IDP Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Has anyone else been annoyed about the recent furore in the UK over the Conservative party's poster campaign? The press picked up on the fact that an image used to promote their economic policies in Britain was actually a shot of a road in Germany - or so claimed a German photographer - who said it was his his Shutterstock shot that had been "digitially altered". It was widely reported and nobody queried the claims. However, as far as I can see, there is no way that these two images are the same and it does make one wonder about the quality of UK journalism! Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickfly Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 I'd say they are the very same although mirrored horizontally and the hills, and a few other things have been edited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 I'd say they are the very same although mirrored horizontally and the hills, and a few other things have been edited. I do believe you might be right, Mick! I was concentrating too much on the hill in the distance and didn't notice that it might have been flipped. Mea culpa and my apologies to the British press! Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 8, 2015 Share Posted January 8, 2015 Foreground flopped, hills, road and sky from different images. I'm surprised they went to the trouble though, there are pages of them on Alamy. Perhaps the road is British. It could easily be the Lake District or the Borders. A classic concept shot whose location is unimportant, although I would have wanted to bulletproof the campaign by ensuring it was British. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDP Posted January 8, 2015 Author Share Posted January 8, 2015 Is he claiming use outside the licence terms? No, nothing like that, Mark. The whole fuss was about a road in Germany being used to illustrate Britain's economic future under the Conservatives. I presume the photographer took it as an opportunity to get a bit of free publicity! Ian D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TokyoM1ke Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I think that life is just too short! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 I find that the Mail online occasionally uses shots from overseas to illustrate articles about the UK, typically on issues relating to the NHS, but I recall a shot of a Polish pothole, used in connection with British roads etc. Presumably other nations have to put up with UK based shots being used in a similar way. This is in addition to photos of location x being used illustrate article about location y. Thank goodness for Tineye, as you would never find the photos using the titles! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Brooks Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 The image is a generic photo illustration of a road, in no particular place, heavily based on a road in Germany. There was probably more than one image used in the composite. Maybe the sky is from Russia. The copy does not say, or even hint, that the road is real and in the UK. I could see scandal if the advertisement was for British tourism. Must have been a slow news day. The concept of the add itself is borrowed from the title of Bill Gates book "The Road Ahead" published in the 1990's. Gates book title was probably borrowed from someone else. We all stand on the creative shoulders of those who came before us. Not every scenic image has to be of an actual place. We should keep this in mind when creating stock photographs for advertising clients that pay higher rates than textbooks or newspapers. Here is a composite shot. Background of a beach in Hawaii combined with a foreground shot made at the same time and place of a shell purchased in a Hawaiian souvenir shop. Shell is probably from the Philippines. Pearl with map later created in a 3D computer program. I wanted this image to be applicable to any beach in the world, so it would have more potential clients. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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