New York Times Photo Mystery (Drudge): Where did the Mic Cord Go?

New York Times via Drudge ^ | August 27, 2006

[FreedomCalls]

The photographer, Jim Wilson, has already explained it:

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.

One-sixth of a second! That is why the cord is blurred.

[FreedomCalls]

If they are her legs ...

It's one of the members of the Purrfect Angelz dance troupe according to the caption in the NYT.

[Jackknife]

Nice a - ...... uhhhhh ....... BOOTS! Yeah , that's the ticket!

[Orange1998]

Good Observation. It does look strange.

[Orange1998]

Next we will see Clinton somewhere in there.

[LA Woman3]

Note that the only Freeper to notice the caption is a female.

I'll take that as a compliment!! : )

[martin_fierro]

* SNORT *

[AmusedBystander]

It's not a mic cord. Just a piece of wire on the stage that got a better view than the GI's.

[js1138]

I've been a photographer and have worked extensively in Photoshop. The pic is OK. The cord is just blurred due to a slow shutter speed. No Fauxtography.

That's funny. Every picture I've taken with a blurred object has a gradation of density around the blur. Not to mention, if the object is flexible, like a mike cord, there will be a transition from the part that is moving to the part that isn't.

It doesn't appear there is any political motive behind this, but journalists should not be using the clone tool.

[DBrow]

Thanks for the link.

I'd guessed 1/30 sec, which would be enough to blur a close object, but 1/6 is very long.

If you read through my post, I go along with the crowd for fun, then arrive at basically the same analysis as the photographer.

It's fun to assume the worst of the NYTimes, and it should be revealing to their top staff that they have a serious PR problem if even a simple photo can generate so much distrust.

And, by the way, a phenomenal set of legs does help move the story.

[elhombrelibre]

They're now called ACU's.

[DBrow]

I looked at the end of the cord very closely. There is a gradation and a fanout, but you see it against the neat new digital camo and camo is designed to blur edges and make transitions hard to see.

If I were going to zap an object like that from a pic (I just took out an ugly yellow barrier rope from some horse show pictures) I would never have left such traces. If the Times were actually intending to deceive, it would have been a much better job. This is worse than those CAIR shots where the head coverings were blotched in.

[Charles Henrickson]

Where did the Mic Cord Go?

Yeah, where DID McCord go?

[Redcloak]

You've nailed it. The cord is there, but the motion blur makes it hard to see. If you look at some of the Marines in the audience, you'll see other examples of motion blur: One guy's elbow is moving and another's hands are a blur. Sorry, folks; but no fauxtography here.

[js1138]

At least they know everyone's watching.

I blew it up in photoshop and didn't find any suspicious pixels. One flew over.

[TexasNative2000]

Yes, the cord is there but blurred by the camera speed.

The giveaway is the dark-haired soldier who is standing against in far wall in line with the "blur". His face is intact. If the cord had been Photoshopped out, his face would have to be an inserted copy of another face in the crowd.

[anymouse]

To paraphrase Dr. Freud, "some times a mic cord is just a mic cord." ;)

[FreedomCalls]

To paraphrase Dr. Freud, "some times a mic cord is just a mic cord." ;)

Very apt.

[L.N. Smithee]

What Cord?

COOL! Now make the Daisy Dukes disappear!

[L.N. Smithee]

Yeah, where DID McCord go?

Kent McCord's last role was playing "Vice Admiral Somerville" in the TV-movie Tides of War aka USS Poseidon: Phantom Below.

Click here for the trailer. IMHO, he's a brutal actor.