What is photography?

As I cut my teeth on slide film I am one of those people, I see nothing wrong with it and I believe its something we should all aim for, I am not saying manipulation is wrong (I've done it:blush but nowadays it seems too much emphasis is put on photoshop etc and manipulating images to "improve" them, Theres nothing wrong if thats what floats your boat but surely striving to get it right in camera should still be the most important part of photography, otherwise photography will diminish into pseudo-digital art form.

We already complain that zoom lenses make us lazy and we zoom rather than walk, well the same thing is happening with photoshop, why is anyone going to bother taking a dozen steps to the left to avoid a lampost when they can get rid of it in photoshop later:

google "green helmet guy" try searching youtube for the video footage of him staging scenes for photographers.

Not wanting to debate the conflict or taking sides in a conflict here, just pointing out one recent event... it happens all over all the time.

No I don't think John would take too kindly to that - he's had enough aggro this week already!

From my quick scan of reports it looks like the green helmet guy (Salam Daher?) was a Lebanese (not Israeli) Civil Defense Worker, and the conflict was the Israeli-Lebanon conflict 2006. The only criticism I can find is that he made sure the media got as much coverage as possible - he set up shots, held up bodies etc but it was all 'real' carnage. Not fakery. link

This was a bona fide fake though - link. The person responsible for that terrible bit of cloning worked for Reuters

As Don has already ementioned, every slide film has a different character and will give a different view of the world of colour. There never has been, a "true" representation of what we see. Even our eyes are different.

I'm not convinced that it's anything to worry about.

never mind ethics, he deserved to be fired just for the poor photoshop job.

I agree with you on the excessive cloning and tidying up of images.... trying to turn the world into a sort of chocolate-box airbrushed version of itself... but hat's just my personal taste. On the other hand, for example, Snappychappy recently posted a pic where he'd got rid of a lampost in PS.... in that shot he could not have moved to avoid having it in shot, it really did improve the composition, and in my opinion it was well worth doing.

Here's the daily Mail using pictures from an anti-war demonstration to try and denigrate the recent student protests


Here's the classic bogus Evening Standard propaganda picture with cloned elements to make the small photo staged pulling down of Saddam's statue in Baghdad look like there were mass crowds, when in fact it was just a few paid henchmen of Ahmed Chalabi, the chap who faked the Iraq WMD evidence


Even the BBC were involved in the Western propaganda in 2009 to try and fool us that Iran's people were against it's government - which is not the case.

http://www.infowars.com/bbc-caught-in-mass-public-deception-with-iran-propaganda...

They simply cropped Ahmedinjad out of a picture of one of his rallies in order to fabricate it as an anti-Ahmedinejad rally/

This sort of thing goes on all the time in the western mainstream media. The BBC got caught out that time


nothing new either. here's an interesting article on the use of images in media propaganda

Photo Tampering Throughout History




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Indeed. Who ever photoshopped the fake Iraqi Crowd image on the Evening standard should be fired too. Terrible Job.

You see some terrible and obvious photoshopping on celebrity pics all the time.




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I used to take slide film years ago and colour print and black and white which I loved to mess about with in the darkroom.

I can understand people who say images should not be messed about with or altered or enhanced in any way, but I really enjoy post processing: it adds considerably to the hobby aspect of photography.

Of course, unless you only ever shoot in RAW and print directly from the camera, there is bound to be some "alteration" of the digital file. JPEGs have quite a lot done to them by the camera's software before they even leave the memory card.

not just photoshopping:
link
link
it has been bloggers that caught the mistakes and called the "Legitimate" news agencies out on fakes they might never have owned up to out of simple embarrassment.
You do not need photoshop to make a fake or misleading statement with a photo.

My father used to work for AP and DPA and always said to me that the 'true' picture is only in the eye of the photographer.
But even then a picture can tell a completely different story when taken at the same time by someone else just 10m to the left or right.
A picture is very subjective and it stirs emotions in the viewer, so a clever photographer will find a way of making his the most interesting picture. Photo manipulation has been going on since photography begun.
As there are meat eaters there are also vegetarians. What has that to do with photography you ask, well in photography as well you get people that use everything possible there is in PP and then there are people that use only the minimum amount of PP required. But in both you get puritans that do not want anything else then the pure. In food circles that would be the Vegan and in photography this is the person with the view of 'what you see is what you get'.
I still believe that PP is a form of expression and as I consider any kind of photography and art form I also believe that everyone is right in its own ways.
There is no right or wrong but only a persons imagination but when it comes to news here pictures where used as a weapon to influence others opinions.
There is the saying that 'a photo never lies' and I fully agree but as you can PP or stage any photo it is also an untrue statement.
So where we are at the end.
Photography is art and as long as it is not used to manipulate the masses in a different believe by heavy PP or posing something that never happen, that's all what it is for most of us, a piece of art and as everyone has a different opinion on art we are bound to agree and we are bound to disagree at some stage, but it all depends on the image.
So back to the OP's question: What is photography? ....... Well it is art by various artists taken up all over the world and to express their creativity.
Does this answer your question? Probably not.

It is a visual communication medium. How honest it is depends on the person using it.

I mention magic earlier as a means to explain that even what you see with your own eyes can mislead...
Imagine taking Copperfield's act link and doing for an audience in the 1400's... you'd either wind up with another mainstream religion, or a witch burning...

Fine! But what is painting?
Done on the wall of a cave, by someone with a bit of twig, and a limited range of colours - that's painting! Encaustic painting - no, that's too modern. Oil painting - Oh come on, even after Monet and Manet and Sisley showed what was possible, people are still arguing over techniques.
Personally, the time I really had my breath taken away was seeing a Caravaggio, and a Picasso, in the same room. But, to follow the walkeja argument, one of them must have been wrong. So, is the Ansel Adams picture of (say) El Capitan in Yosemite, better or worse than anyone's color shot? Or is one photography and one merely manipulation?
Geoff

Like so many other members on this Forum, I started out with a similar viewpoint.

It was only after I started post processing and realised how much better I could change my picture that I then was able to see my mistakes.

Am I wrong in believing that seeing a better result has taught me to take better pictures.

You can read all the books printed on photography but nothing beats experience. Seeing a picture transformed by simple post processing never ceases to amaze me.

I commend this experience to you.

regards Thoramay

Indeed.

During the genocide on Gaza in 2008/2009 the IDF posted youtube videos taken from it's drones showing it's murder of several Gazans who were loading gas canisters( as use for oxyacetylene cutters etc ) on the back of a pick up truck. The IDF claimed they were grad rockets.