Ethics on retouching and other "corrections"

[Jmarmck]

In this digital oriented day it is possible to do almost anything to an image.
This is fine and dandy but I have an ethics question.
It is more about opinions.

I scan a neg. I use some software to remove dust, hair and other imperfections.
I cannot imagine anyone getting bent about these actions but I guess there are a few.

I took a shot of a rock in early morning light. It was really nice in color and composition, good enough that I would consider a larger print.
The image was taken with digital camera but that really does not matter here.
Behind the rock and between the rock behind that was a single power pole. While taking the shot I was mentally working out why someone would place the pole in such a difficult spot. Then again I have seen worse idiocy. Basically, the pole ruined the shot. The ability to remove the pole is there. It can be removed with tools so good that only a digital algorithm could find evidence of tinkering.

Here is the question: Do you consider it unethical to remove such objects changing the photo where it no longer represents reality?
Where would you draw the line?

While driving across the SW this last trip, I found there were power lines in some otherwise exceptional landscapes. Would you bypass such a scene even though those power lines can be easily removed?

What about adjusting latitude errors in an image, increase/decreasing foreground/background exposure/tones/textures? What about simpler sharpening?

Just curious how you would feel about such modifications.

[mdarnton]

I would be interested in hearing your argument that removing the pole is unethical. And then I would like to hear you attack the entire fields of art and painting for not being 100% literal renditions of reality. Was it unethical, then, for Leonardo to have painted the Mona Lisa with a background that most certainly was not present behind her?

[Kirk Gittings]

Photography has a relationship to real situations that other art mediums do not. That is part of its unique power. Having said that it has become a very plastic medium easily manipulated. Photography IMHO as a recording medium should always have been suspect. Because I choose to point my camera a particular small pretty area in a vast boring landscape and give it value does that mean it is representative of the whole area? Should I not photograph the boring areas too? Is b&w authentic in an age when color is so readily available.

Virtually every choice we make from loading film on involves some intent to edit reality. Only you can determine where to draw YOUR line. Ethics only come into play if you misrepresent what you have done.

[djdister]

Associating ethics with artistic expression is potentially a false assertion. Alternatively, if one asserts that a photographic representation is unaltered when something has been deliberately altered, whether digitally or optically, then that person is being unethical.

[Jmarmck]

So anything goes as long as it is not misrepresented. But in the end who would care that the pole was removed?

I dunno, for some reason it feels almost like cheating removing that pole or reducing the intensity of the sky to balance the image.
But, I absolutely hate the idea of letting an image go because there is a line (or two or three) of power poles across the scene.
I ran into a lot of this on the trip. I never really considered how many transmission likes there really are until they were effecting how I framed the shot.....in many instances unsuccessfully. We are talking driving miles down a dirt trail to just beyond the nearest pole. The other one is fences. I don't know how much time I wasted trying to get the fence out of the scene.

To accept that these obstacles are there and not let them influence the composition then remove in post edit would make things easier.
I am just trying to come to terms with this.

Wasn't there some group (f64?) that would have disapproved of this. I seem to remember AA and his group at odds with the other.

[gregmo]

I don't see it to be an issue as long as you are honest about it to those who inquire about such aspects of the editing process.
I frequently remove unwanted people, construction equipment & other objects. If shooting in a large city, it's tough to get things completely unobstructed.

[jnantz]

Photography has a relationship to real situations that other art mediums do not. That is part of its unique power. Having said that it has become a very plastic medium easily manipulated. Photography IMHO as a recording medium should always have been suspect. Because I choose to point my camera a particular small pretty area in a vast boring landscape and give it value does that mean it is representative of the whole area? Should I not photograph the boring areas too? Is b&w authentic in an age when color is so readily available.

Virtually every choice we make from loading film on involves some intent to edit reality. Only you can determine where to draw YOUR line. Ethics only come into play if you misrepresent what you have done.

hi kirk

i couldn't agree more with what you said ... but i would put this one step further and say no matter what a photographer does, he or she misrepresents reality.
our eyes do not see in fractions of seconds or in multi second "exposures" we see in a fluid context ... and burning, dodging, forget reality ...

=== Jmarmck

people with cameras have been manipulating images since they learned how to .. back in the 1830s.
i have a book somewhere in my shelf that gives step by step instructions on how to remove braces from
a client's teeth using leads on a negative. removing blemishes, smoothing skin, fixing laugh lines/crows feet
its all been part of a photographer's bag of trix for a long time .. and that doesn't even include making a portrait of
someone that shows them in a different light that people don't even recognize as the person who was photographed ...

i am not sure where ethics comes into play ... its all personal choices i suppose.

[Jim Jones]

To respect the subject in situ, any corrections should be restricted to those necessary to present the subject as it actually was. This may be necessary for legal or scientific reasons. However, most of us have the freedom to be photographers, not lawyers or scientists when behind the camera. Then the finished photograph justifies whatever is needed to fulfill our vision.

[invisibleflash]

OP. I have removed water bottles and things like you mention. I am not hired to shoot social doc photography, I do as my art and I do as I please.

Where I draw the line is composites of different images. Don't know how to do em, nor would I. Generally as long as the mod does not material affect the image I will do it.

[ic-racer]

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