As I headed out to meet with friends the other night, the skies looked as though they might light up a bit as the sun headed down. I didn’t take my real camera along, as I knew I didn’t have time to make it past the city limits. Almost nearing my destination, I stopped a couple blocks short, where there was a decent sized clearing away from structures and power lines. I snapped a couple shots on my phone, but mostly I just stopped to take it all in. Here in Las Vegas, we’ve had a couple really spectacular sunsets this spring, but this might be the best one we’re going to see all year. This photo can’t possibly bring justice to the surroundings that night, not all of which would fit in the frame. There were so many variations in cloud shape, texture, and color that a phone camera just can’t pick up. After getting back in the car, I realized the heart of the city was the best viewing angle, and any trip I would have taken to the nearby desert or mountains would not have yielded similar results. I wasn’t planning on printing this one, and besides, thousands of people saw, and possibly captured, the same thing.
Upon showing the photos to some friends the next day, one remarked, “You should always have your camera with you. You could have just added a different foreground to it, and it would have made a really amazing photograph!” That comment reopened a can of worms that had its origin a few years ago. I was at a highly attended event where one of the major camera manufacturers had a photographer with his powerpoint slideshow. As he neared the end of his talk, he said “and this is one of my favorite photographs from the trip, but it didn’t really look like this. I started with this sunset, then added this group of animals (a shot taken in the middle of the day), to get my final result.” At that point I thought you’re not a photographer, you’re a graphic designer and completely lost interest in anything else he had to say. I felt his presentation would have been better suited for the folks at Adobe.
A couple of my non-photographer friends have made comments in the past stating that they don’t know what to believe anymore when it comes to photography. The deluge of imagery on social media has them distrusting of anything they see, and significantly less appreciative of the medium.
When Ansel Adams was photographing, b&w sheet film was his preferred method of capturing images. His real masterpieces didn’t happen, however, until he got into the darkroom. If you or I used those same negatives, our results would probably look nothing like the prints that Adams produced. Yet nobody ever said his work didn’t represent photography accurately. Darkroom manipulation was considered part of the process that allowed each artist to put their signature on their work. Now that the majority of images captured around the world are in the form of pixels, and a large number of those go through some form of editing software, it’s not reasonable to expect many photographs to be exactly the same as they came out of the camera.
But how much is too much? I know in several large photo contests, there are separate categories for lightly retouched images and full-blown manipulations. That makes me believe that images once considered graphic design have come to be accepted as photography if the elements were all captured with a camera. My friend’s comment has stirred up a debate, so I’d like to know how you feel. Is there a point where you don’t like or at least appreciate someone’s work if you feel it has been over-manipulated? Or the opposite….completely untouched? Should I have taken my camera along to capture this sunset, then gone out next week to add a Joshua Tree forest to the foreground?
Steve Bruno Photo 
June 11, 2016 at 6:42 am
For me it all depends. If the photo is manipulated but they did it in such a way that the photographer is fooling you, I don’t like that. If it’s obviously manipulated, like with textures or overlays, then I like that. Too many times we see photos that are being passed off as “real” and they aren’t. To me, that’s like telling a lie to the viewer. I personally like to change the feel or look of photos with textures and such, but it’s pretty obvious that’s what I’m doing.
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June 12, 2016 at 6:11 pm
In the days of strictly film, I remember hearing stories about other photographers’ antics in the field, including one who dug up wildflowers, then planted them further down the road in a more photogenic location. Stories like those made me want to discredit their work, because I didn’t know what was authentic. I have done my own darkroom printing in the past, both in color and b&w. Dodging and burning and filters were all part of the process, so I find all those digital equivalents acceptable. I’ve never been fond of split-field filters (other than neutral density), and anytime I see a digital photo where the colors just seem completely wrong, it reminds me of those filters. Textures and artistic effects are fine by me as well – like you say, those are usually obvious. Thank you, Mary!
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June 11, 2016 at 9:41 am
I think perhaps there should be a classification system, as photography has such a range of expression. There is a strict journalistic form on one side and creative artistry on the other. I don’t believe there is a right/wrong duality to it, that is just an egoic spin. It is up to the individual to discern what they like best. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder and there is room in the world for all of it.
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June 12, 2016 at 6:30 pm
As I mentioned about the contests, there are groups for minimal editing versus manipulated images, so it appears someone else has given a classification system some thought. When I used to shoot film, some of the slide films (mostly Fuji Velvia) had saturated colors that made the image seem unreal on occasion. Because of this, I know some editors that used to get letters/emails claiming that those places couldn’t possibly look like that. I think journalism needs to remain as accurate as possible, but if someone is exploring artistic options, I can appreciate that as well. The bottom line for me is that the person made it clear what the photograph was about. Thank you, Eliza!
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June 11, 2016 at 2:55 pm
Good subject for discussion. I appreciate good graphic designed photography, but I want a heads up that there was major manipulation done to achieve a particular photo.
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June 12, 2016 at 6:39 pm
The technology in digital cameras today has made it possible to get results in situations that film cameras couldn’t. In the case of my sunset, I would have a hard time adding a different foreground then claiming it was an untouched scene. Up front disclosure would have to be the way to go for me, too. Thank you, Marlene!
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June 12, 2016 at 5:58 am
I agree with the previous comments. There’s a time and place for everything. Strictly put, isn’t cropping or adjusting saturation or color tones changing the image, too, so where do you draw the line? Personally, I draw it at removing/adding objects. Except if it’s art then that’s ok, too!
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June 12, 2016 at 7:01 pm
As you probably know, an image taken in proper light really shouldn’t need retouching unless you have to compensate for your camera’s shortcomings. A couple years ago, I read so much about how good Canon and Nikon cameras were compared to the others, that I thought I was going to ditch my Pentax system. I bought what was more of an entry level Nikon, but immediately replaced the kit lens with a much better Nikon lens. I started shooting side by side comparisons, and soon realized the Nikon was not all it was cracked up to be. I was editing RAW files from both cameras, and the ones from the Nikon needed so much alteration to look as good as the Pentax. I usually edit photos in RAW, and most of the time, the photos are so minimally different that you can’t see a difference. I agree that adding/removing objects is where the definition of photography changes. Thank you, SS!
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June 12, 2016 at 10:39 pm
Interesting comparison between Nikon and Pentax!
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June 21, 2016 at 7:48 pm
Google Steve McCurry and the huge discussion about him retouching and removing offending items from his pictures. McCurry, if you don’t know the name, is the photographer who made the National Geographic cover of the “Afghan Woman.”
My own opinion is simple. If you are a working photojournalist do nothing but sharpen, adjust for contrast and make the make the picture reproducible on paper.
For any other genre, as Gene Smith once famously said, “I didn’t make the rules. Why should I follow them?”
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June 21, 2016 at 9:06 pm
I am aware of Steve McCurry, and have been an admirer of his work for some time. The recent controversy doesn’t change that, as he is someone who has made me wish I was there taking those photographs.
I have read some articles (and posts) about retouching more recently. Between those articles and my friends opinions, I wanted to open up this discussion to see if anyone still cared about how much post processing was done. I would have had a hard time shooting this sunset, then adding a completely different foreground, then still calling it a photograph.
Although I primarily shoot landscapes, I occasionally find human things that need to be touched out. When early explorers of the west were carving their names into the rock in the 1800’s, it was considered history, but I don’t care about the moron that did it last year!
I can usually spot when someone has done post processing on an image, and I don’t care. I have come to expect it at this point, but I mostly want the photographer to make me know what they saw that was worth capturing.
Journalism needs to remain fairly untouched however. We’ve seen what happens when reporters have to eat crow, so news photos have to hold up to the same standard. The rest can do what they want.
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June 21, 2016 at 9:25 pm
If you notice that while everyone was attacking Steve, neither Magnum or NGS said a word… Because they know the truth as I do. Back in the day, I made books for a division of Kodak. I spent years in Hong Kong and Singapore. If people really knew what I had to do to pictures in order to make them be reproducible on paper, they’d probably fall down dead. BTW, you may have seen all that B/W work that I published on Storyteller… All from the first 15 years of my career as a photojournalist.
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June 22, 2016 at 10:45 am
Yes, I’ve been enjoying seeing your early journalistic work and realize those images probably looked a little different than they did on the contact sheet. In my opinion that is to be expected from anyone doing their own darkroom work. As far as what you had to do to produce books (and I’m presuming from other people’s work), I can only imagine!
In some of my early work, I almost didn’t recognize my own images when they were published, because of the color separation process (limiting the black value, for example) and cropping. Truth in publications has its limits, yet I expect Time magazine to be trusted, and not so much for The National Enquirer.
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June 22, 2016 at 11:11 am
Well… those early works were mostly just cleaned up in the darkroom but not really enhanced all that much. I had a pretty consistent exposure to wet darkroom routine very early on. I guess from a very early age, well before professional photography, I learned that certain routine was essential to performing out of the box… sort of like a baseball pitcher or hitter. Assuming some talent, get your mechanics down and practice and the rest comes a little more easily.
BTW, black in the offset printing process mostly controls contrast and then density. But, density can also be controlled with cyan. In fact, this still holds true with digital printing.
Any image reproduced on paper has to be adjusted in some way. It comes down to screen density (ppi) , paper quality and so on. I guess you have to determine intent and work to achieve that.
BTW, I’m on the pro-McCurry side of the spectrum. No, he shouldn’t have removed stuff. Although, there was an interesting discussion of why he probably did that. But, the last few examples of his “sins” were simply printer’s corrections.
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June 22, 2016 at 12:45 pm
Since you were on a deadline, I’m going to say you didn’t spend a lot of time fine tuning your images, and knew what it took to make newspaper production quality prints. In McCurry’s case, he should have had better quality control regarding the people doing his printing.
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