Is cropping a photo lying?

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
I beg to differ, just because you disagree with what I am expressing does not make it a lie...Cheyney after all WAS slicing in to the beef...no? You just may disagree with how I used the moment.

Of course does disagreeing not make something a lie.
But if you make that an absolute, lies don't exist.

Denis K · Oct 6, 2009

gr82bart said:
That man was bad.
Art.

snip

Shangheye · Oct 6, 2009

Q.G. said:
Of course does disagreeing not make something a lie.
But if you make that an absolute, lies don't exist.

We are getting closer. In reality there are facts and interpretation. It is a FACT that Cheyney was slicing beef. To say he was not slicing beef would actually be a lie...but interpreting the meaning of the FACT is subjective.

In that sense photography (at least documentary) always deals with FACT, how you choose to interpret it by your photographic choices, are interpretation.

I don't want to get all philosophical...but for me the best way to describe photography is in the positive...i.e. a Photograph is not the only TRUTH of a given situation...but it is a truth non-the-less (the photographers).

K

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
We are getting closer. In reality there are facts and interpretation. It is a FACT that Cheyney was slicing beef. To say he was not slicing beef would actually be a lie...but interpreting the meaning of the FACT is subjective.

To get all philosophical: there are interpretations, and there are interpretations.
What is a fact?

Shangheye said:
In that sense photography (at least documentary) always deals with FACT, how you choose to interpret it by your photographic choices, are interpretation.

I don't know how you can separate the two.
Photography is a human endeavour. It is riddled with choices, the biggest one being itself.

Shangheye said:
I don't want to get all philosophical...but for me the best way to describe photography is in the positive...i.e. a Photograph is not the only TRUTH of a given situation...but it is a truth non-the-less (the photographers).

That seems quite acceptable.
Except that describing something as "not" something is, of course, technically not positive, but negative.
And that it doesn't quite touch upon the "lie" bit: the photographer may deliberately represent something in a way that isn't even his truth.
If it was, would it be a lie, or just an opinion?

Pete H · Oct 6, 2009

benjiboy said:
Pointing a viewfinder frame at anything is lying, because it is a subjective and partial view of reality.

I don't really understand this - doesn't lying imply an intent to deceive? If you look at a photo, you know that it shows the photographer's choice of framing, depth of field, etc. There is no deception.
However, if someone has added a caption to the cropped photo saying, for example, "A ravening Dick Cheney about to sink his fangs into the raw flesh of his latest victim ...", then the photo is being used in a deception and it is part of the lie.

Even though the man was bad ...

cheers
Pete

Anton Lukoszevieze · Oct 6, 2009

cropping is not good, definitely cheating....

benjiboy · Oct 6, 2009

Pete H said:
I don't really understand this - doesn't lying imply an intent to deceive? If you look at a photo, you know that it shows the photographer's choice of framing, depth of field, etc. There is no deception.
However, if someone has added a caption to the cropped photo saying, for example, "A ravening Dick Cheney about to sink his fangs into the raw flesh of his latest victim ...", then the photo is being used in a deception and it is part of the lie.

Even though the man was bad ...

cheers
Pete

The point I was trying to make is, what you choose to point your camera at is cropping the scene in front of your eyes, and by selecting that portion of it that you wish to show, and purely by photographing that fraction of it, you are cropping.

AFlood · Oct 6, 2009

This whole question arises from the fact that people believe a photo always 'tells the truth', if it was generally accepted as an 'interpretation' like a painting is no one would care,. Photography reproduces a fragment of an event onto a piece of paper. It is such a selective but realistic medium, which is why it is so powerful. From the moment the photographer frames up the shot to whenever the image is printed, selections on what to include are constantly made, that is just the nature of photography. Anyone who thinks a photo should convey the absolute truth is kidding themselves, because that is impossible. The problem here is that it was not the photographer who chose what to include.

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

Hear! Hear!

2F/2F · Oct 6, 2009

We all seem to be discussing the title of the thread rather than the actual situation with Newsweek and Kennerly. However, IMO the title of the thread is not really very well-representative of the actual situation.

This is not about photography for the sake of photography, and whether its manipulation-required nature is a lie or not. It is about journalism, and its use of photography as a tool.

Lie is the wrong word, IMO, and confuses the issues here the way I see it. Photography, like writing or speech, cannot be described as "truth" or "objective" by anyone with any brains. Something that cannot be described as 100% "truth" also cannot be described as 100% "lie", IMO. However, we use photography in journalism despite its limits, because it is still a tool that can, at its best, do what journalism does: help to tell people what happened.

Journalists are supposed to strive for the unattainable goal of objectivity, among other things. We'll never get it, but we should try to always keep it as the "guiding light". Just because you can't get it in its purest form does not mean that you can't get it part way, or better than average, or be informative. It does not mean that you throw the entire concept down the toilet.

What is appropriate journalistic use of cropping, and what is not? Time and Newsweek and many other publications have shown, IMO, time and time again that they cannot be taken as serious news or feature journalism. Cropping a feature photo for use in an opinion piece is within their legal rights, but is not right by many people's understanding of journalistic ethics or standards. In short, it is simply bad, sloppy, lazy, and rather low-brow journalism, IMO...but there is nothing that anyone can do about it.

Shangheye · Oct 6, 2009

Q.G. said:
That seems quite acceptable.
Except that describing something as "not" something is, of course, technically not positive, but negative.
And that it doesn't quite touch upon the "lie" bit: the photographer may deliberately represent something in a way that isn't even his truth.
If it was, would it be a lie, or just an opinion?

Always an opinion. That will always remain the problem with a media that can only "show" part of the situation and from the perspective of one person. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that the real problem resides in the "real" element perceived in a photograph by the viewer, and I think that is the most important point that differentiates it from a painting for example. It is how a photograph is perceived by the viewer (in it's impact as real) that creates the problems.

I am an advocate of not cropping (for a long time I was obsessive about it, but I have grown milder with age and time), and I tend to print with the rebate showing.

I actually don't think that changes the merits of the discussion here since I have croppped it at the time of shooting and not after. The issue is whether the magazine abused the photographers image by croppping the image he provided. I don't know if he was asked permission (though judging by his reaction maybe not), but as a photographer I think that is the least one should expect. I imagine he has copyright unless he was contracted by them.

I do feel however, that there are many examples of where real lies have been told, where an event is photographed as real but history has shown may have been set-up or manufactured (Doisneau's kiss in Paris, Capa's shot Spanish soldier etc). These at the photographic level are possible definable as lies where the photographer himself seeks to alter the reality to make a point, while proposing the event was factual. Under the banner of documentary, this work is in fact fantasy..

I want to return to Magnum and the whole basis of the creating that agency as a means by which to stop exactly what this magazine did. HCB and others even retained the right to caption their images. Long gone are those days with Getty owning half of what is out there. I have yet to have one of my images cropped by a magazine or paper, but if it happened without my permission there would be war.

Rgds, Kal

Sirius Glass · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
I have yet to have one of my images cropped by a magazine or paper, but if it happened without my permission there would be war.

Nah, you just would never get anything published after your hissy fit. If you want to control the cropping and publishing, then you have to become the publisher and editor.

Steve

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
Always an opinion. [...]

Not always.
Sometimes a plain ol' lie.

Shangheye said:
I do feel however, that there are many examples of where real lies have been told, where an event is photographed as real but history has shown may have been set-up or manufactured (Doisneau's kiss in Paris, Capa's shot Spanish soldier etc). These at the photographic level are possible definable as lies where the photographer himself seeks to alter the reality to make a point, while proposing the event was factual. Under the banner of documentary, this work is in fact fantasy..

I disagree.
The photographers sought a way to express through their medium what they perceived the 'reality' to be.
They would have been lies if the mood (as experienced by the photographer) was so different that a guy kissing a pretty girl would be a misrepresentation of it.
It wasn't. So perhaps as constructed as a print journalist's sentences, not a lie.

Denis K · Oct 6, 2009

I've always thought it would be revealing to require that any attractive landscape picture include a small inset picture of the scene 180 degrees behind the principle image.

Denis K

Sirius Glass · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
I am an advocate of not cropping (for a long time I was obsessive about it, but I have grown milder with age and time), and I tend to print with the rebate showing.

You crop when you frame your scene while taking in the photograph. That is cropping before the photograph is taken. How is that any different from cropping after the photograph is taken?

Steve

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

First instinct vs second try?

(I have no problem with cropping 'after the fact' myself.)

Shangheye · Oct 6, 2009

Sirius Glass said:
You crop when you frame your scene while taking in the photograph. That is cropping before the photograph is taken. How is that any different from cropping after the photograph is taken?

Steve

Not different at all..I think it is more like a personal challenge rather than an aesthetic or of any real value. I don't think one way is better than another. But, because of my approach, I feel the interpretation of the image is the one I chose at the time of taking. If someone then chose to change that without consultation, I would have issues with it (cropping it myself would be a different matter).

K

Shangheye · Oct 6, 2009

Sirius Glass said:
Nah, you just would never get anything published after your hissy fit. If you want to control the cropping and publishing, then you have to become the publisher and editor.

Steve

Thankfully I have yet to have someone ask to crop my photo for a publication either magazine or newspaper (so I am lucky apparently), though I was once asked to crop a photo I was selling by a customer before they would buy it....I politely explained that the photo was my piece of art, and it was for sale as is. They could do what they wanted once it was in their ownership. They didn't buy it, and I am glad of it.

Photography is not my main source of income, so maybe I have the luxury of choice. I don't need to worry about whether a magazine or newspaper is annoyed with my choices. I sell my pictures as art, and it tends to be my travel images that end up in publications. Maybe in that sense my position is less driven by commercial sense and is an exception.

Rgds, Kal

Shangheye · Oct 6, 2009

Q.G. said:
Not always.
Sometimes a plain ol' lie.

I disagree.
The photographers sought a way to express through their medium what they perceived the 'reality' to be.
They would have been lies if the mood (as experienced by the photographer) was so different that a guy kissing a pretty girl would be a misrepresentation of it.
It wasn't. So perhaps as constructed as a print journalist's sentences, not a lie.

Entertain me on the second point. So if a documentary image of a grieving mother above a child killed in a bombardment in a war turns out to be faked, yet is used to influence an outcome or the viewers feelings, it would not be a lie in my example of a "manufactured scene"...just a representation of the photographers mood?

I am sure you don't mean that.

RMP-NikonPro · Oct 6, 2009

Who cares what it is?

The point of it all is the Image!

Q.G. · Oct 6, 2009

Shangheye said:
Entertain me on the second point. So if a documentary image of a grieving mother above a child killed in a bombardment in a war turns out to be faked, yet is used to influence an outcome or the viewers feelings, it would not be a lie in my example of a "manufactured scene"...just a representation of the photographers mood?

I am sure you don't mean that.

I think that is the thing.
Too many people are sure that a photograph is supposed to be (if not by nature is) as good as the real thing itself: a 1 on 1 record of The One And Only Truth.
You too?

It has been said a few times before in this thread that it never is.

This thread is about when such a (whatever you may like to call it, let's say "subjective") photographic representation is a lie, and when it is not.

So we can discuss the faked photo in your question, and find out.
Or just carry on this general discussion, and see whether we need to discuss instances (real, or manufactured as the one in your above question) at all.

I think the general discussion is clear enough not to need examples.

Aurum · Oct 6, 2009

To add another chunk of meat onto the barbie....

Are these photos the truth or are they lying

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217320/Ever-ad-The-glossy-estate-agent-pictures-dont-reveal-eyesores-door.html

Ian David · Oct 6, 2009

Aurum said:
To add another chunk of meat onto the barbie....

Are these photos the truth or are they lying

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1217320/Ever-ad-The-glossy-estate-agent-pictures-dont-reveal-eyesores-door.html

Of course, real estate agents are professional liars, but everyone knows that, don't they?

Sirius Glass · Oct 6, 2009

iandavid said:
Of course, real estate agents are professional liars, but everyone knows that, don't they?

"Cozy" means if you put a bed in the bedroom, you cannot walk beside the bed.

"Rustic" means that it is falling apart.

"Has potential" means knock it down to build something else.

"Quaint" means the water pipes leak.

"Freeway close" means you hear truck snow tires all winter.

"Beverly Hills adjacent" means it is in a crappy area five miles away.

Steve

Bosaiya · Oct 6, 2009

Is cropping a photo a lying?
Yes, it is a lie of omission.

Does that matter?
It depends...

Is cropping a photo lying?

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