when is it cheating?

[william_roberts4]

<p>Well I guess Ansel Adams, Avedon, et al were cheaters.... cause I am sure they did alot more editing of images in the darkroom than I do in PS...</p>

[asker1]

<p>Mr. Roberts,<br>

I feel as though i started a firestorm with what was really an innocent question....i have a system that i use...i upload the photo and if it's out of focus or my composition is way off, i immediatley delete it...then, i enlarge the photo twice the size and if it is not clear, i delete it...then, i may alter the color out of either necessity, fun or for artistic reasons...i've been taking photos since i'm a kid - my godfather worked for willoughby's so instead of a crucifix for confirmation, i got a camera...i wasn't until PS that i edited - i never developed my own photos and perhaps that is why i am not as savvy as the photographers in photo.net...i will post some more photos today, and maybe you all can tell me if i should continue shooting as art, or should just go back to doing family gatherings...peace, a</p>

[william_roberts4]

<p>OH I didnt mean anything by my post.... if I could get the photo I want directly from my camera, I would love it, but would probably still tinker with it in photoshop. I agree with most of the posters here, if you use someone else's photo as your own, then you are cheating. And I guess I would add, if you are doing photojournalism, and you change a photo to represent something else that didnt happen, then that is cheating too.<br>

I would say, that unless you are totally without morals, follow your own heart and mind, if it doesnt feel right, then maybe it isnt right. I would also add, most people know that editing happens, or they dont care, so unless you have clients that complain I wouldnt worry about it at all.<br>

Keep shooting and have fun, follow your muse and do what you feel is right.<br>

I am sure your work is great!<br>

William</p>

[DB_Gallery]

<p>I just use a photojournalistic ethic in everything I do, commerical, fine art, etc.<br>

There is so much tinkering and so little in the way of great photography in the world that I figure why by like everyone else, just get great photographs that jump out of the camera as such.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Right, Richard Avedon was such a loser, he couldn't get great photographs that jumped out of the camera. He had to tinker with everything just to make it like everyone else.</p>

[william_roberts4]

<p>I find it fascinating that no one has ever said anything about the master painters who interpreted what they saw being cheaters (of course I hope there arent people that look like Picasso's people) . Yet, photographers who are considered artists, if they interpret what they see by editing, some people call them cheaters? Kind of funny to me, I think if you take the photograph and want to change it to your own vision then fine. As far as I know, everyone sees things differently, no matter what our eyes see, the image is still enhanced or edited by our mind, whether through our preconceived ideas, or our past experiences. I can imagine if you went out on the street right now and selected a view of something and asked 50 random people what they see, you would get 50 different answers. So who is to say what is cheating, is fixing the exposure? Lightening the highlights? Removing some stray hairs?<br>

I think life is complicated enough, go out and shoot and have some fun!</p>

<p>William</p>

[raddatzphoto]

<p>Without my cheaters, I would not be able to read this. Interesting to compare the outrage currently in sports over steroid use, and man's penchant for cheaters in all his forms of entertainment in general. </p>

[matt_needham]

<p>"...am i being too hard on myself?"</p>

<p>No. You just don't understand what photography is. Study up, and you will find that many famous photographers would be "cheaters" by your definition. :)</p>

<p> </p>

[zootshooter]

<p>First of all I had to conceive, and therefore if possible express properly (even if it is a simple thing) how photography’s referent is not the same as the referent of other systems of representation. I call “photographic referent” not the optionally real thing to which an image or a sign refers but the necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens, without which there would be no photograph. Painting can feign reality without having seen it. Discourse combines signs which have referents, of course, but these referents can be and are most often “chimeras” Contrary to these imitations, in Photography I can never deny that thing has been there. There is a superimposition here: of reality and of the past. And since this constraint exists only for photography, we must consider it, reduction, as the very essence, the noeme of photography. What I intentionalise in a photograph ( we are not yet speaking of fill) is neither art nor communication, it is reference, which is the founding order of photography. - <br>

-Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida-</p>

<p>The objective nature of photography confers on it a credibility absent from all other picture making. In spite of any objections our critical spirit may offer, we are forced to accept as real the existence of the object reproduced actually re-presented set before us, that is to say, in time and space, - Andre Bazin -<br>

Getting the facts right is at the heart of good journalism; the more accurate the reporting, the closer to the truth. So, too with photojournalism, even though digital technology has now created the potential for greater ambiguity when it comes to photographic fact versus fiction. For the truth-seeking, socially motivated “concerned photographer,” fact finding has always driven the pursuit of “the decisive moment” - what Cartier Bresson long ago described as happenstance turning into visual logic before the lens. - Philip Gefter -</p>

<p>Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. -Susan Sontag-</p>

<p>These are views from some respected voices in the theory of photography that prioritise photography's main goal as that of trying to capture a fleeting moment of reality that passes before a lens. Many of you digital artists may do well to read up more instead of reeling off names like Avedon and Ansel Adams to justify your departures from classic photographic practice.</p>

<p> </p>

[swilson]

<p>feargal m,</p>

<p>I don't need to reel off names like Avedon or Adams to justify the editing I do on my photographs, I just need to go back to the training I got close to 40 years ago leaning to work in a darkroom. We spent a lot of time dodging, burning and adjusting the contrast of our prints, this was part of learning photography. </p>

[GerrySiegel]

<blockquote>

<p>...am i being too hard on myself? annie</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I know you suspect the answer, annie my photofriend. This genie left the bottle some time back,no?. Once we learned digital,or sca to digital, I saw the handwriting on the wall. T'is writ large,<strong>and</strong> in 1's and 0's.KnowhatImean?. If I perceive your sentiment correctly. Sure..there will be counter movements and re evalauation of these counter reformations. As in how does one hold back a 'spill' when the dam has been breached. You want to set up a line in the sand, go ahead and use whatever boundary you like, costs nothing...</p>

<p>Finesse it all you will, that is where we are at, and no going back to restraint in the wider consumer culture that supports all we do.<br>

Here in the 'green zone' of Photo Net, big as we are. we can adopt a more refined,well temporized aesthetic about such matters.<br>

In the real world, it's all about display and graphic imaginatio..or maybe it was always, so as Jeff and others remind . Aloha, peace. gs</p>