Joint initiative of the “Bund Freischaffender Foto-Designer” (BFF), the “Bundesvervand der Pressebild-agenturen und Bildarchive (BVPA), the „Centralverband Deutscher Berufsphotographen“ (CV), the „Deutscher Journalisten-Verband“ (DJV), the DOK-Union, FreeLens – Union of photojournalists and the IG-Media.
In a memorandum (15. October 1997), the most important associations in the range of photography and journalism have agreed upon a labeling for photo manipulation [M]. This step seemed to be necessary due to the image engineering’s perfects techniques which allow a not-recognisable modification of an image’s content. Modified images should be labeled in order to achieve perceptibility for the reader as well as in order to ensure the value of documentary-publicist photography. Memorandum Concerning the mandatory identification of manipulated photos of the “Bund Freischaffender Foto-Designer” (BFF), the “Bundesvervand der Pressebild-agenturen und Bildarchive (BVPA), the „Centralverband Deutscher Berufsphotographen“ (CV), the „Deutscher Journalisten-Verband“ (DJV), the DOK-Union, FreeLens – Union of photojournalists and the IG-Media (Berlin, 15. October 1997). Each documentary-publicist photo which is edited after the exposure has to be labeled with an [M]. It does not matter if the photo is manipulated by the photographer or by the user. A labeling has to occur always if:
Persons and / or Objects are added and / or removed,
Various photo elements or photos are assembled into a new image,
Modifications concerning scale, color or content are made.
For the labeling, following notation is advised:
Photo [M]: Author/ respectively Agency
A manipulated photo has to be labeled by the person who executes the manipulation.
Source: BVPA
Last revision of this page: 2013/09/18