Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Eric, Maybe I am being too literal, but I have a question. Don't "you" (photo journalists) always play with reality based on your prejudices or adjenda? The best example I can think of to try to explain what I mean applies to landscape, but I think it applies to everything else as well. On one side of a path is pristine wilderness, on the other side, a garbage dump. You are asked to photograph the are for the Sierra Club; which side of the path do you shoot? Do you always shoot both sides? If a political rally has 5000 people in attendance and two people get in a fight the fight picture is usually what makes the news. Is this always the editor's call? How do pj s deal with these issues (what to include/excluse in a picture? Ken > -----Original Message----- > From: Eric Welch [SMTP:ewelch@ponyexpress.net] > Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 6:18 PM > To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us; leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us > Subject: Re: [Leica] Re: Photojournalistic integrity and masking > > At 12:06 PM 9/15/99 -0400, Paul Schiemer wrote: > >We, as photographers, know what we get is usually a 'truthful' > >representation of reality. We can play with that reality a bit, both in > >taking the image and then in the darkroom. > > No we can't. To "play" with the reality, as the photograph is capable of > conveying it - no photo is a direct translation of a scene after all since > > it's going from 3D to 2D - is unethical to any degree at all. We should > only work on the photo to make it as accurate a description of the scene > as > possible. That goes for journalists and documentary photographers. Not > artists, hobbyists, commercial/advertising photographers or art > photographers. > > Good editors respect the vision of the photographer. A good editor won't > change a photo, or manipulate a photo to fit in a preconceived layout. > Good > design is invisible. It respects the photos and text. Hack editors lay out > > a page before they know what the photos are going to be (not counting > last-minute photos that are shot on deadline and the photographer is > consulted about it before shooting). > > Eric Welch > St. Joseph, MO > > http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch > > "A lot of people face adversity by asking, "How would > Jesus have dealt with this?" But that doesn't help me > much, because I doubt Jesus ever had bad credit."