AB:"Why Photoshop is not Ruining Landscape Photography"

[Isaac]

Emerson even goes so far as to allow that you might composite in clouds, as long as they're shot at the same time from the same place -- so you get the light and perspective correct.

For Emerson, is "the same time" a fraction of a second or 20 minutes or … however long we wish as-long-as there are no tell-tales that this could not be a single exposure?

To the original topic: what if the photographer had waited, camera secured on tripod, as the weather changed and clouds sometimes blocked and sometimes revealed shafts of sunlight - and then took from several different exposures, different elements to represent what they experienced on that sea shore?

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.

Close-up focus stack? Many photographers value bokeh but surely not for "its reality".

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).

Evans? Frederick H. Evans who simply put the lens-cap back-on whenever people wandered into the long-exposure :-)

[Alan Klein]

It's not the pixels that are left after the crop or zoom that aren't real.   They are what was captured by the camera,  However, it's the meaning or interpretation the viewer makes from what he sees in those pixels that creates the falsehood.  Let's say the crop leaves the soldier aiming his gun at the head of another.  The pixels are "real", but the viewer assumes the soldier is about to kill the other.  Of course the "truth" is that there are soldiers there helping their fallen comrade, a totally different understanding that better comports to the truth of the situation.  Failure to present that in the final picture is a distortion of what really happened.  Does it matter if the final image came from a crop or from a zoom lens?  It's just not convincing to state that we need a court of law to determine whether we are fooling the viewer or not.  Imagine what the soldier who was helping his friend would feel if you presented a photo that made it appear as if he was about to shoot him instead. 

[John Camp]

There are very few cases in which journalistic cropping lies, simply because journalistic photos always focus on some central issue. That's why the photographer is there. If you crop out the central issue, nobody wants the photo. (If Andrew is referring to the same "famous photo" that I'm thinking of, t hat was not a simple crop; two photos were cropped and then stitched to make an entirely different scene. The LA Times photographer was fired.)

There are cases, most often seen on TV, where cropping eliminates an issue, but not an obvious one, and those crops do create a lie. Where you see this most often is when there is a public demonstration against something, but only a few demonstrators show up. The TV crew then crops in close, eliminating empty space, with the demonstrators crowded together, so that it's impossible for the casual viewer to tell that the "demonstration" only attracted twelve people in a city of three million. A journalist, however, may look at the marching crowd and if you see the same face three times in 45 seconds, you'll know what is going on.)

I completely reject Tony jay's position here, simply (imo) because it's the kind of naive college-dorm argument which asks, What is "reality?" What is "objectivity?" Photography is quite a pragmatic pursuit, and at its bottom level -- the unattended video camera which simply shoots everything that passes within range, with no post-manipulation or deliberate cropping -- can provide quite objective evidence, good enough for judges and juries to use in sentencing a person to death or long prison terms, as we're seeing in the Boston Marathon trial. In that case, almost all the evidence, and even the pursuit and arrest of the guilty people (and the killing of one of them) was conditioned by photography. I would argue that that is photography at its most fundamental level. There are many manipulations possible after that, done for all kinds of reasons, and some of them subtract from the objectivity of the unattended camera, and some of them may incrementally add to the reality. I think such things as HDR, used with care, may enhance the the reality of a photo; and, compared to the basic unattended camera standard, so might a different selection of ISO, shutter speed, aperture and so on.

The decision between what you'd argue is reality and what you'd say is unwarranted manipulation -- the line, if you want to use that word -- has little to do with the photograph, but more to do with honesty. As I wrote earlier in this discussion, I have no problem with anything done to a photographic file, as long as the manipulation is disclosed if there is a possibility that it might be mistaken for an unmanipulated file. The standard "It sells better" is not, in my opinion, an excuse for lying about the condition of the photo.

[dreed]

However, it's the meaning or interpretation the viewer makes from what he sees in those pixels that creates the falsehood.

An interpretation is required as to what's relevant and what isn't. With respect to the polar bear image you refer to, this has been done very well - be it via crop or zoom, a story and message were presented that outline the plight of an entire spieces (and for which you appear to have no sympathy!)

At some point someone has to decide what makes it into the crop and what doesn't, be it the photographer or editor because it isn't possible to include everything visible (both above, behind, in the lens field of view and out of) at the time of a photograph is made to present the full context of every situation: this includes all cat photos on the Internet. A person could also mount an argument that the use of bokeh is to be banned because it blurs out detail in the the scene captured by the camera and it is only through a deliberate choice by the photographer that relevant detail in the field of view it is excluded.

[AreBee]

Andrew,

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.

If the above represents the truth then it should withstand scrutiny. Consider each part in turn.

The power of a photograph over other forms lies in, precisely, its reality.

Which is to say: the greater the reality of a photo, the greater its power.

At this juncture two cases can be made:

1. The less manipulation that is carried out, i.e. the closer to the RAW file, the greater the reality of a photo. The logical conclusion is therefore that manipulation should not be carried out at all in order to maximise the power/reality of a photo;
2. Manipulation has the potential to increase the state of a photo to one more believable as representative of reality than if the photo was not manipulated. The logical conclusion is therefore that manipulation can have a positive effect on the power/reality of a photo.

Every bit of manipulation you perform sacrifices a little bit of that reality

Which is to say: manipulation has an adverse effect on the power/reality of a photo, which contradicts point 2 above. The latter is therefore discarded, leaving point one above as the logical outcome of your original statement.

Therefore, make your sacrifices count.

Which is to say: by making none.

Perhaps you're trying to figure out...

I'm not.

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

Clearly it wasn't/isn't to me.

I found the picture.

Thank you.

Each version is a different field of view of what existed at the time of capture. Where is the lie? That each photo gives rise to a different interpretation does not mean that "all crops lie". The photographer cannot possibly know how each person will interpret a photo.

[Alan Klein]

What makes it into a photo is different than what makes it into a painting.  While a painter only adds things he wants and deletes things he doesn't want, moving them around as he sees fit, the viewer understands that the painter is interpreting what he sees through his mind.  

But the viewer of a photo has traditionally understood photography as capturing reality.  While he may accept differing viewpoints of contrast, saturation, etc, the basic meaning of the photo is assumed to be the truth.  He assumes the photographer is not deceiving him with what the photo means.  This is especially important in photo-journalistic and documentary photography and is no different than the phoney written article about the gang rape that Rolling Stones reported on as truth.  It's very dangerous and creates all kinds of social and legal problems.

[amolitor]

The power of a photograph over other forms ....

But really, it's not a statement intended to be picked apart and analyzed for detailed meanings. Like any attempt to compress a great deal of thought in to a small number of words, its meaning depends on the reader to expand it into something that makes sense to them. If it doesn't resonate with you, then it's probably best to just move along.

I am saying that manipulation, like sausages, costs you something. What, exactly, hardly matters. It behooves you to spend a bit of effort getting a good bargain.

[AreBee]

Andrew,

...it's not a statement intended to be picked apart and analyzed for detailed meanings.

Guilty as charged. Peace.

[Telecaster]

But the viewer of a photo has traditionally understood photography as capturing reality.  While he may accept differing viewpoints of contrast, saturation, etc, the basic meaning of the photo is assumed to be the truth.  He assumes the photographer is not deceiving him with what the photo means.  This is especially important in photo-journalistic and documentary photography and is no different than the phoney written article about the gang rape that Rolling Stones reported on as truth.  It's very dangerous and creates all kinds of social and legal problems.

IMO there's a discussion to be had about whether or not viewers of photos should by default understand photos as capturing reality, but I agree that the general public—despite Photoshop, etc.—largely still does. Thus, yes, photographs purporting to show "real things" should be held to a higher standard of objectivity, accepting that objectivity as an absolute is not attainable by humans or cameras. Moreover, objectivity in the visual world ultimately has no meaning. Mass emits light…everything beyond that is interpretation.

-Dave-

[Isaac]

I completely reject Tony jay's position here, simply (imo) because it's the kind of naive college-dorm argument which asks, What is "reality?" What is "objectivity?"

I won't characterize the argument you put-forward.

If applied to writing, your argument would have us put health warnings on poems and songs because literal description was fundamental.

[Tony Jay]

John, in response to your post, it is a long time since I was in a college dorm and just as long since anyone accused my of naivety.

The fact that photography (and videography) can be used for forensic purposes does not in and of itself prove any point about photography and reality.

Have you done any forensic-type photography?
I have, and merely pointing the camera at the subject and pressing the shutter does not give the desired result (reality) I can assure you.
The photography that I am referring to is not for a court of law but for medical publication.
It is extraordinarily difficult to take an image that really does communicate the reality of what is being photographed.
During my medical training I remember looking at hundreds (thousands?) of images of medical conditions and procedures that, on reflection, simply failed to communicate the reality of what they were trying to communicate. Frankly, many of those images were just misleading and this became apparent when one viewed the real thing.
Knowing this did not make the task of photographing any easier although it did quickly inform me of when I had not succeeded.

I had a friend who was, at one time, a forensic photographer for the Queensland Police. He did relate on occasions how tough his job was and the sort of lengths one needed to go to so as not to mislead the investigators or the prosecutors. Even in court it was difficult, on occasion to convince legal teams that no one image could possibly, on its own, communicate the reality the crime scene or accident scene, and that a single image might easily contradict what was obviously the case when all the imagery was viewed together.

With regard to more general genres of photography my original point stands. It is very easy for an out-of-the-camera image to distort reality.
I don't know about you but I employ various techniques that will result in "unreality" as a virtue.
When shooting birds with a wide open aperture I absolutely love the completely blurred backgrounds while my subject is crisply in focus. The reality that I am after is a beautiful bird portrait, but, not for a second, do I regard my image as an absolute capture of reality.
Very slow or very fast shutter speeds in dynamic scenes will also introduce an "unreality" impossible to view with the naked eye.

And so back to the point that I was originally trying to make: There is no need need to invoke post-processing as an evil that can introduce unreality into images when it is so easy to achieve this in-camera.

Tony Jay

[LesPalenik]

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.

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.

Polar ice is indeed shrinking in the north, but polar bears have been swimming for long distances even before that.
In fact, just a week ago, crew aboard the offshore supply vessel Atlantic Merlin spotted a polar bear in the water not far from Hibernia oil platform located in the Atlantic Ocean some 315 kilometres east-southeast of St. John’s. By then he was exhausted and tried to get up on the platform.

However, the longest distance swim by a mammal belongs to a female polar bear that swam for a record-breaking nine days straight, traversing 426 miles (687 kilometers) of water.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/07/110720-polar-bears-global-warming-sea-ice-science-environment/

[aduke]

Surely, the long distance swimming record belongs to some species of whale.

[LesPalenik]

OK, I stand corrected, I meant land mammals.

[John Camp]

Have you done any forensic-type photography?
I have, and merely pointing the camera at the subject and pressing the shutter does not give the desired result (reality) I can assure you.
The photography that I am referring to is not for a court of law but for medical publication.
It is extraordinarily difficult to take an image that really does communicate the reality of what is being photographed.
During my medical training I remember looking at hundreds (thousands?) of images of medical conditions and procedures that, on reflection, simply failed to communicate the reality of what they were trying to communicate. Frankly, many of those images were just misleading and this became apparent when one viewed the real thing.
Knowing this did not make the task of photographing any easier although it did quickly inform me of when I had not succeeded.

Tony, I was for several years the documentary photographer on a high-intensity archaeological dig in Israel. (In fact, the dig neatly bridged the film-digital divide.) The photography was critical because structures and layers were, of course, destroyed as the dig went deeper -- the only remnant of the findings were photos, drawings and scientific samples. The idea of the photography was for a later (maybe many years later) non-participant to be able to look at the photos and drawings and samples and essentially reconstruct the dig. And once the structure or layer was gone, it was gone. No re-takes. There were a number of issues here -- archaeologists complaining that what we shot was not what they wanted -- but the issue was with the photographer, not with the photos. The photos showed what they showed; if what they showed was not what was wanted, it wasn't the fault of the camera and film. Sometimes the fault was with the photographer, but sometimes, it was with the archaeologists, not explaining clearly enough what they wanted. But never with the camera or the photos themselves.

I have also taken photos in operating rooms (I once wrote a book on plastic surgery.) Again, the problem wasn't that what the photos showed wasn't reality, the problem was that the structures were often so vague that really the best capture would have been with a drawing. When you're talking about fleshy structures damp with blood, all of about the same color and illuminated with extremely bright and flat OR lighting, sometimes it's even hard to see with your eyes what's going on, which is the reason that surgeons poke around so much, and use so many gauze pads to soak up moisture in a wound. They often have to feel what they're doing, as much as see it. A camera may simply be the wrong instrument with which to record the scene.

As for the unreality of wide-open shots, with OOF backgrounds, take a look at your finger tip sometime, and without changing focus, let your mind register what the background looks like. That's exactly what you're doing with flying birds, and the phenomenon of sharp focus in one area, and OOF backgrounds, is familiar to anyone who ever thought about it.

The fact that photography (and videography) can be used for forensic purposes does not in and of itself prove any point about photography and reality.

I don't think there's any way to "prove" much of anything in this debate. But I would argue that photography's greatest strength in most fields, including landscape, lies in fidelity to a recorded scene. There are other ways to work with photos, of course, but generally (not always) the resulting product is weaker than an unmanipulated shot. IMHO.

[haplo602]

Interesting take on the subject. While I do agree in most part, I do think Mr. Briot does not go far enough because he could not call himself a photographer anymore.

Example 1: A snapshot on any camera (film or digital) without any kind of manipulation (filters, photoshop etc.) is a photograph. It depicts the reality as was happening in front of the camera at that moment. Is it a photograph ? Definitely. Is it art ? Maybe (depends on the viewer).

Example 2: A photograph manipulated to the result seen in the image of the original essay. Is it a photograph ? No. Is it art ? Yes (or again maybe).

Example 3: An oil painting of a valley with photographs sticked in to it of various objects in the painting (tree, rock, you get the idea). Is it a photograph ? No. Is it art ? Yes (or again maybe).

All 3 examples have an IMAGE as a result. All 3 examples have a PHOTOGRAPH as their component. Only one of them has a PHOTOGRAPH also as a result.

Call me purist in the negative way if you like, but once an artistic (or even technical) process changes so that the product can be wildly different than what is expected as a result from the process, then the product and process are renamed to not invade the territory of the established original. That's why creating photo-realistic imagery in a computer with help of a 3D modeling program is not called photography (even tho the result is indistinguishable from a photograph). That's why the category of art includes so many processes and results. However it seems to me that many people proud themselves being called a photographer when the results they produce are something else. They fear to be called something else.

Mr. Briot is correct in one crucial thing. Disclosure is important. The fun part is, it is important only in competition with other artists to ensure a level playing field. Admiring the final product as an "end user", I don't care how it was produced.

(I hope the above is readable. I do construct sentences that are above my knowledge of the English language when carried away by the subject)

[kers]

Yes, it's very clear that the concern was -- "…this photograph gained an unfair advantage [pdf] in this category and in winning the overall competition."

indeed- quote from the pdf...

"
Whilst digital manipulation is a valid part of an artistic process for many photographers and is encouraged in the ‘Your view’ category, the extent of the changes made was in breach of the ‘Classic view’ category."

As it seems a lot of the discussion here is not relevant to the original post.
the problem was just about violating a set of competition rules. As it should be.
this is the winner of the 'your view competition 2012''

[Isaac]

But I would argue that photography's greatest strength in most fields, including landscape, lies in fidelity to a recorded scene. There are other ways to work with photos, of course, but generally (not always) the resulting product is weaker than an unmanipulated shot. IMHO.

"weaker" ?

The specific example Alain Briot referred to was the winning entry in the 2012 Landscape Photographer of The Year competition.

(Also: "David’s image of Delamere Forest, which won the Classic view category, and his image ‘The Copse’ which was Highly commended in the Living the view category have also been disqualified for the same reason.")

[Telecaster]

Example 1: A snapshot on any camera (film or digital) without any kind of manipulation (filters, photoshop etc.) is a photograph. It depicts the reality as was happening in front of the camera at that moment. Is it a photograph ? Definitely. Is it art ? Maybe (depends on the viewer).

But there's no such thing as a photograph without any kind of manipulation. With film the development & printing processes have been tuned to yield images that we consider faithful to how our eye/brain system interprets light. With electronic systems the data from color filter array'd photosites is interpolated into continous tones and gamma curves are applied to a linear tonal range to again yield "faithful" images. None of this has to be so. It's a choice we've made. I recommend having a look at some pre-demosaic'd, linear-toned digital files for a better idea of what sensors (via CFAs) and analog-to-digital converters see.

IMO much of the fuss here would go away if we owned up to the fact that what we consider to be visually objective is in fact utterly interpretive. "Okay, our visual systems process electromagnetic input in a certain way. We call this 'seeing.' We generally want our photographic tools & techniques to mimic the way we see. We will consider the photos that result from more faithful mimicing to be 'accurate' and/or 'realistic' while acknowledging that such terms are rooted in subjective experience. Photos that are less faithful in this mimicing will be considered 'experimental' or 'tonally abstract' or whathaveyou." Then you insist that documentary, journalistic & forensic photography measure up to your standards of accuracy and realism. So you get standards without resorting to non-existent BS like objectivity or purity.

-Dave-

[amolitor]

A great deal of what we "see" is in fact made up by our brain from context anyways. Photographs, being often quite small, defy this to a degree, but still.