Swedish Wildlife Photographer Fakes Photos

[nathangardner]

<p>http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/09/05/Wildlife-photographer-admits-faking-photos/UPI-87491315237363/?spt=hs∨=tn</p>

 

[nathangardner]

<p>I'm all for enhancing a photo to make the presentation more pleasing, but to completely fabricate a photo to create something that never happened is shameful.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>Really shameful?</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/search?q=jerry+uelsmann&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1292&bih=802</p>

[nathangardner]

<p>Oh boy, the conversation is already taking a new direction. Yes, but those photos aren't being passed off as factual. It is evident that those were manipulate beyond true life and no one is claiming that they are. In the case of the wildlife photographer, he won awards for photos that never occurred in nature, but he presented them as though they did.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p><a href="../photography-news-forum/00ZI2j">Existing thread on this topic.</a></p>

[nathangardner]

<p>Whoops, sorry Jeff. I checked here and Nature and didn't see it, forgot about news. You can close the discussion since the link is up.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>Nathan, the article doesn't say that.</p>

<p>It said he won an award.</p>

<p>And that other images were PhotoShopped.</p>

<p>Independent of that, he had to get the images of the animals in the first place. There is nothing in the article which states that he did not actually take photos of the animals, just that he cropped and placed them in different backgrounds.</p>

<p>Honestly, the image in the header looks entirely stylized and shopped. If I saw that image alone, by it self, I would not initially believe that it was unretouched or unedited. This image from the other link...<br>

http://www.thelocal.se/articleImages/35964.jpg</p>

<p>Most photos never occur in nature. First off, my eyes don't see in black and white. I don't have the ability to have some kind of long shutter speed in my eyeballs(I take night photographs with shutter speeds of 8 minutes for example). I don't see infra red. Etc, ad infinitum.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>Nathan,</p>

<p>Your article states that he won an award for this image...</p>

<p>http://www.upi.com/story/image/fs/13153216847737/Wildlife-photographer-admits-faking-photos.jpg</p>

<p>They are not the same image.</p>

[nathangardner]

<p>I'm not talking about color correction, I'm talking about the fact that a lynx with it's winter coat was photographed in July. The fact is, the lynx was never in that particular scene, and apparently other photos depicted wildlife in an environment that was never witnessed by the photographer. We might as well start pasting photos of animals on Mars and claiming there's life on other planets. If you want to place whatever you want where you want it, then buy a Bob Ross video and learn to paint.</p>

[richardsperry]

<p>Nathan,</p>

<p>You have a photograph in your portfolio. A black and white photo of a tractor in a landscape.<br /> The color of the sky behind the cloud in your photo is black, or almost black. The sky is not black. Your photo is completely unnatural. And can never be seen by a human eye, by my eye that is.</p>

<p>Even if the human viewer is color blind, the sky is not going to be that dark during the day, its going to be a light shade of grey. It is completely fake.</p>

<p>How about the DOF in your bird photos? That is something my eyes could never reproduce in nature. It is completely unnatural. It is an artifact of the equipment that you used to capture the image. It is not real, it is not natural. It is completely fake.</p>

<p>Did you Nathan, with your own eyes, see that black and white photo, see the landscape and tractor in black and white. Did you, with your own eyes, see those birds with that very limited DOF, and actually see the background all blurry like your photos represent?</p>

[lionel_rafferty]

<p>If you read the full article at <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/35964/20110905/">this link</a>, it clearly states that the photographer initially denied having doctored the photos, and that this incurred unnecessary expense and concern on the public. This is obviously not a case of artistic license, it is fraud.</p>

[User_276104]

<p>As with documentary photography, there is an unwritten code of ethics in wildlife photography. If a photo was taken at a zoo, it should be disclosed since animal behavior in captivity is different than in the wild. This photographer let viewers believe that the photo in question was exactly what was visible through the lens.</p>

[richardsperry]

Lonnie,

 

If the California DFG spent additional money beyond their budget to track fictitious animals, I would hope that those

who made the decision to spend the money would be fired for gross incompetence(and stupidity).

 

We have full time paid wardens that this is their job to do. Sometimes they hire experts. And hopefully none if them

rely on photographs in a nature magazine to make budgetary decisions.

 

It clearly states the opinion of one critic, that's what it states.

 

I know that some countries are trying to make photoshopping illegal. But it's still legal in this one.

[lionel_rafferty]

<p>Nobody said anything about making photoshopping illegal. As Eric said, it's a question of ethics.</p>

[richardsperry]

Ethics is founded on religion and mythology.

 

Both of which make really good fiction.

 

And when it's not based on religion, it usually comes down to someone saying, "do it my way because I said so".

Come to think of it, when you remove the magic from religion it's the same thing, isn't it?

 

 

When National Geographic uses photos that are printed from high saturation films, you may see them as real. I know

they are fake, and produce artificial colors in the scenes that the eye would never see in the same situations. You see

documentary and ethics, I see fake and artificial.

 

By the way, all of the photos in my portfolio are completely artificial. I don't really see in black and white. And my eyes

at the least won't stay open for 8 minutes, I need to blink. I can't really see star trails or car light as are depicted in my

photos. In some if them there are people walking through the scenes, and they are invisible in the photos. My photos

are innately and completely fraudulent.

[User_276104]

<p>Richard - your embrace of fake, artificial and self-proclaimed fraudulent photography makes me glad I'm a musician. People may talk a good game but when they pick up their instruments, there is no more lying.</p>

[lionel_rafferty]

<p>Richard: I think your argument is a little extreme. Of course, when I open National Geographic, I don't expect to see photos that are completely true to what the eye sees. I even know they photoshop out distracting elements sometimes. But I also don't expect to see polar bears in the African rain forest. Anyone who opens up a wildlife or nature magazine expects to see images that reflect reality. Other types of magazines do not necessarily carry the same expectations. If a National Geographic photographer like Nick Nichols or Joel Sartore doctored an image to the point where it no longer met the expectations of readers, they would probably be fired. That form of ethics has nothing to do with religion or mythology and is not fiction.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>in the end.. if someone is dumb enough to cut and paste a lynx with is winter look into a summery image.. he deserve what he get.<br>

next time he should call me ; )</p>

[gulfbeach47]

<p>I like the comment: Just give him a fake award. Problem solved.</p>

<br /><a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/09/05/Wildlife-photographer-admits-faking-photos/UPI-87491315237363/#ixzz1XIgw5H4j"><br /></a>

[richardsperry]

Eric,

 

Photography, all photography, is fake from inception. That's the point. All other things thrown out you are taking a three

dimensional scene and representing it in two dimensions.

 

I don't need to self proclaim it so, it is so. My disclaimer was satire. I am telling you truth that my photos are lies. Don't you appreciate honesty?

 

Lonnie,

 

That type of ethics falls into "do as we say because we say do it" ethics. It's ok to photoshop and misrepresent a little,

but not a lot. And you say that's ok for a/the premier naturalist/wildlife photo publication?

[lionel_rafferty]

<p>Richard: It's called work ethic. Judging from your photos, which I admire by the way, I would venture to say that you have a work ethic. National Geographic, and most other magazines I would assume, expect their employees to have a certain work ethic. If an employer tells you they expect a certain standard, then you're free to accept that standard and meet it, or seek employment elsewhere. It is "do as we say because we say do it", as you put it. But that's any employer's prerogative in any business. And yes I say that's OK for National Geographic because their mission is to portray the world as it really is, not as some freelance photographer looking to impress wants to portray it.</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

Maybe it was the Lynx who lied.

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Photography, all photography, is fake from inception.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And yet, there is still a matter of <em>degree</em>. I agree, in the sense Richard suggests it, that all photographs are fake. And yet I can and would want to appreciate the difference between pasting an animal into a background, converting to black and white, and super-saturating a landscape. Part of being a photographer is being in tune with subtlety. All faces are faces and yet portraits vary because of the differences in subtlety of expression, among many other things. (Expressions can also be blatant as opposed to subtle.) I think it's important to nuance the difference between degrees and quality of fakery. Some lines will be hard to draw. Some things will be situational. There are many factors to be considered. Photographs serve different purposes. And the intended purpose of a photograph can certainly be considered when addressing so-called fakery.</p>

[lionel_rafferty]

<p>Fred G., well said. A photo of an out-of-place animal may be perfectly acceptable in someone's personal gallery or a commercial advertisement, but it has no place in such media as wildlife/nature magazines.</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>Richard. A photograph is a two-dimensional projection of three-dimensional objects made by light. If it is a black and white image, the colors have been projected into a monochromatic color space. If you average a long time using a long exposure time again you're performing another projection that reduces the 4D world into 2D. The physics of these projections are generally very well known so the viewer knows how the photograph relates to the real world. If however, a photographer claims to have just made photographs using these processes to document what they saw in the wild, and in reality the image is a photoshop creation by merging multiple images from different places, obviously it is fraud. In the culture that nature lovers and photographers have, the documentary nature of photographs is highly valued, and for good reasons. What is important is that when an image is represented as a documentary photograph, the principles using which it was created are disclosed if they're not what the general public would expect from a 3D->2D or 4D->2D optical projection. Depth of field is just a characteristic of this kind of a projection and it doesn't make an image "fake" since everyone knows how the technique works and is accustomed to it. Same with black and white photography and so on.</p>

<p>To suggest that no photograph tells of the real world is a gross exaggeration and suggests that you have deep contempt towards the efforts of documentary photographers working in various fields worldwide and see no difference between fiction and fact. Perhaps you have been exposed to some extremist religious activities and were traumatised by that. Or you just didn't like science in school and preferred the world of Harry Potter or animated computer games, and somehow want to avenge this to the world by making a mockery of all scientists, textbook authors and documentary photographers.</p>