Makers or Takers

[Vaughn]

Vaughn, Joni Mitchell would be proud of you and after 50 years I'm sure you know what you are doing. Please ignore my previous post.

I did find some ferns by Atget...

 

[jvo]

i'm a taker, then a maker. First I take the picture, then I make the picture!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Only photographers on a photo forum can argue that fake pictures are real. Judges don't seem to have that trouble. Here's a true story:

A fellow shot another with the gun that he was legally carrying. He was tried for murder. The defendant claimed that the guy was trying to grab his gun away from him, and he shot the victim to protect himself because he would have been shot with his own gun had he lost possession of it. The prosecutor showed a video taken by a bystander that was not clear enough to prove the defendant's claim. You couldn't tell if the victim actually grabbed his gun. Then it came out during the trial that the prosecutor supplied a video with a reduced resolution, let's say 720x480 instead of the original 1920x1080. When the original, clearer, higher resolution video was shown, it distinctly showed that the defendant was correct, that the person had grabbed for his gun, and he shot him in defense. The judge was so angry at the prosecutor for playing games with a "phony" video that he nearly jailed him for contempt of court and would have thrown the case out if the jury did not find the defendant innocent, which they did.

 

[reddesert]

Only photographers on a photo forum can argue that fake pictures are real.

Nobody has argued that. What people are saying is that even "real" not-deliberately-altered photographs aren't literally real. They are a particular version and incomplete recording of whatever actually happened in front of the camera.

 

[snusmumriken]

I did find some ferns by Atget...

Anyone know what was going on there? Were the ferns for sale, or just packaging for something else?

 

[Vaughn]

My guess is a fish shop.

 

[snusmumriken]

My guess is a fish shop.

That's a very plausible guess, thanks.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Nobody has argued that. What people are saying is that even "real" not-deliberately-altered photographs aren't literally real. They are a particular version and incomplete recording of whatever actually happened in front of the camera.

Of course photos can't be the real thing. That's why they call portraits a "likeness" of the subject. Only the original subject is real, unless you're God and can duplicate objects. But if the likeness in the photo is so adulterated it no longer represents the reality, than it's a fake. What you're saying is that since no picture is "real", then fake pictures aren't fake. Tell that to the judge.

 

[Mike Lopez]

Of course photos can't be the real thing. That's why they call portraits a "likeness" of the subject. Only the original subject is real, unless you're God and can duplicate objects. But if the likeness in the photo is so adulterated it no longer represents the reality, than it's a fake. What you're saying is that since no picture is "real", then fake pictures aren't fake. Tell that to the judge.

That doesn’t follow at all from what @reddesert has said here. Your logic is busted and you’re conflating ideas so you can keep referring to your story about a judge or something.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

That doesn’t follow at all from what @reddesert has said here. Your logic is busted and you’re conflating ideas so you can keep referring to your story about a judge or something.

That's exactly what he's saying. That leaving in telephone lines is just as unreal as cloning them out.

 

[reddesert]

That's exactly what he's saying. That leaving in telephone lines is just as unreal as cloning them out.

Don't put words in my mouth. Show me anywhere in this thread where I said anything about leaving in or cloning out an object, telephone lines or anything else.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Don't put words in my mouth. Show me anywhere in this thread where I said anything about leaving in or cloning out an object, telephone lines or anything else.

I apologize for misinterpreting your posts. Just to be clear, then, do we agree that cloning in or out objects from the original view during the edit process is "less real", maybe fake, picture making? If not, where would you draw the line?

 

[ChrisGalway]

In my opinion, inserting or removing objects from the original photo is definitely fake.

Have I ever done this? Partly, I've removed objects (only power lines) but can't see myself ever inserting objects.

To me, it's "wrong" to do this, but I have my limits ... power lines.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

Just to be clear, then, do we agree that cloning in or out objects from the original view during the edit process is "less real", maybe fake, picture making? If not, where would you draw the line?

Certainly not here.

 

[Don_ih]

It's important to recognize different photos serve different ends. A photo that is to stand as evidence of something needs to be as authoritatively authentically representative as possible. So don't add or remove bits from it - leave it as-is to be interpreted and assessed as-is for its evidentiary value.

Art photos - adding and removing doesn't make them fake. It makes them what they are. They are photos that are ends in themselves.

Family snapshots? Once again, do what you want. A personal photographic record is usually very selective and overly glossy, anyway.

 

[ChrisGalway]

It's important to recognize different photos serve different ends. A photo that is to stand as evidence of something needs to be as authoritatively authentically representative as possible. So don't add or remove bits from it - leave it as-is to be interpreted and assessed as-is for its evidentiary value.

Art photos - adding and removing doesn't make them fake. It makes them what they are. They are photos that are ends in themselves.

Family snapshots? Once again, do what you want. A personal photographic record is usually very selective and overly glossy, anyway.

Perhaps "fake" is too emotive term, as it has a negative connotation. But if you alter a photo, it's certainly no longer the original scene, so no longer represents physical reality and becomes your interpretation of the scene.

Personally, I'm not keen even with all those over-HDR'd travel photos that seem in vogue now ... they're just not "real" ... they're "fake"!

 

[cliveh]

Would a film photograph used as evidence in a court case carry more weight than a digital version?

 

[koraks]

Honestly, probably not. There's not really a widespread problem with the legal credibility of digital images that's inherent to their digital nature. So it's an example of a solution in search for its problem.

 

[MattKing]

Would a film photograph used as evidence in a court case carry more weight than a digital version?

Absent legislation, photographs usually don't stand as evidence alone in court, as they fit within a class of evidence known as demonstrative evidence.
You basically need someone to give evidence to the effect "this photograph accurately depicts the scene as I observed it directly."
There are statutory provisions that allow admission of things like traffic camera surveillance and other unattended photographic capture.
If you are trying to submit things like surveillance photos into evidence, you generally need to support it with corroborative evidence - other consistent observations, physical evidence, familiarity with past surveillance images and the fact that they correlate with objectively measured facts - think things like the video shows a location that matched the blood stains thereafter.
By definition, photographs are hearsay, so they are only admissible if they fit within a particular exception to the rule prohibiting hearsay evidence.
It is a bit difficult to cross-examine a photograph!
Essentially, a photograph is no more and no less reliable than a drawing made by a witness - you need the witness in the first place.
It can be more effective than a drawing, but it can also be as misleading as a drawing - depending on the limitations of the medium and the skill of the maker.
Most/all jurisdictions have codified rules that describe how and when photographs are used in evidence, and when they are prohibited.

 

[BrianShaw]

From limited observation in our courts, there seems to be a difference between Superior Court and Small Claims Court regarding the type/format of photographic evidence. In Superior Court it seems that the judges allow photographs to be admissable whereas in Small Claims Court the judges tend to only allow consideration of "the original source".... "Don't show me a printout, show it to me on your phone." Presumably, the Superior court trust Law Enforcement and lawyers to present images that are unaltered whereas Small Claims does not necessarily trust citizens to do the same. Small Claims Court seems to have a distinct preference for digital/phone photography, which might be to minimize the opportunities for alteration and perhaps because it's just the way most people document things these days.

No matter, the Courts seem oriented toward "Takers" and against "Makers' LOL

 

[MattKing]

From limited observation in our courts, there seems to be a difference between Superior Court and Small Claims Court regarding the type/format of photographic evidence. In Superior Court it seems that the judges allow photographs to be admissable whereas in Small Claims Court the judges tend to only allow consideration of "the original source".... "Don't show me a printout, show it to me on your phone." Presumably, the Superior court trust Law Enforcement and lawyers to present images that are unaltered whereas Small Claims does not necessarily trust citizens to do the same. Small Claims Court seems to have a distinct preference for digital/phone photography, which might be to minimize the opportunities for alteration and perhaps because it's just the way most people document things these days.

No matter, the Courts seem oriented toward "Takers" and against "Makers' LOL

In Superior Court, it may also be that some of the authentication and related issues may have been dealt with ahead of trial.

 

[Vaughn]

Perhaps "fake" is too emotive term, as it has a negative connotation. But if you alter a photo, it's certainly no longer the original scene, so no longer represents physical reality and becomes your interpretation of the scene.
...

But there is always the possibility that an altered image can actually describe reality more fully to the viewer than an unaltered image.

 

[ChrisGalway]

But there is always the possibility that an altered image can actually describe reality more fully to the viewer than an unaltered image.

Can you give some examples? Certainly things like adding or removing objects, HDR, "super-resolution", AI night view "enhancement" etc all distort physical reality.

But I'm open to examples you have in mind. Adjustment of colour perhaps?

 

[koraks]

Certainly things like adding or removing objects, HDR, "super-resolution", AI night view "enhancement" etc all distort physical reality.

If you shoot 8x10 and use aggressive N- development to record a wide scene with an enormous contrast range and print it massively so that details not noticeable to the naked eye become clearly visible when walking up to the print - isn't all of that the same kind of enhancement as HDR, "super-resolution" etc? But I bet everyone here would label it "straight reality" and it wouldn't raise any eyebrows even among the more conservative crowd. But it someone takes a digital camera and does a HDR merge, focus stacking, stitching...oooh boy, that's a whole different story.

As to your example: maybe Rhein II qualifies. A non-existent scene, but the photo captures the essence of this sluggish river lazily making its way through a featureless landscape. I bet most people wouldn't guess how heavily constructed that image is - with the sole purpose of conveying the essence of a particular aspect of reality.

 

[koraks]

Anyway, I still think the whole thing is just silly. The moment you frame a photograph, you deliberately slice a tiny bit of reality (across several dimensions) that then gets encoded in a way that uses physical structures entirely unrelated to the reality that briefly existed in front of the lens. Every photo is 'fake', and 'made'. There's no pure 'taking'; it's all manipulation right from the get-go.

Show a (straight, realistic, detailed) photo of a cat to another cat - it will simply ignore it. Show a cat another actual cat, and you'll have a chaotic furball on your hands. The only difference between a 'taken' and a 'made' photo is the degree to which we allow ourselves to be fooled into believing a symbol.