Photograph Manipulations

This is the picture I chose:
http://news.cnet.com/2300-1026_3-6033210-6.html?tag=mncol
The picture is of a British soldier in Iraq seemingly attempting to control a crowd of apparently concerned Iraqi citizens. I chose this picture because it appears very dramatic and intriguing. The picture appeared on the front of the Los Angeles Times in 2003, and it was supposedly taken by Brian Walski, a veteran photographer. The picture is actually a combination of two photos taken separately by Walski. The image of the British soldier is from a completely different photographed but it was digitally inserted into the photograph of the Iraqi citizens. The photograph was manipulated in order to "improve" its composition and to create a more dramatic scene. The manipulation in this case may not have been very harmful but doctoring images, especially ones that deal with extreme situations such as war, can be very harmful to the general public. Altering photographs in order to make them seem more dramatic or interesting can skew societies perception of certain events. Hopefully, photograph manipulations such as this one and others that deal with the conflict in Iraq are ceased. The conflict in Iraq and other American military endeavors should be portrayed truthfully in order to ensure an accurate perception of them in American society.