The ethics of modern day photography

[Stephen Willard]

Again it is not what I think, but rather how the buying patron will react should they perceive digital landscape photography as highly manipulated fakes. Of course, this may never happen, but there is a very real possibility that it could. I just believe that digital landscape photographers are treading on thin ice.

This may be kind of like mortgage loans and credit card practices the banking industry has engaged in for the past eight years. What goes around can catch up with you guys and completely undermine your discipline. I am not saying it will, but there is a real possibility that it could. Personally, I hope it does not because if that happens, then it would have a negative effect on all photographic landscape art which includes me.

[Brian Ellis]

Simply because they are misrepresenting the original scene and then selling it to world as if its the real stuff. There are many examples of digital images that are fabricated, but it is clearly obvious that the photographer is doing so. It is when the photographer sells the image as real when it is really a fictional piece that I find unethical. If a corporate enterprise were to do such a thing with their products, then people would be quite angry about it. I think there were laws passed about this when the toy industry was misrepresenting their products some years ago on TV.

Here is another way to think about. If I were to try and sell one of my landscape images with a note underneath it stating this image has been heavy modified using my computer to add the sky and rainbow to the scene, then I dought very much if I could price the print for much more than one of those pretty pictures you find at Wal-Mart housewares section.

Do you think the result would be different if I tried to sell one of my landscape images with a note underneath it saying "this image was made using Velvia film, which is why the color is highly saturated beyond anything you'd see in the original scene, and I used a polarizing filter on the camera to make the sky appear bluer and darker than it really was and also to remove reflections from the water. Then in the darkroom I dodged the clouds so that they'd appear whiter than they really were. I also burned down those distracting bright lights in the background and I dodged the crest of the waves to increase the contrast between them and the dark sea?"

Or how many portraits would I sell if I attached a note saying "you don't really look anywhere near this good in real life. I used a filter on the camera to soften the lines in your face and make you look 20 years younger than you really are. I also retouched the negative to remove the wrinkles in your neck and hide that scar on your left cheek. And of course I posed you and used lighting in such a way that your double chin isn't noticeable."

And what would you say about the 19th century landscape photographers who routinely moved skies from one photograph to another and sold them as "the real stuff?"

The fact is that photography of the kind we talk abut here isn't now and never has been about simply reproducing the original scene as faithfully as possible. And that's true whether the materials used were dry plates, film, or a sensor and whether the print was edited in the dakroom or the computer. The only difference beween traditional methods of manipulation and digital methods is that at the extremes it's far easier to do digitally so you see more of it. But that's a difference of degree, not of ethics and morality.

[Curt Palm]

Prior to the invention of panchromatic films it was a common practice to substitute skies, because the earlier blue sensitive films blew out the skies.

I also find it interesting that you seem to be unable to conceive of a strong landscape image that does not have dramatic skies as if there is only one viable landscape aesthetic.

Yosemite had an exhibition a few years back with photos from muybridge and others, large camera folk. These people hauled around 16x20 cameras.
Several of the prints had the exact same clouds - I'd guess they had a few negatives of clouds that were really good. Without the prints being side by side I probably won't have noticed, and maybe not even then except it was pointed out and explained in the notes by the photograph.

[rob cruickshank]

Hogwash. If photographs can't represent the truest image available of what is real they wouldn't be allowed as evidence in court and all the historic archives, and identification cards, along with text book illustrations and aerial mapping would be for naught.

And the hills would be hopping with jackalopes, and the lochs swimming with monsters.

[Stephen Willard]

Hogwash. If photographs can't represent the truest image available of what is real they wouldn't be allowed as evidence in court and all the historic archives, and identification cards, along with text book illustrations and aerial mapping would be for naught.

John, I believe (but not 100% sure) photographs are NO longer considered as admissable evidence in the court room.

[Merg Ross]

Perhaps photography is an unethical practice. All images are in some way manipulated and are distortions of reality.

[Frank Petronio]

There are ~digtial~ cameras with locked GPS and time information that are "locked" and their photos do serve as evidence.

Of course this wouldn't be as secure with traditional film and chemistry ;-)

[Stephen Willard]

I would like to make it clear here that the issues I am raising and the language I have chosen to use for this thread is not inappropriate, and could be the very perceptions that the photographic patron may adopt as digital finds it place in the art world, for better or worse.

Fakes, fraudulent, Wal-Mart art, geek art, and unethical may be labels that will be realized from the very practices I am questioning. The questions I am asking are very controversial, and there are no easy answers, but it something we must all consider on our journey as landscape photographers. I personally believe the behaviors that digital photographers are engaging in are risky and not without consequences.

You make not like what I have to say, and you may make personal attacks on me and my art, but that will not change the fact that there may be a time bomb ticking here.

[Stephen Willard]

There are ~digtial~ cameras with locked GPS and time information that are "locked" and their photos do serve as evidence.

This is off topic, but frankly Frank, it is not possible to lock anything in digital land. I could write a Unix script and dump the entire content of the digital binary in octal format and pipe into a text editor and find and edit that information very quickly. No big deal.

[domenico Foschi]

It isn't an issue of ethics.
I retouch my negatives and my prints if I see something that doesn't fit in my negatives.
The real intent is not a faithful reproduction of reality but a faithful reproduction of the mood I intend to convey.
Looking at your images, Stephen, I see quite a bit of manipulation in your images as well at the point of the result being untrue to the real scene.
If what you are trying to say is that PS now makes things too easy in a way, that is true, but it takes a a skilled and trained eye to know when to stop and to understand that less is more in many cases.
But mind, this is true in everything and traditional photogrpahers are not aware of that either.
That maNY people buy some monstrous images is another issue that raises mainly the questions that not everybody should have eyes, or walls to hang such pictures, and these people are the same who probably value the flavor of a cake by its bright colors.