The ethics of modern day photography

[Stephen Willard]

I think that manipulating a digital photo to do such things as adding rainbows or removing park benches is unethical if the resulting picture is presented as "this is what I saw and this is what you will see if you go there". I don't know of anyone who would spot a negative to add objects , etc. Not even sure if it can be done.

Just as a model may be made more beautiful by, say, putting on lipstick, so may a digital photo, by adding saturation or sharpening, etc. This is what we attempt to do in a conventional wet darkroom. It may not be exactly what the photographer saw at the moment of exposure, but I believe such enhancements are akin to what an artist using oils, acrylics or watercolor might do. These are interpretive enhancements, not outright fraud.

If you are making investigative or forensic photos, then wysiwyg.. If you are making photographic art, then technical enhancements are OK. Adding or deleting objects post-exposure is not.

Just my opinion.

Paul I agree with you. Changing the mood of the expressive image by changing the gray scale or color scale is in keeping with the ethics practiced by many great photographers. However, changing the elements of the optical reality and selling it to the world as a real image is my belief a fraudulent act.

[W K Longcor]

I see no problem with the "ethics" of modern photography. The "art" is in the final print -- to the viewer (not always the artist/ photographer) the means of making he image is not important. The great pictorialists of the 20th century often printed in clouds and skys from other negatives. They often used retouching or art work on paper negatives to remove telephone poles, signs, and other distactions. One of my favorite images, "Green Pastures" by Adolf Fassbender, shows an Austrian shephard with his flock -- the background is composed of Swiss Alps and sky from a different negative taken many hundreds of miles away and on a different day.

When I was in the business of commercial photography, I took great pride in my "special effects" photography. I often made 3, 4, 5 or more exposures on a single sheet of film. I like to think it took a great deal of skill and an artistic eye. Could these same images be made with a computer today? You bet! And with a trained technician at the computer, probably a whole lot easier, too. But that does not make the image worth less to he viewer.

Now when digital photography first came on the scene, there seemed to be a lot of contrived images. I remember an awful lot of awful images of eyeballs and lips floating in clouds. They signified nothing but, "Hey! look what I can do with a computer!" I think ( I hope) we are passed that trite stuff. So three cheers for digital manipulation! And, two times three cheers for the craftspeople who can still do it the "old fashioned" way!

[John Kasaian]

Stephan,
You work within the confines of your element because you see a greater value (and reward) in a traditional approach to photography (and a lesser value in digital.)

The problem isn't I think one of ethics. The photograhers you met are artists painting pictures in photoshop and see this as an advancement whereas you (and I) march to a different beat.

IMHO, a better course would be to take confidence in your abilities and the tools you use rather than compare apples to oranges.

I wouldn't want to stir up the film vs pixel gollum but I think we need to recognize that not only the tools are different, but the approaches as well. The attractions many find appealing in digital is contrary to a more mechanical method and vice-versa. What is given as creative freedom in one "camp" is seen as limiting and restrictive in the other.
I think that this is what you may be finding objectionable.
Focus on what you do. The other photographers you've met might control the skies (on their computer screens ) but they don't control what makes you happy.

[John Voss]

I think ethics become an issue only in the case of manipulations that distort or change an image in the context of the expected veracity of photo-journalism.

Painters, pictorialist photographers, and digital photographers who are making imagery for the sake of aesthetic satisfaction have only their own criteria to answer to, so only if you regard yourself as a strict modernist would significant manipulation be a no-no. Even though I personally make photographs that are as nearly "straight" as I can make them, I have no problem with those who go to any length with their own work as far as their ethics are concerned. Only if they are offering an image as representative of a specific place when it actually isn't, would I object.

[rob cruickshank]

I think that manipulating a digital photo to do such things as adding rainbows or removing park benches is unethical if the resulting picture is presented as "this is what I saw and this is what you will see if you go there". I don't know of anyone who would spot a negative to add objects , etc. Not even sure if it can be done.
Just my opinion.

Actually, Ansel Adams painted his negative to remove the initials of the town Lone Pine, which were spelled out in white rocks on a hill, and would have otherwise "spoiled" his photograph Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada , From Lone Pine , California .
The idea that photographs are somehow "real" should have been thrown out about a hundred years ago. That said, I choose not to shoot a whole roll of full moons on a roll of 35mm film so that it can be rewound and reshot with a wide lens at dusk with no moon (an idea from a photo magazine I read in the 70s), or to photoshop angel wings onto babies, or whatnot, but I won't say it's not photography. (I will, however snicker and point behind the backs of those who do so)

[arkady n.]

Uh-oh I am going to Hades.

What is the development time for 8x10 tray processing in Hades? I am guessing it will be hard to do temperature control...

[Richard Wasserman]

What is the development time for 8x10 tray processing in Hades? I am guessing it will be hard to do temperature control...

Wouldn't it depend on which circle you found yourself on? I'm just guessing here, but I would think the temperature might be pretty consistent on each level. I'd worry more about all those flames fogging the film.

[eddie]

i understand what steven is saying.....

i do not do PS manipulation for a number of reasons. one being i do not agree with putting in or taking out parts of the scene (i do not agree with the idea that moving your camera is the same thing as PS out a park bench either). but this is just me. other people are doing it and will do it.....i do not. another reason is i do not have the skills to do this with PS (and i do not wish to spend my time learning such things. i have other stuff i would rather spend my time doing).

i shoot in my style cause i like it and i gain huge satisfaction doing it my way. personally i enjoy the reward of setting it all up metering and waiting for the perfect moment. i also find it relaxing....maybe others simply do not have the time or the desire to wait for the "perfect" moment....maybe that perfect moment requires a computer and PS knowledge.....

people say that it is the end image that is important not anything up to that point. again, i disagree. but this is my opinion and no one needs to do anything the way i think it needs to be done.....except me!

personally i have greater respect for images and photographers that can do it in camera without PS manipulation. BUT again this is only my opinion! i can appreciate other photos that were "enhanced" (many times i do not even know!) but i do not strive to emulate them. i do strive to emulate photos that have not been PS by an "artist/photographer"

eddie

[John Kasaian]

Actually, Ansel Adams painted his negative to remove the initials of the town Lone Pine, which were spelled out in white rocks on a hill, and would have otherwise "spoiled" his photograph Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada , From Lone Pine , California .
The idea that photographs are somehow "real" should have been thrown out about a hundred years ago. That said, I choose not to shoot a whole roll of full moons on a roll of 35mm film so that it can be rewound and reshot with a wide lens at dusk with no moon (an idea from a photo magazine I read in the 70s), or to photoshop angel wings onto babies, or whatnot, but I won't say it's not photography. (I will, however snicker and point behind the backs of those who do so)

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.

[Greg Miller]

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.

It depends on your artistic vision and how well (or not) you execute your modifications.

And by the way, putting a new sky over a landscape that was shot under a heavily clouded gray sky most likely will not look natural. And that may be the intent. But adding a new sky and making it look natural can take quite a bit of skill.

I also wonder about how many serious representational photographers are Photoshopping objects in/out of their images. It happens, but it isn't that common with the people that I know.