Is It Real?


We live in a digital age. Photography has changed from silver-based to pixel-based. When a digital image is created, the photographer knows it is real. But in this new age, how can we prove that the image isn't altered?


Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a date that we will never forget began like so many others for so many people. 

For Mark D. Phillips, it was his daughter's second day of pre-school. He and his wife, NY Post Columnist Andrea Peyser, were getting ready so they could walk her to school.

It started with a gasp and a scream from the back of the house where Andrea was gettig ready. "Mark, come see this now!" Andrea shouted.

The impossible was underway. The Today Show was broadcasting live footage of the World Trade Center's north tower on fire.

Instincts took over. Phillips, who had worked as a photojournalist for over twenty years, ran from the room, grabbed two cameras, and went to the roof of his home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

As he climbed out on the roof, he heard an explosion. Looking toward the city, smoke and flames were billowing from both towers! He immediately raised his digital Olympus E-10 camera and fired THE FRAME. The time was 9:11am on 9-11-01.

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For Phillips, life changed completely from that moment on.

One of his neighbors, out on his roof watching the event, was Richard Pyle of The Associated Press. Pyle was on the phone with the NY Bureau of the AP and told them that Phillips was shooting photos from his own roof.

Phillips was well known at The Assocated Press. When he moved to New York in 1989, he had immediately started freelancing for the AP, becoming a staff photographer in 1991. Barbara Woike, the editor on duty, had worked with Phillips during that time.

"Barbara Woike wants to talk to you!" Pyle had shouted.

"Have her call me," Phillips shouted back. "I'm on my way back downstairs."

Barbara was on the phone when Mark entered his apartment. He slipped the digital camera disk into his laptop and opened the first photo. Smoke billowed from the two towers like two great chimneys. "I have a really good image ready to go," he said. The time was 9:35 am.

They got off the phone, he accessed the Internet, and transmitted the photo. He had not noticed anything out of the ordinary viewing the photograph on his Macintosh laptop. AP also noticed nothing unusual as they sent the photo out worldwide as NY142.

The photo was published in numerous newspapers worldwide. The reaction was almost instantaneous.

Newspapers like the Saginaw News in Michigan and The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware,  ran the photograph nearly the size of their front pages. Their phones began to ring.

The Saginaw News received nearly 50 phone calls on the first morning after publication. The Delaware News couldn't keep up with the calls. They all asked if the photo was real.

For Phillips, the response started on Wednesday night. His photo agent, Kevin Kushel of SLPstock, called him and said, "You know you have a face in your photo. In the smoke."

Phillips response was "Yea, sure." It was the end of a horrible day and the last thing he expected to hear. He had walked from his home to his office to transmit photographs and the ash was falling like a nuclear winter on his neighborhood. He and his wife had picked up letterhead from Trade Center companies and burned business cards from their deck. His agent, Kevin Kushel, said "I'm going to crop it out and e-mail it back to you."

Phillips did not check his e-mail until the next morning. He was shocked and surprized when he realized he had over 150 messages. One of the first was from Kevin. He opened the attachment.

"My first reaction was 'What the ___ is that?' Then I actually began to shake while I opened the original file to see if it was really there," Phillips remembered.

It was in the original file. 

Another e-mail had the front page of The News Journal attached to it. The face was huge. It began to dominate the image for Phillips. He could not look at the photograph without immediately seeing "the face."

As he opened more of the e-mails, he was struck by their message. More and more of them just asked "Is it Real?" He didn't know how to respond.

His wife was covering the disaster for the New York Post. Her columns had required her to go to Ground Zero on the second day. He showed her the photo. Her reaction was incredulousness.

The Saginaw News ran the photo a second time on September 13th with a story that was headlined "What is that image?" and a lead that read:

"A front-page photograph on more than 13,000 copies of Tuesday's Saginaw News has prompted some to believe that Satan himself presided over terrorist attacks on the United States."

That story was the beginning of a media blitz that Phillips would never forget.

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On Sunday, September 16, one of Phillips' good friends, David Cantor, called him from The Toledo Blade where he worked as photo editor. Mark and David had worked together at The Associated Press in the early 90's in New York.

"Have you seen the story on the Poynter Institute site?" Dave asked. "They really attack your photograph. Did Ken Irby talk to you?"

Mark was stunned. As soon as he got off the phone, he immediately went to the web and read the story.

"Seeing may not be believing anymore."

The Poynter Institute, a watchdog of the media, was calling into question the validity of the photograph, and in turn, Phillips' integrity.

"In this age of digital manipulation, we may not know if an image is real or created."

Ken Irby, the writer of the story, had worked at Newsday in New York in the early 90's when Phillips worked at The Associated Press. Their paths had crossed many times. He had never spoken to Mark before writing the story. Their were quotes from Vin Alabiso, the VP of photos at The Asoociated Press, stating AP's policy on digital manipulation, but no mention of Phillips' by name. Alabiso had not defended Mark, he only protected the AP.

He immediately sent an email to Ken Irby and to Media News stating his own reputation and personal policy on digital manipulation. He would never, ever have done anything to an image before sending it to the media. After 20 years working as a photojournalist, the thought had never crossed his mind. Phillips felt he had to go on the offensive to stop the damage to his reputation.

Phillips had worked at three newspapers, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. He had friends around the country working in positions of power at newspapers and agencies. He began contacting them and asking them to write to Irby and defend his integrity.

There were some bad moments. A photograph that was obviously manipulated - a tourist standing on the outdoor viewing platform of the World Trade Center with a plane about to hit the building - began making its way around the Internet. It was quickly ruled a hoax. Unfortunately, respected publications like the New York Times and Time Magazine ran stories about the hoaxes on the Internet which included both that image and Phillips' image. Both have apologized. Even 20/20 did the same thing on their tv show.

Phillips' also went to the extreme. He contacted Olympus America, the manufacturer of his digital camera, and asked them if there was a way to verify the validity of the file. They informed him that there was hidden information within the file that would tell them if the original digital file had been manipulated with a digital photography program such as Photoshop. He immediately made a CD copy of the original files and messengered it to their offices on Long Island. Their reply was swift and uncontrivertible. The photograph was the original image produced by his Olympus E-10 digital camera.

Word was seeping out about the photo. Phillips began hearing from media outlets all around the country. The Boston Globe, LA Times, Philadelphia Daily News, Denver Post all contacted him. KUSA-TV in Denver asked him to do a live chat session on their website. The thread still continues today with new posts being added months after Phillips was online. Ken Irby from the Poynter Institute contacted him to do a followup and present his side of the story.

Inside Edition produced a piece talking about Phillips' image. Their switchboards lit up. They tracked Phillips down and produced a segment on the image, coming to his home in Brooklyn and interviewing him on his roof with the same view of Manhattan. 

The email messages continued to come at an even faster pace. Writers were sending him their religious histories and equating the photo to the sign that the end of the world was upon us. Others were saying Phillips had been "put on the earth to take this photo" and that the photo "showed who was really behind the attack." 

StellarImages website (http://www.stellarimages.com) received over a million hits. Phillips had placed information supporting the photograph and his reputation on the site, including the memorandum given to him by Olympus verifying the image as "unmanipulated.

Radio stations wanted to speak with him about the photograph. The morning DJ's would mention "this photo they saw on the Internet with a face in it" and their phones would light up. They began calling his office, wanting to schedule talks during their morning drive times. Phillips accepted them all, deciding he needed to have his side of the story out to the people directly.

Every morning for nearly two weeks, Phillips talked to one or two radio stations. They ranged from South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, and California. During each interview, Phillips tried to get across the devestation the attack had on him and his city. The photograph was what each person would make of it. He would not put it into religious terms. It was simply the worst event he had ever photographed.

When Phillips worked at the Tampa Tribune, he photographed the explosion of the Challenger. He had seen a lot of death during his career. But never on this scale. He found himself using the radio shows to release some of his sorrow and terror for what he had seen.

The photograph of the Twin Towers had pulled Phillips' into a different situation. He has received in excess of 10,000 email messages. Most are supportive and most are asking legitimate questions. The photo can still be found on many sites around the Internet, some sanctioned and some not. Most of the sites have Phillips' verification of the image.