Comments on: Altered States

By: Robert Friel

Robert Friel — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:57:27 +0000

Well said David. I agree that the essence of the original photograph should not be changed for wildlife photographs. I don’t object to the selective application of curves and levels etc to convey what I saw at the time, but removing significant details or (worse for me) adding them isn’t what wildlife or nature photography should be about. Composites etc are fine so long as they are clearly declared as that, and not, as you say, used to convey that the photographer has seen things they haven’t.

By: Suzi Ambrose

Suzi Ambrose — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:28:41 +0000

I totally agree. I still use my Canon Film camera, and would rather take one shot at
a time. What’s the point of taking 500 digitals and then having to cull them? It’s more
amazing and wonderful when your one photo outshines someone else’s 500.
You need patience, forethought and more patience. I live in the nw Cariboo region
of B.C. and have lots of fodder for my camera.

Good blog,

Suzi

By: David Lloyd

David Lloyd — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:22:50 +0000

Yves, what you’re doing is fine. You’re not altering or manipulating a photograph in order to deceive. Black and White photography, or art photography has accepted limits with regards to changing brightness and contrast. Also for color, it is quite acceptable to enhance the color a little. These are quite normal ‘darkroom’ practices, if you like.
Some people will say it’s ok to remove a leaf but would not remove a large element therefore altering the integrity of the photograph. The genre of wildlife photography suggests that very little should change.
Everyone has different views, but adding or removing characters is a no no by most if not all ethical photographers.
The key is whether you are deceiving the viewer or not, and I don’t think you are.

By: Yves Choquette

Yves Choquette — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:36:22 +0000

I am a little confuse. I shoot on color but use Photoshop to change it to B\W because i love it much more than color. I am not graphic designer at all. I probably use less than 10% of those complicate software capacity. I never add or remove characters or else. Anyway i have no ideal how you can do that.

But i like to play with different controls like contrast, brightness, saturation, levels, etc to give my pictures extra texture or the opposite. But it is what you call cheating?

A really confuse so call “photographer”

By: Brennan Williams

Brennan Williams — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:04:42 +0000

Thanks David,

The capture of a single instant in time and display without changing the content is what photography is all about. I’m not sure at what point one can move from being a photographer to being a photographic artist but this blured lines does exist. Wildlife photography is special to many people and has to retain a certain ellement of integrity in order to be acceptable. To illustrate the point I give an example of photos used by the world heritage site at Isimangaliso Wetland Park in South Africa who refuse to use images manipulated in any way (bar cropping) in their brochures and website. Their press liason officer (Roland) told me “there will no hint of an untruth associated with our work”. Don’t muck up your exposure or forget to change white balance if you want your work used there…. For such scientific organisations who view wildlife from an academic viewpoint the slight “fuzz” of low speed exposure is preferable to any manipulation of the truth.