I just love this Brian J. Nelson photo of the 2001 Loudon Classic AMA Superbike start. It shows Kawasaki’s Eric Bostrom leading Mat Mladin (1), Jamie Hacking (92), Pascal Picotte (21), Nicky Hayden (69) and the rest of the field going into the first set of turns after the start. Just one problem, the orange cones littered all over the photo distracts from the impact of the photo. As illustrated in the second image, it’s easy enough to clone out the orange cones using Photoshop or other editing software. This makes the photo look much cleaner. You could probably go further and clone out the tires on the track in the background to make the photo look even better.

Manipulating a photo like this is considered OK if the photo is being used in an advertisement, but it’s a strict no-no when using the photo in any form of journalism. Photographers have been fired from news agencies and newspapers for manipulating photos in this way. A photograph used for news should not be altered, because that actually changes the story. It would be like altering a quote.

What’s the point of this whole post? I don’t know – to me it says that tracks should never use ugly orange cones to demarcate a racetrack.