Well, the photographs are lying because there where no glowing hands,
UFOs, levitating candles or ghosts. They play with our tendency to
believe what we see.
As Christian say I just did what all photographers do, choose the
right angle, field of view, DOF etc. I manipulated the photographs to
tell what I want them to and there is no fundamental difference
between this and removing elements or distorting the images in PS
later or in the camera when photographing. I removed objects by
cropping, DOF and choosing lighting, just as effective as you can in a
computer (or in the darkroom).
As you say photography is a mechanicle image of an object, but the
important side of this does is in the sense of detail. It is simply
impossible draw a tree with the same detail as a photograph. It does
not remove the photographers choices, which always manipultes the
image so that is shows us what he or she wants.
But I agree with you in that in some ways the photograph, treated in
photoshop or not, is neutral until the photographer tells us that it
shows some truth. An image is an image, until it is used to represent
an oppinion, or a "truth".
DagT
Den 11. mars. 2009 kl. 00.26 skrev Bob W:
What is it about the photos that is dishonest? What are they showing
that
didn't happen? Apparently nothing, according to you. If there is
dishonesty
it is because someone lies about them. It is the liar who is
dishonest, not
the photograph. Furthermore, even if it were possible for some
photographs
to be dishonest, Christian claims that EVERY photograph is dishonest.
Here is what I wrote in an earlier discussion of this type. I stand
by it:
"The key thing about photography that differentiates it from other
media is
that the image is formed mechanically from the direct action of
light on a
surface - it's not mediated by anyone's brain, so you can, in
principle,
show a causal link between the subject matter and
the image. This is why photographs are so inherently believable, and
is why
people feel a sense of betrayal when they learn that a
photograph has been manipulated (ie elements added or removed -
certain
activities in post-processing, such as contrast adjustment,
dodging and burning are just working with what's already there to
improve
the presentation).
Adding or removing elements breaks the causal relation between the
picture
and the subject and adds an entirely different dimension to
the truth-value of the picture, taking into the realm of painting and
writing. These activities may be based in the real world, but they are
mitigated by the writer's or painter's brain. "
and
"It depends on what the photographer is claiming about the image.
If you photoshop some fairies into your picture, claim that they
really were
there at the bottom of your garden, and sell the photos to
the News of the World on that basis, then you're very obviously
lying and it
would be no different to writing an article about the
aforementioned fairies and claiming that it was true.
If on the other hand you sell the same picture as a whimsical
fantasy image
then you're not doing anything wrong*.
Most people know the difference between fiction and reporting. It's
not
wrong or immoral to write fiction*. The immoral thing is to claim
fiction as reporting.
It's not wrong or immoral to photoshop a photograph - the immoral
thing is
to lie about it
[..]
generally speaking. There are, of course, situations where lying is
a moral
thing to do, but going into detail here is stretching things a
bit."
The relevance to your photos is much the same. Rather than
Photoshopping
stuff in you have set up a scene and photographed it. The scene really
happened, I assume, so the causal relation exists between the scene
and the
photographs. But it was not an alien spacecraft that you
photographed. If
you tell me it was then you are lying, not the photograph. If you
show me
the photograph without making any claim about it I, as a skeptic,
assume
it's a set-up. A set-up is not the same as a lie, any more than a
performance of Faustus is a lie.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: pdml-boun...@pdml.net [mailto:pdml-boun...@pdml.net] On
Behalf Of DagT
Sent: 10 March 2009 23:12
To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List
Subject: Re: Ethics of Manipulation (was: Re: Perspective
control (was:PESO:Church tower))
I agree with Christian, and maybe it´s time to show these again:
http://photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=366144
Scanned from slides and not altered at all after scanning
they are not
manipulated according to the rules of photo.net, but they are
certainly results of an act of manipulation as they obviously do not
show anything that really happened.
DagT
--
PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List
PDML@pdml.net
http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow
the directions.
