What you see is what you get -- usually

Oct 08, 2009

Special to the Star

"Seeing is believing," we were always told.

Of course we've all grown wiser over the years as Photoshop has invaded every nook and cranny of our lives. So much retouching goes on that I pore over family photos like I'm examining the Zapruder film. No grassy knoll? Well, you can always 'shop one in.

But not at the Toronto Star.

I learned this the hard way a couple of years back. My son and I were in Tobermory with a darling little Mini Cooper S. Against the backdrop of brilliant sunshine and moored sailboats, I set up a shot of the two of us smiling out from the back of the convertible. I had a passerby take the picture, with high fives all around for its fabulousness.

Somewhat less enthusiasm greeted me when I sent the photo in to my editor.

"You've left your silly shoes in the shot," he said.

"Where?" I asked.

"Right there, in front of the car! It's a lovely shot, but your silly shoes are in the shot!"

"But I didn't want to muck up the car by climbing over the side with my shoes on!"

There was some sighing at this point.

"Can't you just Photoshop them out?" I asked reasonably. I thought.

"No."

"Really?"

"Really."

The shoes stayed in the picture. And I've subsequently learned over the years that I cannot have mountains moved a little to the right to better frame a vehicle, we can't add mud to a Land Rover nor take dirt off of a Rolls-Royce. The picture is the picture.

Not so at Car and Driver, however. A recent photo kerfuffle has lobbed some egg on its face for precisely the reasons my cute little sandals stayed in the shot.

In a review of a BMW X6M, it seems the writer took poetic licence to the extreme and Photoshopped the BMW beating a series of other cars in a gallery of drag racing pics. (See the picture here) The problem was, none of the other cars were actually there.

Fun with photos? Or misrepresentation? If one of those cars was yours, you'd probably be less than thrilled. As it turned out, a drag racer recognized his tricked-out Chevy Nova II drag car "losing" to the X6M and called them on it.

The magazine's editors made light of the moment in their admission, saying reviewer "John Phillips became so attached to the BMW X6M that it – appropriately enough – triggered many irrational responses. One of these was his insistence that we Photoshop the BMW beating the clearly superior Chevy Nova. Any attempt to dissuade him – by telling him, for instance, that only an idiot would believe a BMW SUV could beat a purpose-built drag car – just resulted in heated calls to the suicide hotline and even more foaming at the mouth than usual."

I don't know. I think the relationship between a reader and a publication deserves more respect. We work hard to bring you information and entertainment, and an unretouched photograph seems like a pretty good standard to set, and an even easier one to achieve.

With this writer, what you see is what you get – warts (and shoes) and all.

Lorraine Sommerfeld's column appears Thursdays on Wheels.ca. www.lorraineonline.ca

Toronto Star