I guess in the actal case, it would have been ok to darken the disturbinng foot slightly, but to “clean it away” totally is over the limit. We shouldn’t forget that there were great possibilities to influence analog prints in the darkroom as well.

The border was crossed when photos were manipulated in just this way, but of other reasons, when persons were totally removed because they had fallen into disfavour politically..

This was common practice in the Soviet sphere, where the aim of photography was a propaganda one. It still is in some some countries; remember the manipulated pcture with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the discussion it caused?

As for ‘journalistic’ photos. Yes they often are made in to ‘Frankenstein’ images, but who is doing that? Is it the photographer themselves or a designer in the layout department? If its been done by someone else, several images masked over each other etc etc etc, is that still a photograph? And who is the creator of that image? The photographer or the digital retoucher?

Post-processing has always been part of photography. If the post’ done on this image makes it “not photography” then much of what is called “great photography” is bogus as well.

Your attempt to espouse some kind of hardcore artistic puritanism only makes you look like a foolish philipstine. Learn something about photography before saying anything else this foolish and misinformed.

The photo was disqualified on account of the deletion of a photographic element, not because contrast and levels were tweaked. However, I wonder how many revered “journalistic” photos have had elements removed during development?…..