Pulitzer-winning photographer admits he altered Syria picture

The Associated Press has severed ties with a freelance photographer who it says violated its ethical standards by altering a photo he took while covering the war in Syria in 2013.

The news service said that Narciso Contreras recently told its editors that he manipulated a digital picture of a Syrian rebel fighter taken last September, using software to remove a colleague’s video camera from the lower left corner of the frame. That led AP to review all of the nearly 500 photos Contreras has filed since he began working for the news service in 2012.

No other instances of alteration were uncovered, said Santiago Lyon, the news service’s vice-president and director of photography.

 

In the original image, below, another journalist's video camera is visible in the left corner of the frame. It is removed in the altered image. Contreras was one of a team of photographers working for the AP who shared in a Pulitzer last year for images of the Syrian war. None of the images in that package was found to be compromised, according to the AP.