Was I too quick to hush the skeptics questioning the authenticity of AP's one-eyed kitten photo? Some readers think so.
"I'm still suspicious," writes David G. "Not knowing the AP photog, I have to question whether he's competent to judge the authenticity of a digital image. If a camera can write an image to a memory card, a computer can write a Photoshopped image to a memory card. Is the AP photog enough of a computer expert to tell whether that happened? And that looks like a Photoshopped image to me. That eye is far too fully developed. A healthy kitten eye would be a tiny, underdeveloped thing at that point in kitten development."
Mary Y. agrees: "Since baby kittens do not normally open their eyes for several days after birth, why is Cyclops' one eye so wide open on his first day?"
Valid questions. Addressing the competency issue in Editor & Publisher last week, AP photo editor Tom Stathis cited 25 years' experience in photojournalism and said he has worked with digital images "as long as there has been digital photography." Stathis remains convinced the image wasn't fabricated but acknowledges that without a firsthand examination of the physical evidence there's no way to be 100 percent sure the kitten itself was real. "It crossed my mind when we were looking at it, but it did not look to me like some kind of created object, and that is just purely my judgment," he said.
The only way to settle the issue, it would appear, is for some enterprising reporter to make the trek to central Oregon and personally examine the contents of Traci Allen's freezer. Any takers?
Update: Vet Confirms One-Eyed Kitten Was Real
"I'm still suspicious," writes David G. "Not knowing the AP photog, I have to question whether he's competent to judge the authenticity of a digital image. If a camera can write an image to a memory card, a computer can write a Photoshopped image to a memory card. Is the AP photog enough of a computer expert to tell whether that happened? And that looks like a Photoshopped image to me. That eye is far too fully developed. A healthy kitten eye would be a tiny, underdeveloped thing at that point in kitten development."
Mary Y. agrees: "Since baby kittens do not normally open their eyes for several days after birth, why is Cyclops' one eye so wide open on his first day?"
Valid questions. Addressing the competency issue in Editor & Publisher last week, AP photo editor Tom Stathis cited 25 years' experience in photojournalism and said he has worked with digital images "as long as there has been digital photography." Stathis remains convinced the image wasn't fabricated but acknowledges that without a firsthand examination of the physical evidence there's no way to be 100 percent sure the kitten itself was real. "It crossed my mind when we were looking at it, but it did not look to me like some kind of created object, and that is just purely my judgment," he said.
The only way to settle the issue, it would appear, is for some enterprising reporter to make the trek to central Oregon and personally examine the contents of Traci Allen's freezer. Any takers?
Update: Vet Confirms One-Eyed Kitten Was Real
Comments
I just had a litter of kittens born.. Siamese.. and one had 2 eyes just like this Cyclops kitten. They were huge, open and red with a membrane over them.. but it also had its intestines born outside of its body.. It was alive and vigourous actually for almost a day,, nursing.. It was very shocking.. Its a birth defect.. obviously. Nature can play some sick games it looks like . My cat did have two other kittens.. one is big and healthy looking, but the other is half the size .. so I dont know something just happened with this litter I can’t explain.. But I will not breed her again to say the least.
Professional photographers do indeed have the expertise needed to judge a digital image for authenticity. I am only an amateur, but quickly learned about “EXIF data” that is attached to the jpeg file by the camera. Depending on the camera model, EXIF data tells all the camera settings that were used to create the image, and some high end cameras even embed the owner’s name into the EXIF. You can’t fake EXIF data, you can’t ‘add’ it to a photoshopped image. And EXIF data can be used in court to back up copyright infringement claims. If I as an amateur and hobbyist know this, then I’m sure an AP photographer knows this too. He probably looked at the EXIF data and at the creation date and time of the image compared to the other images before and after.