Fake or fun?

[Thumper]

I'll come clean. Over the years I've been involved in one or two photographic scams, courtesy of Photoshop - a program I use for about four or five hours every day as part of my work. Some of these have slipped into galleries and race reports, often undetected. There is even one of mine posted on an American website (not by me, but nicked, I hasten to add, without my knowledge!) and billed as "one of the greatest motorsport photographs ever taken." Under the circumstances I've not enlightened the webmaster concerned . . . but should I have done?

The image below was created to play upon the way Thomas Erdos appeared to be thrive in wet conditions when racing a Marcos LM600 in 1999, and could never be mistaken for anything but a composite image. Others (and they can take many hours!) are undetectable from the real thing.

Photo-enhancement is something I suspect we're all guilty of to some extent in this "digital age", usually just to overcome adverse lighting conditions or awkward white-dominated cars. That's fine, but is taking image manipulation to the next stage merely harmless fun, as is clearly the case below, or does it do photography an injustice?

[sss]

personally, if it has been mentioned they have been adjusted/altered or tampered with in anyway then i see no problem as every one then knows the score, otherwise i think its straight forward deception.

[Damon]

Thumper, can you post a link to the touted "greatest motorsport photo ever taken". I'd love to see it with the knowledge that it isn't real.

[Thumper]

Isn't it always the way? The image was posted on the website for Milwaukee School of Engineering, and now you've asked me to place a link to the thing they've removed the entire section! When I originally contacted them about it to explain its presence there they simply said "Next to the Benetton fuel man on fire, your photo is the best "hot man of auto racing" we've ever seen." If I can dig through my archives I'll find a copy.

I agree with sss to a certain extent on the deception thing, especially if the image is used for financial gain, or deliberately to mislead. My Milwaukee shot was originally posted as part of a Christmas "caption competition" on a now-defunct motorsport news site and was always intended as a bit of fun.

On another occasion, however, I was asked to supply a photo to a race team showing both their cars in the same shot. It never actually happened in the race, so I used two shots, one of each car, on the same section of track and combined them. They were delighted. I don't see that as deception.

[sss]

thats the exact point, everyones standard of deception is different, therefore if you work the theory that, provided its mentioned that the photo has been altered in anyway, then everyone is happy.
it could be just altering the colours to a complete fabrication. your altering 'evidence'
but if everyone is honest from the start then there isnt an issue, as all the cards are on the table.
the photo with two cars in, the 'team' may be happy but they could use that photo for some purpose later on, and people can be led into believing that really happended, is that fair? but if its states 'edited copyright thumper' on it then we all know the score.

[sss]

i think we have to be carefull in this new era of digital cameras, they are now in the realms of everyone as is editing ability. if we dont install honesty and standards now, then it will become the norm to allow editing and not mention it.

then it will get to the stage of 'how much can we believe'

i say lets have standards and honesty

[KC]

Its a long discussion on every photo critique forum on the web. Does digital manipulation destroy the credibility of the photographer as an artist? I think it does not, but it can illustrate the level of taste of the artist.

Is correcting white balance on a digital image any different than dodging and burning in the darkroom? Is collaging separate images on a computer any differnt than exposing one frame multiple times on a camera? I don't think it is. Photo manipulation has been going for a lot longer than digital images have been around. From the very first airbrush touchups done on pin up photos to cropping and manipulation as seen in the picture above, its all part and parcel of photography.

If purity is your goal in photography, then get rid of your autofocus 35mm SLR and revert back to a pinhole camera with no filters, no flash, and no built in metering. Even ground optic lenses are used to manipulate the image being taken by making them appear closer so they could be argued as image manipulation.

[sss]

im not saying dont do it, but let people know its been done, is that not fair on the viewer?

[Thumper]

The old adage that "the camera never lies" was probably first mooted because someone knew only too well that it does. KC is right; photographers have been using dodgy techniques to alter the appearance of their photos for a hundred years, and digital manipulation has merely made that easier and more versatile.

Similarly, it also allows those previously labelled as "artists" to express themselves photographically to the extreme bounds of their imagination. That raises another issue. I recently had to design a catalogue for an art auction. On the day one of the highest bids (several thousand £££) went on a photographic image of a skyline in Madrid - effectively a digitally enhanced photo - that I could have rustled up in an afternoon. Other "fine art" lots went for considerably less, depsite the hours each artist might have spent on them.

[KC]

I think if you deliberately use a photograph to mislead or protray a false event for reasons other than art, then you must let the viewer know that the image has been manipulated. No problem if a photographer is adding a nice full moon to his landscape image or deliberately blurring the background of an image to focus the eye. But altering an image of a historical event and passing it off as the truth is unethical.

[djb]

and on that note KC and others, give this a read.

http://www.poynter.org/content/conte...w.asp?id=28082

Was big news in the journalistic world a while back. The big issue with this example is that when working as a news journalist with an event such as this, there is no room for any monkeying around. Sticking a moon in or something may be another thing for a personal shot, but that sort of thing isn't my kettle of fish.

When I was shooting at the Trois rivieres ALMS race a few weeks back for RFMsports (Liz's site) I tried getting a shot of the winning Audi going over the line from beside the flag waver up in the stand. Although I had arrived first, the series's official photographer came up and I agreed to give him his due first in line. The limited space up in the stand and a protruding box meant that really only one person could be in position to get the classic shot of the guy waving the flag, the series banner and the blurred car all together. My shot has the first two, but the damn Audi came close up the wall and us and so the protruding box hid the car completely! (next time Biela, stick to the middle of the track!) Afterwards, i mentioned that I should have shot the previous lap with the car and then montaged it with the flag shot. Would I have done it, probably not, but it touches on the issue that this war photographer came to grips with. He took two good shots, and made a better one. I used to print most of my b+w stuff with the black border, ie no cropping, I wasn't fanatical about it, but it was always a very good exercise for being precise about framing, previsualizing what you were about to shoot and knowing what a given focal length sees.

so, yes, I do feel it does photography an injustice-in journalism absolutely, and in illustration and/or personal,work well that depends on ones opinion and what the cirucumstance are. The marcos shot is an obvious illustration and made to suit a story title.

cheerio
djb

[Thumper]

This is a clear case of what sss would call deception. Brian Walski took two OK shots that showed an American soldier in a refugee/war environment that, in their original format, were just situation snaps. They told a story, but not a very strong one. By combining the two images, however, he not only created a much stronger image, but also altered significantly the viewer's perception of what was happening. Suddenly there is a sense of confrontation - an intensity of emotion and fear. The man with the child was probably looking to the soldier for help, yet in the altered image it appears more likely that he is being threatened. You can see why Walski did it, because it created a powerful photograph, but that's no excuse when he's working in a news-gathering situation and supposed to be reporting the truth.