Numfar
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 p.3 #9 · Antarctica, January 2009 | |
Geoff Sherring wrote:
Your photography is excellent and I envy your opportunity to play in this remote place. But the last image raises a question. For some years I have developed methods to show manipulation, mainly for comparing images of valuable postage stamps where true small differences can be valuable.
Reflections are amenable to analysis. One pointer is to see how horizontal the line is, between the upright and inverted parts. In this case it is exactly horizontal to a pixel (at the resolution of the image on the screen). This means the camera was set up carefully, there was no curvature induced by the lens, some laws of perspective have to fall into place. The next analysis step is to mask the inverted portion, create an object, give it 50% transparency, transform its colours to the inverse set, flip it horizontally and vertically nudge it exactly above the upright portion. It's like putting a film neg on top of its contact print. If all is equal, they cancel out - to a uniform grey in the present case, to black in the film analogue. If either neg or pos has been changed, the difference shows at once as a colour other than the mid-grey expected.
The last image appears to be inverted, in any case. Also, the line of flare dots in the sky do not align with the sun reflection position.
When the camera is any distance above the water (in this case) the height of the hills will be different to the height in the reflection and other perspective effects will be seen, to do with vanishing points.
Now, please read this carefully as I intend no ill feeling to be conveyed. It is perfectly legitimate to make reflections in the lab. But if they are, I think it is a good practice for the maker to state so, voluntarily. I regard it a bit like giving voluntary forensic evidence in a court. In some definitions of Nature photography, manipulations are discouraged and I think in general photography a manipulation should be disclosed if it is substantial.
The image above has been through too many stages before I see it on the monitor, so I cannot be certain. Thee is some suggestive evidence, other is missing. The simplest solution is to ask the maker.
We are working here on a code of preferred practice regarding disclosure of substantially manipulated images. Some major press agencies already have codes. When photographers try to learn from the work of gifted others, it helps to know if it is a natural image or a manipulated one. It's on my mind so I'm sensitive to possible examples. I'm not singling you out, Numfar, for special comment. It is quite probable that my deductions are simply wrong.
How do others feel about disclosure of significant modification for landscape images? I do both modification and disclosure routinely.
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I don't know that I understand half of that, but if you're suggesting that I faked the reflection based on some sort of analysis, then what we've discovered is that your analysis needs work.
Already stated that I rotated the image upside down, and cloned out a large(ish) iceberg.
But come on - I'm *obviously* not going for a true representation of reality here... I mean, it's supposed to be a fantastical representation of a fantastical place - so, like, totally wrong image to build that debate around. However, that said, the reflection, it's 100 per cent real.
Edited on Jan 26, 2009 at 09:23 PM · View previous versions
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