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 p.4 #9 · Blended landscape images - legitimate or not. | |
The words are harsh, but the example goes to the heart of what I regard as a certain need for honesty and artistic integrity.
It is not, pardon the awful photographic pun, a black and white issue. However, there is a natural inclination to not be pleased when we find out that we have been fooled and that the party fooling us took advantage of our trust or naivete.
If we present ourselves as artists who are able to see and create artistic work based things of beauty in the real world, we hope that those who see our work will believe that it is honest. (And "honest" is not the same as "perfect objective analog," so don't try to take my point there, OK?) In other words, they look at our work and trust that the place shown, the light under which the photograph was made, the conjunction of seemingly miraculous elements, and our vision are connected to real experiences and things and places. They can and should accept and even expect that we take steps to enhance and optimize the presentation of the images so that they will be effective as photographs or as photographic prints, but they presume that we enhance more than we invent. In fact, I think that many of us - even those of us who are perfectly happy to optimize images in these rather common ways - believe that we are presenting "subjectively truthful" images of things. Viewers grant us trust that our vision is special and that we see in the real world things that others might miss and that we see them in ways that others might not share.
A key word here is "trust."
At some point, though the precise location of that point or boundary is undefinable, it is possible to betray that trust and to create work that is not honest. The key problem comes in either claiming that trust is warranted (and I can think of several "name" photographers with large galleries who claim that the are due a trust that other photographers are not due, on the basis of their supposed effort and honesty) when it isn't or in presenting photographs that we know others will trust to be "honest" when we know that they will misinterpret.
This is, in fact, a "slippery slope," but each of us might consider where we want to come to rest on that slope. Do we want to put ourselves in a position where we must worry about how we would explain ourselves if asked? Do we feel that we cannot share the truth about images because by doing so we would make them less admirable? Do we know that viewers trust that a truth and honesty is to be found in our work that is not really there?
All of this is subjective and contextual. The boundaries will not be the same for all photographers nor certainly for all kinds of photography. If your goal is to present work that is fantastical and which overtly manipulates images using photographic tools, then there is no reason that I can think of not to do that, and beautiful, mysterious and powerful work can be the result - and it will be plainly obvious to any observer that you make no claim to presenting the objectively real but that you instead present the internal subjective reality. On the other hand, if you create a thing that cannot possibly be and either create an impression that it is real (for example, as has happened, telling fantastical yarns about the reality of the faked) or knowingly acquiesce to the misinterpretation on the part of your viewers, I think you might have some questions to ask of yourself.
And, again, this is not about which specific techniques you do or do not use - it is about honesty and trust.
Dan
jforkner wrote:
A little harsh, don't you think John. How does on control what the viewers believe? And where do you draw the line? I submit that a black & white photo is misrepresented, then. And what about filters? Is applying a red filter to darken the sky in a black & white photo compounding the misrepresentation? Roll over Ansel.
You either manipulate the image or you don't. Conversion to black & white, use of filters, stacking, masking, boosting colors, etc. are all manipulations of the basic photo. If you're going to demand purity of the photo, you can't allow any manipulations. You can't have it both ways. You can't say, for instance, that this manipulation is okay, but that one is not. For if you do, you've violated your basic premise.
Jack
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Archive 2013 · Blended landscape images - legitimate or not.
