I wonder if times have changed, inasfar as disclosing any digital optimization or not, and when, if ever, to announce it to the world or camera club or photo competition or publisher, et al?
One of the original digital controversies involved three, top tier, nature photographers (no names). Photographer #1 published a book and in the book was an image of a line of zebras, but when photographed, a couple of the zebras had some discoloration or some such issue….it doesn’t really matter…..what does matter in this controversy is that Photographer #1 cloned in a more viable pattern in the zebras to obviously improve the visual impact, without placing a disclaimer in the book. In other words, the image wasn’t what it looked like, but given the photographer’s experience, it was made to be what it should have looked like. This was a fairly long and contested issue only because it was at the advent of digital photography.
For those who weren’t photographing during the transition from film to digital, it was not unlike changing the national language from English to Esperanto! Well, since photography is most certainly a language, it was a paradigm shift, not unlike a change of national language. There became “sides” and…..ok, digital is ok, but it HAS to look natural, as if taken with film. Software optimizations became frowned upon, to say the least, hence the battle continued, but has simmered down.
Now, with the efficacy of modern software, we can create images that only reside in our imaginations. Personally, I view all captures as raw material, keeping the door wide open with no preconceptions or limits of what can or will be done during processing.
So, quite simply, are there any opinions out there about disclosing what was done to an image, in particular, when a heavily optimized image is being passed off as natural or mostly natural?
Take the blog images, for example, is anyone bothered, or feel fooled, by the fact that the sun and flare were added, along with a texture? Is it even an issue, anymore? Does it matter what was done to an image as long as one likes it?
Any input would be appreciated!
Thx!
Tony
I have no problem with processing the photo; however, I am concerned when the photographer takes the sky from one image, middle ground from another, and the foreground from another to create an image. That is a manipulation and does not represent reality. As long as that information is stated, I am ok.
I photograph one particular breed of dogs at dog shows. The camera records reality. One breeder asked me to add “pee” hairs to her male. I refused because they were not in the picture. As a friend later told me, in the old days they just used a brown magic marker…
Gary
My opinion is quite simple- I do not care. When I browse the images on the Internet, I often see HDR which are obvious, and even that doesn’t bother me much- they will eventually learn not to overdo. Cloning, I don’t care, and I thin everybody agrees with improving tonality with curves or such and increasing sharpness. Sometimes the alterations are obvious, sometimes they aren’t, but this is all just art of digital photography,
All photographers are “artists” of some type. As visual artists we should be competent with the “tools” we use to commuicate our vision. I like to use anything that helps communicate the feelings, message and visual journey through my images. Any type of disclosure about the usage of the tools should specifi to how the image is to be used. We all should continue to push the edges of the medium we are capturing. A co-worker once told me; “Son, you have to fail to succeed.” When we push the “perceived acceptable” limits we are exploring new frontiers.
Wow! Thanks for taking time to chime in, everyone! I guess my final thoughts on this is in pretty much agreement with everyone here on one level on another. Basically, I like keeping things simple.
For teaching, the class gets it all, no problem.
For photo journalism and photography being passed off as “authentic or unaltered,” the images should be just that, unaltered.
When posting online, selling prints, submitting for articles where the software is not germane to the content, I don’t feel a need to disclose anything. If someone asks, it depends.
My take has always been, “Do you like the image?” Given the aforementioned cases, what else matters?
I Rember the first time I saw Adobe Photoshop. Almost 20 years ago I saw a photoshop demonstration while attending the computer show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. I remember thinking at the time ” Wow you can’t believe what you see in a photo anymore.” That was a long time ago and since then photoshop and other programs like it have come a long way.
My thoughts are that we defenitly need honesty in journalism so leave the photos alone. As far as art & creativeness viewers should be aware that photos may or may not have been retouched.
My need to know is only about how was the result achieved.
In general, when teaching classes I disclose all. If someone asks me or indicates they believe an image is “truth” I explain the alteration. If it’s a contest or call to entry which specifies a set of rules for entry I comply (which leaves a lot of such events out of consideration). Quite frankly, however, I don’t think its anyone’s business and I wouldn’t ask a “traditional” artist…”Is it real”?
Since I’m not a photojournalist, I feel “anything goes.”
The interesting thing, however is the more “painterly” I have become with my images, the more so they have become right out of the camera. Still, since the camera can’t see as the human eye does, I nearly always bracket.
I truly love how modern methods have allowed us to become more and more artistic in the field of photography, but I am also grateful to the fact that I was able to work with film in the darkroom for I feel it game me a deep understanding of the process.
But I don’t look back, it’s too exciting looking forward!
I agree with others who have stressed the difference between art and journalism. Clearly, adding or subtracting elements from a photo that purports to show what something actually looked like would be dishonest. A few years ago a university near me published a recruiting brochure that showed a group of students cheering at a sporting event. It turned out that someone had pasted in an extra student in order to create the mix of races that the university’s marketing department wanted to portray. Major news magazines have also been caught altering the faces of prominent individuals to make them look different. Not good. I think that anything presented as art can be manipulated in any way to realize the artist’s vision. Years ago, many of us experimented with multiple exposures and any number of darkroom techniques to alter our photos. I tend to divulge that I have removed distracting elements or added new elements when I post a photo. I see it as no different than a painter using an innovative brush technique or a sculptor trying a new mix of media.
I create what my mind saw when I took the shot. I hang on to this crazy addiction to digital photography for my own amazement and my work screams “Manipulator.” Surely I don’t see disclosure as a must. If a viewer likes my work I am pleased. If not, I lower the price.
I believe this quote is from Kathleen Clemens –
“There is only you and only you see the world as you do.”
There is a continuum of images from right-out-of-the-camera (of course, does not look like what we saw – it’s 2D, not 3D; unless HDR in-camera, the image doesn’t have the dynamic range of our eye/brain, etc., etc.) to images manipulated by the photographer to look like what was “real” at the time, to images manipulated/enhanced (like Velvia), to images manipulated to be further from “reality” and it’s obvious that they are and all sorts of other things along the continuum. On the latter areas of the continuum the term “digital artist” may be more appropriate and inclusive than “photographer”. As to disclosure, I think it is necessary and appropriate to disclose when the image that has been altered still looks “real” (i.e., the photographer fools me, as in placing a moon in an image where a moon didn’t exist at the location in the scene.) In Tony’s altered image above, the trained/experienced eye may realize that a texture an “sun” have been added but others may not, thus, a grey area in terms of disclosure. I believe if a photographer crosses the less than very clear line from having created an image that looks very much like the scene did when taken to one that doesn’t (i.e., additional saturated, lots of contrast, an element added, a significant element eliminated, etc.) and in so doing is implying that this is a “natural” image than that it unethical – it should be disclosed. This can be accommodated in an artist statement that describes regular use of manipulation.
Tony, thanks for opening the discussion – I like such give and take.
I think is you are being journalistic on a particular subject you do minimal if ant modification. But if your goal is to create pleasing images then you as a artist should create what you saw or see in yours mind’s eye and no one gets to judge other than whether or not it is pleasing to them.
Great topic Tony. It’s obviously a less contraversial question than it used to be but still brings up interesting arguements. I have some people say to me that digital photography isn’t real. I try to explain that, when we shot with film, that wasn’t what we were seeing either. Like Elliot, I look at my RAW image as a starting point. As to whether to provide and explanation as to what was seen and what wasn’t, I’m conflicted. On Tony’s image the addition of the texture is an obvious stylistic choice and I don’t think an explanation is needed. It’s obvious. However, the addition the sun and flare is more dramatic. Does it really matter that it didn’t look that way? I think it’s just art (great art BTW). So maybe the best thing is to just call what we do photographic art and then, nothing else needs to be said.
Maybe the field of photography needs to distinguish between a photograph (image rendered as it appeared in reality) and images that are manipulated.
When working with film, a negative that was manipulated say through posterization, solarisation, Sabatier, etch bleaching (EB2) and coloring, or changing to a line drawing either by hand with India ink or photo-mechanically with a another negative (or was it positive) on a phonograph; one new the original photo had been manipulated.
When we see Will Counts’ photos (http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/archivesphotos/counts.jsp) of the Little Rock school integration, we know the photograph represents reality. Yet today, we see a landscape photo and must wonder if the sun and sky really existed as portrayed. It would seem the definition of photography, the process of recording images on sensitized material, suggests a recording of reality not a manipulation. Painting is not about recording reality as it is, but what the artists sees a reality. Photography is the recording of light rays by film or digital sensor.
I am not saying individuals should not do manipulations, but I think manipulations should be represented differently than “photographs.” It reminds me of a film by Norman McLaren, Synchromy, where you see the sound and hear the picture. http://www.nfb.ca/film/synchromy What is real?
Gary
The painter who lives down the street and I were making images of the Seven Sisters range on the same afternoon, in the same location…hers ended up bright with colors while mine became shades of gray. Both of us would say this is how I saw the hills not this is how the hills really appear. The assumption that photography has to accurately capture reality belongs in the same dustbin as the old debate over photography as art. It’s not been true from the start.
Lenses as well as software shape how the image is created and perceived, even with “straight” photography. In the end, just a few of us have to make record shots of a crime scene.
If the photo is done for journalistic purposes it should be as captured. If done for it’s own artful purposes then all bets are off.
Back in the b/w film days we did what we could to affect the final print during the film developing stages, from using different chemicals, varying the mix, the time in the developer, the time between shakes, etc. etc. and then came the dodging and burning using our own handmade tools (or hands even) and I can’t remember there having been any complaints.
where do you draw the line is the question that i have if you deliberately decieve is that ok when asked to divulge what you did to the photo is it ok to not say Ansel divulged everything he did and never tried to hide the fact that he created the work in the darkroom with manipulations
I have come full circle, starting as a photographer who shot only Kodachrome and felt that any manipulation was cheating. When digital came out, I felt there was no way it would replace film. Now I fully embrace all digital technologies and all the software that goes with it. Many used to consider Ansel Adams the ultimate purist, but nothing could be further from the truth. If I were a photojournalist, it would obviously be another story, but I’m not. I often shoot with a software technique in mind, whether it’s a texture, focus stacking, etc. I’m happy to tell people what I’ve done to a photo but don’t feel an obligation. But then again, I’m not going to tell people that it is a perfectly accurate depiction of a scene if I have done work on it. As for the photographer Tony mentioned, that doesn’t bother me. Seems like a given these days that you would clean up details like that. When I shoot a flower close-up with the D800e, even the most perfect looking flower is covered with smutz and minor flaws. Is cleaning that up cheating? I don’t think so at all.
When I first started viewing digital photography images posted by others on Flickr, I gravitated toward the “natural” images and frowned on the obviously manipulated ones. My thinking has changed since then and I happily process images to ‘create’ what my eye has seen when I captured the image (iPhone or SLR). When I saw your textured image (posted here), my original reaction to it was that it was a very cool image and that the texture toned down what must have been an over-exposed sun behind that tree, never realizing that you had also added the sun and flare! And I liked the image. To my eye, the original image also has appeal on its own, simply because of the composition, soft colors, and the lone tree. As for feeling that a photographer must disclose what they did in post processing, I don’t view it as a must… but always appreciate when a photographer does share because it helps me to learn.
Does a painter or sculptor add info like this to their work ????? I remember the transition years that Tony speaks of very well > in fact, going thru it with him ! Digital Artistry has come a long way, and will continue to evolve …. and it is certainly going in the direction of imaginative creations, as opposed to pure documentation-style realism.
Gee, I wonder what folks would say, today, about Ansel Adams’ images. After all, he worked and reworked and reworked his images, in the darkroom, to ensure they looked like what ‘he’ saw.
There is nothing wrong with ‘developing’ a capture to ‘show’ what our (my) eye sees, yes?
However, as the controversy grows over ‘genetically altered animals and food’, the public seems to want to know the facts or origin or source of the product.
I seems appropriate then, that if we publish a photograph, even though it is Art, we should clarify whether it is captured or created, no?
Just as many of us include our post-processing info when we post, so should we do the same when taking a digital post to print. At a minimum, the author should ensure that his/her audience knows whether the image(s) displayed is what the artist saw or what the artist wanted to see. Then we can decide if we like what the artist saw or what the artist created and wanted us to see.
I completely concur that raw images are the beginning, not end of the digital creation process. Those pixels are the paint, but it’s up to the photographer and his/her infinite imagination to transmit emotion through the final visual product. One’s own eyes have a far greater range, for example than a digital camera. For example, I recently came across a moonrise over the Philadelphia art museum. I did multiple images to properly expose for the moon and the building. In the end, I cloned out the moon from the pan of the buildings and cloned back in the moon from the properly exposed image of the moon. I used Nik to bring out part of the building with very dramatically different lighting. I in no way feel compelled to divulge that. The image recreated what my eye and mind actually saw. (http://500px.com/photo/24852691) I view digital photography and all software as part of a photographers palette to create…let the image do all the talking!!!