Canon's VII Ad Digitally Altered To Include New Member

© Canon / Photo by Christian Witkin

Chris Anderson, who was seated on the far right when this picture was taken, was digitally removed after he left the agency. Joachim Ladefoged, who joined the agency in April, was photographed in the same seat and later dropped into the shot over Anderson.

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Readers were quick to point out something was amiss with the recent Canon ad touting its sponsorship of the esteemed photojournalism cooperative VII.

The photo used in the two page spreads, which ran earlier this month in Time and Newsweek as well as PDN, were originally commissioned by Vanity Fair last year as an editorial shoot by photographer Christian Witkin.

The only problem was, by the time Canon's agency was preparing the ad, Chris Anderson had left VII and Joachim Ladefoged had joined.

VII members say it would have been impossible to get all the photographers back together in time to shoot the ad, so Witkin was dispatched back to the New York café where the original shoot took place to photograph Ladefoged.

The image was then digitally altered to extract Anderson and put Ladefoged in his place.

"It really wasn't our decision," says VII member Ron Haviv. "They weren't able to get us all together. John [Stanmeyer] as in Bali and Jim [Nachtwey] was in Asia."

When asked if his removal was akin to Soviet-era airbushing out of dissidents, Anderson laughed.

"Those guys are my friends," he says. "I don't want to touch this one...It is funny though."