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Dear ??????

Thanks for writing. The picture is not altered. I have pasted below an explanation from the photographer who took the picture.

Sincerely, Joe Plambeck Office of the Public Editor The New York Times

Note: The public editor's opinions are his own and do not represent those of The New York Times.

----

I did not 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. "

1 posted on 08/29/2006 11:29:17 AM PDT by Derfla5
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To: Derfla5

No stripper? Too bad.


2 posted on 08/29/2006 11:32:07 AM PDT by neodad (USS Vincennes (CG-49) Freedom's Fortress)
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To: Derfla5

Could you please post the pic?


3 posted on 08/29/2006 11:32:07 AM PDT by RandallFlagg (Roll your own cigarettes! You'll save $$$ and smoke less!(Magnetic bumper stickers-click my name)
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To: Derfla5

I wouldn't really have a problem with strippers performing for the troops anyway, but that's just me.


4 posted on 08/29/2006 11:32:34 AM PDT by Trampled by Lambs (A storm is coming...)
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To: Derfla5

Bovine excrement. I can see the shadow on the wall!!! LIES! MENTIDAS!


5 posted on 08/29/2006 11:33:10 AM PDT by Froufrou
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To: Derfla5

It's not a doctored photo. Sorry, folks, but somebody has done a "ready, fire, aim", and made the NYT look good in the process.


6 posted on 08/29/2006 11:33:35 AM PDT by TChris (Banning DDT wasn't about birds. It was about power.)
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To: Derfla5
TPIWWP!!
7 posted on 08/29/2006 11:33:49 AM PDT by DTogo (I haven't left the GOP, the GOP left me.)
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To: Derfla5

looks like an honest answer to me.


8 posted on 08/29/2006 11:34:23 AM PDT by for-q-clinton (If at first you don't succeed keep on sucking until you do succeed)
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To: Derfla5

Hot Air and Little Green Footballs both had this pic up and commented on it. It looks weird, but the explanation makes sense; the "disappearing" microphone cord is actually motion-blurred and very hard to see.

I realize that the whole Reuters/MSM fauxtography scandal has got us all hypersensitive about media picture manipulation, but now I think we (meaning conservatives) are in danger of going overboard and jumping on every tiny irregularity in a picture as being evidence of a conspiracy, when really most of them can be explained away. And that plays right into the hands of those that want to portray conservatives are paranoid tinfoil-hatters. We need to pick our fights better.

}:-)4


10 posted on 08/29/2006 11:35:42 AM PDT by Moose4 (Dirka dirka Mohammed jihad.)
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To: Derfla5

There was a cord in the picture?


14 posted on 08/29/2006 11:37:00 AM PDT by kempster
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To: Derfla5

To doubt the explanation, you'd have to come up with a reason somebody would alter the picture in such an obvious way, and what it got them.


15 posted on 08/29/2006 11:37:09 AM PDT by John Jorsett (scam never sleeps)
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To: Derfla5
Did ja hear bout the stripper with the Microphone?

No Microphone "George Hanbury 1956"Had to be there...
24 posted on 08/29/2006 11:48:20 AM PDT by CGASMIA68
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To: Derfla5

This photog is looking to be hired by Reuters.


27 posted on 08/29/2006 11:51:41 AM PDT by BurbankKarl
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To: Derfla5

Where's the top half of the picture?


38 posted on 08/29/2006 11:59:54 AM PDT by Hatteras
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To: Derfla5
Looks to have been shot in ambient light (no flash) therefore necessitating a slow shutter speed. The cord was moving and was blurred (which you can barely see) as a result.
47 posted on 08/29/2006 12:09:15 PM PDT by FReepaholic (This tagline could indicate global warming.)
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To: Derfla5

So everybody else in the room was standing stone still?


50 posted on 08/29/2006 12:13:10 PM PDT by NonValueAdded (Tom Gallagher - the anti-Crist [FL Governor, 2006 primary])
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To: Derfla5; darkwing104

I would say that there is a better chance that someone who signed up today to post this is a troll than there is that the photo was altered.

The faces behind the cord, the blurred hands of the soldier clapping all point to the photog being the one telling the truth.

If you are a real conservative, you'll post an apology to the photog. Otherwise, it might be time to call the kitties.


57 posted on 08/29/2006 12:26:47 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: Derfla5

Hmmmm I can spot a few that haven't been addressed

but the the real proof it is a shop is simple enough that a blind man could understand it, Strippers don't need microphones.

65 posted on 08/29/2006 2:28:25 PM PDT by usmcobra (I got my end of the world underwear on, It's totally stain proof and aluminum.)
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To: Derfla5
It would be nice if someone could post the article with which this photo appeared.

Unless there is something in the article to suggest it, I don't know why the reader would assume the photographer or article author was trying to portray this performer as a stripper.

The cord in the photo definitely looks strange, and I can understand someone wondering if it were edited and why. However, in the absence of something else I don't see why they thought the Times was trying to portray her as something other than what she was.

This does seem to be a bit of an overreaction, and I'm glad the photographer responded.

Hopefully that will set a new standard for the Times in responding to such questions about the validity of photos they use.

66 posted on 08/29/2006 2:34:07 PM PDT by untrained skeptic
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To: Derfla5
So - derfla5 puts "stripper" in quotes - nowhere in the story are the entertainers referred to as "strippers."

And anyone who knows even a little bit about photography can see quite clearly, without having to open photoshop or anything else, that the photographer's explanation makes perfect sense.
77 posted on 08/29/2006 9:05:59 PM PDT by FrankySwanky
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