Western media, especially BBC and NYT, always apply gray filters to photos in China and Russia.
This article by NYT has several side-by-side photos of China versus the USA that make the gray filter especially obvious.
Notice how the plants in China are all gray, while the US plants next to oil wells are somehow green and normal:
Most obvious gray filter:
This last image of solar panels in Shanxi is hilarious. Apparently plants in China have evolved to be black instead of green:
It seems the NYT photographer in China forgot how to color grade photos, but magically remembers once they fly back to the USA.
The article itself just laments about the sorry state of US renewables compared to China, which is building solar and wind at breakneck speed.
Scroll down to see my comments documenting other cases of this visual propaganda.
I say it's more because of where and when they took these photos, those do the "grey filter" already. They took them in winter in northern provinces, where the trees and shrubs become bare and heating with coal is still prevalent so there's often a haze. Meanwhile the grassy oil silos are a stock photo by Reuters from spring 2020 in warmer Oklahoma.
The solar field in Shanxi is in a dry, eroded landscape that has lots of exposed soil: for comparison, below is such a landscape in summer, from China Daily. Then there's the black tarp of a construction site nextdoor on top.
The photo in Zhengzhou is literally a field of black and white cars in an industrial park. Roofs are the only bright colours present.
One could say: "It's barely spring, can't help it." But why bother taking your own photos now if you throw in stock photos anyway? I say it's because they wanted to give their photographer something to do and a contrarianism that goes: "China takes these photos when it shines, but it doesn't shine all the time, eh?
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The issue is the weather excuse is the same one Westerners use against Russia, which also gets the gray filter treatment. Westerners have continued from the original use of the filter against the Soviets to make all their cities look bad. It seems no matter what day, BBC and NYT photographers always take pictures on the foggiest, cloudiest days imaginable in China and Russia.
This visual propaganda serves the same purpose as the "at what cost" smear articles: to construct in the minds of Westerners an image of China/Russia/USSR as a colorless, joyless dystopia that 'needs Western democracy' to see color again.
There are examples from earlier years that are much worse and more obvious.
For instance, in a 2020 report on Wuhan, BBC deliberately applied gray and yellow filters to video from China aired to English viewers, while keeping the filters off for Chinese viewers:^[https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202102/1215710.shtml]
In 2021, when writing a hit piece against Western Youtubers in China, the BBC applied a gray filter to a screenshot from one of the Youtuber's (Jason Lightfoot's) videos. This video by Brian Berletic explains exactly how they doctor said images:
You're right and I agree, I just wanted to note that the "grey filter" doesn't have to be a literal post-processing filter like the "grey trees" were (I remember that ridiculous moment); bad-faith framing and lying by ommission are much more common than outright lying in Western media. I'm quite a pedant on these sorts of things.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: