RE: The Steve McCurry "Scandal"

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<p>If it [reality] was really overrated, we wouldn't still be talking about this stuff 150 or so years later.</p>

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<p>One key thing to note is "<em>still</em> talking about it". For most of the 150 years, few people talked about it at all. It was only when a certain kind of hyper, even ritual, "purity" was touted that the issue arose, and fairly recently at that.<br>

Lack of editing is critical for forensic and scientific record keeping, although I think few would object to the cigarette butt being removed <em>before</em> the picture was taken.<br>

But most photography, right back to its very origins, has been concerned with a kind of artistic "truth" that is not concerned with the final image being precisely what was on the negative.<br>

What is it, supposedly, that privileges the negative over the other factors?<br>

Pictures with clouds taken from separate negatives were praised for for greater verisimilitude than those that merely reflected the inability of tonal range of the early photographic materials to capture foreground and sky together.</p>

<p>But this thread is concerned about McCurry who worked as a photojournalist most of his life where truth telling in NatGeo was paramount. While artistic photos are more eye appealing, their foundation should be in telling an honest story. </p>

Getting rid of clutter doesn't make a story less honest, it makes it more clearly told.

<p>That depends on whether you know enough about the culture in which you're photographing to be able to tell what parts of the image are essential. Somebody who travels all over the world photographing things can't possibly be an expert on every culture, so to avoid inadvertently corrupting the meaning of the image, or even potentially causing serious trouble for someone, best not to cut anything out that conceivably might matter. Removing a lamppost is probably safe; removing one person out of a group, possibly not.</p>