Any thread on digital ethics/manipulation of reality will not conclude
Invariably it ends with "my ethics" vs. "your ethics" and not with "THE ethics" for a reason.
To start with we need to understand and agree upon an acceptable definition for
reality in photography. Once we agree on what is
real in photography then it is easier to debate on
manipulation of reality or several similar phrases. It is also very important to talk about manipulation of all kinds of reality, be it digital or optical. In general optimal manipulation is taken for granted. It is not fair to say optical manipulation is fine but not digital - which is lame. During initial years of transition from film/slide to digital,
digital and
manipulation were synonyms. Over the years correction started happening and is still happening.
Let us start the discussion,
So, what is
real in photography? What is
not manipulated ?
An obvious answer could be
what we humans see. If we go with this definition most of the images of nature that we see accept today will get
manipulated tag for following reasons. Here we need to consider optical manipulation too.
1. B&W images - aren't those manipulations? Nature is not B&W.
2. Optical manipulations
- Use of different optical filters - color intensifiers, polarizers, graduated neutral density filters, sunset/sunrise filters/81A/81C and various other filters sold by Singh-Ray/Cokin/B+W.... don't they manipulate an image? The same/similar results often get branded as manipulations if we use digital filters.
- Human eye is a wide-normal angle lens. Those smooth blur perspectives out of 300-600 f4 lenses, tilt-shifts, macro lenses etc., are all have to be optical manipulations. For example human eyes can't see
perspectives like this one and those beautiful birds on lone perches with totally out of focus smoothly blurred backgrounds? Why are those not manipulations of reality? Of course they are!
3. Most of post processing softwares like for example Nik's software emulate lots of dark room techniques used in the past. This includes -
- Burning and Dodging. Ansel Adams said
Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. Does history recognize Ansel's creations as manipulations?
- People used various ISO speed films to get different contrast/grain characteristics for artistic reasons in the past. Those are supported in software today. Of course post processing softwares like Adobe PS provides features using which a tiger's head can be replaced with a lion's but we are not talking about those obvious clone related manipulations here.
Now, rewinding back,
what is reality and
what is manipulation? Should we accept whatever done using optics is fine and the same thing in software a strict no no?
If
what we humans see is not the definition of what reality is what else can we accept as
reality?
Unless we arrive at a general consensus on what reality is we can't decide what manipulation of reality is!
Your thoughts are welcome!