Honesty in Photography

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his post was originally written in 2011 on an old blog platform.  I have moved it here so it can live on in a new home.

In 2011 there was (maybe still is?) a great discussion in G Dan Mitchell's photography blog;  the topic was "is it real?"  The conversation had been blog-bouncing for over a month and talks about when a photograph is real, or when it has been Photoshop-ed into something that is no longer a photograph. I was curious if it is not a photograph, what else can it be?  Here is the link to Dan's blog topic:  

http://www.gdanmitchell.com/2011/01/13/what-is-real

I was so enthralled with this discussion that I compelled to blow off an entire nights sleep to write a short article on the “art vs. photography” debate (link:
http://steveloosphotography.blogspot.com/p/is-it-life-art-or-photoshop-journey-to.html

Months after these posts, the discussion goes on (and will forever, I hope!)  This is a follow up reply to that discussion.

Thanks for a great topic Dan!

Steve Loos

(my reply)

Honesty in discussing the image is important.  Certainly as you both point out, if you make a composite image then somewhere in the footnotes of that image this should be discussed.  Landscape Pros struggle with this all the time.  Sign posts, power lines, stray people and ugly cows (well maybe not the cows) are doctored out of an image if the landscape photographer can’t first change their perspective.  Should this be discussed in the image?  I don’t know many who believe these items contributed to the image and therefore are not important enough to the image to discuss.  How about those composites, bracketing and HDR?  Should the landscape photographer disclose that this was composite (even if a single image double processed?)  Most folks I follow do indeed believe that important elements of the image were changed, and they do discuss these changes. So here the community seems to have found a somewhat clear boundary.  And, clear boundaries are scarce in discussions of art. 

Humans need boundaries (rules, structure, whatever)! These “art versus photograph” conversations arise then we humans attempt to apply rules to art.  Attend a class on “the rule of thirds” and you will learn a lot of great information on composition.  But, try and apply those rules to the photographs you view, and soon you will be staring in awe at a beautiful DuChemin image with the subject and horizon neatly splitting the image in half, both vertically and horizontally (see http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/2011/01/dont-break-the-rules/, January 2011.)  Read this and you’ll wonder if you wasted time learning rules.   

Rules serve to teach artists the basics ~ and well beyond the basis; they also help photographers struggling to frame an image just as they help a painter fill his canvas.  But these rules work best when they are applied (and broken) looking out through the viewfinder, not while looking back at the final image.  Here is an absolute for you; not every piece of art will satisfy everyone who views it.  And, some of those who do not feel satisfied with a photograph will try and reverse-engineer the “rules” of art to explain why they don’t like the image.   It’s just my opinion, but these rules don’t work that way. 

Great discussion!

Steve Loos