Everyone hates BP these days. Agreed? Although I suggest you take a look at the man in the mirror at some point too. They were there drilling in the first place for you, so you can drive your car around and heat your home. Well, they don’t exactly care about you but they know their goods and services can be exchanged for money. Lots and lots of money. It’s how the world turns.
So until the solar grid and wind mill you’re planning are online at the house and someone finally buys that car you’ve been trying to sell for years so you can ride your bike to work, let’s all simmer down. I have. It helps that I don’t make my living from the sea, but it turns out the stories are true – she is a cruel mistress.
Now, however, they’ve taken things too far! Internet detectives started posting images earlier this week of BP fighting the disaster that had been clearly and poorly photoshopped, then thrown up on their corporate website. BP admitted to the practice today and created a photo set on their Flickr account with a side-by-side comparison of the originals and the alterations.
Original
Altered
The question is, WHY? The original images are no less compelling. Err, they aren’t really that compelling. Photoshopping isn’t new and sure, maybe the originals need a little exposure work, but the removal or addition of content brings nothing in this case and only fuels the hate fires. If you’re going to lie to us, do a better job. Also, stop wasting time in Photoshop and more time fixing your shit. Good game, BP.
2 responses to “unnecessary alterations”
Photoshopping would be more difficult 5,000 below sea level. Trust me! (They keep saying everything’s never been done at that depth. I have to wonder why we have to listen to the excuses. If they haven’t done it before under test conditions, it shouldn’t be tried for the first time in real life.)
It probably is tough to rock the photoshop 5,000 feet under da sea. No doubt that’s why they did such a terrible job. I’ve also heard that life can be better, down where it’s wetter though. So now I don’t know what to think.
I’m sympathetic to the difficulties presented by working under the insanely high pressures of the deep sea. It is really hard to do what they’re doing, no matter how many times you prototype it. The strategy should be to prevent the oil from escaping through the resulting broken pipe in the first place. Like, the lowest level of the pipe should sever itself cleanly, seal itself below the cut and inject concrete into the pipe as soon as it detects an event wherein things are going to get nasty. It’ll have time while everything above sinks to the bottom. Waiting to send robots down to dress an awful mess isn’t a great plan.