This one has nothing to do with the land. I saw this picture in the Boston Globe yesterday.
Image Credit: David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
I was puzzled that the people seemed to be standing so close together. I know that Boston has strict rules about social distancing, and Kaitlin said when they went to get their new licenses and their title changed they had to stand six feet apart in the waiting line.
Later I read this article by Bored Panda: Photographer Takes Pics Of People In Public From 2 Perspectives And It Shows How Easily The Media Can Manipulate Reality.
Two examples were
Taken with telephoto lens, its: EPA / Philip Davali / Olafur Steinar RyE
Taken with wide-angle lens, Image credits: EPA / Philip Davali / Olafur Steinar RyE
It was the same scene but the first was taken with a telephoto lens, the second with a wide-angle lens. The article shows other examples.
The photographers work for a Danish photo news agency that provides visual coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, and there was a lot of controversy about pictures apparently showing people violating social distancing rules. The conclusion of the experiment was in these strange times captions for group photos should mention the lens used.
Who would have guessed? Not me!
May 5, 2020
smoke and mirrors these days I guess. depending on what you want people to see. who would have believed just a matter of a type of lens? amazing.
I’m pretty sure a lot of news photographers aren’t trying to misrepresent things, they are just trying to get good pictures for a story. It’s only now that it makes a difference how close people appear to be. Usually that top picture would be more interesting and more apt to grab the readers’ attention, but if we’re talking about social distancing the second one is better.
I know using a zoom lens compresses images…I think if used, that it should have a line that tells due to using the zoom lens, objects appear closer together than they actually are. Because everyone does not know.
Mostly it doesn’t matter, I think — we just want a nice picture. I’m amused about what a difference it makes when social distancing is important.
That is very interesting. Photography can play tricks on us:)
Yes, I’m amazed at how big the difference is.
yep, seen this before…recently. Does make you think!
Yes, it was a great experiment and very relevant.
I certainly would’t have suspected the photo was misleading because of the way it was taken. People here in NI are being very strict about distancing, which is one reason we have such a low infection and death rate, way below England.
That’s good. Our neighbors downstairs are friendly but they don’t worry about social distancing and have small parties. Fingers crossed on that one. Andy chats with them outside from about three or four feet away and one of the visitors shook his hand the other night. Andy didn’t protest and washed his hands when he came in. They’re really nice guys and apparently there are few confirmed cases in town so we’ve decided to try to be careful but not say anything. We have to go past them if they’re outside and we need to use the stairs.
A perfect example of why I don’t always believe what is reported in the news. It’s hard to decide what is real and what is made to look real.
Yes, it pays to thinking about what we read. I made a mistake in including Bored Panda’s title — it’s misleading. The article isn’t about how the media deliberately distorts things, it’s about how pictures can inadvertently give the wrong impression. Bored Panda was the one distorting things to grab our attention. I should have just linked to the article without including the headline.
Having used a DSLR lens for years, I was aware, but did not think of it like this. so glad you posted this. it is a perfect example on how things that we perceive can be totally wrong. this could also be acheived by shooting at an angle and straight on. great post. I miss my telephoto lens and camera, when it died i decided it was way to heavy for my hands and went small.
Mostly it doesn’t matter, one just tries to get the best picture. It’s only now that social distancing is important that news photographers and publications need to be careful.
For a couple of years before the fire Andy took a lot of photos with a medium format camera. Now if he went back to photography it would be too heavy for him.
Talk about “FAKE NEWS!”
Could you be more specific? The study done by the news agency, the content of the article, was solid reporting. The Bored Panda title was not.