Ethical Standards for landscape photography

[sknowles]

I attended a presentation on landscape photography by a award-winning wildlife and landscape

photographer. He promoted himself as a wildlife photographer who does landscape photography. During

the first presentation, on landscape photography, he said that wildlife photography has ethical standards

for truthfullness in image presentation similar to photojournalism, but landscape photography has no

standards and any photo composition and manipulation is acceptable.

 

While he emphasizes he work in wildlife and wilderness conservation, he said that "improving" landscape

images is ok, from the initial images in the field to the final result. He has some excellent advice,

especially thinking through the image in the field and the camera to the final image, often taking 3-5

images of the same scene at different settings to composite later and taking many (he cited occasionally

50-60) of small scenes to lift parts out for other images. All of his landscape images he showed were

composite images, some with parts from different locations or scenes.

 

I'm curious of others' view on this because I for one am a little outraged. I'm not against those that

produce stunning images, we have have our interests in our work and presentation. And I'm not against

manipulation because it's always been done, and it's easier to do now, and something I'm slowly learning.

But I think it doesn't help those who are trying to capture what is actually there and represent that in their

images where some are producing highly manipulated images as real. I realize this means many landscape

images appear less than visually stunning, but reality is rarely stunning. Exceptions which come to mind

are Galen Rowell's images, such as the rainbow over the monastary.

 

Looking at his landscape images now I don't about how beautiful they are, but how much each is

manipulated. It strikes me he should put a notice on all his landscape images, "The image you see is a

representation and does not reflect reality." Just my impression and thoughts.

[sattler123]

I am a hobby photographer and mostly what I do is landscape photography with both traditional medium (4x5 and 8x10 film) and digital (Canon 5D). I believe that minimum manipulation should be applied to those pictures - I typically only use levels and curves in Photoshop to increase color renditions and contrast. I think it is wrong to stitch multiple pictures together (I don't mean this in the sense of producing a panorama view). Other folks will probably disagree with me - but I think that the landscape is beautiful enough without having to do any cosmetics.

[stephen hazelton]

From my personal preference, I would prefer to have a landscape or a nature shot faithfully reflect what was there rather than what the photographer wished was there.

 

But I can't see how it can be considered "wrong" to manipulate either image just for the sake of having a prettier picture. Surely the painters have done it for years.

 

Where it would get somewhat dishonest is when the person starts describing the picture. When you have "Longs Peak as Seen from Mt. Whitney" and the people go looking for that view, you have a problem. When you have "Polar Bear with 14 cubs in Big Bend", you are simply misleading people about what the place is like.

 

In any event, give us all 20 years and we'll be used to the concept and recognize that seeing a photo doesn't mean the real scene looks like that, any more than seeing a painting. We're already used to that in the movies. The original Frankenstein terrified people because they were more accustomed to the what-you-see-is-what-it-was-like shooting, but we don't bat an eye when a zombie gets splattered today.

 

To me, a more serious concern is that people have ideas about what the "perfect" landscape ought to look like. And the closer they come to that perfect ideal, the more the photos look the same. When every other picture is B&W, the color picture is outstanding. When every other picture has lackluster color, the oversaturated shot stands out. When every shot is oversaturated- well, what then? You can see that somewhat when you go to the TRP, in that the shots tend to have a certain sameness in saturation, in sharpness. It's not a bad thing per se, just gives the shots a less original look.

[markminard]

"Looking at his landscape images now I don't about how beautiful they are, but how much each is manipulated. It strikes me he should put a notice on all his landscape images, "The image you see is a representation and does not reflect reality." Just my impression and thoughts".

 

 

Scott,

 

In playing Devil's Advocate here, I could say that Ansel should've put the same notice on his late prints of "Moonrise," as they are by no means reflections of the reality he saw before him on October 31, 1941.

 

I agree with you. I believe that manipulation of the Photoshop variety is fundamentally different than the dodging, burning, and unsharp masking of the so-called "traditional" darkroom. I personally can't equate a traditional silver photograph with a digital manipulation. They are two entirely different forms of expression. And yes, I do believe that a silver print is more artistically valid than a Photoshop print labeled as a photograph. I also understand that those who use Photoshop to produce these images care not one bit what I think :)

 

I've heard one large-format photographer claim that cropping is an admission of failure; if you can't get it right on the ground glass then you're not seeing "photographically." I'm not that extreme. You'll have to figure out for yourself where you're going to stand on the continuum between those non-cropping large-format contact printers and the Photoshop "painters..."

 

Mark

[john mackay]

<p>Historically, photography has as its cornerstone the premise

of presenting the actual--<i>the view through the camera lens</i>.

In this, photography provides a unique opportunity for us to vicariously <i>happen</i> upon the new without having to actually experience it :))</p>

 

<p>As a photographer, I believe that it is this anchoring in the <i>presentation of reality</i> that presents photography's best defense against marginalization. However, were I an artist, I might argue that the strict ethics of <i>straight photography"</i> are far too narrow to capture the subjective experience we call reality. For straight photographers then, ethics are embedded in being true to the medium and for artists ethics will always be about being true to the message.</p>

 

<p>Perhaps the question then becomes: <i>What are the viewers expectations?</i></p>

[leorossi]

"In this, photography provides a unique opportunity for us to vicariously happen upon the new without having to actually experience it :))"

 

Would manipulation of this kind happen also in major tourist publications? I am almost sure the answer is 'yes'. That would be most unethical for reasons that need not being explained.

[Spearhead]

There are two ways to look at photography.

 

One is that it is a recording medium. The above posts see it that way, which fits well with many aspects of photography including happy snapping, photojournalism, security cameras, and forensic photography.

 

The other way is to look at photography as art. Art doesn't have boundaries, it has always been about moving the needle. If it wasn't, we would still be making stick figure cave paintings and putting them in museums. Without the boundaries, photography can become more than what it has been and not become an old fossil.

 

It just depends on where you want to put photography.

[tim_soderholm]

I think the ethicality is tied directly to how the photographer represents the image. If the

photographer presents a composited/extensively manipulated image as "this is how it

really was," there's an ethical problem. This type of situation was evidenced recently by

the "journalistic" photos published by Reuters that were "punched up" for greater visual

impact.

 

That's appropriate in an exhibit to express a photographer's opinion or vision of a subject

and totally inappropriate in photojournalism (IMHO).

 

Bottom line, art is art; if I like an image enough to hang it on my wall, I don't particularly

care if it was composited, stitched, dodged, burned, cut, pasted, cropped or computer

generated; it's art, and if I like it, that's what matters. On the other hand, if it's next to a

news story in my morning paper or on my laptop screen, I expect it to be the most faithful

possible representation of the scene as it happened (photo and caption both).

 

Tim

[john mackay]

<p>I'm not convinced that <i>"manipulation"</i> was the subject of the sentence that you're quoting. </p>

 

<p>I guess what I was trying to say was that the photograph is as

close to visual reality as you can get without actually being present

at the scene. To elaborate, as a photographer, I can't transmit the

smell of the ocean or the smells of food being cooked by street vendors in Bali. I <b>can't</b> make you feel the warmth of the sun when it glances your skin for the first time at dawn. To compensate for this I'll instead heighten those characteristics that I can such as the intensity of colour in the sun or he glow in the sky. As a result, the photo may not be entirely visually faithful. However, being at the scene on the other hand would deliver a greater number of physical inputs feeding into your consciousness such as smells, sounds, feelings, the very journey of arriving at the scene etc. all of which contribute to your response to the experience of that scene--<i>a sense of being there</i>.</p>

 

<p>As photographers is our <i>just the facts Ma'am</i> approach short changing viewers experience? Is it appropriate for us to try to recreate that experience by manipulating other stimuli? Again, I

guess this comes back to the whole ethics argument surrounding <i>medium vs message</i> and I'm sure there would be some who would posit that the two ideals need not necessarily be separate--just difficult to combine effectively :))</p>

[oceanphysics]

The problem comes when you try to think of landscape photography, or wildlife photography, as one thing. Confusion on this is why most nature photography sucks so badly.

<p>

Wildlife photographers tend to think of what they do as photojournalism. I suppose this is because of their background, which is more naturalist than artist, and because the primary market for their work is magazines which treat it as journalism. There's very little market for wildlife photography as fine art. However, most wildlife photographers can't help but try to be artists too. Hence the obsession with the perfect composition of the perfect subject in perfect light, which is what art seems to degenerate into when you can't really be creative because you're simultaneously working under photojournalistic restrictions.

<p>

If they really wanted to be journalists they'd be taking a lot of superficially unappealing shots of animals suffering the effects of environmental degradation. That's what's really going on -- we're living in the midst of the biggest mass extinction since the dinosaurs at least. Instead they run off to a National Park because they can take shots that give the illusion that there's some untouched nature out there someplace. It's all lies.

<p>

Landscape photography has a history of being more art than journalism. But it still can be either one -- it's not one thing. And people who don't know which they're doing, or who try to do both at once, produce some really crappy work.

[albert_richardson1]

I think ethics enters into photography when the pictures might be used as evidence for something. An example would be as an exhibit in a court case to show a defendant's innocence or guilt. Another would be as an example in the court of public opinion to document some problem or condition worthy of concern. In either case, there must be an understanding established in the presentation of a context for the image to show that it is not intended to be simply a fiction made up out of an artist's imagination. This image must be known to represent some clear point of view to be effective.

 

I wonder if the seminar speaker is not taking himself a little too seriously to believe that one makes pictures of animals only to document something. Besides, simply seeing an image of an animal is not what forms a person's opinion of the natural world. We know that California dairy cows spend their lives standing in milk factories and are not the "happy cows" depicted in the ads. We also suspect that the feelings and behavioral explanations offered for animals in the narrations of various nature documentaries are more fanciful than not. Well-intentioned people use fiction as a shortcut to get a point across when they don't have to prove in a treatise that they're telling the absolute truth.

 

I would be interested in asking the speaker how he would have photographers sort out the stories that explain the pictures of animals they take so they can show that they didn't deliberately misrepresent their material. What pictorial elements do that?

 

Who says that there is no room for the artist to photograph animals for some different purpose? I can't believe that it's unethical to make pictures that don't worry about poaching, starvation or the approaching extinction of the species.

[leorossi]

"I'm not convinced that "manipulation" was the subject of the sentence that you're quoting."

 

Indeed it wasn't. I was quoting your definition of 'actual' while referring to the subject of manipulation in the originating post. It wound up being eccessively, misleadingly synthetic :)

[ellis_vener_photography]

"The image you see is a representation and does not reflect reality."

 

This is true of alll photographs.

[b_hall1]

Often there are digital images with setting sun (or sun behind a cloud) in the background but also a lumpy foreground with perfectly even lighting. So there are two suns in that nature...and I say that those are "not natural" or "not possible in nature".

 

I wouldn't worry about reduction in contrast or a reasonable amount of added saturation. But if the composite is proven then that is not fundamental to photography but fundamental to a broader art.

 

In other words the film image is the benchmark and a digital result even though improved should still contain all the elements of the film image.

[carbon_dragon]

There's no right answer here, only opinions. Mine is that unless you're taking evidence for a trial or unless you're doing a travel brochure where there is an implicit promise that the place you want people to go actually looks like that, what you're really doing it producing a piece of art. As digital takes over, this will be even more so. There's no way to draw a line between darkroom manipulations and photoshop manipulations, at least not conceptually.

 

When I first started scanning my 35mm and printing it on an epson printer, my control over the printing process was a big advantage in competitions. There were those in the club that felt that was an unfair advantage and wanted to make it a separate category (the so called digital illustration). But I think that's a lost cause. As long as you are honest about your art if someone asks, I don't see any ethical problem myself.

[frank uhlig]

Digital illustration is NOT, and I repeat: is NOT photography.

 

Why? The letter p does not even occur in "digital illustration".

 

My grandmother does such illustrations with a paint brush in oil from photos often. She does not know how to handle even a point and shoot camera and would take pictures of her cheek, given a chance.

 

She is decidedly NOT a photographer. Neither is a digial illustrator, even if he/she starts out with a photo and clones the dickens out of it ... Why? No p in it!

[leorossi]

My view is that any form of basic, necessary post-shooting intervention whose aim is the literal translation of the original act of single-image shooting (enlarging, printing, exposure fixing, to a certain degree cropping) is not a manipulation in relation to capture, while all else is. In this 'all else' we have a separation between first degree forms of manipulation (masking, burning, etc.) and second degree (superimposing, etc). You decide which of these two forms is ethical or not, according to context.

 

Photoshop is just an application enabling people to do all of the above with captures. It is an evolution/integration of both darkroom techniques and drawing board. The problem, in my view, lies not in the definition of photoshop techniques as opposed to darkroom techniques, but in the definition of the nature of these techniques in themselves. Cheers!

[steve_swinehart]

"I personally can't equate a traditional silver photograph with a digital manipulation."

 

Then you need to study the history of photography. 19th century landscape photographers regularly manipulated photographs by printing in skies specifically taken for that purpose. Also, see Rejlander and HP Robinson + at least 50 other photographers who used multiple exposures in printing to achieve their final images.

 

"Historically, photography has as its cornerstone the premise of presenting the actual--the view through the camera lens."

 

Really, really not true. That's only YOUR perception. You too should carefully study the history of photography. Photographs have been manipulated from the very beginning to give the photographer's viewpoint, which is NOT necessarily "the view through the camera lens."

[paul dematty]

I am a budding fine-art photgrapher working in 4x5 black & white who got his greatest inspiration from the works of David Fokos

www.davidfokos.net. Like him, I take my original photos the traditional way: with a camera and film. After that my film gets scanned and recorded on CD, and the image goes into Photoshop where a major part of the artistic process is undertaken. Finally, the resulting files go to a light-jet printer.

 

Of course if you're taking landscape photos for postcards, travel brochures, or any other publication in which it is implied that the image is a true representation, then you're allowed only minimal room for manipulation.

 

Upon watching an artist painting a landscape one will often find that the artist's rendition hardly resembles what was really there. The canvas or paper contains the artist's own emotional statement which he or she hopes to convey to the viewer. The same principle applies to fine-art photography, except that where the painter can 'manipulate' the image with brush and paints, the photographer is presented with the task -- indeed the challenge -- of finding ways to overcome the narrow limitations of camera, lens and film in order to present the emotional impact the photographer intends for the viewer. In most cases, it is impossible for the photographer to portray accurately what he or she saw and felt at the time a picture was taken, just by pointing a camera and snappng the lens. That aiming, composing and shooting is only the very beginning of the artistic process that makes a great picture, not the end-all and do-all that some seem to insist on.

 

My opinion, with respect to fine-art photography, is that the aim is not to produce an image of what was 'really there', but to produce an image of the scene as the artist saw it and felt it. The aim is for the viewer to see the image as the photographer wanted the viewer to see it.

 

The advent of Photoshop, et al, has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for the photographer to overcome the limitations of camera, lens and film. I believe this is a wonderful thing.

[john mackay]

<p><b>Steve Swinehart wrote:</b> <i>"Really, really not true. That's only YOUR perception."</i></p>

 

<p>Steve, please re-read my sentence above, specifically the word <i>"premise"</i> which is not synonymous with <i>practice</i>. Re-worded, my sentence simply echoes an old historical premise that <i>the camera never lies.</i> Now, this premise didn't prevail in public consciousness because it was true but because it was assumed to be true--a premise is an assumption of fact. Vestiges of this same premise are found at the core of discussion with respect to photographic ethics today--think about it.</p>

 

<p><b>Steve Swinehart wrote:</b> <i>"You too should carefully study the history of photography."</i></p>

 

<p>Indeed I should, thanks for the good advice :)</p>

[jcg23]

I hope that you will carefully read my arguement below to see if I can persuade you that manipulation done in an appreciative way can really be be beneficial in representating the true likeness of the subject and allow you to express yourself more artistically. Not only that it can make a great image from a reasonably good one.

First of all, film modifies the image tone and colour, thats why velvia is such a popular choice for landscape photgraphers. There is nothing pure about it. People elect different film for differnt looks so you are already enhancing/ modifying the image.

 

Second of all and most importantly if you are shooting JPG from your digital camera, you are using all the preset in camera adjustments (which vary from camera make to camera make) which enhance , modify colour and tone and especially sharpness.

 

So by not choosing to manipulate your shots you are just following the manufacturers settings (like a sheep!, I'm sorry if this comes across as rude) anyway which on AVERAGE are trying to give the general public a pleasing image. The manufacturer do not know what you were looking at, the colour tones you are trying to capture the subtley of the landscape etc.

 

If you want to get the pure digital data, then converting from the raw digital data is for you.

If you convert from raw then you are more in control of your images, you are not a slave to the cameras preset interpretations.

 

The human eye perceives colour range and contrast equisitely differnt from a digitals sensor whose dynamic range of brightness to perception of colour is not the same as our brain. As humans, our colour perception is extrememly highly tuned and on the whole we are dissapointed when we see the image the digital camera gives. But the information is there we just need to tweak it to give the image the authenticity it deserves

 

i.e It is our job to take the raw image and transform it into the vision that we saw with our eyes.

 

Jane Goodall

[colin carron]

Scott, I think it depends what your aim is. If you want to make an image that is a truthful representation of what can be seen then you will tend to use the minimum of manipulation. (But bear in mind Jane's and others' posts above - photos are not reality!). But if you want to represent your impression of a landscape or even an imaginary landscape then any amount of manipulation is acceptable and judged only by how successful it is in persuading its audience to see it through the artists eyes.

[pavel_olavich]

Classical painter over the centuries have used composites to create their art so this is nothing new.

 

Taking one or five images from different venues is just a way to capture light, to be blended later. This has been true with painting so why is it wrong for photography?

 

We should care less about whether a picture was made with pieces then the admiration and valuation of the finished art work. Landscapes, as an art genre are not about place, but rather about beauty. Why would anyone care if a nice landscape was made with one or 10 composites? Worrying about this is to miss the point!

 

Like Striker wrote, forensics, making images of record, journalistic reasons do demand actual truth of what is, what happened. Everything else should not be tied in the same way.

[leorossi]

"aiming, composing and shooting is only the very beginning of the artistic process that makes a great picture, not the end-all and do-all that some seem to insist on."

 

Well it may be so for you and for some. The fact is that it is not so for everybody. It is totally arbitrary.

[Spearhead]

Then how do you get to a final image? All photos need some sort of processing, whether digital or film, to get from the camera to the final display. If you are paying someone else to do it, it is still being done, it's just that the photographer has ceded control of critical processes that are essential for the final result.