Just finished watching a documentary about Australian photographer Frank Hurley (Frank Hurley - Man Who Made History http://tinyurl.com/a968h ). Probably best known for his shots taken during Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. My favorite is a shot of the "Endurance" trapped in the ice, taken at night where he'd hidden flashes around the vessel. The print looks just like a negative :-)
It was an eye opener for me because while I knew of him and his images, I hadn't realised that quite a few of his shots were composites or staged scenes. He seemed to be prone to adding moody & interesting skies to make the shot more powerful, or if one image didn't seem to have enough impact he'd make a composite of several images. The thing is , he saw nothing wrong with this. He was less interested in documenting fact as he was in creating a dramatic story or evoking a response from the viewer. Not only that, he did all this Before Photoshop (BP) <g> Given the recent debate about honesty in photography I found it quite interesting. Dave
