In the Field: Photo Blog by Richard Wong

Photography field reports by Richard Wong. Richard’s work has been published in magazines, books, advertising, and offers fine art prints of his work. Images may be licensed as rights-managed stock photos by contacting Richard directly at Richard@rwongphoto.com or (626) 422-6151. California stock photography, fine art prints, photo blog: www.rwongphoto.com

Digital Manipulation – “How much is too far?”

Posted on | June 10, 2006 | No Comments

This was a recent question posted on the Naturephotographers.net forum. There’s generally two sides that fight over this constantly. One group of photographers feel that photography should not be altered in any shape or form and somehow that is bad for other photographers should do they choose to do so. The other group feels that since it’s an art, they shouldn’t have to go out of our way to explain how and why they choose to clone a distracting branch or telephone pole out of the scene for example. Some people go as far as saying that there should be rules regarding ethical treatment of photos. Now that is where I draw the line.

Personally, I clone dust spots and the occasional sun flare from my images but rarely if ever clone things like phone poles and branches from my work. Do I care to know if other photographers clone branches or crop their images? No. If the argument is that what is taken at the time of capture should be displayed as such, where does that leave cropping? Should I have to disclose whether or not I cropped an image? What gives anyone the right to tell me how I should present my work?

What comes out of the lens isn’t an accurate depiction of reality to begin with. Most lenses have optical defects such as barrel distortion, chromatic aberration, pincushioning, light fall-off while shooting wide open, lack of sharpness in the corners, etc… If I were to correct for any of those lens defects, that alone makes my images manipulated. If I weren’t to correct for those problems then people would ask why does the horizon look curved? Why is there that purple outline around your trees? Why does it look like you have vignetting?

There’s a well-known professional stock photographer named Darwin Wiggett who does do things like double exposures for moons, or even add them into scenes in which they weren’t originally in at the time of capture. His photography is some of the most beautiful photography in the business and he doesn’t proclaim to portray every scene in it’s literal sense. So why should the integrity of work like his be called into question? He’s not a journalist, he’s an artist. Some of his images look obviously manipulated so I don’t see why someone should feel deceived. Can you feel deceived for liking an image? There’s other very famous photographers who fit into this category as well: Art Wolfe, Tim Fitzharris, and Ansel Adams among others.

My opinion is to let the viewer decide for themself whether they want to purchase the art or not and spend more energy working on your own vision rather than worry about what others do. Perhaps your photography might start growing and evolving once you start working on yourself. There’s art snobs out there who still claim that photography is a pseudo-art at best. It’s pretty hard to convince them otherwise if photographers are still arguing about “ethics”. Sounds foolish if you ask me. At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, they’ve had exhibits that have involved the use of bodily fluids. Yet somehow cloning a piece of bird shit from an otherwise pristine scene, or adding a moon is taboo. Go figure.

Wedding Ring from Daniel and Brandi's Wedding, Ossian, Iowa Did the wedding ring really look like this in reality? No, the entire ring was sharp.

Minnehaha Falls at Dusk, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Is this image an accurate depiction of what I saw with my eyes? No. The sun had gone down 30 minutes before and it was pitch black outside except for a park spotlight being shined on the waterfall. In order to have an exposure, the camera had to absorb light that isn’t visible to the human eye. Oh nooo! I’m sooo stressed out that other photographers might think I’ve gone too far.

Category: Opinion
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