not so sure.
Posted by: Nicole Bogdas | Nov 6, 2007 7:45:26 AM
First of all, nobody who takes a look at this would think it's a real photo, unless somebody invented a miracle age-reversal drug.
On Rob's point that if what you do in Photoshop looks too much like reality, then it's unethical: Sorry, I have to disagree. One, if you're going to do something in photoshop, do it well. If you're going for realism, don't stop halfway. Two, the "realistic photo illo isn't ethical" argument assumes that a photo accurately portrays reality. As history has repeatedly shown, a photo does lie. A photo shows a fraction of a second and only what's in the view of the lens, which may or may not accurately reflect the reality of the entire event it's supposedly documenting. A photo, especially posed photo, isn't reality; it's a portrayal of reality. The same goes for a photo illo. The whole point of doing a photo illo is that it can portray reality better than available photos can. If you can replicate exactly what these players look like in their playing days via photoshop while keeping them in poses that actually work for your piece, whereas that's not possible with a camera, why not do it?
In this case, a hand-drawn illo could've worked, but it won't have been as cool as this. SI had the resources to take the product one level higher and did. Good for them. To me, there is no ethical line here. The piece isn't saying: "We built a time machine and brought the 1980s' Magic Johnson to 2007 for a photoshoot." The piece's point is to compare the height of the players in a line. Unless they portrayed Jordan to be 6-10 and Kareem as 5-11, they are NOT lying. Stop overthinking.
As others have pointed out, most readers likely won't care that it was pieced together. Sometimes I think because journalists live and breath journalistic ethics, they think the rest of the world does, too. But pointing to this as an example of why readers don't trust the media is barking up the wrong bush. Readers don't distrust your publication b/c you used photoshop to put together a keepsake piece of artwork. The distrust comes from things like mistakes in reporting, photoshopping limbs or people out of documentary photos that accompany news stories, and misrepresentation of reality through biased writing and ... gasp ... publishing a photos that show a split second in time that doesn't reflect what actually happened.
Posted by: John Zhu | Nov 7, 2007 9:03:55 AM
John, you and I disagree about quite a bit of stuff here. I'll try and break them down:
-If you intentionally shoot photos to then be added to a photo illustration for the explicit purpose of making it look like it was a real photo (the Bill Russell body double for example) which you are adding to a collage, I don't see how that isn't unethical. You are shooting a photo to make up for the fact that you don't have real thing so that you can create a fake "real thing" in Photoshop. I can understand that you think it's OK to do and the reader doesn't care, but I find it remarkable that you can't see where there's an athical breach there.
-The whole do it the most realistic you can in Photoshop takes all kinds of artistry and again I completely understand your point. But when you are starting out with a lie, it doesn't matter how well you execute the lie. You are still being deceptive.
-" The whole point of doing a photo illo is that it can portray reality better than available photos can." I don't think that's the point of a photo illustration. To me, the reason you do a photo illustration is when it's the best way to illustrate a story and can't be done by regular photo methods. To say that a photo illustration portrays reality doesn't make any sense, that's why the word illustration is there. You can say that a photo illustration should look real, but it will never be real.
-" If you can replicate exactly what these players look like in their playing days via photoshop ... why not do it?" This is the crux, isn't it? I think what I'm getting from you, John, is that you'd do it because you could and it would be really cool. What I'm saying is we could do it but when we start faking everything we can just for the opportunity to do a cool photo illustration, it's become more about "hey, look at us" and less about illustrating the story. It seems like photo illustrations are often a crutch when someone can't come up with a better idea.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 7, 2007 12:23:00 PM
And finally
-"The distrust comes from things like mistakes in reporting, photoshopping limbs or people out of documentary photos that accompany news stories, and misrepresentation of reality through biased writing and ... gasp ... publishing a photos that show a split second in time that doesn't reflect what actually happened."
You've hit the nail on the head, I think, John. And here's why. Actually, let me quote from a friend who wrote this the other day because it says exactly what the problem is here in my mind.
"My issue with the SI thing is not that people will think it's real. it's that people will know its fake, and it adds to the perception that EVERYTHING is fake.
When readers see what can be done they start to assume that we're doing that to everything they see in print. So if a news photo is really good, well we must have put it all together from pieces, just like SI did.
I have no idea what making it photo real rather than having it painted by someone really good using all the same visual references, uniforms, etc. adds. And I think it takes away a lot. People think things in the media are faked because they ARE FAKED.
Readers do not distinguish us from SI. If they think the media creates fake reality, then they think we all do it. So end the end I don't care for it, no matter how well it is done, because it undermines our credibility. And that's about the only thing we have left to trade on."
If we assume that they don't care what the word "illustration" means, then why would they care what the words "documentary photos" means? They just start assuming that everything is faked for our pleasure.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 7, 2007 12:27:26 PM
"My issue with the SI thing is not that people will think it's real. it's that people will know its fake, and it adds to the perception that EVERYTHING is fake."
Well-said, friend of Rob's.
Years ago, a photographer friend and I used to have discussions about this issue that ended up consuming months out of our lives that we can't get back, and the one thing he would never back down from was this exact point: Why fake something in a business built around giving people reality?
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 7, 2007 1:29:01 PM
"Fan of these players and reader of SI, you are wrong because the real ethical dilemma here is how they can sleep with themselves having chosen Zydrunas Ilgauskas over Arvedas Sabonis as the best 7'3 player ever. Laughable."
He's not MYvedas. He's not YOURvedas. He's OURvedas.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 7, 2007 1:33:34 PM
Hi Rob. Good discussion. I'll address your points and use a few examples from my own portfolio (not b/c I think they're great, but b/c I don't want to drag somebody else's work into this debate):
First:
"To me, the reason you do a photo illustration is when it's the best way to illustrate a story and can't be done by regular photo methods."
Isn't that the situation here? There's no way to take a picture of all the players together, and you can't find suitable cutouts that'd illustrate the "height" issue that's the crux of the story. So they went the photo illo route, which allowed them to illustrate the story perfectly, and much better than a hand-drawn illustration.
Now the main point:
"If you intentionally shoot photos to then be added to a photo illustration for the explicit purpose of making it look like it was a real photo, which you are adding to a collage, I don't see how that isn't unethical. You are shooting a photo to make up for the fact that you don't have real thing so that you can create a fake "real thing" in Photoshop. ..."
"The whole do it the most realistic you can in Photoshop takes all kinds of artistry and again I completely understand your point. But when you are starting out with a lie, it doesn't matter how well you execute the lie. You are still being deceptive."
Here're three photo illos that are supposed to be realistic (let's put aside for the moment how successful they actually are toward that end):
1. http://www.john-zhu.com/portfolio/publications/2004accfootball/page1.jpg
2. http://www.john-zhu.com/portfolio/publications/other_pubs/071405front.jpg
3. http://www.john-zhu.com/portfolio/illustrations/cake.jpg
So would you say that example 1, if it was completely photorealistic, would be unethical because I never had a real papyrus map of the ACC, but rather created the whole thing in photoshop? Or that example 2 is unethical because I didn't actually take a real hockey puck, drill holes in it, glue in parts of a lock and a key, and take a photo of it? And is example 3 unethical because I didn't actually bake an American flag cake and shoot it? In the last two examples in particular, I picked photos with the explicit intent of combining them in photoshop to create realistic objects because I didn't have an actual photo of a hockey puck lock or an American flag cake. Of course there isn't a real papyrus ACC map or a real puck lock or an American cake. But when you look at the images, I want you to think that that's a real cake or a real lock rather than thinking "Those are obvious fakes". So I guess you can say I'm starting with a lie. Or if those objects are too unreal to begin with, what about a smashed picture frame? Let's say I don't have the money to buy a frame and smash it just to take a photo, so I achieved the same effect in photoshop. Not real? Sure. But is it unethical? I would say no b/c the point of the stories that these images illustrate isn't that a puck lock actually exist or that I actually smashed a frame. Therefore the illos don't mislead. I guess my point is that "not real" doesn't automatically equal "deceptive" or "unethical".
In the SI case: The story's point isn't that they got everybody to line up for a photo (which is already obvious to everybody given the age of the players in the illo), but rather to compare the height of the players. So if they replicated the players' heights and physical features accurately, then I don't see the ethical breach. If instead of body doubles and photoshop, they used 3D software to create completely realistic models of all the players, would that be unethical (since it's not the real Bill Russell)? Or what if you get someone to hand-draw completely realistic figures (let's say that's possible)?
On the other hand, if they shot a Bill Russell body double dunking, photoshopped it into an old game photo and presented it as a live-action shot, then yes, I would have major problems with that. But in this case, the usage is obviously not documentary, which brings me to the next point:
"If we assume that they don't care what the word "illustration" means, then why would they care what the words "documentary photos" means? They just start assuming that everything is faked for our pleasure."
So are you saying that readers don't distinguish between a photo illo you put together for a player poster and the live-action shot that accompanies a game story? If so, I would have to disagree. The terms "documentary" or "illustration" may not really register with readers, but the concept does. If they read a story about last night's game and see the accompanying action shot, they expect it to be real. In something like this case, where you're obviously presenting a composite image, in what basically is a poster page, they can accept a "lie".
Someone mentioned earlier the Reggie Bush cover and the uproar it raised. As far as I can tell, outside of journalist circles, the "ethics" of that cover didn't even cause a ripple in the public. In fact, I just did a google search to prove myself wrong on that and found nothing at all about it.
One last point: Years ago, I watched a TV program that followed a veteran SI photographer on a shoot of Ken Griffey Jr. It showed how he got Griffey to leap onto the outfield wall (as if he's about to make an over-the-wall catch) again and again, in an empty park. And in that issue, the photo ran and looked like a live game photo, without any text to say this was a posed shot. To me, that's 100 times more deceptive and unethical than Photoshopping a poster of past NBA stars because you're misleading readers into thinking this is a real action shot.
Posted by: John Zhu | Nov 7, 2007 2:38:56 PM
OK, about your examples. Objects vs. human faces for a realistic photo illo make a gigantic difference. But ignoring that, let's talk about the intent of these illustrations. I believe your intent was to illustrate an abstract topic (NHL lockout, for example). That wasn't at all the intent of the SI illustration. There was nothing abstract about it at all. In fact, they were trying to be as literal as possible, and that's really where the problem is in my mind. They were using Photoshop to literally replicate something that can't be replicated.
Again, about the Reggie Bush idea. The outrage wasn't that they did it. The outrage was that they did and tried to pass it off as real.
And the point of the quote earlier was to say that if we keep using Photoshop like the SI doubletruck, then yes, people can assume that everything they do is fake or "enhanced", whether it's a live game photo or a studio shot. There's really no gray area, it's just assumed that we'll do whatever it takes to get it the way we want it.
I'm glad you mentioned this, because SI will take live game action photos for their covers and "add" a better background to fix photographic problems that lighting and other factors wouldn't allow them to do. For example, when the Mavs were in the NBA Finals two years ago, their photographers were sitting right next to ours on the sidelines but a cover shot would do something with the background that would be technically impossible. The "on the cover" credit would credit the photographer and then credit whoever "fixed" it in Photoshop (I can't remember what phrase they used).
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 7, 2007 2:52:42 PM
I think object vs. human doesn't make much of a difference. It's just as unethical for me to photoshop a crack house into your backyard as it is for me to photoshop you into a crack house and present either one of those images as documentary photos.
As for the intent of the SI doubletruck, as I said before, anyone who looks at it would recognize it as a photo illustration anyway, so they already know this thing is composed from various images. To me, that already removes the image from the "tell the truth" ethical debate because readers know it's not meant to depict an event that actually occurred (e.g.: all the players lining up for a shot). And if we're talking about intent, rather than abstract or literal, I would judge intent based on whether this illo was intended to deceive the readers. If it made Magic Johnson 5-foot-7, then yes, it's deceiving the readers. But if anything, this piece was trying to show readers an accurate portrayal of the players. You're right that they're using photoshop to replicate something that can't otherwise be replicated. But what's ethically wrong with that in and of itself? You're using technology to make possible a height comparison illo that would not have been possible otherwise. You're using technology to give the readers more, and you're not lying about the players' heights or physical attributes. "Not real" doesn't equal "not accurate".
And the point about if we do more of this type of illo, people will think all images are made up by the media. It's your friend's opinion, and while I respect that, it is still just one man's opinion, and I don't buy it. The public's distrust of the media stems from factors well beyond the scope of a few poster illustrations that everyone knows isn't real. And as I said before, I think the readers are able to distinguish between the visuals for a feature package like this and the visuals for a news story. Just because it's all in the publication, it doesn't mean it's all the same. Otherwise, people would mistake ads for editorial content too. They can make that distinction, just as they can make the distinction between when an image is supposed to real and when it just looks real but isn't meant to depict reality.
Posted by: John Zhu | Nov 7, 2007 6:50:06 PM
" You're right that they're using photoshop to replicate something that can't otherwise be replicated. But what's ethically wrong with that in and of itself?"
John, this is exactly the problem. It's a problem because it gives us a responsibility and it gives us great potential to abuse that responsibility. The fact is that I see what they did by using fake body doubles to mimic realistic photos as an abuse, and you don't. It's a problem because if that's not a problem, then what else isn't a problem? Inserting more people into photos of rallies? Moving people in photographs? Taking weapons out of people's hands.Where does it end?
You seem to have a pretty clear line about what's responsible and what isn't, and I think that's wonderful. My fear is that the line isn't as clear (or doesn't exist) for a lot of other people who do journalism. That scares the bejesus out of me.
I appreciate the conversation and wish we weren't at such divergent places, but like I said 46 comments ago, I feel like the guy supporting Nader on Election Day. I feel my ethical quandry is not an issue for a great deal of my peers and is a nonstarter for newsmagazines like SI.
In the realm of a doubletruck of NBA players, that's really not a big deal, but when you put your conspiracy theory glasses on (and take a look at the way the Bush administration views the Fourth Estate if you haven't lately) it doesn't take much to think about how you could abuse this power and change the world forever.
Posted by: Rob Schneider | Nov 7, 2007 8:00:38 PM
I'm curious as to how a reader can make the distinction between Bill Russell's head on Bill Russell's body and Bill Russell's head on a model's body.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 7, 2007 8:28:10 PM
NA-DER! NA-DER! NA-DER!
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 7, 2007 8:29:25 PM
Rob, I understand your point about the responsibility and your fear about where to draw the line. And yes, I do worry about people abusing that power. We disagree on whether this is a case of abuse, and that's fine. I knew even before I jumped into this debate that we weren't going to convince each other of our respective positions, but it's still a good discussion to have. You yourself wrote that doing this in the realm of NBA players isn't a big deal. Perhaps you see it as a bigger deal b/c of the potential slippery slope. But I don't view it in that context. I view this piece in the context of how it uses that power, not how the whole industry uses that power. I would never say that you can't do this or that b/c someone else might abuse that same tool or technique. Just b/c SI photoshopped a player poster, it doesn't mean you then have to doctor a news photo. To me, SI didn't cross the line, and SI can't be held responsible for others who do cross the line. And yes, I do have clear lines of what's ok and what's not. I don't worry about the slippery slope because I see each piece of work as distinct from each other. Photoshopping NBA players doesn't have to lead to adding people in rally pictures or taking weapons out of people's hands. It only happens if you let it. You ask where it'd end, and my answer is that it ends when this piece is completed. The next piece is a new image and a new set of circumstances to consider. It's not the next step on a slope. It's a whole new path that you have to decide whether to go down.
Posted by: John Zhu | Nov 7, 2007 9:21:58 PM
"I'm curious as to how a reader can make the distinction between Bill Russell's head on Bill Russell's body and Bill Russell's head on a model's body."
Josh, to me that's not the substantial distinction. The distinction that matters is between an obvious "fake" poster of players, presented as such, and an action shot presented as a real, live photo from a game. And that's the point I was trying to make with the Griffey example: My problem with it was that they took a posed shot of Griffey and presented it as if it were a game action shot, in a situation where the reader was expecting the photo to be a live action shot. That's when I think you run into problems -- when you give readers a fake/posed image when they're expecting it to be a real/live shot. That causes way more confusion than this doubletruck, and does far more to advance the idea that the media is fabricating images to tell their side of the story.
Posted by: John Zhu | Nov 7, 2007 9:28:55 PM
I keep coming back to the explanation. I think if you just print what you did, even in small type, away from the illustration, you take major steps to alleviate any potential issues.
Posted by: Josh Crutchmer | Nov 8, 2007 7:41:28 AM
"I keep coming back to the explanation. I think if you just print what you did, even in small type, away from the illustration, you take major steps to alleviate any potential issues."
I told myself I was going to stay out of this – but I have to agree on this point. Not only would this clearly spell out the "what" and "how" – but reading how they did it is just as interesting for me as the final piece.
Posted by: Mike Rice | Nov 8, 2007 8:00:21 AM
Mike, Josh: Exactly.
And I don't think that just appeals to us as designers and journalists. On that how-we-did-it blog entry on the Durant shoot, there are 35(!) reader comments. I think lots of people are fascinated by that sort of thing. And it does a lot to credibility to add that sort of transparency.
(BTW: Is this a record number of comments for SD?)
Posted by: Tim | Nov 8, 2007 11:31:42 AM
I've got two words to say about this.
Sid Finch.
Posted by: Chuck Stewart | Nov 10, 2007 7:11:47 PM
this is a great cut out how can i buy it
Posted by: Scott | Jun 1, 2008 7:16:44 PM
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