AB:"Why Photoshop is not Ruining Landscape Photography"

[amolitor]

Journalistic standards are, to be blunt, a sham intended to create the impression of objectivity. You can lie with a crop, or by selecting one picture instead of another, as effectively and more easily than with the clone tool. And all to often our news organizations do.

It's all artifice.

[Colorado David]

Journalistic standards are, to be blunt, a sham intended to create the impression of objectivity. You can lie with a crop, or by selecting one picture instead of another, as effectively and more easily than with the clone tool. And all to often our news organizations do.

It's all artifice.

It's not photography, but it's journalism.  Look at the tempest today over the flimsy and false reporting in the Rolling Stone on the campus rape story.  Heads should roll over that deal, but they've already announced no one will be fired and the writer will continue to write for the magazine.  They based their entire reporting on one person's interview who turned out to be creating a complete work of fiction.

[Colorado David]

David,

It was a joke.

Having said that, our (relatively) in-focus field of view approximates to a horizontal ellipse, when our eyes are stationary.

We see with our eyes only that which falls within our field of view. Does everything outside of it not exist as a part of reality?

I know you were joking, and I was joking, in a way, in return.  I was using a deadpan question and my response to your answer to make a point.

[Alan Klein]

Actually a photograph never represents reality.
It may, or may not, be an acceptable representation of someones definition of reality but a photograph, in absolute terms, it is not reality.

This is much more than semantics because misunderstanding this issue is actually fuelling a lot of debates.
IMHO post-processing manipulation may actually enhance the reality of an image despite the fact that pixels may be bent.

Assuming a camera, and its sensor, is the ultimate arbitrator of reality is just way off the mark.

Tell that to the judge.

[Tony Jay]

Well, Tony, debates are there not because the other side misunderstood something, but because the other side (myself included) has a different opinion. Otherwise, you seem to claim the "truth" for yourself, and misunderstanding for those who disagree.

So Slobodan, when I set my camera up with neutral-density filters and take a ten or fifteen second shot of a waterfall to smooth out the flow into something ethereal doing this goes way, way beyond what a human is capable of experiencing unassisted.
This "reality" cannot be realised by the human eye.
If you believe, having seen a beautiful photograph of a waterfall shot in this way, if you travel to the location of that waterfall expecting to see what you saw in that photograph you will be mightily disappointed.
However, if we understand that the appearance of the waterfall in the photograph is an abstraction of the flow of water over the waterfall then there is no problem.
As soon as that photograph is interpreted as a literal reality problems arise.

There is certainly no need invoke post-processing as an evil that can introduce "unreality" when we can use our cameras so easily to produce the same result.

BTW I think if anyone is taking binary position on this Slobodan it may be you.
You certainly want to push me into the polar opposite of your thinking.

Tony Jay

[amolitor]

But quite apart from the integrity of the NYT or whatever.

The point is that saying 'we crop but don't adjust color or clone' sounds like 'our photos are incapable of not being truthful' and that is incorrect. You can lie with a crop just fine.

Eliminating this tool but permitting that one is a silly, arbitrary game.

[Tony Jay]

Tell that to the judge.

Ever heard of a miscarriage of justice?

Tony Jay

[Alan Klein]

Andrew:  Most things are a matter of degree.  It's often in the eye of the beholder.  But cropping out the other photographer shooting nearby so the scene looks beautiful is one thing.  And swapping out the sky in one picture and inserting into a second is another thing.  Most people, layman in particular, would agree with this concept.  After all,they are the viewer of the photo.  They don't like being fooled.

[amolitor]

Yes. Sometimes the crop costs little and sometimes it costs a lot. That's my earlier point.

The costs in terms of truth or reality or whatever have little to do with the particular tool.

Thus, arguing about which tools are 'ok' is a distraction at best.

[AreBee]

Andrew,

No.

Yes.

The power of a photograph over other forms lies in, precisely, its reality.  Every bit of manipulation you perform sacrifices a little bit of that reality. Therefore, make your sacrifices count.

As your text currently stands, no allowance exists for manipulation to enhance reality, only for it to reduce the power of a photograph by sacrificing a part of its reality. The logical conclusion from "make your sacrifices count" is therefore to make fewer, smaller sacrifices (manipulations) or, taken to the limit, for manipulation to be not carried out at all.

In some cases, cropping may exact a tremendous cost...

Given that the decision to crop rests with the photographer, how will a cost be incurred?

You can lie with a crop...

Please can you explain/provide an example?

[amolitor]

There is a famous photograph which I regret I cannot find.

There are, I think, three soldiers standing and a fourth person on the ground. Cropped down to two soldiers it appears they are holding the fourth person prisoner in a threatening way. Cropped to another grouping it appears they are ministering to the fourth person.

As I recall the three soldiers are ministering (giving water? Tending injuries?) And there is an accidental alignment of a rifle.

ETA: Two soldiers, actually. I found the picture.

But you surely didn't actually need me to provide an example. I think you're nitpicking to try to make me jump through hoops.

As for my other remarks, you are choosing silly interpretations. If instead you assume that perhaps I am not a moron, you'll have better luck understanding them.

[AreBee]

Andrew,

I assume your previous post is addressed to me.

...you surely didn't actually need me to provide an example. I think you're nitpicking to try to make me jump through hoops.

You are mistaken on both counts. First, I was interested in understanding how a crop could be considered to lie. Second, I have no interest in making others "jump through hoops".

If instead you assume that perhaps I am not a moron, you'll have better luck understanding them.

I do not consider you to be a moron.

[stamper]

Rob at the risk of inflaming things - which isn't my intention - you have a posting "style" that comes across as irksome. I am not against quoting people's words but you tend to take them out of context and "demand" answers. Do you work in management? A technique I have come across in my working days.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The pinnacle of forum debates. The argument to end all arguments:

[AreBee]

stamper,

...at the risk of inflaming things - which isn't my intention...

There is no risk - no offense taken.

This thread is not about me. Let us not turn it into one.

[amolitor]

If you're going to make the logical leap that "X has a cost" to "you should avoid the use of X (entirely/as much as possible)" then I honestly have no idea what to say. There's some kind of fundamental disconnect. Replace X with "sausages" and think it through. As I have already once suggested you do.

Perhaps you're trying to figure out which side of the "photoshop is great"/"photoshop is evil" false dichotomy I am on? I'm not talking in code. The dichotomy is, in my opinion, false, and I am on neither side of it.

All this is implicit, I even dare say clear, in the original statement: Therefore, make your sacrifices count.

[Alan Klein]

There is a famous photograph which I regret I cannot find.

There are, I think, three soldiers standing and a fourth person on the ground. Cropped down to two soldiers it appears they are holding the fourth person prisoner in a threatening way. Cropped to another grouping it appears they are ministering to the fourth person.

As I recall the three soldiers are ministering (giving water? Tending injuries?) And there is an accidental alignment of a rifle....  [/i]

If the picture is cropped to show anything but what really happened, then it is a lie.  If the photographer deliberately did that to make his political point, and he worked for the NY Times, he would be fired, and rightly so.  The photographer does not have license to crop or change the truth of what  actually happened in my opinion.  It is incumbent on him, if he has his ethics in the right place, to not change the photo to deceive the viewer. 


In another related situation, a photo could be telling the truth.  But the caption could be saying something that was not the truth about what the photo captured.   I'm reminded of that photo showing a polar bear swimming in the Arctic Ocean, with little ice floating around him.  The caption says global warming is destroying the bear's environment (which may or may not be the truth-not for my point).  But the truth about the photo is that polar bears often swim in the ocean, in fact great distances and have been doing that long before man burned fossil fuels.  The photo depicts a true scene.  The caption was written to make a political point and falsely describes what actually is happening.

[amolitor]

But all crops lie, to one degree or another. Nothing exists or happens in isolation. By selecting a frame, you choose a subset of the world, you isolate it, and present it as a thing in and of itself.

Sometimes the falsehood is very very small, as you have selected some collection of things relies very little on the rest of the world for meaning. Sometimes it is very very big.

There are always matters of degree. The cost, in terms how much of reality you have sacrificed varies, of course. But virtually everything we do as we make photographs chips away at that reality, one way or another, to one degree or another. You can't measure it. beyond "a lot" and "not very much," you can only apply your best judgement. Pay whatever price is necessary to say what you need to say. Sometimes you pay a high price (Gurksy) and hope that it's worth it. Sometimes you pay a lower price (Evans).

Who's "right"? Who's "wrong"? These are not questions that even make sense.

[dreed]

If the picture is cropped to show anything but what really happened, then it is a lie.  If the photographer deliberately did that to make his political point, and he worked for the NY Times, he would be fired, and rightly so.  The photographer does not have license to crop or change the truth of what  actually happened in my opinion.  It is incumbent on him, if he has his ethics in the right place, to not change the photo to deceive the viewer. 

Explain to me how it is different to crop a picture vs use a different zoom setting and why one would result in a person being fired and the other not.

In another related situation, a photo could be telling the truth.  But the caption could be saying something that was not the truth about what the photo captured.   I'm reminded of that photo showing a polar bear swimming in the Arctic Ocean, with little ice floating around him.  The caption says global warming is destroying the bear's environment (which may or may not be the truth-not for my point).  But the truth about the photo is that polar bears often swim in the ocean, in fact great distances and have been doing that long before man burned fossil fuels.  The photo depicts a true scene.  The caption was written to make a political point and falsely describes what actually is happening.

No, it doesn't. Polar ice in the north is shrinking year on year. That is a provable fact from imagery taken by satellites. As polar ice forms part of a polar bear's habitat therefore the polar bear's habitat is shrinking (or being destroyed) as a result of global warming. The photo has been chosen to tell a story and does so in a way that grabs attention. Maybe you would have preferred the polar bear to be photographed in water without any ice around it instead? Regardless, the photo is very much in tune with what is actually happening - unless you choose to deny climate change (global warming) as a result of human activity and its impact on the environment - especially in the artic circle.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

If the picture is cropped to show anything but what really happened, then it is a lie....

That is logically impossible. A (non-manipulated) picture always shows what really happened, and thus can never lie. Whatever the picture shows, whatever the crop, it is real. Our perception of that reality, our ability (or lack of it) to "connect the dots," to interpret what we see, to create a narrative around it, is what causes it to be (potentially) a lie. If the picture shows two soldiers standing above someone and the rifle is visible, than that's the reality (unless something was photoshopped in or out). That't the truth. Whether it is "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" is a matter of our perception and interpretation and is (often) for courts to decide.