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How much is too much?
Joe Cavaretta, Photographer
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John Korduner, Photographer
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Baton Rouge | LA | United States | Posted: 11:38 AM on 04.19.10 |
->> I find these debates frustrating. Primarily because I've been unable to get my hands on the 2010 photographer's rulebook...and even if I do, it seems like different rules apply to different people under different circumstances, so it would probably get me into more trouble than I already unwittingly manage to find.
This is a good example though, the article's focus is "ethics" and deception, but the picture was taken by a farmer and a filter was applied to his photo, which looks pretty obvious. Ironically, if the processing was more sophisticated, it could've looked natural and it wouldn't signal any alarms. |
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Michael Fischer, Photographer
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Spencer | Ia | USA | Posted: 12:29 PM on 04.19.10 |
->> If you look at the NYT front page this morning, you'll see a simple way to avoid the problem - shoot at twilight or night. VERY high impact. Of course, that would take getting up off of one's butt and going to the scene....
Having said that, the adjustment of the Rueters image made it a stunning- if surreal - image. |
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Mike Anzaldi, Photographer
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Oak Park | IL | USA | Posted: 12:31 PM on 04.19.10 |
| ->> since there is no standard numerical value that you can put on the adjustments people make to a digital image, how do you even begin to have the debate? "how much is too much?" is a very good and reasonable question. the answer is what makes the topic so easy to avoid. nobody knows what's too much until they see it. that's not good enough, in my opinion. if it's ethically okay to tone a picture, then this picture is okay, i guess. it's toned. it may not be a good job, but that's not really the question...or is it? |
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Wally Nell, Photographer
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CAIRO | EG | EGYPT | Posted: 3:47 PM on 04.19.10 |
->> In the film days you chose your film based on the contrast you wanted, the colour emphasis you wanted, and you used a polariser to cut down reflections and add impact to the sky. When we printed black and white, we used red filters when shooting in order to enhance the sky and clouds. Just look at the work of Ansel Adams and many others.
These days we shoot digital and our camera setting mostly give us a very flat file to start with. We use that digital file and have to adjust it to look like we used to get out of the camera using film, be it Velvia, Tmax 400 or whatever. In the film days having pictures look saturated and have high contrast, was not wrong; it was just a tool to bring impact to the image.
I think we need to draw the line at usage, whether it is a news picture or not. If it is intended to portray a moment in time, then it better be accurate. If the moment in time is not affected and is still accurately portrayed, then who knows.
With the coming of HDR, it is very easy to get details back into shadow and high light areas. It is easy to produce a punchy image with lots of contrast. Would it have been possible with film? Maybe.
The image in question here is very flat. Once you have done proper levels or curves on it, I am sure it will look much like the final product.
The human eye sees detail in both shadow and highlights. Film had issues with that and the latitude was very narrow. With normal settings in our digital cameras, that latitude has extended a little, however it makes pictures look very flat. Which one is right? It certainly did not seem to pose any problems in the film days.
So I am not saying the post processing was too much, and I am not saying the person should have left it as is.
Why should a newsworthy nature shot not also be nice to look at? |
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David Manning, Photographer
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Athens | GA | | Posted: 5:00 PM on 04.19.10 |
->> After playing with the original for 5 minutes, i replicated it with a ton of contrast and a high-pass filter. Way too easy.
I wouldn't have a problem with it after minor color correction and fixing the contrast and using the history brush to maintain the farmhouse in the foreground. I see what he was going for.
After his processing, its stunning ART but not-so-much when it comes to photojournalism.
A little bit too far IMO - but not by much - but I've seen much, much worse. |
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Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 7:55 PM on 04.19.10 |
->> I think an important item to note is that according to the blog post, it wasn't the photographer who did the toning:
"Reuters had made contact with the photographer, an Icelandic local, and sought access to the original. It transpired that before being acquired by the wire service, the photograph had been in the possession of an Icelandic newspaper and it was there that some fairly liberal digital dodging and burning took place." |
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David Harpe, Photographer
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Denver | CO | USA | Posted: 11:34 PM on 04.19.10 |
->> It's an old topic with a new image.
The thing that I always wonder in these discussions is...
...does the public really care?
...and as professionals, does it/should it matter what the public thinks?
If it does not matter what the public thinks about such things, then who is the ultimate judge of what is too much, and who gave them that authority as the ultimate arbiter?
If the public DOES care, has anyone done a survey to gauge their tolerance? |
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Gregory Greene, Photographer
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Durham | NH | USA | Posted: 9:48 AM on 04.20.10 |
->> Given that it appears to be the exact same image just with
some heavy contrast or maybe even HDR applied, is that really
that egregious? I could see an uproar over someone cloning
in clouds with Photoshop but this is far from that.
Digital camera's don't have the same dynamic range as the
human eye. Who's to say that the impact added wasn't exactly
how it looked to the viewer. And isn't that what you want
to portray? |
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Thomas Webb, Student/Intern, Assistant
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Gilroy | CA | USA | Posted: 3:11 AM on 04.22.10 |
| ->> This might be slightly off-topic but what if he had shot with a polarizing filter, not that it would have produced such a dramatic effect, but it would have made a noticeable difference. How does that fall into the argument of what is too much? |
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Steve Russell, Photographer
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Toronto | ON | Canada | Posted: 7:44 AM on 04.22.10 |
->> Gregory asks, "Who's to say that the impact added wasn't exactly how it looked to the viewer. And isn't that what you want to portray?"
Remember that whoever did the enhancement was not the viewer.
It was not Reuters either, it was a newspaper inbetween.
Reuters felt there was enough post work to issue an advisory and seek out the original image, something that they had initiated before Mr. Laube had called.
We can go back and forth until we hit the 50 post maximun to this thread on human eye, film choices, filters, etc, but the answer might simply be that Reuters was given a version of the image that was enhanced for the press of that specific paper or simpler, someone at the paper took the enhancement a little further that what Mr. Laube and Reuters were comfortable with. |
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Michael Fischer, Photographer
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Spencer | Ia | USA | Posted: 3:02 PM on 04.22.10 |
->> David;
The public doesn't care. That's why we should.
To make matters worst, the public assumes we DO manipulate the images. You'll hear "Can't you photoshop it?" in reference to manipulating the image.
You educate the person that asks the question one at a time. |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 3:21 PM on 04.22.10 |
->> "Digital camera's don't have the same dynamic range as the
human eye"
This excuse has been used by several different FORMER PJ's who lost their jobs after over zealous Photoshop work. I wouldn't suggest going that route. |
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Martin McNeil, Photographer
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East Kilbride | Lanarkshire | United Kingdom | Posted: 6:32 PM on 04.22.10 |
->> Okay, what about someone who shoots RAW files and then performs adjustments before converting to JPG - doing all your variations in ACR, CaptureONE, Bibble, Aperture etc?
Whilst the goal should always be to "get it right" at the time of pressing the shutter button, surely we should allow similar latitude to what was possible in the days of film... |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 8:56 PM on 04.23.10 |
->> I don't see this as an ethical issue. It's either a badly processed image or an image that has been toned for a press operation that is waaay out of whack.
--mark |
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Chuck Liddy, Photographer
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Durham | NC | USA | Posted: 11:25 PM on 04.23.10 |
| ->> So Mark I'm confused by your comment. It's not an ethical issue that Reuters distributed an obviously altered image to the whole world? Anyone who looks at that image on any computer monitor, no matter what they have couldn't help but know the image was WAY over processed. Sorry, but that is an ethical violation in every sense of the word. This is the same nonsense that Reuters allowed with the missile photos out of Lebanon several years ago. I don't buy this crap at all. If you have editors that can't see an obviously manipulated photo how can we expect them to see one that is well done? The whole damn business is in trouble when attitudes such as this are accepted. |
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Chris Peterson, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbia Falls | MT | USA | Posted: 3:09 PM on 04.24.10 |
->> I suspect that if this photographer had shot the scene with Velvia and a graduated neutral density filter, he could have gotten results very close to the post-processed shot.
Velvia turns the world into something different. No one bitches about it. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 4:45 PM on 04.24.10 |
->> I was referring to the image originator. Clearly Reuters should not have let it get past them.
--Mark |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 4:52 PM on 04.24.10 |
->> Chris,
This is not just like a particular film emulsion. There's blue contamination in the whites -- indeed in the entire image.
It should have neither been believed as a fair representation of the scene nor approved for quality reasons. It's just a mess, all in all.
--Mark |
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Chris Peterson, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbia Falls | MT | USA | Posted: 8:50 PM on 04.24.10 |
->> Mark, blue contamination or not, Velvia still would have done some pretty funky things with that sky, you have to admit.
I guess my point is Raw files tend to be flat with far less contrast, at least that's how they come out of a D300 and Leica M9. (The two clunkers I lug around).
Did this photog overdo it? Probably. But folks sure as heck liked the end result.
Remember, no one questioned it until it was too good.
People love those way oversaturated Velvia slides.
To a degree, reality is what we make of it. |
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