Ethics on retouching and other "corrections"

[Kodachrome25]

The most interesting part of this particular topic for me is how it can often be labled as flogging a dead horse and yet it comes up like clockwork. At least this one is civil, it can get kinda crazy at times.

[Jmarmck]

I was just curious what the community thought. I obviously jump the fence like a chicken chasing a junebug.
I appreciate the variety of answers and links. Gives me food for thought.

[invisibleflash]

The “I only shoot BW” photogs can sometimes do an image injustice more so than the photog that removes a stray cig or water bottle.

Take a look at this small format example. It shows how you can lose important information if you put your ego first.

http://testarchives.tumblr.com/image/110723876609

The above example it could have worked in BW or color. But when it goes BW you lose the bluish light on the upper left. The blue light signifies the prostitute depicted in the graf is a male transsexual. So, that's what is lost in the BW version.

[Kirk Gittings]

If one only shoots b&w, their image is b&w, then it was likely seen in b&w-at least I do and I think it is pretty common amongst hardcore b&w photographers. So while the scene was color the image was always b&w-no "injustice" to the image.

[David_Senesac]

Gee its been quite awhile since photographic web communities had another bout with these subjects. A whole new generation of photographers is of course always rising up and asking these same questions we old timers debated. Way back during the early Internet days Compuserve.com photo forum was where much of that occurred and I have been rather vocal since those times. I'm reading some of the same opinions and arguments in this thread that were tossed out back then.

At some point I got tired of repeating the same thing to each new crop of debaters so eventually stuck a 3 page essay on my website in 2005 that also describes how I personally address the game.

http://www.davidsenesac.com/david_philosophy1.html

A bit dated now a decade later but still much applies. 3 snippets from above link:

My work has been about making outdoor images with good resolution and color fidelity, able to be printed large, resulting in prints that reasonably represent moments in time naturally captured...

The often offered statement by those that advocate anything goes is that because prints can never look perfectly like the real thing, there isn't value in trying to record visual images faithfully. Of course a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater fallacy. Any person can readily tell the difference between a print in which the photographer tried to capture and post process a subject faithfully versus the vast majority that are manipulated...

I am one that has always stated any amount of manipulation in photography is perfectly fine and ethical. However when someone presents such work to the public they ought to at least in some small way let their public audience know what and how such work was created. In other words that photographers be honest and up front about their work. So that their public audience at least minimally understands what they are looking at without wondering or needing to pry such information out with questions.

[Vaughn]

So nobody burns in and nobody dodges...

I generally do not.

If a scene has an element I do not want in the image, I do not expose the film.

[Tin Can]

I bet we suffer from image enhancement disease. Meaning as we constantly see more and more enhanced images our sense and brain interpretation is dulled, just like we acclimate to salt and sugar excess.

An example is nobody has real teeth in any mass consumed image or movie. The whiteness and toothy perfection shown to us hundreds of times a day has changed what we perceive as normal.

Take a good look at your own teeth in a mirror. Then watch TV or 'read' a magazine.

[Rick A]

Personally, I'm from the school of WYSIWYG. I almost never burn or dodge, I do spot if necessary. Today, I was stunned by something I read on another site. The poster wrote that he "hand colors" his photos with PS. HUH? How does that work? I hand color, with pastels, acrylics, or oils, etc. on my prints. I compose full frame, and only crop if it absolutely needs to be when printing, cropping should be done in camera. Just MHO.

[erie patsellis]

If one starts with the generally accepted ( in the art world) definition of art as the process of communicating an idea, concept or emotion through manipulation of a medium, then the means to just that is left to the artist personally. While I often limit myself to processes that mimic what can be done in a darkroom, if a concept is better communicated through manipulation, so what.

A dogmatic, purist approach may work for some, but not for me.

[Ray Heath]

Ethics doesn't exist in the digital domain...

Surely ethics has more to do with the operator than the medium.

I can't believe Saint Ansel didn't 'alter' a scene to present his version of 'realty'.