The ethics of modern day photography

[Marko]

I suppose the proper Title for this thread should have been The Ethics of Modern Day Landscape Photography.

And I think this thread belongs to The Lounge so it can be safely ignored.

Or better yet, it should be banned because religious arguments are verboten throughout the site as of lately.

[Jim Becia]

[QUOTE=Stephen Willard;404561]I have returned from my fall photographic trip, and I had the privilege of meeting many photographers over the 4 weeks I was away.



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.


QUOTE]

Stephen,

Hi, I am the guy you met that was shooting 4X10 up on Kebler Pass. I just got back from my trip this morning and saw this thread. Don't mean to call you on the carpet here, but you have made some bad assumptions about some things here. While you looked at my ground glass, you obviously didn't see what I or the film saw. The sky is neither blank nor gray. I realize from our conversations that you like bold contrastiy skies, but my image came out with a nice moody sky with white and blue patches coming through. Your assupmtions are wrong on several fronts. If I print the image (and yes, it would have to be scanned) I will darken the sky slightly and it will be just fine. I will not have to "paint" the sky in by any stretch of the imagination. I guess you've painted a scenario here where you are either saying I'm a bad photographer or I am going to paint in a new sky. Well, I don't think either asumption is true. And the day before when you observed me shooting, again, my skies are wonderful. I'm not sure your vision and my vision and my film's "vision" of the same scene are on the same page. But clearly you see things differently than how my film or I see the image. I've been shooting large format slide film for going on ten years now and know the limitations of the film. And while my slide film won't give me the 10 to 14 stops you state that your negative film will give you, I'm very happy with the type of images that I tend to shoot on slide film. When I get them scanned, I'll be happy to show them to you. But please don't make statements that are not true. Jim Becia

[Michael Alpert]

. . . clearly you see things differently than how my film or I see the image. I've been shooting large format slide film for going on ten years now and know the limitations of the film. . . . Jim Becia

Jim,

Thank you for coming forward. This thread, from the beginning, has needed correction. Photography is both a means of documentation and a vehicle for aesthetic judgement. To have a singular artistic stance is at the heart of the effort. (Stephen's concerns are a secondary issue. The ethics involved in marketing prints is not unique to photography and, frankly, is not complex.) In your very moderate statement, you have spoken well. Thanks again.