Reactions

I've heard a lot of reactions to this photo, which opened my package and is posted on my Facebook page.

If you can't quite tell, the image is of a stuffed bear, draped over a power line probably ten feet off the ground. This house is in the ninth ward, only about 300 yards from the levee.

When I showed this picture to my roomate his initial reaction was: Did you doctor it?

I couldn't believe my own roomate questioned whether it was a legitimate photo - a real moment captured in time.

In all honesty, though, it was a fair question. No, I didn't do anything to this photo. I took it as I saw it, but incidents of journalists doctoring photos have been common in the last few years.


Just this summer a photographer for Reuters added plumes of dark smoke to a picture of a Lebanese city to make damage appear worse.

There have been multiple examples of doctored photos in Iraq as well.

You get the idea. The point is its fair to question photos or video you see. Sometimes even the pros make mistakes and clean up an image, stage a scene or even use photoshop to make an image more dramatic. My picture, however, is real.

-Garrett