Ethics of divulging digital manipulation-Who should tell?

Personally i don't really mind either way, the point I like is that they told you while you were reading the article. If it mattered to you enough you would read the article, if not you just enjoyed someone elses work, which is just fine with me.

My 2 cents.

al

I feel that any image CREATED digitally should be "tagged" as such on the "photo". We need some type of national or international standard for such "creations". However, I think it is unlikely we will ever see this happen. Besides, as the technology gets even better it will become more and more difficult to tell what is and is not fake and therefore, difficult to enforce.

Those images that are digitally MANIPULATED to make up for the inadequacies of film in recording what was truly there shouldn't fall into this category, IMO. We use filters in the field and dodge and burn in the darkroom and this is where digital can make a useful contribution to photography.

No publication is going to start placing labels on their covers, or their interior pictures for that matter, nor should they, for the simple reason that it would look like crap. Some publications will develop blanket policies that protect their editorial integrity, as I believe National Geographic did after the pyramid fiasco. Others -- photography magazines, maybe -- may reveal the technical data for images individually, when they care to. Most, though, will make extensive use of digital manipulation without saying anything. There aren't going to be any national, international or intergalactic standards on any of this, and anyone who thinks there is is living in some sort of fantasy world.

What's "rangefinder" magazine? Sorry, but that's one I haven't heard of. It couldn't have been done too well if you spotted it as a fake so fast!

What we need is the "FoundView" symbol, with a circle around it and a diagonal line across! Maybe we could get some stickers made up and sneak into the bookstores lookign for offending magazines!

I'm getting to the point where I don't trust any magazine "photograph" any more.

This subject keeps coming back to nag us here in this forum. I feel it is up to the "shooter" or publisher to indicate that the image is manipulated digitally. Bobs suggestion of putting stickers of the non-foundview style might be switched around. The publisher should put a "digi-print" sticker on those images that are digitally altered. I hate to think that we (foundview believers) have to become Photoshop photocops.

Perhaps those of us like Dan and Bob have to voice our dissatisfaction to the publisher. I am going to do this with OP in reference to the recent thread I started on this very subject. It probably wont make much difference, but you gotta try.

There is a basic dishonesty inherent in all of this. The real problem here is that digital imagers want to be regarded as photographers, because photography has a 150 year history of immediacy, truth, reality, and dependability. Everyone keeps saying that photographers manipulate images (in the darkroom, in camera, with filters, exposure, etc.) but a basic truth here is that photographs are made with cameras, recorded on light sensitive material at the moment that they occur, the manipulations mentioned above don't change that basic tenet. Digital Images, on the other hand, are not immediate, they are not photographs, they are not recorded on light sensitive material, and the manipulations that occur, are not secondary to the image, but primary. Digital Imaging should be regarded as a non photographic form of art, as different from photography as painting/watercolor/drawing are. Digital imaging is not an adjunct to photography, it is an entirely separate and different form of image making. To label it photography is dishonest. I know that cameras can be converted to digital imaging tools, but they are then no longer cameras. I don't have anything against digital imaging, in fact I think it is a really tremendous new art form, I just don't understand why digital imagers want to trade on photography as their basis for entry into the art world. Photography developed over the course of the last century and a half through the hard work and vision of thousands of great photographers...each development along the way made it easier to obtain the image, from William Henry Jackson coating glass plates just before exposing the first pictures of Yellowstone the latest slide emulsions, each step along the way has been a refinement of the basic idea creating an image (at the moment of exposure) on light sensitive material. Digital imaging is not the next logical step in this progression, it is not even related to photography through science, history, tradition, or reality. To the digital imagers of the world, leave photography to photographers, create your own path to the masses (like all art forms have done in the past) What you people are doing is co-opting photography as a vehicle to get your new art form before the public....be proud of what you do (we, as photographers, are) state clearly, directly, and truthfully that the image you are presenting is not, and never was a photograph, but it is rather a digital image. The public won't care where the image came from (as long as they like it) and you won't be destroying an art form that took over 100 years to build.

What's missing in this debate is the purpose for which the image is being used. Modifying a news photo (whether digitally or otherwise) is probably intolerable, although there are obvious exceptions (e.g. sharpening an blurred photo to read a license plate). Similarly, a photo meant to document a scene or animal probably shouldn't be modified except to bring out detail already contained in the photo.

But most images are used simply because they look good. As long as these images are not used to deceive (e.g. part of a sales brochure to sell Flordia swampland), then it doesn't really matter how they were created - the editors who select the pictures for their magazine won't care whether the image came from a camera or a computer, they're just interested in putting the image in their art-oriented magazine.

An analogy can be made to TV and movies. Heavy digital editing a la Jurassic Park is perfectly acceptable, even desirable if the purpose is pure entertainment. For news or documentaries, it becomes more problematic, which is why news programs have been criticized for the staged "dramatic recreation." A tricky middle ground is the entertaining documentary: Movies like Apollo 13 and Titanic are meant primarily for entertainment; yet both directors took great pains to be as historically and scientifically accurate as possible in their special effects (both digital and conventional).

It's an issue that's hit medium after medium as computer technology has improved enough to make reproductions and modifications practically indistinguishable from originals. It's hit the music industry in the form of lip synching and "live" concerts being pre-recorded. Now it's hit photography. Soon we'll be discussing digitally modified home videos. Telling the people who do these things to go away won't accomplish anything. For better or for worse, digital manipulation is here to stay, and photographers are going to have to learn to coexist.

Developing accepted standards and markings which distinguish "original" images from "enhanced" images from "modified" images is a good start.

John Kim

Howard's post speaks my mind.

We should all read Howard's post above one more time because I really think it says it all. I began photography as a hobby 25 years ago and then after a long hiatus took it up again about 8 months ago. I made a vow to myself that I would use my own instincts and basic photography tools to create images. I am at least as competitive as the next guy out there and would love to ultimately see one or more of my images published. It's also satisfying to just have an image appreciated for what it communicates. I find it extremely frustarting to realiize that the playing field is not level. People competing to get images published are going to use tools I don't personally approve of. Even images to the critique site here are often manipulated. I suspect we are not going to be successful, but I think we should do anything possible to separate photography skills from computer skills. Otherwise, we will have no remaining criteria by which we can judge "photography."