At a photography Web site that I frequent, I read a series of comments about “manipulated photographs.” One of the comments by a very good photographer said: “Once the shutter is pressed … it is done, anything after that is digital art.” Upon some reflection, I would like to share the following for your consideration. I had a short rant quite a while ago on this topic, now a longer one!
What is Manipulation
Once the shutter is pressed you have a latent image on film, then what? To make it visible, it needs to be processed. What kind of developer? Is cross-processing allowed? What about high acutance developers? Are they off-limits too as they add an increased sense of sharpness around the edges where dark meets light areas? Wouldn’t you call them manipulated?
And if we are making prints, what kind of paper, how many developers can I use? Can I use a two-bath process with or without a water bath in between? Could I be allowed to use toners, sepia, or selenium? What about the use of filters, polarizer, ND, graduated, warming, color correction, … Roger Fenton has a famous photograph, Valley of the Shadow of Death. The photograph is not manipulated but the scene is! Which is better?
Are There Unmanipulated Photographs
Any answer to the above questions will result in defining “manipulated” from a certain viewpoint. I especially tried to remain on the film-based photography side to emphasize the elusive nature of what we mean by “manipulated.” Although the word seems to be used exclusively for digital photography, without manipulation and altering reality, whatever that may mean, we cannot engage in photography. Generally, people tend to use the word to mean “anything that alters reality” which I will show applies to any kind of photography.
I think it is very naïve to think “once the shutter is pressed it is done.” Photography, by its very nature, is extremely dependent on “manipulation” of some sort. The digitizing process creates its own distortion as does recording images on film. Cameras are programmed to correct this distortion.
Altering Reality, Which Reality
Periodically, manufacturers release firmware updates. Installing any one of these updates will also change the earlier processing parameters and produce different images. Is this acceptable? Further, if I do not allow my digital camera to make any of the corrections and do it afterward why is my software is considered different from the software the camera uses?
If we apply this line of thinking to film-based photography a new question emerges: “which film records reality?” If I decide to use Fuji Velvia for my slides, am I manipulating the result as this film records different parts of the spectrum with varying intensities compared to Kodak Ektachrome? Which one do we take as the “true reality?”
The medium does not make photographs; it merely records, hopefully as a close facsimile of the photographer’s mental image. As the medium has gone through its evolution, this relationship remained the same. If we insisted on using what was prevailing at any given time, because the new medium was a different one and “distorted reality,” then we would still be coating our glass plates.
Of course, I have not even mentioned the changes in film technology that produces colors that are different depending on the choice of the film the photographer makes. Researchers on the subject, at Kodak and Fuji just to name a couple of big names, found that people perceive a scene more vividly than it is “realistically” recorded, and therefore, become quite disappointed to see their “dull” images compared to their vivid mental image. To make their film more competitive, both Kodak and Fuji introduced, and continue to sell super saturated films. These films are specifically designed to alter reality.
Should Purpose of Use Be a Factor
We need to decide on and agree to the answer to this question: “what are the boundaries of manipulation for specific uses of an image?” That is a more productive discussion I believe. So, let us take that subject.
A painter, an artist with a different medium, has infinite liberties to add, subtract, reposition, enlarge, reduce, and otherwise distort what he or she sees, or better yet, imagines. Nobody questions whether the painting has added elements or not, primarily because they perceive the painting as a piece of creative work rather than a correct depiction of reality, and manipulated. On the other hand, a photograph is assumed first to reflect reality. Thus, the viewer expects an accurate reflection of this perceived reality. Anything that may interfere with the “pictures don’t lie” adage is seen as heresy in photography. I believe the adage itself is in error, pictures only tell a “slice of the truth” at best.
Artistic vs Journalistic Photography
By this example, I am offering a dichotomy of purpose for photographic work: artistic expression, journalistic representation. If the purpose of a photograph is to reflect reality as journalistic representation, I will agree that nothing should be added to, nor be subtracted from the photograph. Its purpose, and consequently its claim, is to reflect the slice of reality the way it was at that moment in time, albeit from a particular angle and height.
If, on the other hand, a photograph is presented with the purpose of artistic expression, I have no problem with a new sky being added or lighting emphasized. For this artwork to remain in the realm of photography, I look for a “plausible reality,” that is, the image I am looking at can indeed be a photograph. Using the sky example, if it was rendered as sheepskin instead of blue and its shades, I may consider that a different kind of artistic expression, a surrealistic photographic expression. Or arctic sky is used in a photograph taken in your New England backyard.
I have presented for your consideration three positions, all of them offering their “expressed reality”. They are “expressed reality” because at best they represent a model of the scene as it was photographed, and they are all distinctly different from the photographer’s perceived reality at the time of taking the photograph.
- Journalistic photography has no room for altering reality, recorded reality
- Artistic photography may have altered reality as long as it remains plausible as a photograph, plausible reality
- An artistic expression that begins with a photograph but alters it in such ways that it is no longer plausible to imagine it as a photograph, altered reality
Out of the three positions, only the last one may not be in the category of a “photograph” in some competitions. Even then, that category represents a wide gray area that also includes cross-processed slides, deliberately over or under-filtered color prints, and the like. The other two represent photographic work to me and are accepted as such in club competitions, salons, and other juried events.
Just as it is not correct to tell a painter not to use a particular color, brush, or type of paint, we should refrain from telling photographers not to use a particular technique or equipment because it alters someone’s perceived reality, often without even seeing the actual scene.
Of course, I have not even started discussing “which reality,” “whose reality” matters yet. I may address them later. Also important is the driving force behind the manipulations. If they are done casually because of a new tool, it is not an artistic choice. But, if rendering that cloud cluster darker adds to the message in the photograph, I am for allowing the photographers to make that choice.
Mind you, I am not defending “manipulated” for the sake of manipulation. I am merely suggesting that we allow the same freedom to digital photographers that we give to film photographers of the past. Let us think before we stamp them all manipulated.
How to Choose a Tripod
Sabrina Caldwell
It is nice to find someone else who has been thinking about and writing on this topic. You make some great points especially about film photography (such as supersaturated film).
Piero
I have stumbled upon your website by reading one of the comments on the very website you frequent, and I’m glad I discovered it.
Too bad I have very little time at the moment, as I find many of the topics you covered interesting indeed and I’d like to add my contribution.
But at least allow me to express my thoughts on this article about manipulation, as I myself have personally written something in regard, although leaning more toward its digital form (and, in case you might be interested, here’s the link: https://www.pierodesopo.com/what-is-photography/
There are many aspects of the problem to consider, and every time I come back to this topic I realize there’s always some other piece of the puzzle missing.
One of these aspects you mentioned is the relation between photography and painting. If a painter is not being questioned about what he or she adds to the work of art, why do we question the photographer?
Well, I consider the two disciplines different in this regard. A painting, by its nature, is a construct of the painter, generated by the artist’s imagination. Now, I urge to say that this particular example only relates to a type of painting, and I find rather curious that this is also the most common comparison we often hear coming from the photography world. I believe there’s a reason, which is actually very peculiar, maybe for someone a tad unconscious. In fact, is not a coincidence that we often mention this type of painting as paradigm since that is what lies at the origin of photography. Even more so is not a coincidence that at its very first ages, photography went through so many creative and imaginative way employed in order to resemble painting as much as possible, only better: a faster way to create, a more accurate way to do it, a more realistic one.
With all that said, if the painting is the result of the artist’s imagination, the photograph is the result of the artist’s capacity to capture what he or she sees through the camera. The act of seeing and the capacity to capture is different from the act of imagining something. Sure, they both go through a process of imagination and creation, but if the painter can linger on this status for as long as he or she wants, the photographer has to deal with that split of a second to capture what the circumstances offer and how the imagination filters the reality. Granted, for some photographers that split of a second can actually arrive after an evaluation of the environment, so, not exactly a fleeting moment, but its nature can’t be deceived, it’s always a matter of pressing the shutter.
We both agree on a photograph not being a true representation of the reality, in other words, being a lie. But a lie because of the limits of the medium itself is considerably different from a lie made by an artifice, a trickery. I see there’s a profound confusion at this point as both, the photographer and the painter, are artists in this diatribe (of course, assuming they really are artists and don’t simply pretend to be, but that’s another hard nut to crack). Being both artists doesn’t mean they both obey the same rules. That’s where many get caught, in this little, tricky, detail, which is enormous in terms of principles.
If I start replacing, say, a flat, dull sky with a cloudy one, I’m doing a sort of collage. Which is fine, if I want to do a collage, but then I don’t have to call that a photograph, otherwise I’m not only manipulating images but words as well. Nowadays, these distinctions are more important than ever, now that the words are losing their meaning. It comes to my mind the word ‘surreal’, which is often adopted when it comes to a piece of work where different sources have been mixed together.
How would you respond to a situation like this? I show you a beautiful photograph of a landscape, a perfect sky, trees, a little river there, and a beautiful sun: it shines and it’s casting a nice warm tint on the picture. Now, what if I told you none of what you see in the picture does actually exist? Well, why not? After all is another manipulation, the result looks like a photograph, so that’s what I call it, a photograph. But as it turns out, everything is the result of a CG render. Is that still a photograph? And what is so different from manipulating the image in Photoshop? After all, the principle is the same. A different sky here,
a better image of the river there, and before I finish I realize that I can just replace all the elements using my 3D software. I’m an artist, just like a painter, and I’m creating. And this picture, it does look like a
photograph!
Best,
Piero
Cemal Ekin
Hello Piero, and thank you for sharing your thoughts on manipulated photographs. I believe the main source of confusion stems from a single word, photography, applying to all kinds of work. If someone “writes” we may call them a poet, a novelist, an essayist, and so on. But in photography, there is no implied variation by using different words. At best, we add a genre like landscape photography, architectural photography, etc. All those miss the content creation and styles. Efforts to add terms probably added even more confusion, conceptual photography may not be readily understood by many for instance.
My reference to painting and painters being able to add anything they want was to point out that some art forms may be a synthesis like painting and that is not questioned. Also, adding a new sky to a photograph may disqualify it from a nature competition but it may be perfectly usable as calendar art. Considering an art form as “pure” does not, in my opinion, increase its stature nor does it make it more real. We seem to agree that all photographs lie rather than believing “pictures don’t lie.”
My personal practice is to convey the emotions and visual experiences I had while taking a photograph. I use the tools and techniques as subservient to my vision of what I want to say. When a photograph is ready for me to present, I want it to look like effortlessly done with no processing artifacts for I don’t want it to become about a technique. I apply my digital development to the extent necessary to make this happen. Discarding some work because it had “more than allowable level of manipulation” sounds to me like an effort to keep photography pure while we all know that it is not. There is, and there must be some level of manipulation for an image to emerge either in analog or digital photography. People responding to my comments found sharpening to be permissible with no explanation other than “covering for the shortcomings in the medium.” My position on this matter is not to defend any kind of manipulation but to defend against attempts to apply some kind of ill-defined purity test.
The boundaries of pure photography are like trying to hold tight a handful of Jell-O, the tighter we hold, the more oozes out. Applying this kind of arbitrary purity test will exclude the works of Gregory Crewdson or Jeff Wall or Jerry Uelsmann from the photographic world. That would be unfair to them and unfair to the people who enjoy that kind of photographic work. They start as ideas, are captured on the photographic medium, printed using devices appropriate for photographic work yet we call them not photography because something may be altered in post-production does not sound well-reasoned to me.
We seem to agree on more points like photograph not having narrative qualities but evoking meaning in the mind of the viewer. I have written quite a few articles on painting and photography, narrative and meaning in photography, and so on. I have quickly read your article and found the points on which we agree and will explore your site further after I finish this message.
Take care, and as unlikely as it may be, I look forward to a chance meeting to chat more about photography face to face.
Cemal
Piero
Hi Cemal,
Thank you for your prompt reply.
I don’t see the point of having different terminology for the different types of photography, as long as we start from the principle that photography is one and one only. A painting is a painting and when is not, it is something else. Why this has to be different for a photograph? I understand why Garry Winogrand didn’t agree with the idea of “Street photography”. It’s still photography and if you capture in a studio or in a street, the principles are the same. The main difference is, one is staged the other is not (and I have a problem with staged work which, to me, may undermine the nature of photography itself, but that’s for another conversation).
The confusion is due to what the avant-garde meant for the art history and to the fact that, when it comes to this type of conversations, photographers take for granted that a photograph is a piece of art. First off, not necessarily is a piece of art. Second off, when it happens to be, it’s extremely relevant to discern between a work of art that uses photography as a means, and a photograph that has an artistic quality or an artistic nature to it.
For example, I can make a painting using traditional tools (a canvas, brushes, oil, and so on) and, if it has an artistic quality, we can call it a work of art. Or, I can use a canvas and oil to create something completely different from a traditional painting. What is that? It is not a painting, but it can still be a work of art. Now, if that is true for the so-called major arts, why is not for photography? Why we, photographers, have such a hard time understanding the different nuances of the multiple types of expressions?
To your point, what is a calendar art? That is an oxymoron unless we have a calendar, which pulled from its daily context and used into a new, unexpected context, engenders a different message and use from its original, ordinary purpose. Otherwise what we have is a conventional photograph used as a decorative mannerism to embellish a common calendar.
This is nothing new to the other disciplines: there are situations where we can’t tell right away whether what we’re looking at is architecture or sculpture. And yet, understanding the difference is vital, otherwise, we miss the point the creator had when he or she conceived it. We miss what you call the message. Why is that? Because the message, in order to reach its audience, has to obey the rules of a language. If we start playing with the language and use it to our convenience than the message is lost. De Stijl artists knew this very well and in fact, they came up with a new name for what they were doing, which wasn’t architecture, painting, or sculpture. Every artist of the past understood this very well, our generation is the only one that has a problem understanding it, but it is not a coincidence.
All that said, this doesn’t mean we can’t break the rules: “As long as you have rules, you have a chance for freedom. To try to obtain freedom without being aware of the rules means nothing.” (Shunryu Suzuki).
What you call “not pure” about photography is only a limit of the medium itself. Taking this as a reason to extend this impure nature it’s rather convenient. On this matter, I’d love to hear your thoughts on my provocation at the end of my previous comment regarding the CG image. Why is that not a photograph? Or, why is it?
Best,
Piero
Cemal Ekin
Hello Piero,
This discussion easily slides into semantics. Painting with spatulas instead of brushes does not disqualify the result from being painting. In photography, this discussion emerges periodically and as I said to one commenter on PetaPixel, we will agree to disagree and move on. In the end, that’s what will happen.
Regarding CG, no I do not consider that photography nor do I consider hyper-realistic painting as photography. Their origins are different, not the level of manipulation. The hang up on manipulation sounds to me like a hang up to have a subject for discussion. And, I have not yet seen a reasonable separation line of the level of permissible manipulation. It remains as a sliding scale from sharpening, contrast, adding missing saturation to the removal of dust on the sensor and the like. It generally depends on what the person behind the argument would like to apply to her or his photographs in software. I did mention this in the discussion thread but will repeat it again: What camera setting will be acceptable? Camera natural, camera faithful, camera landscape, camera portrait? Is switching the camera mode a form of manipulation? Why is it OK to let the camera to do it but not the photographer in software? After all, the camera is making some manipulations depending on the setting.
In any case, it has been nice exchanging ideas with you. I approved your comment and will add my previous reply to you as my reply to the comment. Thank you for participating.
Take care,
Cemal
Piero
Hi Cemal,
I believe one thing is to tweak the contrast, the saturation of what was there when we captured the photograph, another thing entirely is to introduce elements or remove them from the photograph. After all, contrast, saturation, color, they are all very basic adjustments. Already each human being registers those values in a different way. Most likely I perceive such values distinctively from you, and that’s without any camera, just with our bare eyes. In fact, if you and I would be both looking at the same environment we would describe it differently.
As for the camera settings, if you have read my article, I mentioned this already: even the very manufacturer introduces its own interpretation of colors, contrast etc. in its cameras. But then again, one thing is a basic adjustment, another thing is twisting the nature of the photograph itself. Actually, that’s a good example you did: with a phone camera, I can add decorative elements. Now, those are not part of the photograph, and the final result is definitely not a photograph. Are we going to say here that’s because of the nature of those stickers, hence, not technically or aesthetically perfect/pleasing?
There’s a threshold of how much the photograph is recognizable: if those basic adjustments don’t alter the overall status of a photograph, they are not a problem (of course only in terms of fidelity, not creativity).
Also, I don’t think it’s just semantics: a canvas with oil colors on it but also carpenter nails, strings, plaster and so on, is definitely not an oil painting in the traditional way. In fact, it is not the first thing it would come to your mind if I say the word painting. It’s mixed technique. If we forget what it is and we call it a painting, then we forget our history, how did we get there and, in this case, what a mixed technique is.
I think the CG image would actually fit very well in the territory of photography and manipulation that you describe, which I personally would not agree with. If it’s ok to swap out a sky, why is not ok to swap out all the elements? Is there a limit to how many elements we can manipulate and the technique we use in order to produce it?
Yes, I said a 3D render, but with the risk of sound pedantic, the origin actually is not different as a 3D render can be very well composed of pieces of photographs mapped onto geometry in a digital environment (which is just what Photoshop is). It is still photography(!) and it is still manipulation, only in Photoshop I work on a 2-dimensional paradigm in a 3d software on a 3-dimensional one, which actually makes it even more legit. And on top of that, to render my 3D images I use a camera, a lens, ISO, and shutter speed.
Photography adjustments such as contrast, color and similar are on one side of the spectrum. Image manipulation is on the other side. Maybe because of my work to me this distinction is crystal clear but I totally understand that we have different opinions in regard.
Best
Cemal Ekin
Piero, it looks like we will agree to disagree on this matter. I do not see any boundaries around the “manipulation limits” yet there is a desire to invite photographers to conform to it. So long as I am not presenting my work as journalistic documents, I am not willing to subscribe to “no manipulation” school. The aim seems to be a moving target depending on the questions raised about its validity. I wish you the best in pursuing your endeavors.
Best,
Cemal