Changing Skies - Opinions

[rabanito]

The difference is simple:

Being a Time Magazine Person of the Year or compositing yourself into the Time Magazine Person of the Year template.

Disagree.
Is more like being the girl next door whith her cell phone and some photo apps or being Goya
The result is what counts

[rgs]

The difference is simple:

Being a Time Magazine Person of the Year or compositing yourself into the Time Magazine Person of the Year template.

Very clear analogy, Slobodan. Thank you. In this case, I had modifying the sky in mind when I made the photograph because I could only get the bird positioned where I wanted in the frame by leaving that large, blank sky to the right - and Red-tailed Hawks are notorious for not sticking around long so you have to move quickly. Adding a sky was part of the original plan - maybe a bit like planning to reduce or extend development in the zone system.
 

[kers]

In my architecture work sometimes i was asked to make the photographs not too perfect looking.
The reason was that it would look more real and stand out from the all too perfect rendering they made beforehand.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... The result is what counts.

If so,  a real Goya would be worth exactly as much as any forgery of it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... I had modifying the sky in mind when I made the photograph...

So you are saying that, when taking a selfie, you already had in mind to composite it into the Time Magazine Person of the Year?

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

I particularly enjoyed listening to Nick in this video link, as he discusses image manipulation and especially at 15:30 minutes in, Is it OK to Manipulate your photos? where Nick begins to discuss the veracity of the work by Peter Lik and one of his images as attached to this post below via a screen grab.

So what do you think of this image of Peter Lik's? I mean if changing the sky is acceptable to you, then surely this image should also be acceptable to you as well shouldn't it?

And if it is, then are you also OK with the fact that this image is showing clouds that go around the back of the moon 

I don't understand what do you mean exactly with "acceptable" (satisfactory and able to be agreed to or approved of)
Say acceptable to whom? Photographers, artists, general public, press photographers, luminouslandscapers...
A difficult question, at least for me

Hi Rabanito - I am not saying we as a group should arrive at an agreement as to what is and what is not acceptable, I am simply posing the question to you and to each one of us individually - so would you (and by this I mean all of us individually) find it acceptable to change out the foreground if you already find it is acceptable to change out the sky and if not why not???

I also have to agree with Slobodan, who always seems able to wrap up the answer to a complex argument in a simple sentence.

Dave

[RSL]

The answer to the "should you do it" depends on what you're trying to do. If you're doing photojournalism or street photography, modifying the result is a very strict "no no." But if you're doing landscape or something similar you can try to be Albert Bierstadt, and paint with Photoshop. You probably won't come even close to Bierstadt's results, but you can play with it.

[Alan Klein]

Why waste your time with the sky?  If you're going to clone things, insert a squirrel in its talons.  Now that would make it dramatic.   Of course, a lot of people would object, that your shots aren't "honest".  So there's that. 

Personally, I'm against that sort of thing all though I have cloned out debris and stuff.

[Alan Klein]

If painters were as puritanically "purist" as some photographers here, they would have to exhibit nothing but blank canvases. After all, each brush stroke is a distortion/corruption of that pure, blank canvas.

Here is a photo I posted in another thread recently. It is, of course, Absolutely Pure, in that I did NOT replace the original sky!
And, since the car had been abandoned many years ago, I was unable to get the owner's permission to photograph it.

But everyone understands the artist is painting from his head.  It's not a snapshot of a moment in time in God's universe.  It's a composite of the artist's mind and vision.  Most people believe or use too, that a picture was the former, a fraction of a second in time never to happen again.

I guess the way to handle it is as follows.  If the viewer looks at you strangely and asks, "Did you Photoshop it?" and you feel queasy by his question, then you've gone too far. 

[Jeremy Roussak]

Personally, I'm against that sort of thing all though I have cloned out debris and stuff.

If that's regarded as OK (and it certainly is, in my book), then all we're talking about is the practice, not the principle. It reminds me of the story of George Bernard Shaw and an actress:

Shaw: Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?
Actress: My goodness. Well, I'd certainly think about it.

Shaw: Would you sleep with me for a pound?
Actress: Certainly not! What kind of woman do you think I am?!

Shaw: Oh, we've already established that. Now we are just haggling over the price.

Jeremy

[Alan Klein]

Which reminds me of the joke about the guy who went to a party.  So he sees this pretty girl and wanders over to her to strike up a conversation. 

She yells out in a voice to be heard by everyone in the room, "No. I won't go to bed with you.  What kind of girl do you take me for?"

Embarrassed, the poor lad retreats to the other side of the room.  About ten minutes later, the same girl meanders over to him and with a sheepish grin apologizes, " I didn't mean to embarrass you.  This party is so dull.  I was trying to liven it up a bit."

Whereupon the lad responded in a voice to be heard by everyone in the room, "$100. No. I won't pay you $100."

[rgs]

So you are saying that, when taking a selfie, you already had in mind to composite it into the Time Magazine Person of the Year?

  Well, when you say it like that...

[rgs]

This is turning into a very interesting discussion. Thank you all.

[rabanito]

If so,  a real Goya would be worth exactly as much as any forgery of it.

Depending on what you mean by "worth".
I'm told there are lots of forgeries around and not even the experts and critics notice, like the head of Modigliani * :-)
Even in museums
On the other hand there is a selfie by one "Andy Warhol" sold at Sotheby's once for 7.7 mio $ (!!!) Is that what it's "worth"?
One can be sceptical of the "art community with good reason :-)

*
Livorno in the summer of 1984: In the hometown of the artist Amedeo Modigliani, which is known for the biting humor of its residents, the joke of three students causes great excitement and unfolds unexpected effects. In a single night, the occasional artist had chiseled a head "à la Modi" with the help of a drill.

When the work was discovered the next day, critics and art historians were delighted with the extraordinary sculpture find. They believed they had discovered a real work by the master Modigliani. The news spread rapidly and drew masses of tourists and media representatives from all over the world to Livorno...
From ARD.de 28.8.2011

[rabanito]

Hi Rabanito - I am not saying we as a group should arrive at an agreement as to what is and what is not acceptable, I am simply posing the question to you and to each one of us individually - so would you (and by this I mean all of us individually) find it acceptable to change out the foreground if you already find it is acceptable to change out the sky and if not why not???
Dave

Hi Dave
Again, I think I understand what you mean but to me the word "acceptable" has no meaning in this context.
What is acceptable to me might not be acceptable to others. The word per se is ambiguous IMHO
Why could it be unacceptable? Or the other way around?
I personally care for the image, be it done with only the camera, with some photoshop, with lots of photoshop, with some oil or tempera painting added or else.
This of course if you are making "art"  , not documentation, investigation, illustrations, journalism etc.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

The difference is simple:

Being a Time Magazine Person of the Year or compositing yourself into the Time Magazine Person of the Year template.

Bravo.

Hmmm. I've got to try that. I bet nobody ever did it before...   

[KMRennie]

Are we trying to produce an image that is pleasing to our eyes, in some cases will sell well, or are we trying to faithfully reproduce what nature puts in front of us?

[RSL]

Both objectives are legitimate, Ken, but not both at the same time.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Both objectives are legitimate, Ken, but not both at the same time.

+1.

[Chris Calohan]

I have to get into this conversation, though I know I should just read along and chuckle on occasion.

If you shoot an image and do anything to any slider in either your RAW editor or Photoshop/LR you are manipulating the image. Everybody does some work in PP. by the very nature of the 1's and 0's of digital imagery some manipulation is necessary. I rarely will do a whole sky changeout because it is so hard to recreate the lighting precisely and I am a stickler for that. The image I recently posted, The Fog Just Rolled On In, was manipulated in so much as to get better detail in the shadows of the land mass and to give a better emphasis to the foreground fog mass - and a bit of a blue channel bump.

So, did I change the original image...yes but only because the contrasts my eye could easily discern could not be properly exposed for given the time frame I was working in as the whole sequence from onset to burn off was less than fifteen minutes. So I exposed for the highlights and PP'ed for the shadows. I don't advocate manipulating to the extent that we fake everything in a shot unless it is clearly stated as such but not adverse to some cloning, healing or other tools to present the best image.