The ethics of modern day photography

[Stephen Willard]

I have returned from my fall photographic trip, and I had the privilege of meeting many photographers over the 4 weeks I was away.

After many discussions with the photographers on this trip, I have come to the conclusion that modern day photographers are fabricating images at a rampant level. All photographers I talked with used a digital solution either with a digital camera or by scanning film and printing digitally. No one I meet used traditional photographic methods like myself.

The question I asked was “I was considering switching to digital and what can I do with digital that I can not do with my darkroom?”. Categorically, every photographer who owned a digital camera told me how they fabricated images. Some of the examples were painting in different skies, adding a rainbow, removing park benches, and just about anything you could imagine. All of them admitted that there were people who found this practice troubling, but that did not bother them.

The one large format photographer I met who scanned his film did not admit to fabricating images. However, I did observe him shooting under a blank gray sky the day before I met him and was suspicious. After he had composed his photograph while I was watching the next day, I asked him if I could look at the 4x10 image on his ground glass. I was not surprised to find a giant blank gray sky occupying at least half the image. Either he was a bad photographer or he was going to paint in a different sky once the film was scanned. I concluded that because he was an experienced LF 4x10 guy, then the latter was most likely true.

Am I the only one that finds this behavior unethical or is that just the way it is? Maybe I am just out of touch with mainstream ethics because I am the only photographer that was using traditional methods. The modern day photographer posts his images to world declaring greatness when in reality he is sitting at his computer fabricating images with Photoshop and other AI software.

Some say the general public does not care, so why should I care. Is there a possibility that those who buy photographic art just do not understand the magnitude and scope of the practice? Is it possible that as time marches on digitally generated images will be viewed in a negative light as cheap computer art as fabrication becomes the expected norm? Could this practice undermine the validity and perceived value of digital art in the long run?

What do think?

[ic-racer]

I don't think the type of image manipulation you describe is unethical. Just stupid.

[Marko]

I don't think the type of image manipulation you describe is unethical. Just stupid.

And it has nothing to do with digital either, all those things have been done before.

Digital just makes it easier. Which it is supposed to, simply because making things easier and more efficient is the very purpose of every new technology.

[Marko]

I have returned from my fall photographic trip, and I had the privilege of meeting many photographers over the 4 weeks I was away.

After many discussions with the photographers on this trip, I have come to the conclusion that modern day photographers are fabricating images at a rampant level. All photographers I talked with used a digital solution either with a digital camera or by scanning film and printing digitally. No one I meet used traditional photographic methods like myself.

So, digital has become the mainstream technology. Why do you call it "fabricating"?

[BarryS]

This has nothing to do with ethics and everything to do artistic and aesthetic decisions. From an artistic standpoint, I find a lot of over-photoshopped work to be pure kitsch--sentimental overwrought, and artificial. I accept the fact that this sort of "artistic power" has never been available to those without traditional illustration skills, so we're seeing a lot of overindulgence. I think widespread digital overmanipulation has been driving a good number of people back into traditional and alternative photographic processes--which seem to be thriving these days. As to the "value" of digital art--the cow is already out of the barn. I find most buyers are interested in the artistic vision and less so in the process and materials--unless we're talking about process art, which is still driven by the artist. Is the trend more toxic than the excesses of pictorialism or the dullest incarnations of the latest new topographics? Probably not.

[Paul Bujak]

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.

[mrladewig]

What do think?

I think you must need a ladder to get up on your high horse.

[Stephen Willard]

So, digital has become the mainstream technology. Why do you call it "fabricating"?

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.

[Nathan Potter]

There are really no bounds to photographic art. As far as I'm concerned any manipulative technique is game when revealing your artistic vision in an image. We should be celebrating the move away from just straight documentary photography while at the same time still admiring the content of those traditional images.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Frank Petronio]

Uh-oh I am going to Hades.

So... when you move your camera up a little higher, or over a little to the left in order to exclude that park bench or those nasty telephone wires, aren't you just as guilty of "manipulating the image"? Whether you do it in camera, in the darkroom, or with Photoshop, every image is manipulated and "unethical" in some way. Unless you were some sort of cold robot documenting the world in a consistent grid -- and even that would be subjective -- I don't see how a thinking intelligent being could not be editing -- and therefore manipulating and constructing -- the images they make. I'd even call this manipulation "the creative process" and the most important part of making the image!

There is just as much craftsmanship and hard work in doing a good job with a digital image as a precious darkroom print. If your theory that the worth of digital images would be devalued by virtue of the glut of poorly done digital images -- well, the majority of traditional photographs have been poorly done over a nearly 200 year history -- billions of pictures -- so you tell me how that has affected the value of traditional photos?

And finally, I shoot blank skies sometimes. I guess I am a lousy photographer (but in Hades who cares?)