Bush/Abramoff Photo: "Insisted" In Black and White Only?

www.nytimes.com

"President Bush shaking hands in 2001 with Chief Raul Garza of the Kickapoo tribe of Texas. In the background at left is the lobbyist Jack Abramoff; Karl Rove, the president's top adviser, is at the right."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Can someone please explain this...

"Mr. Garza said he had been offered money from news organizations to reproduce the photograph, which also shows in partial profile Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, at the May 9, 2001, meeting. The chief did not seek payment from The Times for the photo — and two others in which he appears with Mr. Bush — but insisted without explanation that they be published only in black and white."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Garza had the photo and didn't want money for it. Instead, he "insisted" that the photo was published in black and white only. Why? Doesn't that seem like a strange request?

Is it because a black and white photo shows or hides certain things in the picture? Look closely at it and see if you see anything.


[edit on 11-2-2006 by Samsonite]

mod edit to shorten link



[edit on 11-2-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

That's especially odd since... TIME has it in color.

www.time.com...

Asking that the photo be published in black and white doesn't seem like an overly odd request. It could be that Garza thinks the photo is more visually appealing in black and white.

I disagree about it not being an overly odd request. Seems very odd to me. It's a documentative journalistic photo that only acts as (rather poor) evidence of Bush and Abramoff knowing each other, not art photography. It doesn't matter how aesthetically appealing it is, just that it shows the evidence clearly.

BUT... I don't see anything that would be hidden by making it B&W.

For archive and reference, I uploaded the images onto my site and am going to put them below for comparison. The Time one is smaller, so you have less detail, but it's color.

New York Times


TIME


See if you can find anything...

it might be a taboo regarding the indian cheifs "tie" and the colors in it

I think it is a strange request and apparently so did the NY Times because they noted it in their article as..."insisted without explanation". Which sounds like they tried to get an explanation as to why. Or possibly they used it as an excuse to show it in black in white for some reason and blamed it on him.

I'm just going to speculate because I'm no photography expert.

The first thing I assume, and possibly incorrectly is that it's easier to blow up and enlarge a photo in black and white than in color. I've always thought that blowing up a color photo makes it blurry, blowing up a black and white photo makes it grainy but still fairly viewable.

And that can be seen in how the black and white photo just happens to be blown up larger. But what do you see in comparison by looking closer?

If you look at the guy in the back standing in front of Abramoff, his shoulder line looks to be off. If you compare his lapel pin in both pictures and how it lines up with his shoulder and hand, they seem to be different.

This would lead me to speculate that his shoulder line was altered digitally. But why? If you added Abramoff's head in the background and cropped it, getting a proportionate body added in also is difficult.

So you'd photoshop the head in, and cover up the body with something in front of it. Like a shoulder line.

Another thing to compare is the top of the guys head seen under Bush's nose. He has about 3 people standing in front of him in the room showing the dimension of how far back he is yet his head is a lot larger than Abramoffs when he is standing what appears to be at the same distance near the window.

Another reason might be that black and white pictures lead viewers to psychologically believe the photo is much older than it really is and possibly even a non-issue or out of date subject and may subcontiously reduce interest.

If you look at the guy in the back standing in front of Abramoff, his shoulder line looks to be off. If you compare his lapel pin in both pictures and how it lines up with his shoulder and hand, they seem to be different.

This would lead me to speculate that his shoulder line was altered digitally. But why? If you added Abramoff's head in the background and cropped it, getting a proportionate body added in also is difficult.

So you'd photoshop the head in, and cover up the body with something in front of it. Like a shoulder line.

If the photo had been altered, as suggested, it would have been altered by the newspaper. However, that would have no bearing on the photo being printed in black and white.

Originally posted by Samsonite
The first thing I assume, and possibly incorrectly is that it's easier to blow up and enlarge a photo in black and white than in color. I've always thought that blowing up a color photo makes it blurry, blowing up a black and white photo makes it grainy but still fairly viewable.

While it is easier to edit B&W photos and get away with it in my experience (take my avatar, for example), there won't be much of a difference with it blown up. B&W is typically higher contrast, but I don't see a problem with the color version of this.

If you look at the guy in the back standing in front of Abramoff, his shoulder line looks to be off. If you compare his lapel pin in both pictures and how it lines up with his shoulder and hand, they seem to be different.

This would lead me to speculate that his shoulder line was altered digitally. But why? If you added Abramoff's head in the background and cropped it, getting a proportionate body added in also is difficult.

I don't agree his shoulder line is digitally altered. It looks quite normal to me. Although it does seem to be tilting downward slighly, which would mean it was lowered to reveal more of Abramoff, which doesn't make sense to me and would indicate that it's actually not been altered.

Another thing to compare is the top of the guys head seen under Bush's nose. He has about 3 people standing in front of him in the room showing the dimension of how far back he is yet his head is a lot larger than Abramoffs when he is standing what appears to be at the same distance near the window.

Abramoff is quite a distance away. We have no reference as to how far back Under-Nose Man is except that he is behind three other people. And they look to be fairly close together. I say Under-Nose Man is much closer to Bush than Abramoff. Also note the depth of field. Abramoff is quite blurry but Under-Nose Man is only beginning to become out of focus around the edges.

Finally, I made an animated gif fading the color and B&W against each other. I didn't line them up absolutely perfectly and so the color one moves down just a tiny bit as it fades in.

It's 500kb, so in the interest of keeping this page loading and not having browsers mess up the gif, I'm just going to link to it: Animated GIF

Originally posted by Samsonite

Another reason might be that black and white pictures lead viewers to psychologically believe the photo is much older than it really is and possibly even a non-issue or out of date subject and may subcontiously reduce interest.

That was my immediate thought too. Printing in black and white makes it seem as if it was a long time ago and not relevant so distancing the photo.

Does it really, though? That doesn't seem like a legitimate reason to request it be printed in black and white. It didn't make me think the photo was taken a long time ago. Honestly, I don't know when it was taken. I suspect within the past three years, but I haven't read a date anywhere.

Maybe that was his intent in requesting it be B&W, but if it was, I think it failed miserably. To me, none of the possibilities really make sense.

We have:

1. B&W to hide things in photo
If you view the color version, there is nothing that stands out differently.

2. B&W to cover up doctoring
No evidence of doctoring is visible in either the black & white or color version.

3. B&W to indicate photo is older than it really is
More plausible than the other two, I think, but still seems like a silly reason to request it be B&W.

Not really, if you think about how politics are played for our consumption. While printing that one pic in B&W might seem a bit simple, the spinners look at the whole picture, everything they do in a week or a year to makes us think one way or another. Their job is continuous and thorough psychological manipulation of the public. This is but one little piece to them.

Black and White= It could all look like it took place in the same day. Cant tell the shirt colors, tie colors, etc.

Color pictures are more telling because you can differentiate a pink shirt from a blue one, therefore letting people know these were different occasions?

After all, the purpose is to make it look like one or two occasions.

My 1 cent.

Originally posted by dgtempe
Black and White= It could all look like it took place in the same day. Cant tell the shirt colors, tie colors, etc.

You may very well have a point there. That is the best reason I could see for this. However, would Garza benefit from Abramoff not being tied with Bush? Why give the photos at all if you don't want them linked? Or perhaps if you manage to make it seem conclusive that they never really met, perhaps that's better than no photos where it stays up in the air.