Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/07

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Journalism, altered photo's, and other ethical debates
From: John Collier <jbcollier@shaw.ca>
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2003 15:12:46 -0700

Tim was pointing out that it does include "harmless burning or 
dodging". Don McCullin would have been violating the guidelines as he 
dodges and burns for effect not to reflect actual conditions when the 
shot was made. Heck Natcheway, Salgdo, Ted Grant (?) etc all do this as 
well. It is a very common technique in b&w photography. Darken the 
skies for effect, burn around the main subject for emphasis, etc.

Perhaps this whole thing is an overreaction to the scary realities of 
digital with which we could have seamlessly done the Kremlin's famous 
slow reinterpretation of history. However to say that any manipulation 
is wrong is to ignore a long tradition in photojournalism. We cannot 
suddenly try to make photography truthful, in a way it never was, in 
the face of all that is possible with digital tools.

Welcome to the new pair-o-dime.

John Collier

On Friday, November 7, 2003, at 02:17 PM, robertmeier@usjet.net wrote:

>
>
>> Could you be more specific? I glad you know but the rest of us do not
>> know exactly what you are referring to.
>>
>> John Collier
>>
> John,
>
> Here is what Tim said:
>
>> In the recent discussion along these lines on the NPPA-L I mentioned 
>> how
>> (highly respected) war photographer Don McCullin often quite 
>> dramatically
>> dodged and burned his skies, and by these standards a large 
>> proportion of
>> his images would be dismissed. Someone else responded that:
>>
>> "There is a scene in /War Photographer/ where James Nachtwey is
>> discussing with someone the sky in a print he is having done, they go
>> back and make the sky darker at least three times.  No one said 
>> anything
>> about this because it was film and it is common darkroom practice.  If
>> they showed them doing the same thing in Photoshop I bet people would 
>> have
>> been
>> up-in-arms over it."
>>
>> to which the response of one person (who writes a column on these 
>> matter)
>> was basically Nachtwey would be okay only as long as any dodging or 
>> burning
>> of the sky objectively and accurately reflected the sky as it was on 
>> the day
>> he took the picture, that the print should "reflect the scene as he
>> objectively saw it with his analog eyeballs". Basically, anything 
>> beyond
>> that was seen as manipulation and misleading the viewer...
>>
>> Quite frankly it's baloney and nothing more than a sort of politically
>> correct or puritan fundamentalist approach to photojournalism
>>
>> tim
>
> I interpreted "it" (in "it's baloney and nothing more than a sort of
> politically correct or puritan approach to photojournalism") to be 
> referring
> to the attempt to censure any manipulation beyond harmless burning or
> dodging.   That is, Tim doesn't think that there should be that 
> restriction
> on manipulating an image, or, it sounds like,  any restriction.   Tim, 
> is
> that the correct reading of what you said?

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