In My Favorite Motivational Photo I mentioned a manager from Goodyear Aerospace who told me I was a sharp guy and that he understood why I left Goodyear. That guy was Robert Chin, a soft spoken man I barely knew while at Goodyear. 
Bob, who died on December 13, 2009 in Akron Ohio at age 84, is an example of why it’s incorrect to equate soft-spoken with weak. His obituary reveals that after moving to the US from China, Bob graduated from Canton High, then became part of General Patton’s invasion force in England, was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, and received a Purple Heart. He doesn’t seem to have mentioned this to anyone at Goodyear.
In Mightier than the Airbrush, I talked about bad photo retouching, Photoshop disasters, and foolish attempts by regulators to protect the public from deceptive photos. Some amusing websites dedicated to bad Photoshop technique, particularly in advertising, include Photoshop Disasters, Photoshop Gone Bad, and Photoshop Mistakes.
Another recent fake photo scandal involves the Natural History Museum’s Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. This one isn’t about photo editing, but about a trained wolf being used in a photo that alleges to show a wild wolf. See the story on Treehugger.
Maybe it’s actually a good thing that these are the types of photo scandals in recent news – better than a few years ago when Reuters, the New York Times, and US News and World Report were the ones who couldn’t resist image manipulation to support their political leanings. Wikipedia now has a decent summary of the Adnan Hajj image manipulation story from 2006. A very thorough analysis of the proposition that Reuters was sympathetic to the aims of Hezbollah and used images that exaggerated Israeli force to build world pressure against Israel is at zombietime.com. Its anonymous author addresses digitally manipulating images, photos of scenes staged by Hezbollah, photos of scenes staged by photographers, and the use of real photos that were taken at a different time or place than that covered by the news story. The analysis is a good study for those interested in deception with photos, even beyond the scope of middle east politics.
On the topic of inappropriate no-photography policies (Everyone Loves a Photographer), friends report that now the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center has banned photography of any sort in its Exhibition Hall. Of the people… for the people compromised in the hands of some curatorial bureaucrat with a badge, I guess.
A few recent shots of San Francisco at night on Rollerblades with a tripod:
