Toronto's motto is "Diversity Our Strength" which makes it kinda awkward for the City to be busted for this exercise in forced diversity: they photoshopped in (badly) a token black guy for the cover of their Spring & Summer 2009 Fun Guide!
Allison Hanes of National Post has the story:
The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto's latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more "inclusive," which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity.
A spokesman for the department that publishes the guide listing recreation activities confirmed the publication was doctored to insert the face of a different father.
"He superimposed the African-Canadian person onto the family cluster in the original photo. It was two photographs and one head was superimposed over the original family photo," said John Gosgnach, communications director for the social development division.
"The goal was to depict the diversity of Toronto and its residents."
The cover shot caught the eye of a National Post graphics editor, who ran it through a program called TinEye that detects visual enhancements to standard art.
To add insult to injury, none of the people are actually Toronto residents: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2009/06/10/city-digitally-adds-black-guy-to-fun-guide-cover-to-make-it-more-inclusive.aspx - via Torontoist
Go Toronto Go! :)
Erm, What?
Er, that's not what it does. Tineye is a reverse image search; you point it at a picture and it finds other places on the web where that picture lives and also finds similar pictures (IE modified variants).
http://tineye.com/
It's very handy for photographers to see if people have used their images on websites, or stolen their images to use in ad campaigns.
I was just about to point that out. TinEye still doesn't work as well as I'd hope but I applaud the effort and it's a great idea.
"African-Canadian"? That is an odd phrase.
Is this where my property taxes go? We now pay a service charge for garbage pick up, yet a garbage strike looms. Wonderful
"...none of these people are actually Toronto residents." FAIL!
You mean to tell me that in the whole of Toronto they couldn't find the diversity they were looking for? Shame on everybody involved for being lazy and stupid.
No, you got Mexican in my African."
And thus, a new canadian ethnic flavorful friendship began.
do with a photo that 'almost' worked on a tight schedule
with a small budget. I love the look in the guy's
eyes.
Remind me of the american tv series: the more you approach to the 2000 decade, the more likely you'll find:
one asian, one hispanic, one black, and lately, one arabic.
Me: "Sure, I'll just hit the 'Hispanic' button in Photoshop. It's right next to the 'Asian' button, right above the 'Blonde' button."
True story. Sad.
I'm keeping this photo example in my arsenal, for the next time a client asks!