AP 'Dusts' Freelance Photog for Altering Soccer Photo

Image via CrunchBaseThe Associated Press has pulled all the images of freelance photographer Miguel Tovar from its Website and AP Images photo licensing division after determining the photographer altered a picture he took at the Copa America soccer tournament in Argentina.

Santiago Lyon, AP Director of Photography, informed the wire service staffers in a letter that Tovar purportedly cloned dust from a portion of one feature photo to conceal his own shadow in another image of kids playing soccer. An array of Tovar's photos of the tournament appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald.

Lyon condemned Tovar's alleged action as a "deliberate and misleading photo manipulation." As stated in AP's ethics code concerning images: "We do not alter or digitally manipulate the content of a photograph in any way." The ethics code proscribes the use of Photoshop, the adding or removal of an element of an image or the deliberate obscuring of faces.  Ironically, the ethics code permits retouching images "to eliminate dust on camera sensors," but apparently doesn't allow a shutterbug to add dust to a photo.