The "morality" of editing
A picture tells a story, and like any story it benefits from being edited. Ever since the state of the art got past the difficulties of the daguerreotype, photographers have been editing the final image. From the discovery by Fox Talbot of latent images, and the negative process, it was a given photos would be played with.
Between blatant manipulations and the merest kiss of spot removal, lies a huge realm of possibility. Generally, I’m not much of one for making big changes. I’m not that sort of artist. The people who do collage work, or stitching people into, and out, the frame are impressive, but it’s not the sort of thing which appeals to me.
Part of that might stem from what it took to do that sort of thing when I started. Back then the problems I was dealing with were spots, and scratches. Those were hassle enough (delicate work with a brush, and several shades of spot-toner to match the blacks); making duplicate negatives, matching densities, etc. was for people with a different sort of dedication from mine.
Photoshop changed all that. Even before the widespread use of digital cameras, scanners made it possible to deal with the first problems (duping, and matching). The other problems (composing, and then getting the new image onto the paper) became a lot less problematic. Add digital cameras to the mix, and the middle steps went away too.
Which caused all sorts of strife. Suddenly the myth that the camera never lies was exposed. News photographers lost their jobs for adding elements. People who were unhappy about having their exes in photos took them out. There are companies which promise to do it for you, and no one but you will, so they say, ever know.
There is nothing wrong with manipulating images. As I said, editing has been going on from the very beginning. I edit my photos, mostly to get rid of spots, and do color correction/balance. Sometimes I have to try to recover a good shot from something I didn’t expose properly, and couldn’t correct with a second exposure.
Sometimes, however, there are things which can’t be shot around. Getting rid of those sorts of things is one of the more dramatic things I use Photoshop for (Lightzone, for all my fondness, is not good at that sort of thing). I don’t think it’s dishonest.
That photo is just destroyed by the presence of those power lines. The eye is bounced around the leaves and dragged right out of the frame. With a bit of (I hope) judicious editing in Photoshop the picture is much improved
The difference between the two images here is a little greater:
The powerlines, no big deal. The scaffolding behind the roof is, to one school of thought, not quite cricket. Me, I’m not so much against it. First, they are distracting. I’m not making a record shot here, I’m trying to show what the place, looks, and the trick is to keep people focused on the subject. We don’t recall things like scaffolding when we remember things like statues.
The trick in “art” is what one leaves in, and what one leaves out. Painters have it easy. If one wants to leave the lamppost in the bushes out, no one will ever be the wiser, and we don’t care. So taking something out because it pleases me to not be distracted by it doesn’t bother me.
There are other things one gains with the removal of the truly distracting. My aim, as a photographer, is to show the thing, as I saw it. That doesn't mean I am striving to show it as it was. In the first place, it's not possible. The act of reducing the three dimensional objects to the flat plane of the picture changes them. In the second place, that trick never works.
Who hasn't seen something stunning, and snapped a photo, only to get it back from the lab and discover the stunning thing has been translated into something drab?
Even when a decent shot is taken, the medium can steal some of the thunder. Andreisky Spusk and Sofiskaya Ploshad, where I shot these pictures is a bustling, busy place. It's alive, and a lot of the vibrance of the place is absent in the photo of Taras Schevchenko. A small bit of editing (actually the use of a plug-in, to emulate a filmstock) makes a huge difference.
Tools are neutral. What one does with them makes the difference. The bottom line, trite as it sounds, is that so long as you are using an editing tool to get a specific effect, it's honest. So long as it's honest, there will be an audience which enjoys the effect.
If you just slap things together, an effect here, a filter there, with no rhyme or reason... it will fall flat, and the best of images will end up a dog's breakfast. To borrow from Shakespeare, to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
