Image Manipulation.......

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

I didn't start this as an anti digital thread obviously, since I shoot digital, and also since analog has the opportunity for manipulation as well.

But instead it's just the dilemma, and perhaps a moral one, in how in this new world, we deal with the mistaken concept of photography as "truth", and as well the reality of how photographs affects perception.

A couple of stories:

http://www.pdnonline.com/news/award...-Photo-Catches-Image-Manipulators-13819.shtml

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/01/how-photography-can-destroy-reality/

Dead Link Removed

Chrismat · Jul 3, 2015

Good articles, thanks. I found the Firstlook.org title, 'How Photography Can Destroy Reality' interesting. I don't believe that any type of photography can destroy reality, it only abstracts it.

RobC · Jul 3, 2015

LOL

Its all based on the unthinking assumption by the viewer that a photograph is a record of what was there. I said it recently in another topic, that all photographs are abstractions from reality in varying degrees.

The point is that news and journalism photographs can rightfully IMO be expected to be un-manipulated.

Landscape photographs of a "Place" presented as being of that place can rightfully IMO be expected not to be fundatmentally altered (they would not represent that place otherwise).

If I thought about it more in depth I'm sure I could think of many other uses where the image should not be altered because it gives a false impression where expectations can rightfully be that the image is not altered and is a "true" impression.

However, we then come to "Fine Art" or "Craft" or "Alternative Processes" or "Hybrid" or "Illustration" photography where essentially anything goes.

But then how do you label your work? Would the casual viewer know what you mean by "Illustrative" photography and would they care if you make the disctinction but they think all photos should be un-manipulated.

It comes down to your each persons own standards of integrity about they are trying to do. Some people like to capture and show it as it was and others like to embelish the work. It's a tricky subject.

For example:

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2...grapher-of-the-year-2012-winner-disqualified/

The cop out by the entrant was that he didn't read the rules (LOL, do we believe that?).

I was going to enter my own shot from almost the exact same position and view the following year as a bit of a joke entry but didn't.

Is photography a moralistic pursuit? Depends what your objectives are.

But one thing for sure is that the ability to digitally alter an image has reduced peoples trust in what they are seeing is what was really there. You'll never turn the clock back on that. Everyone knows photographs can be altered and therefore all of them can ligitimately be suspect as not being the "truth" in the viewers eyes. You may not agree but that is irrelevant, it's what any member of the public thinks that counts in the long term. All you can do is maintain a high standard of integrity and don't deliberately falsify your work as something it isn't.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

RobC said:
LOL

Its all based on the unthinking assumption by the viewer that a photograph is a record of what was there. I said it recently in another topic, that all photographs are abstractions from reality in varying degrees.

The point is that news and journalism photographs can rightfully IMO be expected to be un-manipulated.

Landscape photographs of a "Place" presented as being of that place can rightfully IMO be expected not to be fundatmentally altered (they would not represent that place otherwise).

If I thought about it more in depth I'm sure I could think of many other uses where the image should not be altered because it gives a false impression where expectations can rightfully be that the image is not altered and is a "true" impression.

However, we then come to "Fine Art" or "Craft" or "Alternative Processes" or "Hybrid" photography where essentially anything goes.

It comes down to your each persons own standards of integrity about they are trying to do. Some people like to capture and show it as it was and others like to embelish the work. It's a tricky subject.

For example:

http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2...grapher-of-the-year-2012-winner-disqualified/

The cop out by the entrant was that he didn't read the rules (LOL, do we believe that?).

I was going to enter my own shot from almost the exact same position and view the following year as a bit of a joke entry but didn't.

Is photography a moralistic pursuit? Depends what your objectives are.

But one thing for sure is that the ability to digitally alter an image has reduced peoples trust in what they are seeing is what was really there. You'll never turn the clock back on that. Everyone knows photographs can be altered and therefore all of them can ligitimately be suspect as not being the "truth" in the viewers eyes. You may not agree but that is irrelevant, it's what any member of the public thinks that counts in the long term. All you can do is maintain a high standard of integrity and don't deliberately falsify your work as something it isn't.

While I agree that photojournalism should abstain from manipulated photographs mainly due to the "integrity" of news, whatever that means, I have never really regarded landscape photography to have those constraints. To me that's artistic license and unless you're presenting it as "truth" which I highly doubt any landscape photographer does, it seems sort of strange. As for the link you added, well I get that, he disobeyed the rules, so he was disqualified, but I've never really heard that landscape photography should be sacrosanct as to "reality".

Interesting enough, Clive has also presented that point of view as well on another thread, that photography should be about truth. Except for photojournalism, I have never believed that. And calling asserting artistic license, a lack of integrity, seems ridiculous.

I just don't consider landscape photography as documentary photography.

removed account4 · Jul 3, 2015

thanks for the links blanksy:
i find it kind of funny that people are submitting
work to these contests saying they are one thing when they are another.
but the thing i find it hard to do is draw the line about what is and isn't manipulation of any sort.
just making an exposure is manipulation, no matter the film, paper, shutter speed, fstop, perspective, lens, POV
some manipulation is accepted as not counting, and other changes the way people think about the image,
whether it is cropping, burning/dodging, shutter drag, grain, or collage-work ...
i forgot about OJ's portrait and the attention it got ...

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Chrismat said:
Good articles, thanks. I found the Firstlook.org title, 'How Photography Can Destroy Reality' interesting. I don't believe that any type of photography can destroy reality, it only abstracts it.

Can you explain what you mean by abstracting reality.

Isn't that like partly pregnant. You either are or you are not.

So if you change or alter reality, or abstract it, are you not then destroying it?

Or are you saying that in essence, there is no reality.

Prof_Pixel · Jul 3, 2015

blansky said:
Or are you saying that in essence, there is no reality.

There is 'reality' - you just can't expect to photograph it truthfully.

RobC · Jul 3, 2015

I flipped an image of a mill leat waterfall when I was at college and was told I should not do that. But as I said, it depends what its being presented as. Documentary, Art etc etc.

RobC · Jul 3, 2015

Prof_Pixel said:
There is 'reality' - you just can't expect to photograph it accurately.

If we want to get philosophical about it, you could say all reality is a nothing more than a perception. Your reality may be very different than mine but generally there is a concensus about what constitutes it. However, its easy to argue about that and people do all the time.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Prof_Pixel said:
There is 'reality' - you just can't expect to photograph it accurately.

But perhaps the photograph IS reality. It's just that text or context distorts the reality.

A dead child in a photograph could be the reality. But the contest or text, distorts who, how or why.

Sirius Glass · Jul 3, 2015

Thank you for raising the issue.
It is one thing for the photographer to choose a different shooting location to get a different view point but it is unethical to add or delete parts of a photograph, other than cropping, to change the meaning of a photograph. That chimpin', selfies, selfie sticks and walking while staring at a viewscreen are high on my dislikes.

Chrismat · Jul 3, 2015

'Can you explain what you mean by abstracting reality.'

Taking something (reality) which is 3D and making it 2D is one abstraction. Shooting a world of color with black and white film would be another.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Chrismat said:
'Can you explain what you mean by abstracting reality.'

Taking something (reality) which is 3D and making it 2D is one abstraction. Shooting a world of color with black and white film would be another.

Thanks.

But even in that abstraction do you believe that it can represent truth or untruth?

Or since it's abstract, that truth is forever lost, and all we are left with is point of view.

Nathan King · Jul 3, 2015

Manipulation doesn't even require changing the content of an image. I won't post it because of copyright issues, but a while back a "photojournalist" took a picture of a child in the Middle East sleeping next to a grave - obviously a very sad image... Until another image was found of the same boy sitting next to the grave smiling at the camera and holding up a "peace" sign. Obviously the initial image was not what it appeared. No darkroom manipulation or Photoshop required. Photography takes a very brief fraction of a second, omits context, and further abstracts the result by throwing away depth in exchange for cues from linear perspective.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Nathan King said:
Manipulation doesn't even require changing the content of an image. I won't post it because of copyright issues, but a while back a "photojournalist" took a picture of a child in the Middle East sleeping next to a grave - obviously a very sad image... Until another image was found of the same boy sitting next to the grave smiling at the camera and holding up a "peace" sign. Obviously the initial image was not what it appeared. No darkroom manipulation or Photoshop required. Photography takes a very brief fraction of a second, omits context, and further abstracts the result by throwing away depth in exchange for cues from linear perspective.

Didn't see the image, but could not that child have been both sleeping next to a grave, and later smiled at the photographer with a peace sign and still both images were true.

Could I not be a my mothers funeral looking at her casket looking sad, and smiling at a friend 2 minutes later and both images still represent me.

Or do we as viewers want one dimensional people to "represent" things in photographs.

Chrismat · Jul 3, 2015

blansky said:
Thanks.

But even in that abstraction do you believe that it can represent truth or untruth?

Or since it's abstract, that truth is forever lost, and all we are left with is point of view.

I think we are left is point of view. I'm not saying that there isn't truth, it's just that photography (for me at least) does a poor job representing it.

Chrismat · Jul 3, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
John Sexton says it plain and simple: all photographs are illusions.

+1.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
John Sexton says it plain and simple: all photographs are illusions.

John Sexton is a landscape photographer, and his opinions are as good as anyone else, but carry no more weight.

Is this photograph an illusion?

Nathan King · Jul 3, 2015

blansky said:
Didn't see the image, but could not that child have been both sleeping next to a grave, and later smiled at the photographer with a peace sign and still both images were true.

Could I not be a my mothers funeral looking at her casket looking sad, and smiling at a friend 2 minutes later and both images still represent me.

Or do we as viewers want one dimensional people to "represent" things in photographs.

You could; however, in the case I cited I believe the photographer in question fessed up.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Michael R 1974 said:
To some extent, yes. Every photograph and print is.

Well you could argue everything we see with our eyes is an illusion and that we are nothing more than vibrating energy, but if I photograph a speeding car bearing down on me just before it hits me, it's hard to argue that it was an illusion.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

I'm inclined to believe that manipulated images from the photographer as viewer perspective is that we think the manipulating author "cheated" when our picture was actually real.

And from the public and even photographer perspective of manipulated images is the fact that we sort of know, or should know on an intellectual level that they are manipulated/managed, to some degree, but they still fooled us on an emotional level. We got sucked in when we should have known better. It's like people that go to Vegas thinking they could or might win money when in reality they know there is no way in hell it can happen.

Every adult should know that everything has a point of view, it's just that photography is so powerful, because we as humans are so visual, that we get sucked in when we should know better. Our emotions overcome our intellect in this case.

Jim Jones · Jul 3, 2015

To paraphrase a great photographer, the initial capture is like the score, the end presentation is the performance. Some photographers can appreciate just the capture: most people need the performance. The finest violin in the World can be admired as a work of art, but it is mute until some plays it.

removed account4 · Jul 3, 2015

blansky
when you photograph a client,
and make them look 20 years younger,
or photograph them in a light that not many people see
isn't that like an illusion...
i mentioned in a thread a while back that i photographed
someone soon after the reporter interviewed her, she had no idea
who my portrait was of when it was handed in ... and the reporter
interviewed her in person a few feet away from her looking at her while she asked questions &c

some people, with no PS or crazy masking techniques or overboard manipulations are
able to make a pile of debris ( maybe a pile of crap ? ) look like it is something else ( just with lights and "styling" ), something
others might want .. product photography and tv commercials do this all the time.
red lobster and their shrimp fiestas, fast food chains with their foodstuffs, and it sells ...
its reality, and an illusion at the same time ...

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

Jim Jones said:
To paraphrase a great photographer, the initial capture is like the score, the end presentation is the performance. Some photographers can appreciate just the capture: most people need the performance.

That's an interesting argument to use at the World Press Photo (WPP) competition....Sorry judges but I wanted to give you the performance instead of the score.

But I get your point.

blansky · Jul 3, 2015

jnanian said:
blansky
when you photograph a client,
and make them look 20 years younger,
or photograph them in a light that not many people see
isn't that like an illusion...
i mentioned in a thread a while back that i photographed
someone soon after the reporter interviewed her, she had no idea
who my portrait was of when it was handed in ... and the reporter
interviewed her in person a few feet away from her looking at her while she asked questions &c

some people, with no PS or crazy masking techniques or overboard manipulations are
able to make a pile of debris ( maybe crap ? ) look like it is something else ( just with lights ), something
others might want .. product photography and tv commercials do this all the time.
red lobster and their shrimp fiestas, fast food chains with their foodstuffs, and it sells ...
its reality, and an illusion at the same time ...

Yeah, my schtick is making people look better....not 20 years better.

It's like when person goes on a date or an event and they try to look their best. We often emulate that mindset.

Image Manipulation.......

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