How Do Your Plans for Your Pictures Affect What You Shoot? (1 Viewer)

Hello everybody,

I am a new member of these forums, so I hope you will be tolerant if I make mistakes or step on any toes in where and how I post. Thanks!

This topic might well seem to have been better suited to the software forum, but I have posted here because I feel that it has more to do with what and how one shoots than the after-processing. My own plans for my pictures dictates what I need and how I go about getting it.

I would like to ask each of you – what is your level of tolerance for, or what do you permit yourself to change in an existing image? I can see, from looking at the web sites and galleries of many of this forum’s posting members, that many of you are comfortable with sharpening, and with tonal, and color correction. But will you change the content of the picture? How much, where, and when?

Here is a hypothetical case:

Suppose the first of the attached photos was of some extremely rare and desirable bird that you have sought to photograph for many years (yes, it is a common Blue Jay, but pretend it is not…). You have finally managed to get this one nice, sharp picture of the bird, but upon looking at it closely, you discover that it has a very large, very bloated and disgusting tick attached to the side of its head (it does – if you doubt it, see the second of the attached photos). What would you do?

1. Leave it. You never change the content of your photos.
2. Remove it, but tell everybody that you did so, in the interest of honesty and because you are ashamed that you did so.
3. Remove it, and never tell a soul.

Further, I would be interested to know, if you have the time, your answers to the following questions (assuming, hypothetically or not, that you have Photoshop and know how to use it). My own answers are in brackets after each question:

1. You will retouch blemishes on your photos – bits of dust or scratches. [Yes]
2. You will make minor alterations to the background content of an image – remove annoying branches, or spots, or other distracting bits of stuff. [Yes]
3. You will make major alterations to the background such as swapping in a new/better sky or removing a large distracting object (house, car, etc.). [Yes]
4. You will make minor corrections to the bird such as removing the tick in the example image, or cleaning up a dirty rear-end, or removing dripping bird seed from a head. [Yes]
5. You will make major corrections to the bird such as moving legs, adding feet, adding a tail, closing a mouth, etc. [Yes]
6. You will move the entire bird into another scene. [Yes]
7. You will put the bird into scenes into which such a bird would not naturally or willingly go. [No]

If you answered no to any of the questions, I would like to know why. In my case, my No to question 7 is because I feel that a bird that does not act correctly is not a bird any longer. It is merely a decorative shape.

To expand a little bit on how these decisions affect ones shooting behavior, in my case, because I am a compositor, I need to have the birds be of consistent size and orientation, and the light to be diffuse (never direct). The background and setting is totally irrelevant to me because I always move the birds to a new scene. Therefore, I shoot in a carefully arranged setup that meets these needs.

Sorry for the length of this post. Thanks for your patience!

-Julie
unrealnature.com

[I know that many people are strongly opposed to obvious image manipulation. If that is the case for you, please feel free to express your opinion; I am comfortable with, and genuinely interested in all attitudes toward digital imagery. Thanks.]

An interesting list of questions, Julie.

What would I do? Probably (#1) - leave it. Maybe #2. But then the only natural creature that regularly disgusts me doesn't have feathers.

• retouch blemishes: yes
• You will make minor alterations (remove annoying branches, etc.): yes, sometimes.
• Make major alterations to the background: no. Two reasons: (a) it's too hard (the Photoshop user interface design is terrible and I don't have the time to stuff around with a single picture if it takes forever); (b) it seems to be getting a bit far away from the point of taking a photograph in the first place - if I want to record something from my imagination rather than reality, I'll learn to paint or draw.
• make minor corrections to the bird (such as removing the tick in the example image): probably not. Usually, these things add interest and reality. Nature and its beauty does not always equal "pretty" or "nice". (It would be different if I was (e.g.) preparing an image for a particular purpose, such as to illustrate a field guide where you want to present as "typical" a look as possible, free of distractions.
• major corrections such as moving legs: no.
• move the entire bird into another scene: can't imagine why I woud ever think of doing this.
• put the bird into scenes into which such a bird would not naturally or willingly go: Huh?

So, in summary, you can put me down as someone closer to the "never alter a picture" end of the scale than the "do anything you want" end, but I'm not obsessive about it.

By the way, adjusting colours and levels and sharpening is entirely different - those actions, carried out tastefully and competently, are an integral part of the photographic art, as much a part of basic photography technique as holding the camera steady or finding the bird. You could decide not to do those things, which would make as much sense as deciding not to bother cleaning your lenses or holding the camera straight. Your aim is (usually, though not absolutely always) to bring your audience to the bird - to take pictures that make someone viewing them feel as if she was right there beside you in the place where you were, and (perhaps) to make her feel the same way about that place and the creatures in it as you do.

Sharpening and correct exposure and a hundred other details are all things you do to further that aim. Removing "distasteful" stuff or adding "nice" stuff is (nearly always) something you do to reduce the viewer's exposure to nature, to replace raw natural beauty with a sterile and artificial sheen. It is, morally speaking, exactly the same thing as spraying fruit with shiny chemicals to make it seem "healthier" and "more natural" to people who think that apples grow in the back rooms of supermarkets, and that "tomato sauce" usually has tomato in it; or the same thing that many women do to their faces with make-up - remove every possible sign of individuality by covering it up with a grease and plastic mask that looks the same as every other grease and plastic mask. Now that might (or might not) be alright for product photography, and quite possibly just the thing for a Hollywood starlet (insofar as Hollywood abhors spontanaeity and individuality and thrives on faceless clones of humanity), but this is a nature photography site, and the clone and airbrush school of photography ain't got nothing to do with nature.

However, like all good rules, the sentiments I express above should never be applied without thought and flexibility: circumstances alter cases, and one should not be too hard and fast about anything. (Well, OK, I'd never marry a woman who habitually wore make-up, and never buy apples at the supermarket without feeling bad about it afterwards, and ... er ... never radically retouch a photograph without thinking that it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

Hi Tannin. Thanks for your response.

You seem to contradict yourself a little bit. Can you clarify: you do, or do not consider photography to be art?

In the first part of your response you seem to say that it is strictly for recording reality. Yet in your comments on sharpening and tonal/color correction, you refer to it as "photographic art."

Are alterations necessarily less true, or less attractive then reality? By suggesting that, and by choosing commercial examples, you seem to be implying that all art is thus.

A good artist, whether digital artist, traditional painter, sculptor or fine art photographer (as opposed to a commercial photographer) seeks to amplify, and purify the beauty and meaning of his/her image content. A good artist can make a picture that is more true than reality - in my opinion.

If an artist's work has "sterile and artificial sheen" then it is simply bad art. It is not representative of what art (the entire body of world art...) is capable of. However, I will say, I share your prejudice against commercial imagery.

Again, thanks for your thoughtful and in depth response.

-Julie
unrealnature.com

Nice to chat, Julie, it's an interesting topic.

Unreal_Birds said:

You seem to contradict yourself a little bit. Can you clarify: you do, or do not consider photography to be art? ... you seem to say that it is strictly for recording reality. Yet in your comments on sharpening and tonal/color correction, you refer to it as "photographic art."

Click to expand...

Recording reality is what art is! If it doesn't record reality in some meaningful way, then by definition it isn't art. That's what art does, it provides the audience with a better understanding of reality. All art, even, or perhaps especially, the abstract forms - Mozart was, amongst other things, one of history's greatest mathematicians. Or go back one step further to Bach, who makes it very obvious.

Or consider a few great works from amongst the visual arts: which recorded the reality of modern war more effectively? Nick Ut's chilling scene with the naked girl-child running from the napalm, or Picasso's Guernica? Different arts and very different styles, yet equally effective, it seems to me. And the thing that makes them effective is that, in their very different ways, they record reality.

Anything that simply looks pretty, no matter how pretty, but which fails to in some way expand the reader/listener/viewer's mind, fails to awaken him to some aspect of the real world he has not been aware of before is not art, it is mere decoration. (There is nothing wrong with decoration, I hasten to add. I tend not to bother with it much myself, but it's pretty harmless stuff, and, of course, the lines blur: some art is decorative, and really good decoration can be downright artistic.)

Or, a final example, consider the comic genius of your choice, John Cleese, let's say, but any good comic will do. The thing that makes them funnier than others is that they see things more clearly and are able to communicate that to us, the watchers, so that we (when we have finished laughing) walk away a little more knowledgable about, a little more understanding of the people around us - and indeed, of ourselves. (I am, among other things, a shopkeeper - sometimes Faulty Towers seems altogether too close to the bone!)

Now, to another point: we call it tonal/color correction for a reason: it is correcting a fault in the photographic process - i.e., it is bringing the final picture closer to the reality the photographer saw.

Unreal_Birds said:

Are alterations necessarily less true, or less attractive then reality? By suggesting that, and by choosing commercial examples, you seem to be implying that all art is thus.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm ... No. But the risk we run, once we start to alter images (I mean actually alter, not "correct a problem" such as colour balance) is that there is no clear line in the sand, no obvious way to differentiate between a touch-up and a con-job. For example, if I take your picture, and then alter it to brush out the palm tree I foolishly placed such that it seemed to be growing out of your head, have I, in the final analysis, made a better, more realistic picture of the person that is you? I think I have - by removing the distraction, I allow the viewer to see you, not the silly person with a palm tree in their head. But what if I go further, and air-brush away your wrinkles, whiten your teeth, slim you down here, and plump you up there until you are the living image of a plastic starlet? In this case, I think I have crossed the line from honest art into dishonest art - and dishonest art is (in my view) always bad art. (Of course, you may already be the living image of a starlet, in which case I need merely point and click!)

Or, what if I don't airbrush or alter anything, but I hunt through the 200 shots I took of you today, looking for the one (there is always one) that just happens to make you look mean or angry or foolish, and I print that one, discarding all the others? How many times have you seen this done to politicians by newspaper photographers - or more likely editors. It is child's play for (e.g.) a tabloid editor to portray the leader of a particular party or a man standing trial (who is yet to be found guilty or not guilty) in this way, and all without any post-processing tricks at all - simply by selecting a particular view of reality - and hey - who can say, maybe that famous person really is often mean or angry or foolish or evil?

So I believe that photographers have a particular responsibility to be fair and even-handed, because everybody "knows" that "the camera never lies" - i.e., if you are a writer and in your book you say that I am a bad man, people may or may not believe you, but if you are a photographer and you use a photograph to say that I am a bad man, then your point of view is accepted by the vast majority of people without question - because the camera never lies.

Unreal_Birds said:

A good artist, whether digital artist, traditional painter, sculptor or fine art photographer (as opposed to a commercial photographer) seeks to amplify, and purify the beauty and meaning of his/her image content. A good artist can make a picture that is more true than reality - in my opinion.

Click to expand...

And in mine too!

Unreal_Birds said:

If an artist's work has "sterile and artificial sheen" then it is simply bad art.

Click to expand...

Just so. Alas, it is all too often remarkably successful in the market. But that is another topic.

It's late and I'm probably not making much sense - I certainly seem to be a long way away from bird photography! Time I stopped spouting homespun philosophy and went to bed in time to be up bright and early, ready to set off on my 15-hour drive north to see (and photograph!) a Grey-headed Plover. (If it is still there.)

Now here is a practical example. If the bird is there still - it's the only one ever recorded in Australia - it will be standing on scrappy dry grass, more than likely, not a photogenic background. Worse, birds on flat surfaces like that make poor subjects, as you can never get the depth of field shallow enough to through the grass properly out of focus, and you can never get it deep enough to get the whole thing in focus. It will, in other words, be a Photoshop job.

Sigh.

Am I justified in artifically blurring the background? I think so: the end result will be closer to what you see with the naked eye, I think. But I'll also try shooting stopped-down as far as I possibly can and, if that works - it's not very practical with a 500mm lens - be able to forget the Photshop and just have a good picture "in the raw", which is always the best sort, I think.

Actually, I bet the bird has gone by the time I get there. It won't matter: plenty of other birds in that part of the world, and like life, photography isn't a destination, it's a journey.

Hey Tannin,

Fifteen hours. Good grief! Man, you are a nut (I mean that in the nicest possible way).

What a great response. I can't find anything to argue with. I think you have nicely touched on most of the issues that bother people on this topic.

We (all people who have been exposed to modern society) are immersed in photographic imagery from birth. We both take it for granted, trust it, and at the same time fear that it is going to lie to us. This is a burden not shared by the other artforms.

One more hypothetical situation for you to chew on. Suppose, after your fifteen hour drive, the Grey-headed Plover is there, you see it, but you miss the perfect shot. I can guess that you would be violently opposed to shooting the setting and inserting another picture of that same bird into the exact place, pose, etc. in which you saw it.

On the other hand, suppose I take one of your photos, suppose a hawk in flight over a local landscape. I have a picture of that same kind of bird also in flight. I remove your bird from your picture and insert my bird in the same spot. Still not okay (other than your outrage at my violation of your picture)? Same bird, same place, same everything except for the position of its wings.

Okay, so I have my own picture of that same landscape, into which I put my hawk in the same spot as yours is in your picture. Same bird, same landscape, same everything. Okay or not?

Best of luck on your trip. Surely it will be a worthy adventure no matter the outcome. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

-Julie
unrealnature.com

On your first hypothetical I'd probably just leave it... if that's how it was then that's how I'd want to record it.

I'm in agreement with Tannin on the levels/sharpening thing, it's just putting right what the camera/lens combo has done wrong.

the other questions...

1. retouch blemishes – yes, I think most people do
2. make minor alterations to the background - sometimes, I have no problem with this being done, but can rarely be bothered, I like to see a bird in it's environment, even if it makes for an untidy portrait.
3. make major alterations to the background such - I never have, but guess I might in certain situations.
4. make minor corrections to the bird - again yes, when I can be bothered
5. make major corrections to the bird - I did once purely as an exercise in photoshopping, but was totally upfront about it*... not sure I'd bother again.
6. move the entire bird - nope, can't see much point...
7. put the bird into scenes into which such a bird would not naturally - no, can't see any value in doing this.

*this is the photo in question - http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/82078/sort/1/cat/all/page/1 - I took the bill tip from one photo and used it in another. No real point to it, just wanted to see if I could make it look right, I think it turned out OK.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" or so the saying goes.I,personally would not dream of removing any natural blemishes or deformities the bird may show.It would be akin to banishing" Uncle Joe " from the family wedding photos 'cos he has a huge wart on the end of his nose!!!.
One of my fav birds,Charlie,a visiting blackbird and a very busy and doting Dad,is practically bald,on the front of his head,and 2 months ago lost his very handsome tail,albeit 1 tail feather is now starting to show through.When I post his photo it will be "warts and all".This is part of the character of the bird.
The only manipulation I ever do,is to crop to make the image larger and a highlight.But that is because that is the limit to my technical expertise!!!.
I once posted a shot of a Dunnock whose beak was covered in the most horrible warts,they were like tiny oak apples.I did not realise the extent of the deformity until I processed the image.Poor little bird.But I wanted to know the cause of her problems therefore I did post the image,not a pretty sight,but then that is nature.

Postcardcv,

That is a beautiful picture. And an excellent job with the beak. I was also very interested in the reactions to the substitute beak that are posted below the picture . (Contrary to what you might expect, I don't agree with the suggestion that you remove the foreground branch - I think it adds depth to the picture.)

Christine,

Thank you for your comments. So, you make photographs as portraits or mementos, not as artistic efforts, or a scientific records? That's a new angle.

I had been thinking only of:

1) photos as records - validations, certifications, proof or evidence of ones experience or "captures" (and the composition and beauty of the content is of no particular interest other than for its conveyance of the needed information). In this case, one would have no particular preference or need for attractive lighting or a pleasing background.

or 2) photos as works of art where composition, and beauty are primary.

-Julie
unrealnature.com

Julie ,I view the bird as it is as nature sees it.It may not be a pretty bird,but it is a bird in its own environment and as akin to humans it does have its flaws and imperfections.

A really interesting debate - thanks to all posters so far. I'll try to keep up the high standard.
I think the extent to which an image can be acceptable manipulated depends to a large extent on it's end use, with the significant rider that the photographer is honest about the manipulation. For example, I would allow, and in fact expect, an advertising image to be much more manipulated than, say, an ID photo in a bird guide. But even in the latter example I would allow some manipulation to fit the picture to it's purpose, eg removing distracting background objects. (Although you'd hope the editor would find a decent shot in the first instance!) If making 'art', then it depends on the particular project, and the aims of the artist.
For my own photography, I try to capture what I 'see' in front of me. This might be a 'warts and all' portrait, a simple record or diary shot, or it might be an artistic interpretation of the visual scene.It depends on my mood, and my response to the image my eyes have captured. I derive a lot of satisfaction from producing the image I see in my head from the camera whenever possible, and try to keep post-processing to a minimum, but the extent of manipulation depends on the project.

Hi Gordon,

I've been mulling over the unhesitating and clearly sincere responses of all of the respondents to this thread. It's interesting, because my own response is just as unhesitatingly and sincerely different from yours.

I think maybe I am starting to see the nature of our differences. See if the following analogy illustrates the difference in the types of photographs we are after:

If any of us had a child that was in youth soccer, and, in a key game, our child scored the winning goal, and the event photographer missed the shot of him at the moment of scoring, I think we could all agree that a simulation after-the-fact would not do at all. Even if the every participant stood in exactly the same place, and every child re-enacted his/her role perfectly, a picture of this would have no value or meaning. A picture of ones child at the moment of achievement is a photograph of an **event**. Also, it is context dependent and entirely specific. Its value to the possessor **requires** knowledge of things that are not present in the picture. It is specific to one place/time. By this I mean that the picture would have little or no value to someone in another part of the world.

Is that a good parallel to what you do and feel when photographing birds?

If your child did NOT score a goal, and you rig up a simulated picture in which it appears that he is scoring a goal and represent that picture as the truth - that is simply disgraceful. Shameful on so many levels.

Obviously, it is likewise unacceptable to take bird pictures off the net and put them into your own scenes, then claim you photographed them there.

If, however, you are a professional photographer and you have your child play the role of a child soccer player so that you can make stylish, perfect, and wonderfully representative images of youth soccer - which you then sell via a stock photography agency, I think most people would have no problem with that whatsoever. Those pictures are in no way tied to the any time or place and is not context dependent (the users of the picture would have no idea of the time, place or identity of the child). If good enough, any person anywhere in the world might find them attractive and of value. The picture is not dependent on context or knowledge of events outside of the picture.

Likewise, I think that, even though you may not do this yourself, you don't see anything particularly wrong with it as long as it is intended as art; that it is clearly generic - not specific - not a real "event".

And yet... and yet... [I am trying hard, I really am... but...]

In most bird pictures, the birds aren't doing anything. They are just sitting there (or am I just ignorant of subtle details?). In which case, I'm back to wondering why a picture of a bird doing nothing is tied to any event other than the event of the photographer achieving/getting a picture of it (which does constitute the "meaning outside of the photograph" - the context). They seem to be just begging for manipulation...

-Julie

Julie,you are missing the reason for bird shots.Yes birds are "just sitting there" as you say,but when you see a bird in a tree,or high in the sky,you do not see the details in the plumage etc.But when one takes a photo of a bird "just sitting",one can see all the beautiful details of the plumageand feather markings.Hence the reason why we take shots of birds. If you care to visit "my Gallery",you will see some Starling shots which show the amazing variants of colours within the plumage of this very common bird.One sees the bird fly overhead,but one is unable to see the detail.

Ah ha! But I very much do appreciate the beautiful plummage, the color, the lines of their lovely shape and their lustrous eyes. And I carefully cut out that beautiful shape, with all its color and plummage and eyes and move it onto a new, improved background, maybe add a few other cutout-and-moved lovely birds, twiddle with their legs a bit, remove a bit of bird seed, maybe nip off a fluffed feather...

And you come into the room, look over my shoulder and scold me, then make me go sit in the corner, and have no pudding for dinner.

I love birds. I would not be here, and I would not use them so extensively in my images if I did not find them to be very beautiful and expressive of wild life (and I do mean that to be two words).

What puzzles me is the apparent intense preference for the specific over the universal; "this" exact bird in "this" exact un-ideal setting as opposed to a generalized, more universally representative likeness of the creature - in an idealized setting.

-Julie

Unreal_Birds said:

In most bird pictures, the birds aren't doing anything. They are just sitting there (or am I just ignorant of subtle details?). In which case, I'm back to wondering why a picture of a bird doing nothing is tied to any event other than the event of the photographer achieving/getting a picture of it (which does constitute the "meaning outside of the photograph" - the context). They seem to be just begging for manipulation...

Click to expand...

While I do enjoy taking portraits of birds, both full bird portraits and also extreme close ups, my favourite type of shot (both to take and to look at) are shots that show some aspect of bird behaviour. Having been a birder for years before I got interested in photography I've always found behaviour very interesting. I find that a photo that shows behaviour is far more interesting to look at, I can identify with the bird more.

I've attached two robin shots, one a close up and one showing behaviour, while I like both the behaviour shot is much mroe interesting.

Unreal_Birds said:

What puzzles me is the apparent intense preference for the specific over the universal; "this" exact bird in "this" exact un-ideal setting as opposed to a generalized, more universally representative likeness of the creature - in an idealized setting.

Click to expand...

Hi Julie,

I think this may have something to do with the 'collecting' value of birds. I have taken pics in the past of birds far too distant and under far less than ideal conditions to expect any kind of art to emerge. I have taken the pics, generally, because I have had no other opportunity to photograph that species in the past and until I get a better opportunity it is nice to have some kind of record of a particular sighting of a particular bird in a particular setting. I dont keep a written list of sightings but I do have a mental list and since I started digiscoping I have a very loose photographic list I suppose.

I have no problem with manipulation of digital files, I make my living as a retoucher/digital artist so it would be difficult for me if I did!

Visual artists are image makers, they create images, some with cameras, some with pencils, some with paint, some with computers and others with a combination of tools, equipment and media.

For me it is the final image that is important, it can be 100% true to life or abstracted or manipulated if it speaks to me in some way, whether it's purely a 'nice' image or wheter it shows me something I've not seen before or effects me on an emotional level. If I have a response to the image then the artist has made a successful image.

Woody

Woody,

You understand me perfectly, and we seem to agree on all points. I am just now coming to fully understand the wide gulf between the picture made, as you say, for collecting (and what I am referring to as a record of an event), and a stand-alone, fine art bird image/digital creation.

What I think I have figured out, and what I find so interesting, is that the meaning and value of that (collected) picture rests in what is not in the picture - the picture is "about" the photographer --->> what, when, where he/she did, saw WAS at that perfect moment.

postcardcv (very nice pictures, by the way), your post seems to support not disagree with what I am saying. The active picture is (or can be) better than the sitting image. Therefore, my argument is that I can take your sitting picture and make it into your active picture. And, in theory at least, I can make my picture better than yours. I can do this because I can show the bird in the most universally characteristic, most typical, most recognizable posture or representation of any given form of behaviour; likewise I can show it doing the activity against/in the most typical and universally recognizable AND most beautiful background. In short, I can do anything I like with the picture.

Your picture, made without manipulation, will always be particular, specific to that one incident wherever it took place involving that one, particular bird. Yours is specific, mine is universal.

But yours is valuable to you because you were there. It gains value and meaning because it is not only about the birds; it is also about you.

The reason I made the comment about "they are just sitting there" is because the child-shooting-the-soccer-goal is a picture of a unique event; something that will rarely or never happen again. A bird sitting in a tree is not unique or rare - but the moment that YOU photograph it is. Therefore my stress on the fact that, unlike the soccer child, the bird picture gets its unique-ness from you (the photographer), not from the bird.

-Julie

Julie,having read your last post,yes ,I can understand your motives and reasons for your interest in image manipulation etc,and maybe improving the image by adding enhancements,but I am going to add a photo of "Charlie" a regular visitor to our backyard for his daily quotas of sultanas for himself and his family.
When he re-appeared in the early Spring he was a very handsome Blackbird,glossy plumage , spectacular tail feathers,then hence one morning he arrived minus his tail (one tail feather is now starting to grow back) and looking very bald and battered around his head and eyes.whether or not he had been defending his family agains't the local Magpies,or perhaps one of the other young handsome male Blackbirds had been pestering his partner,who knows ,but he looks very tatty.
I suppose one could replace his missing feathers by using image manipulation,and give him another handsome tail,but it would not be "Charlie".
Could I remove the phone wires from the perching Swallow and substitute the overhead sky for the river along which she skims for insects,perhaps so.I posted a shot of House Martin chicks peeping from their nest on our sister site yesterday.So no doubt I could take a image of one of the adults of whom I photographed in the mud,and place her at the nest as though she is feeding the chicks.My conscience would not allow me to present an image I had altered in such a way(I,m not technically able to do so,anyway!!!).
If I posted a shot of the Swallow skimming along the river,when in reality it was perching overhead on a telephone wire,I really would feel very guilty.

Christine,

I enjoyed your picture/stories.

They serve to both illustrate and confirm everything that I have been saying about birdwatcher-photographers versus non-birdwatcher-photographers.

-Julie

Unreal_Birds said:

Hi Gordon,

I've been mulling over the unhesitating and clearly sincere responses of all of the respondents to this thread. It's interesting, because my own response is just as unhesitatingly and sincerely different from yours.

I think maybe I am starting to see the nature of our differences. See if the following analogy illustrates the difference in the types of photographs we are after:

If any of us had a child that was in youth soccer, and, in a key game, our child scored the winning goal, and the event photographer missed the shot of him at the moment of scoring, I think we could all agree that a simulation after-the-fact would not do at all. Even if the every participant stood in exactly the same place, and every child re-enacted his/her role perfectly, a picture of this would have no value or meaning. A picture of ones child at the moment of achievement is a photograph of an **event**. Also, it is context dependent and entirely specific. Its value to the possessor **requires** knowledge of things that are not present in the picture. It is specific to one place/time. By this I mean that the picture would have little or no value to someone in another part of the world.

Is that a good parallel to what you do and feel when photographing birds?

If your child did NOT score a goal, and you rig up a simulated picture in which it appears that he is scoring a goal and represent that picture as the truth - that is simply disgraceful. Shameful on so many levels.

Obviously, it is likewise unacceptable to take bird pictures off the net and put them into your own scenes, then claim you photographed them there.

If, however, you are a professional photographer and you have your child play the role of a child soccer player so that you can make stylish, perfect, and wonderfully representative images of youth soccer - which you then sell via a stock photography agency, I think most people would have no problem with that whatsoever. Those pictures are in no way tied to the any time or place and is not context dependent (the users of the picture would have no idea of the time, place or identity of the child). If good enough, any person anywhere in the world might find them attractive and of value. The picture is not dependent on context or knowledge of events outside of the picture.

Likewise, I think that, even though you may not do this yourself, you don't see anything particularly wrong with it as long as it is intended as art; that it is clearly generic - not specific - not a real "event".

And yet... and yet... [I am trying hard, I really am... but...]

In most bird pictures, the birds aren't doing anything. They are just sitting there (or am I just ignorant of subtle details?). In which case, I'm back to wondering why a picture of a bird doing nothing is tied to any event other than the event of the photographer achieving/getting a picture of it (which does constitute the "meaning outside of the photograph" - the context). They seem to be just begging for manipulation...

-Julie

Click to expand...

I dont think there are that many differences in our approach to manipulation, in fact. Most contributers so far have said in effect that some manipulation is ok, and the extent of it depends on circumstances. Where some have differed ( I hope I'm representing your views correctly Chrisitine!) it is because an accurate image of what was really there is the point of the image.
It seems to me that the difference is more in our approaches to obtaining the image, ie 'image making' as opposed to 'image finding'. From your posts so far it sounds like you are the former, whereas I would consider myself the latter. This difference leads to the differing treatments of the image captured in-camera, as for me that is ideally the end-point, but for you perhaps just the beginning of a longer process to achieve your previsualised image.
Both approaches are equally valid, although perhaps the end results are suited to different purposes.

Gordon,

I agree with you on all points. Thank you for the concise summation.

-Julie