I hope Yusuf Ahmed Tawil will forgive me for taking liberties with his work, but it serves as a graphic illustration of just how fundamentally a little judicious cropping of an image can completely misrepresent the event it purports to illustrate. 

Trimming a little off the side of this image transforms our understanding of what is happening in this image of a demonstration by Papuans wearing traditional dress at the U.N. climate conference in Bali. The reality is somewhat less intriguing.

In this high impact news picture from Chor Sokunthea in Phnom Penh even without knowing the details it is pretty easy to understand what is happening. There can be little doubt about who is the aggressor and who is the victim here, can there? The clenched fist, the look on the monk’s face, the policeman recoiling as he attempts to defend himself from the impending blow tell us all we need to know – or so it would seem.

But not if you look at the original frame below. It tells an appreciably different story. That there is a brawl is indisputable but who exactly  is aggressor and who the victim is far less obvious. The policeman is shoving away a monk with his riot shield while swiping at him with his baton completely oblivious to the incoming fist.  Then there is the photographer – to some eyes he may just make things “untidy” but he was there and his presence adds useful context. He begs the question, “how out of control could this incident have been if it was safe enough to shoot pictures up close?”

These recrops are purely illustrative and neither moved on the wire. However in my view the more dynamic version of the fight picture is a perfectly legitimate image but only if seen in the context of the wider version or other similar establishing images.