Bird Photography Question.

[zastrozzi]

(Skip to the last paragraph if you just want to get to my question) I've only

been shooting in earnest for a few years. I'm still exploring many different

types of photography, amongst them, shooting birds. <p> After casually shooting

birds for over a year, I've finally captured a shot of a robin on a tree,

filling the frame, with good surrounding and it's razor sharp. <p> I shoot many

different types of photography and regard the ethics of different types

separately. <p> In bird photography, I wish to be ETHICAL, though not

necessarily ORTHODOX, if that makes sense. <p> So here's my dilemma. This shot

is technically competent imo, except that there's a twig growing from a branch

that comes right up to the Robin's beak. It's distracting. In fact it's

presence ruins an otherwise good shot imo. My question: is it ethical to clone

this out?

[yoni_perlmutter]

If you find the branch distracting or otherwise bothersome take it out.

That's what post-processing tools are for - to improve the aesthetic of the

image. This is true whether the tool is analog (chemical darkroom) or digital.

 

Would you ask this question if you wanted to crop, or sharpen, filter or

boost the contrast of the image? After all, by taking out the branch you are in

no way misrepresenting the photographer, your subject or its locale.

 

I don't see ethical considerations/questions entering into this.

[zastrozzi]

Thanks for the response. I read a thread about ethics before leaving this and opinions seem to vary wildly from 'as it came out of the camera' to the typical manipulations you describe. <p> I figure there must be some reasonable consensus regarding the subject.

[Roger G]

James I would have no problem with what you need to do. The issue I DO have is with bird or mammal photographers who photograph captive subjects and fail to declare that when they post their images. There is IMHO a huge difference between getting an image at a raptor rehabilitation center, and studying the bird, learning its habits, and getting a picture in the wild.

Even more important is to be absolutely certain not to harm the subject in any way.

Thanks for letting me have my say.

[erik_loza]

Mark C. and Peter B. will, I hope, add their thoughts. I don't shoot birds, but do small reptiles and amphibians that are often in-situ, which means speaks of dirt, leaves, twigs, etc.

 

These are defects, to my mind, and I have no qualms about cloning them out. There is a world of difference between adding something to an image that makes it appear as if something is happening that never really did, versus "vacuuming the floor", so to speak. My 2-cents worth, at least. Best of luck.

[mark_chappell]

I would clone it out with no qualms.

[SCL]

You're not selling the photos nor representing them as anatomically perfect specimens, they're for personal use...do whatever is necessary to create a photo which is pleasing to you.

[jeff h.]

I am strictly an amateur photographer, and I am very wary of editing and enhancing, but

my feeling is, if it is something that would technically make the photo better, it's OK.

There is a fine line, and it can be a slippery slope, but I think that if you play with

sharpness, remove red-eye, adjust color and lighting a little, it's ethically acceptable. I

don't think it's ethical to actually manipulate the subject (e.g., move limbs to put a person

in a better position, add a second bird to your solitary bird photo, turn a drab sunset into

a postcard-perfect shot by adding color, or substantially alter or improve your

background). In a perfect photo environment, you would have said "Hold that pose, Mr.

Robin, while I take my pruner and snip that offending branch out of the way!" You could

have done this with a lens that had a narrower depth of field as well. I don't think you are

doing anything unethical here.

[matt_ebling1]

I can't believe my ears! What has happened to photography since the digital age? Photography is capturing what the eye sees. If photos are changed in some way, they are no longer photos, but some other form of art and can't be called photography any more. I would understand lightening or darkening or even some filtering, but not sharpening or removing objects. If you want to do it for yourself you can, but you will always know that you didn't capture it that way and ethically would have to tell everyone who views it. It would be a misrepresentation to do otherwise. There is photography, creative photography, and then there is altered photography which is in a whole different category. I am a nature photographer and I have shots with things in the way and that is how they will stay. I just hope that next time I am in a better position and get a clear view.

[justinblack]

I think the ethics of retouching in nature photography vary depending on the application

and what you want to do with your work.

 

Photojournalistic ethics: First and foremost, if you ever wish to promote your work to

editorial media for publication, then photojournalistic ethics should apply. No subject

matter should ever be removed or added. This is the standard that photo editors at

National Geographic and other natural history magazines expect from their

photographers. Of course, I am shocked by the number of photographers who break this

code of ethics regularly when submitting work to nature publications.

 

The fine print: Some highly regarded nature photographers who refuse to retouch subject

matter in work used in an editorial context, will "optimize" the subject content of an image

when making a print of their work for art purposes. A conservative example of this might

include removing random blurred flying insects or water droplets that look more like

imperfections in the film or dust on the sensor than actual image content. More radical

changes would include things like removing elements that significantly improve the

graphics of the composition, like the stick mentioned by the poster. While I personally

prefer that the more conservative approach be applied to prints (I respect skill with the

camera and subject applied in the field over skill with a mouse in PhotoShop), this is not

unethical in any strict sense. It's art, after all.

 

Disclosure: I personally believe that the photographer presenting his work to the public in

any format should disclose any case where photographic subject matter has been digitally

removed/added or when game farm or trained animals are used. I was dismayed recently

when I attended a gallery opening for a part-time local "wildlife" photographer - full-time

accountant - who very clearly works with cougars and wolves that are handled by a trainer

(outside of a controlled situation, no one gets tack-sharp, portrait-perfect poses of a

meticulously groomed mountain lioness with her cubs in great light shot with a 200mm

lens). When asked how he does it, he responded, "I guess it's just a matter of being in the

right place at the right time." Presumably, this included having the right credit card in

hand as well. Needless to say, despite the fact that he has some "nice work" aesthetically

speaking, I lost all respect for him and all of his work on the spot.

 

Personal Gratification and Growth: If your work is purely for your own enjoyment, anything

goes! However, if you seek to improve as a photographer (and presumably you do if you

submit work for critique on Photo.net), then I would advise against retouching the images

for critique. Every image is an opportunity to learn and grow as a photographer, and you

learn most from peer critiques (or self critique) when you deal with the original image that

was the actual result of your "in-the-field" aesthetic sensibilities and technique. I would

also encourage seeking out a peer critique forum outside of Photo.net or other online

sites. I find the critiques provided here to be of little use. They most often amount to little

more than "I love it!" or "It looks fake." Otherwise, most folks here don't bother to put in

the time to write up an honest and useful critique. Good photo workshops, well run photo

clubs, or regular meetings of photographer friends can yield good results.

[erik_loza]

"If photos are changed in some way, they are no longer photos, but some other form of art and can't be called photography any more"

 

The dock you are standing on is very slippery, friend. How good are your shoes? Blasphemy and heresy are concepts that have little context in the world of art.<div></div>

[matt_ebling1]

To Erik. My shoes have Vibram lug soles and I do not think that what I said was blasphemy or heresy in any way. I am just stating what needs to be said. I would still have respect for the artist. I just couldn't respect him/her as a photographer if they went against the ethics of photography.

[erik_loza]

Whose ethics? Yours? Mine? Somebody else's?

[Matt Laur]

Matt: Even <i>sharpening</i> is against your ethics? You say that the photograph should be what you <i>see</i>. OK, so you look with your eyes and see a nice crisp vision of an unusual woodpecker on some oak bark. Thus, you point your camera, and take a picture of that same subject. Ever so slightly out of focus, as it turns out. Is the slightly blurry result, or a slightly corrected (sharpened) one that looks more like what actually inspired you to take the picture in the first place more in line with your ethics? The camera can <i>never</i> record what <i>you</i> see. Ever. You and I standing next to each other can't even "see" the same thing.

[matt_ebling1]

Matt Laur. You make a good point. If an image is sharpened only to bring it to what you saw, I guess that's O.K. I personally wouldn't want to sharpen my images at all. If I manually focused incorrectly, I want to pay the penalty and get a blurry image. It will force me to be more critical next time. I want to know when I look at a good shot I have taken that I did everything right and that is what brings me pride in my accomplishments.

[greg s]

"My question: is it ethical to clone this out?"

 

Yes, clone away! :) -Greg-

[matt_ebling1]

Erik. When I speak of ethics, I mean a distinction between right and wrong and a moral obligation to the community. I don't think that the ethics are yours or mine but ours, collectively.

[erik_loza]

I wasn't aware that there was a collective body that sets moral and ethical standards for nature photographers. If I choose not to abide, does that mean I am then not a photographer?

[Matt Laur]

Moral obligations? Relative to removing a twig from a photograph?

 

Unless there are things at stake (say, evidentiary stuff, or academic qualifications, etc.) which are impacted by the legitimacy of a detail like that in an image, I don't think it's possible to introduce a "community-wide" ethos, let alone moral code that in any way "morally" applies to that topic. Morals (ethical guidelines) only make sense when you understand the values - the philosphical premises - upon which they are based. If your philosophy contains a sense that deceit is a bad thing (regardless of context or degree), then you must contend with the fact that <i>every</i> image that comes out of your camera is a big, fat lie. Every one.

<br><br>

Improving the image of the bird (to get across its "birdness" to the audience) by risking your life and moving another foot off of a cliff in order to parallax the twig out of view, or risking the ire of the odd "purist" by removing it in the darkroom or on the desktop ... <i>morally</i> there is no difference, whatsoever. Is the photographer's vision, his message to the image's intended audience honored? That's what you need to be ethically examining.

<br><br>

But when you wait for the light to change because it highlights a crest feather better, or crouch low in a blind to change an animal's behavior relative to the bait you put out ... <i>ethically</i>, you're altering your image every bit as much as altering the brightness of those same feathers with a dodge in the darkroom or a curve tweek in PS.

[matt_ebling1]

Erik. I don't think that we are helping James with his original question anymore. I am going to move on to something else.

[mark_chappell]

<I> Photography is capturing what the eye sees. If photos are changed in some way, they

are no longer photos, but some other form of art and can't be called photography any

more.

</i><P>

 

You have <B><I>got</i></b> to be joking. No camera can capture 'what the eye sees'.

The human visual system has massively greater dynamic range, a far more sophisticated

focus ability than any camera can hope to approach, and an inherent and automatic

capacity to suppress distracting elements of a scene. Thinking that only 'unchanged'

photos are really photos is delusional, IMO. Film-based photography is a chemical-based

abstraction of reality; digital imaging is a hardware/software-based abstraction of

reality.<P>

 

Of course I agree that grossly misrepresenting nature without being upfront about it is

inappropriate: don't clone in a second bird to make an improved composition, or paste in

a gorgeous sunset sky to replace a bland background, or claim an image of a captive

animal was taken in the wild, and so forth.<P>

 

But there are lots of image manipulations that improve the 'realism' of a photo, if you

define realism as making it closer to what the eye would see. Increasing the dynamic

range of an image (such as with graduated ND filters, or photoshop adjustments) makes

an image more like one seen by the eye. So does sharpening, at least for the vast majority

of DSLRs were the camera is designed with the expectation of sharpening (to account for

the effects of the antialiasing filter in front of the sensor). In many cases, so does

adjusting color balance or saturation, or removing scratches or dust specks. <P>

 

Given the way the eye and brain work, it's even reasonable to argue that deleting a few

distracting branches or the like from a photo is also making it more realistic. That's just

what the brain does when it processes visual information as you look intently at

something: it 'filters out' unimportant visual distractions. That's why one often doesn't

notice annoying stuff in the foreground or background when you look through the

viewfinder -- the brain ignores them. At least until they show up in the chemical or digital

abstract we call a photograph.<P>

[craig_gillette]

Ansel Adams isn't a photographer?

 

Clone that puppy.

[Two23]

This question still comes up from time to time, much to my surprise. If you were making a painting of a bird in a tree, you wouldn't put a twig in front of it. It's NO different when making a photo. This is a silly debate in my POV. It's your photo, do what you want.

 

 

Kent in SD

[Bill Morgan]

Try, Try,and Try again, Its not what you photographed. (old school photographer)

[madredhen]

I agree with Bill. Obviously ethics vary between individuals. This is very confusing for the public. For example, I used to sell a photo of an amazing purple sunset. Most people assumed that it was exactly what I saw, and we discussed the amazing purple sunsets we'd seen over the years. A few people took one look at the photo, whispered to their friends "Filters." and walked off. Now I've never used filters, and that sky was one so colorful that people living across 2 states recognized it for the exact night it happened. The ethics of many of us, who use filters, cloning, and captive animals, have created an informed, and jaded section of the public. I never clone out elements or use color filters in nature photography, because I know that most of the people who look at the photo expect me not to, and would be disappointed if I did. I do increase saturation (in moderation), sharpen RAW files, clone out sensor dust or film scratches, and globally lighten, darken, change contrast, or adjust white balance, for the purpose of bringing the photo as close as possible to what I saw with the naked eye. Those are my ethics, and by no means do I expect yours to be the same. Do not take anyone's interpretation of nature photography ethics as a rule. But do think of what your audience expects of you as a photographer.

As for cloning out branches, well, what Bill said.