Photojournalists use images to tell stories based on facts. Through images, they are narrating true and real events that can be complemented by text or audio. Thus, photojournalism emerges when the individual reports facts or events and delivers to the spectator a "fair representation of the context" of them, as Photography Schools points out (2021, para. 2). In fact, when reporting an event and publishing the taken photographs in the media or press must, a graphic reporter must guarantee that images have a broad scope of the portrayed reality and are not misleading the consumer. This means not manipulating the pictures. But what does manipulation refer to, and to what extent is editing ethical?

To illustrate this dilemma and explain it simply, I reported on an action call from Encampment Support Network on Sunday, February 28. Approximately 800 people took part advocating for the carpenter who built up tiny shelters for people without housing in Toronto. The protest occurred in front of Mayor Tory's condo. Activists left hundreds of notices supporting "residents of encampments in city parks and oppose the application, which was filed in Ontario Superior Court on February 12 against Khaleel Seivwright, the carpenter" (Draaisma, 2021). To this end, I talked to some of the activists and reported on the action with photographs, trying to depict the complete context, signs, cardboard cutout of Mayor John Tory and the printed notices posted on it.

In order to edit these pictures, I used Adobe Lightroom and made some changes to the colour, added some heavy grain, reduced the saturation, applied a warm filter and put it into a frame. However, framing cuts the context and encloses the picture into a small square that could hide relevant information in the photographs' background. This editing intends to give the photographs an old style, a remembrance of something that happened long ago, making it more artistic than informative. Someone seeing just the edited pictures would probably think that it was not a recent event and could misguide the spectator about the demonstration's purpose. Furthermore, by framing the images, it cut some of the people from them; this means that there is an alteration of the reality, which is considered unethical conduct.

On the other hand, the original pictures can be used for the press because it depicts the action and what happened. It gives the reader the whole context of what occurred. The unedited images show more of the attendees taking part and how the activists organized the protest. Also, people can see more of the signs, which gives more reasons for why they are protesting, where they did it, and how it occurred in a non-violent way. As Icevska mentions, "the main purpose of the photographs in the media is to try to tell the story without changing the reality" (2008, p. 54), and the unedited images clearly relate to the facts. Someone watching the depictions can have an unbiased idea of what happened and inform themselves further by reading the captions of the news.

The photographs give us a version of reality as it is. Art provides us with an interpretation of reality. So, it is somehow a partialized viewpoint of the author/artist. And that is the main difference between art and photography. Both show us something about the external world, even though photographs, as a journalistic piece, do not have any alterations that change the circumstances of the depiction. For instance, pictorialism shows very well the interaction of photography with art by depicting the world through the sensitiveness and emotions of the artist, which are reflected in the colours and the composition of the image. This important movement within photography development influenced art because it allowed photographers to experiment with negatives and chemicals during the revelling process (Hostetler, 2004). Nowadays, one of the most common effects in digital photography, from that time, is "cross-process," which is a blue and green tone on photographs. Originally, this colour manipulation was an error in the chemical compounds and then turned somehow artistic. Although pictorialism takes images from reality, these images are not depicting the facts as they naturally occurred; there was a manipulation to satisfy the artist's desire for expression.

All in all, manipulation of photographs is not unethical conduct due to an artistic proposal, and if the spectator is aware of it. However, photojournalism manipulation is not accepted because the images' main objective is to inform people, provide a factual context of the events, and avoid any bias or hidden purpose.

Nico