In some sectors, the new technologies caught photographers with their pants down, one is photojournalism. In Mexico- and I presume in most parts of the world-every newspaper, agency, and magazine is working with digital equipment, in most cases as a result of an administrative decision, not of a conceptual reflection. Certainly is a lot cheaper, faster and more productive. There is little to be said here.
Results a tangible, the life-long competition with live TV has shortened distances, images can be received practically live, which is ironic for photography since we show what has happened. The capacity of storing and distributing news photography has grown exponentially; all the people that have been on this line of work for the past 15 years resent the fact that work has become so easy. However, it presents new difficulties, I recently read about the problems faced by some photographers in Afghanistan and Iraq: The batteries. It has been known that photographers that were assigned to remote areas had to take portable energy generators and gasoline kegs that of course had to be carried by horses or mules. Yet again, the modern holds hands with the ancient, hyper-technology associated with hyper-poverty.
As usual, I digress, the analysis of photojournalism perhaps requires of a colloquium of its own. Maybe Pedro would like to consider it as the main theme of the 11th Anniversary Colloquium.

My point is the technological possibilities encountered by photographers once they have shot their cameras, I am talking about what is called ‘the second shutter”. The internal time of the photograph is stretched by a second time line: processing and post production, the narrative becomes almost cinematic, the concept of time -a must of photography- is developed far beyond the limit of the moment of capturing the image.
For a decade, this was one of the main concerns, the possibility of altering or modifying the images. It is useless to go back to that issue, it is pointless to review all the cases of manipulation throughout the history of photography, I will only remember the case of Stalin as one of the best examples of this practice, which he took to the extreme, by deleting the unwanted characters from the photos after disposing of them, in case there were any doubts.

Ironically, Robert Cappa, Robert Doisneau, Joseph Renau, Tina Modotti, etc already answered this new question in the past. This discussion had been confined to the area of Ethics, but fortunately, it has become quite important and public. Recent examples such as the O.J. Simpson pictures in Newsweek and Time or the fixed image of the Iraq war in the front page of the LA Times have brought life to this discussion, many readers are asking themselves if the manipulation of the public opinion carried out by the governments is more serious than the manipulation of the media with their partial information.
Nowadays, no one is surprised to find obviously manipulated images in the newspapers that explain and give examples in a better way than regular news writing, such as the graphic journalist Jabaz with his photographic editorials about politics.
This context, in which the suspicions about the technical resources have been settled, allows many artists to use the second shutter as a tool for conveying their ideas.