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I have the attitude that if you do a little cloning in Photoshop to clean up an image, that's just fine, and I have often removed an errant twig this way. I don't mind stretching an image to distort perspective and get the composition right. In my film days I even showed an image which stole a sky from another image - involving a little darkroom trickery.
For some reason I object to wholesale alteration of an image - moving a major object in the image to a different location, adding elements other than sky from another image.
I don't think my attitude makes any sense at all - why should one manipulation be any more acceptable than another.
I guess that I have a built-in meter for manipulation which says something along the lines of "if the image is fundamentally the same, then it's ok, if it is radically changed but still looks real it's not ok, and if it's radically changed to look unreal, well that's just fine again.
Not very logical, and I'd hate to have to defend my instinct in court. I have absolutely no feeling that your attitude should be the same or that I should somehow persuade you to mine, no desire to become evangelical = it's simply what I notice about myself.
Take the flower photographs/paintings of Huntington Witherill, which are clearly manipulated.
So, if I am not trying to force my opinions on you, what's the point of even raising the subject? Well, I suppose as a reminder that each of us has our own ideas of what is right, and it works for us, but we DON'T have the right to dictate to others what they should do, other than to not purchase prints if we don't like their attitudes. Just as there are people who only appreciate and purchase images made with film and printed on silver or platinum or whatever, you and I can vote with our wallets, but I don't think we have any business criticizing them.
I might think that it's silly to not remove a small pop can from a digital image being used for the cover of a book, but Stephen Johnson did it and I don't think he's silly and in fact one could argue that it says much about his character that he is a stickler for honesty and realism.
Work like Huntington's obviously blurs the line between photography and painting but so what. Rap music has more to do with poetry than music in my opinion - that doesn't create problems for me. It might for a cataloger or historian but too bad.
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13 comments:
I agree with you - images I like and techniques I use don't have to be everybody's favorite.
I would like to know looking at the picture if it's manipulated or not, so I will know if I see reality, or a collage*.
* - not worse, just something different.
For me, it's the sense that they've "got one over one me" (or however you want to phrase it). For instance if there are heavy manipulations that *look real*, but are shown as if it's the original unaltered scene, I feel somewhat slighted when I find out the truth. If I have some indication that it's manipulated, then I can join in and appreciate that particular type of artistry. My .02.
I tend to be OK with anything at the two extremes (minor tweaking/cloning or major impressionistic revision). I guess I understand these two cases. It’s the in-between situations that make me feel as if it is not ‘right’.
I sometimes have a hard time understanding the logic of edit or not edit to photographs.
If someone could explain the difference of the scenario below.
I buy and apple, pear, cheese, bottle of red wine
I arrange on a table top and photograph.
I photograph each item on table top and combine together with digital editing ( I have removed blank space and added the other item.
In each case the resultant image is identical because I have not had shadows overlap on objects (actually a poor composition but for the sake of this exercise)
How are these different?
The final product for each is an artistic piece, may be a poor one because of the shadow issue.
How is manually adding items to a table, placing fruit, different than performing it digitally?
I do perform any editing I think willmake my printed image better.
Niels Henriksen
@MCW: For me a photography is a way to learn about places. If You added additional item I will assume that You have it (or know where to borrow it). In Your scenario I will spend time to reach You and learn that I wasted my time because You never had it - You copied it from another picture.
The same (even more) is related to places. If I study how far two pyramids are from each other and want to use that knowledge I don't want to learn in-place that in reality they are much further. It will cost me a plane ticket.
From aesthetic point of view it doesn't matter, but You have no idea for what purpose the pictures will be used. There even were cities rebuild from paintings. If something is prepared, not encountered I want to know. That's why I suggest not to forget about word "collage" and use it. Collage allows You to paste to Your picture as many things as You like, and the audience wouldn't feel misled.
Interesting points all and I think I will do an update blog entry after some more comments have been added.
George
There's an essay, Cloning Out the Can: Where Do You Draw the Line? on a similar topic. His ultimate point is much like yours, and it's interesting reading through the scenarios in the essay and seeing which you think are OK and which you don't.
I do agree with the comment that when a photo appears to represent the real world, something that we could also go see as opposed to a studio shot, that the photographer should mention if elements have be modified.
That is why I label my images at least the ones destined for prints sales as fine art, what ever than really means, to indicate this is art and not necessarily photographic reality.
There are some interesting poll results over at
http://www.photonetcast.com/2008/what-level-of-editing-and-processing-is-acceptable-in-photography-poll-results.html
Niels Henriksen
Instead of identifying photographs as “collages” or manipulations of reality, I contend we should insist photographs be identified when they intend to represent reality.
I would argue that there are NO real photographs - that every single image is manipulated in some way or another. Real is when you were standing there, looking with two eyes, feeling the wind blow and listening to the rustle of the leaves. Photographs are two dimensional, with a hugely compressed dynamic range to be able to fit into what paper can reproduce - they can never be real. So really, it's all a matter of a a lot of manipulation vs. a huge amount of manipulation.
George
My point exactly, every photo has been manipulated in some manner. So, are we asking the right question? The ethical issue is not the manipulation, but the intent of the photographer.
I have many photos which hasn't been manipulated, even if they don't represent reality perfectly.
After loading a .dng into Lightroom, we make choices developing the image to best express our intent. You may accept the default, I may make adjustments. You may leave a blemish, I may clone it out. Your intent is to display a skin condition, my intent is to reveal a beautiful person. One isn’t more or less honest than the other. If my intent is ethical, I feel comfortable editing, i.e. manipulating, an image to best express my intent.
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