Image Manipulation.......

As blansky pointed out in the critique thread, there are many genres of photography and each has its rules.

For purpose of illustration, a genre I like to illustrate is the Group f.64 straight photography. The rules of that genre allow retouching spots but not removing objects and adding skies.

Pictorialism not only allows but explicitly encourages dramatic changes, adding and removing objects as needed to get rid of the superfluous. I might see the value in an occasional excursion into playing with the skies and water to remove distractions. I'd tell the story and explain to my audience that I am playing in another genre for that picture. An example is William Mortensen's print in Print Finishing "The Conference" (ducks wading in a shallow creek - where he cleaned up lots of rocks and dirt-clods with abrasion tone).

And even APUG might be considered a genre with different rules. I have a photo that I uploaded to the gallery on DPUG because it was "impossible" for me to print by analog methods. It was a great picture of my friends, but the roll of film had air bells. I had to scan the negative and use the healing brush in Photoshop to clean up the air bells. I just don't know how I would do that on a 35mm negative by pure analog methods.

In some cases, truth is an either-or issue.

Something is either true, or it isn't.

When it comes to photography or anything else with a creative component, truth is relative. Some product may contain relatively more truth, and relatively less artifice. While other work may contain relatively less truth, and relatively more artifice. As well, the "truth" in a photograph may tend toward the objective, or alternatively the subjective.

We recently had several discussions here that touched on the most famous version of Karsh's portrait of Pablo Casals - the one shot from behind him. Many people aren't aware that Karsh shot Casals from the side and the front as well. Each version has a lot of truth in it, but the truth in the most famous version, from behind, is more allegorical than the others.

blansky said:

I think the point of philosophical discussions is to hear and debate other people's points of view. The only way there are winners is if we learn something we previously didn't know or think of.

A consensus is not winning.

Like I've said before, you rarely learn anything from people you agree with.

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I agree.

The point I was trying to make is that defining the terms of the debate is a way of excluding ones rivals from any serious participation, a way to systematically ignore certain people, groups, issues.

MattKing said:

In some cases, truth is an either-or issue.

Something is either true, or it isn't.

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"The original Boston Tea Party was a terrorist act."

Assume you are King of England and it's January of 1774.

True or False.

Now you are one of the Sons of Liberty.

True or False.

MattKing said:

We recently had several discussions here that touched on the most famous version of Karsh's portrait of Pablo Casals - the one shot from behind him. Many people aren't aware that Karsh shot Casals from the side and the front as well. Each version has a lot of truth in it, but the truth in the most famous version, from behind, is more allegorical than the others.

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One of the movies I view as a classic is Joe vs the Volcano. There is an incredible amount of truth in that movie, it was shot in the real world, no laws of physics were broken, but it isn't a depiction of real event. It depicts lots of truth about social realities though.

MattKing said:

In some cases, truth is an either-or issue.

Something is either true, or it isn't.

When it comes to photography or anything else with a creative component, truth is relative. Some product may contain relatively more truth, and relatively less artifice. While other work may contain relatively less truth, and relatively more artifice. As well, the "truth" in a photograph may tend toward the objective, or alternatively the subjective.''......

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It's off the main impetus of this thread, and not a gotcha for the esteemed MattKing, but in the interests of intellectual rigor I should point out that the concept of truth, and indeed falsity, applies only to propositions and not to things and processes. It is possible to assert various propositions about photography and then test them for truth or falsity but to say photography is "true" is meaningless. A classic example is the common assertion that "photography lies" which is meaningless without the underlying proposition being stated. I've actually seen (in another place) statements like a photograph of a tree is a lie because its only an abstraction of a tree. One could presume the only way a photograph of a tree could be "true" would be that the photograph is itself a tree identical to the original one! Such nonsense (in another place) betrays some commentators capacity for sloppy thinking.

A warning should attend the statement that "truth is relative". In modern philosophy this is known as relativism and it contains the seeds of its own destruction through self-contradiction. If truth is really relative then I can say that the statement "truth is relative" is false and that will be true for me. If everybody and everything has its own "truthiness" then rational discussion is on very swampy ground indeed. Academic philosophy too is hard going and possibly inappropriate in an well-natured informal discussion. Please excuse.

markbarendt said:

Let me add one word to that definition "One of the basic necessities of WINNING any philosophical discussion is "define your terms"."

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More academic philosophy: markbarendt is absolutely right about defining terms and importantly the parties to a debate must agree to the definition of the terms used. The alternative is Humpty Dumpty-ism, after the character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who asserts "a word means what I want it to mean, no more, no less". And a debate on image manipulation is a invitation to rampant Humpty Dumpty-ism. Some may say an "image" is an electronic file that can be displayed on a monitor. Others might insist an image is an arrangement of silver atoms on paper. Assuming that "different" is not "the same" it's hard to see how a mutually agreed definition of "image" let alone "manipulation" can be constructed.

Maris said:

More academic philosophy: markbarendt is absolutely right about defining terms and importantly the parties to a debate must agree to the definition of the terms used. The alternative is Humpty Dumpty-ism, after the character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who asserts "a word means what I want it to mean, no more, no less". And a debate on image manipulation is a invitation to rampant Humpty Dumpty-ism. Some may say an "image" is an electronic file that can be displayed on a monitor. Others might insist an image is an arrangement of silver atoms on paper. Assuming that "different" is not "the same" it's hard to see how a mutually agreed definition of "image" let alone "manipulation" can be constructed.

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But from the outset I mentioned that it's not a film vs analog debate and so the collection of the elements that go into the image/picture is not relevant to the discussion, no matter how much some people wish to steer it that way.

The debate is also not about relativism of truth. And too much navel gazing about philosophical theory can actually make debating or discussing something or anything for that matter, a waste of time because we all die and so nothing really matters in the end.

But exchanging ideas and opinions can broaden our horizons and enable us to see different points of view that we had missed from our tribal leanings.

It's more about the how we view photography as a medium and the areas we think it should have a purity as a recording device vs how it should also be a free spirited tool to create anything we can imagine, and where these things should stay within their various disciplines allowing " integrity" as well as giving birth to magic.

Naturally there is crossover and nothing is really pure, but there is still room for attempts of ethics in the various genres.

Perhaps it's like documentary filmmaking vs movie making. One deals in a kind of truth, or at least facts, even though we can possibly expect a point of view, and the other deals in obvious fantasy.

blansky said:

Naturally there is crossover and nothing is really pure, but there is still room for attempts of ethics in the various genres.

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with reference to the original post of this thread ... I think ethics is the key ..
if someone is submitting work to a contest about unmaipulated images it is unethical to claim the images are
unmanipulated when they are... just like when illustrating a news story it is unethical to create a composite image or manipulate the image one has to suite ones needs... which is similar to hat some reporters do when writing an article and creating a composite person that is falsely quoted / interviewed to be some sort of ideal person ...
maybe these things are truths that need to be portrayed .. but they do not exist and it is ethically wrong to fabricate these things as "evidence" ....
if it is art .. that is a different genre, and a different story ..

Maris said:

More academic philosophy: markbarendt is absolutely right about defining terms and importantly the parties to a debate must agree to the definition of the terms used. The alternative is Humpty Dumpty-ism, after the character in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, who asserts "a word means what I want it to mean, no more, no less". And a debate on image manipulation is a invitation to rampant Humpty Dumpty-ism. Some may say an "image" is an electronic file that can be displayed on a monitor. Others might insist an image is an arrangement of silver atoms on paper. Assuming that "different" is not "the same" it's hard to see how a mutually agreed definition of "image" let alone "manipulation" can be constructed.

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The idea I'm trying to get across Maris, is demonstrated in tribalism. I'm using the word tribalism to describe group-ism.

Group typically define their own standards of right and wrong, truth and fiction, they follow social constructs, they define their own words. For example as Bill Burk describes f64 norms above.

I don't view f64's rules as binding, I'm not a member. I'm not a news photographer either, don't care about their standards or definition of manipulation.

This doesn't mean I don't have standards, pictorial is more my style but that kinda means no rules.

It's not a matter of humpty dumpty-ism, in many cases it's simply a different world view.

markbarendt said:

Jerry Uelsmann is a good example of my thought, he just makes a few more choices than I normally do. The images he uses to make his prints are taken of real scenes in the real world and he doesn't break any of mother nature's rules to make his prints.

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Oh yes! Another genre that I would like to dabble in, because I do admire his work.

As for the overthrow of government by force and violence, remember what Ben Franklin told Thomas Jefferson as he was circulating the Declaration of Independence: "Better get their signatures fast before they go away for the long weekend." (Stan Freberg)

Michael R 1974 said:

Please point out the flaw(s) in the statements I've made in this thread, with respect to the character of physical law. Thanks.

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Not you Michael. No flaw(s).

You are one of a smallish group I can depend on to deliver arguments that are analytically sound, well thought out, and defensible. We don't always agree, and sometimes we do. But on more than a few occasions during debates around here that have begun to disappear into clouds of pixie dust I have thought to myself "I wonder what Michael would have to say about that?"

If that sounds like a backhanded compliment, its not. It's a forehanded one.



Ken

markbarendt said:

Groups typically define their own standards of right and wrong.

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I think what's great now is that we can belong to so many groups. There's the coffee-developers. Mix your own developers. Make your own emulsions. Wet plate. Group f.64. Pictorialism. Pure analog (AAA). Film capture hybrid (ADD). Digital negative to analog print hybrid (DDA/ADA).
News (don't put a frog from one shot in the mouth of the same bird from a different shot).

We can discuss and share and celebrate most of these here.

Bill Burk said:

I think what's great now is that we can belong to so many groups. There's the coffee-developers. Mix your own developers. Make your own emulsions. Wet plate. Group f.64. Pictorialism. Pure analog (AAA). Film capture hybrid (ADD). Digital negative to analog print hybrid (DDA/ADA).
News (don't put a frog from one shot in the mouth of the same bird from a different shot).

We can discuss and share and celebrate most of these here.

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Yep.

markbarendt said:

Yep.

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Sounds awfully simple.

But still there are rules (per group). So it may be more complex.

Fitting into multiple groups isn't the same as waffling.

I want to say I'll be hybrid when I'm dead.

I have to draw the line somewhere.

Bill Burk said:

Sounds awfully simple.

But still there are rules (per group). So it may be more complex.

Fitting into multiple groups isn't the same as waffling.

I want to say I'll be hybrid when I'm dead.

I have to draw the line somewhere.

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Hate to tell you this Bill, but you will be truly analogue once you are dead. No hybrid about it!

jnanian said:

with reference to the original post of this thread ... I think ethics is the key ..
if someone is submitting work to a contest about unmaipulated images it is unethical to claim the images are
unmanipulated when they are... just like when illustrating a news story it is unethical to create a composite image or manipulate the image one has to suite ones needs... which is similar to hat some reporters do when writing an article and creating a composite person that is falsely quoted / interviewed to be some sort of ideal person ...
maybe these things are truths that need to be portrayed .. but they do not exist and it is ethically wrong to fabricate these things as "evidence" ....
if it is art .. that is a different genre, and a different story ..

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Think this is the key point - honesty of intent. For me, that's where the 'truth' part comes in. I don't think that any photograph can ever be presented as 'truth' but the ethics of how it is presented and in what context can be truthful and have integrity.

I guess there are three areas were manipulation can occur:

1. Manipulation during capture: staging a scene including posing and re-enactment, excluding scene elements through lens selection, selective focus
2. Manipulation during editing: altering a negative or digital image to add or remove elements that were not there in the original scene, changing saturation or replacing colors, altering contrast, bleaching or intensifying
3. Manipulation during printing: printing up or down, dodging and burning, altering contrast, making a new image from multiple original images, excluding scene elements through cropping

These are meant to be somewhat simplistic descriptions and so are necessarily short. As others have mentioned, the degree to which manipulation is allowed in each area defines which "group" a particular image belongs to. Some are meant to alter the content of the image. Some are meant to overcome technical deficiencies or mistakes.

I like this quote from Edward Keating describing his take on "scene manipulation" from the Dead Link Removed site:

At some point, a capture goes from being a recording to being an illustration. To what degree does the presence of the photographer manipulate the scene? Was the execution of the Vietcong prisoner by the general affected by the presence of Eddie Adams as Sontag has suggested? Sounds like Edward Keating would say yes, that the presence of the camera alters the events being captured. We can't know whether the general would or would not have shot the prisoner in the absence of the camera. Was this image an illustration of something? I don't know.

Migrant Mother is famously staged. The degree to which the scene was directed does not affect the impact of the image. Does the image represent truth in the sense of an unmanipulated scene? Perhaps not, but it does illustrate the plight of the poor during that time. As such, it is a truthful representation of the condition of these people even if the photo was staged. It doesn't sound like the life of Florence Owens Thompson was affected much by the presence of the camera, judging from this story on PBS. Nobody died during the making of that photo.

I don't know if Dead Link Removed by Narciso Contreras was staged or not. The removal of the video camera was a clear manipulation in edit. To me, the removal did not substantially alter the image. On the one hand, I don't feel that its removal justifies the AP severing its ties with Contreras, but on the other I don't feel like removing it was necessary. I barely noticed the camera in the image from the Altered Images site. Perhaps an enlarged image would have me thinking differently.

The images of Dead Link Removed from the Altered Images site are illustrations of manipulation in editing or printing. Which one is more true, the image created on the cover of Newsweek or Time? The Time image, to me, just looks like a bad print. It is too dark to me. But did one change the perception of OJ more than the other? I don't know.

I'm not sure it is ever possible to represent truth in a photographic image. About the closest you can get to reality during capture is with some sort of spherical version of the Lytro camera in a scene where those in it are unaware of the presence of the camera. The closest in the analog world is a candid photograph taken on slide film where the subject is unaware of the presence of the camera. Yet even that is fraught with questions relating to the point of view including lens selection, DOF, etc.

IMO, news outlets have an obligation to represent objective truth to the degree to which that is possible. When writers or photographers are found to have manipulated the truth, it is right that the outlets sever ties with them. Determining when this has occurred is not always straightforward. We as receivers of this information have an obligation to realize that what is being represented is not an objective truth but rather has been colored along the way by the people that have come into contact with the information, starting with the photographer. Perhaps remembering that these are news stories should always be kept in mind.

Regards,
Rob

rbultman said:

IMO, news outlets have an obligation to represent objective truth to the degree to which that is possible.

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IMO, that is obligation is impossible to fulfill even with your wiggle words, because there are no objective absolute social rights or wrongs.

The rules we all live by, in every group, are simply social constructs.

Surely there are individuals and groups that believe there are objective absolutes, that doesn't mean they are right. IMO all our social rules are subjective.

markbarendt said:

IMO, that is obligation is impossible to fulfill even with your wiggle words, because there are no objective absolute social rights or wrongs.

The rules we all live by, in every group, are simply social constructs.

Surely there are individuals and groups that believe there are objective absolutes, that doesn't mean they are right. IMO all our social rules are subjective.

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I completely agree. The "wiggle words" were meant to convey the fact not that objectivism can be achieved but rather that everything is subjective. In the line that you quoted from my post, the "rules" are those for groups that are purporting to convey news, not fiction. Deleting something from an image makes it less newsy. The World Press Photo rules are themselves colored by the background (western, eastern, green, capitalist) of those making the rules.

The rules are all social constructs but they are there and they change based on the intended use of the image as well as with time. In the case involving World Press Photo, they are setting the rules and they reject images which they felt violated those rules. As others have said, the same exists with other groups such as f/64.

To your point, achieving objectivism is impossible even when trying to adhere to a set of rules which are themselves subjective and perhaps arbitrary. It's all fuzzy.

Regards,
Rob

rbultman said:

I like this quote from Edward Keating describing his take on "scene manipulation" from the Dead Link Removed site:

"I do everything but direct. The Times does not have a policy on spontaneity regarding photography. Our presence as photographers has an immediate impact on those around us, and if every photograph had to pass this newfangled spontaneity test, we would all be working from behind duck blinds or satellites."
​

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Wow, Edward Keating got rooked. I understand his frustration.

I often find the presence of a camera an interesting aspect of news coverage. It's much like the debate of cameras in the courtroom. All of a sudden everyone is an actor.

I've seen footage of news videos where the guy is setting up and there is crowd in front of him and the cameraman tells the reporter, "ready" and the reporter starts talking with the crowd in the background which is the cue and all of a sudden we get spirited chants of 'death to America" and people screaming and yelling. It's really all theater. Then when he's done they smile and it all shuts down.

I once photographed a nuclear demonstration in the Nevada desert by a nuclear facility. The crowds all came in buses and cars and parked in a parking lot. Martin Sheen arrived. The police and army guys came and everyone set up. Then the demonstrators walked down the road a ways to the entrance. When they got there they crossed a line, were arrested put into buses and hauled back to the parking lot and released. Then everyone went home. It was choreographed for the cameras for the national evening news. Same thing every year.

Once you see those kinds of things, the news is never the same for you. It's a shame most people don't get to see that.

But you could argue that its manufactured news, or you could argue that even though it is, it's still a view of the world and the point is made. Where the problem lies is the case of the death to America crowd is that while they are acting for the camera, it also makes a large portion of the US think they are an unruly mob of crazies and we would have no problem in killing them. And so we do. They've been dehumanized.

Yes blansky, news is much (maybe most) of the time promoting a product or point of view.

For example, Jimmy Carter was on the "news" (NPR) this morning, "the news" was his new book.

The only problem I see with this, is the public expectation that the news is "fair & balanced" or "photo realistic"; IMO it is important for us to understand that news in general is neither. It's ok for NPR to have a bias. It's ok for FOX and CNN to have biases. It's ok for the BBC to have a bias. It's ok for Al Jazeera (sp?) to have a bias.

I used to listen to the BBC a lot but have lost interest because they seem to have "sanitized" their product for the American audience over the last few years. What I want (used to get) from the BBC is (was) an outside view, what I seem to get now is more like NPR with an accent.

If we drop that expectation of "fair & balanced" & "photo realistic" and we understand that we all speak with a bias, then IMO it gets easier to talk with people who hold different views.

blansky said:

I often find the presence of a camera an interesting aspect of news coverage... It's really all theater. Then when he's done they smile and it all shuts down....

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That's why I come here for the unvarnished news.

(Or varnished if you are a Pictorialist)

It's called info-tainment

markbarendt said:

Yes blansky, news is much (maybe most) of the time promoting a product or point of view.

For example, Jimmy Carter was on the "news" (NPR) this morning, "the news" was his new book.

The only problem I see with this, is the public expectation that the news is "fair & balanced" or "photo realistic"; IMO it is important for us to understand that news in general is neither. It's ok for NPR to have a bias. It's ok for FOX and CNN to have biases. It's ok for the BBC to have a bias. It's ok for Al Jazeera (sp?) to have a bias.

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No, it is not ok for news to have a bias. If it has a bias, it is not news. Walter Cronkite, Edward R Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley broadcasted news; NPR broadcasts news; FOX broadcasts entertainment and propaganda disguised as news. Expecting news from FOX is like expecting peace, love, brotherhood and human kindness from Donald Trump.