Wrong Photography Ethics?
- Thread starter sanj
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But it will be fabricated , it's quite hard to have 3 cheetah's pose like that in the wild 
I like gerryvanderwalt's view on processing nature images
https://www.youtube.com/user/gerryvanderwalt
Try The McGurk Effect! - Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? - BBC Two ( cannot find link to entire documentary, but : Is seeing believing? is a nice one from BBC horizon!)
I like gerryvanderwalt's view on processing nature images
https://www.youtube.com/user/gerryvanderwalt
Try The McGurk Effect! - Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? - BBC Two ( cannot find link to entire documentary, but : Is seeing believing? is a nice one from BBC horizon!)
thepancakeman said:
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Rienzphotoz said:
Bingo.
Blanket statements like "compositing is not photography" don't hold up in all cases. HDR photos are composites of several shots. Are they not photography, simply because they were combined after the fact? You could have achieved the same thing if you used a grad-ND filter, so does using a filter mean the photo is 'not photography'? What difference does it make if you did the composite before the click or after?
Also, compositing doesn't always mean introducing something that wasn't there. The photo below is 3 different exposures, composited together in Photoshop. Point to the element that wasn't actually there.
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gferdinandsen said:
I know a lot of people go with this. But to me it makes no logical sense. What was so special about the wet darkroom that means photography can't progress?
The idea that "because light has gone through a lens to hit a sensor" so its a photograph makes no more sense to me. Whats so special about that?
I'll bet Mr A Adams would be happily photoshopping away if he were here today.
To me its a case of I'm trying to make an artistic image. I'm not saying to anyone that I'm making photographs, I'm an artist using a digital camera and computer to produce images. That way i'm not misleading anyone.
Some people will think its all computer generated and that makes it fake, and easy. Am I misleading them because most of it is done in camera and the computer part is not easy at all?
Do what you want to produce the image you want. Be honest with people. That might involve telling people how its done in detail, or you could just say I don't disclose details.
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This is the "I remember when......., things were so much better back in the day" argument. We are in today not in the past and today provides the tools to do all sorts of magical things. It amazes me how we torture innovators to desperately cling to the past. Turner, one of the worlds great painters was roundly abused in his day for his vision which was only reality as he saw it, now of course we recognize his genius. Surely photography is art, not just a representation or photocopy of the world around us. Manipulate your photo's however you wish and I for one will judge them purely based upon my own taste and not on others rules of right or wrong.
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Yes and my quick little global adjustments didn't mean that I didn't like the OP's edit. Just throwing it up for comparison. Personally, I think the clouds added a nice touch... Conversely, I see you don't have to do that if you choose not too, there are other options, ie: global edits...Rienzphotoz said:
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This is a pretty stupid topic. It's all opinions vs opinions. It's never going to go anywhere. To the OP I like your photo either way, heck put the trees back and add a thunderstorm enter it into a contest and win. Heck if the contest doesn't state you can't edit photos then go for it! Everyone else has access to the same tools as you do. People can take photos of cheetahs if they want to. What's the big deal? No one wants a boring photo, if that's what the OP saw but nature changed before he could get the photo then recreate to how it was in the minds eye. If I bought that PHOTO from the OP I wouldn't care about the edit because looking at it everyday would better my mood. Is the film negative the photo and everything after is a print or copy of the photo? This debate will be even worse 100 years from now, when photography will probably have evolved yet again. How about Instagram are those photos or digital art? Just enjoy life and take photos or whatever you want to call them! Print them share them sell them. Enjoy what you and others create and stop wasting time criticizing!
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kennephoto said:
That was a bit critical, no?
Seems like, "I like his image" would have been more apropos!
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I think the ambient light is hitting them from the wrong direction... Do you have any skies which would portray the sunset even further to the right? Wait a minute, did you manipulate this image?? LoL! Nice!Sporgon said:
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Rienzphotoz said:
+10^99999
If I were to buy a print to hang on my wall, I would have chosen #2. Whoop-de-do, he played with the sky, but the essence of the shot remains the same.... three big wild cats. If you want to carry the logic through, people should not sharpen images, or color balance, or crop.... Even the act of pointing the camera or zooming in/out is to modify what is being represented.
Put things in perspective, it's not like Godzilla is walking along the skyline...It's a nice image. I like it.
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sanj said:
No, you have not. It looks better. It's not as if you added an extra cheetah. I don't even particularly think you need to disclose it. It looks natural.
There is a common theme on photo forums, with certain people suggesting that a photo should be what the photographer saw. Maybe if one takes that statement metaphysically (as in: saw in his mind's eye type of thing), I agree. Literally? I do not, and I find it funny when those same people then post desaturated images of their dinner at f/1.2 with the camera held at MFD. This isn't that theme, but it's kinda like it.
To me, the end product has always been about what I want it to be. I'm not a photojournalist; there are rules in that realm for good reason. When it comes to art, do what you want to do. Your image is art.
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This is an interesting discussion. I was looking at some beautiful macro photos (of insects) recently. And trying to figure out how they got the whole image to be in perfect focus led me to reading about focus stacking. And my first reaction was "well that's cheating!!!". 
I certainly wouldn't call it unethical though. As long as they (the "photographer") are not trying to imply the end "photo" is a one take shot. When it really was 20 photographs blended together through digital manipulation. The end results are still beautiful. But I am not as impressed with them as photographs. Really. What they really show is great skill in digital manipulation. Or maybe not even great skill? For all I know it's super easy to load up 20 images in photoshop and boom you have 1 great focus stacked image.
I'm not sure where you draw the line and where something crosses from being a photograph into being a work of digital art. But there's a line somewhere. It may be a thick, wavy, grey line but there's a line. Personally I'm more interested in the photography side of it and less in the digital manipulation as art side...
I certainly wouldn't call it unethical though. As long as they (the "photographer") are not trying to imply the end "photo" is a one take shot. When it really was 20 photographs blended together through digital manipulation. The end results are still beautiful. But I am not as impressed with them as photographs. Really. What they really show is great skill in digital manipulation. Or maybe not even great skill? For all I know it's super easy to load up 20 images in photoshop and boom you have 1 great focus stacked image.
I'm not sure where you draw the line and where something crosses from being a photograph into being a work of digital art. But there's a line somewhere. It may be a thick, wavy, grey line but there's a line. Personally I'm more interested in the photography side of it and less in the digital manipulation as art side...
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gferdinandsen said:
You might not be able to do it in the darkroom, but if someone else with a different skillset can, does it become legal?
Was it illegal when Jerry Uelsmann shot all the requisite film, built the appropriate masks, and then used a series of enlargers along with consummate skill to print this image in a darkroom in 1976?
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RLPhoto
Gear doesn't matter, Just a Matter of Convenience.
3kramd5 said:gferdinandsen said:
You might not be able to do it in the darkroom, but if someone else with a different skillset can, does it become legal?
Was it legal when Jerry Uelsmann shot all the requisite negatives, built the appropriate masks, and then used a series of enlargers to print this image in a darkroom in 1976?
That's great Artwork than involved good photography but the final product would be classified by me as Artwork.
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RLPhoto said:
I'd say it's good artwork that involved great photography.
Think about how you'd have to shoot. Intentionally under or overexposing certain areas to result in thin or thick negatives to aid in composting, printing and printing and printing to find placement and build masks, then going through an elaborate sequence (I think I read once he uses a dozen or so enlargers for some of his more elaborate works) of printing in the dark with no indication what's been exposed until you drop it in the developer.
It boggles my mind, regardless of what one calls the final product.
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Most of us are not forensic photographers who shoot crime scenes and dead bodies ... photography for me is a passionate hobby and an art form ... I'm no good at drawing or painting or sculpting ... the closest I can hope to get to any decent art form is making images and manipulating them the way I like ... I am happy to manipulate and change images so they are pleasing and/or compelling to look at ... even if it mans adding a lighting bolt or removing an ugly wire or add an extra cheetah or make a fat person look a little slimmer (in fact I routinely use liquify tool to make people, with a big paunch, look a little slimmer) and as a photographer it gives me great joy to see people feel good about themselves when they look at the images I've manipulated ... I don't give a damn if the so called "purists" think it is unethical ... I thank God everyday that photography is my hobby and that it gives me a chance to look for beauty in the world around me and if I can't see it, I'll just manipulate that scene in photoshop, and I don't need to worry about being unethical coz I am not a forensic photographer shooting crime scenes and dead bodies.
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