On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 3:34 AM, Brian Walters <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi all > > This may have been discussed previously but I thought it might be worth > canvassing PDMLers' views, in the light of Ann's comments on my recent > "Stumped - Take 2" PESO. > > I think most people would regard the recent "Iran Missile" fiasco as > being in the "way too much" category and a few journalists have got > themselves into strife in recent years by 'sexing up' news images. > Although photography has always been a weapon of propaganda, well before > the digital age, these are distorting history and can't be justified. > > At the other extreme, removing the odd dust spot or maybe a distracting > leaf or branch would probably be regarded as being OK by most people. > > But what about the middle ground - when do we step over the line? <snip>
So I turn on my computer on Monday morning at work and see this thread of some 65 posts! I'm sure what I'm about to say has been covered and discussed to death, but here's my take. At one extreme you've got PJ shots - shots that purport to be "truth" (whatever the hell that means!). I say that beyond cropping and "cleaning up" stuff that the camera/lens added (dust and hot pixels and the like) you don't do a thing. No cloning in or out. At the other extreme, you've got "art photos", which are there to look pretty (or at least they are there to present someone's "artistic vision" - whatever the hell that means). Not much turns on whether something has been put in/taken out/altered in any way. Whatever truth they're conveying is contained within the image, they're not there to portray some truth external to the artist/viewer/image. At least not always. And then there's all the other stuff in between. I guess what's right or wrong is situational and has to be dealt with on a case by case basis. It comes down to what the photographer would want the viewer to believe, and how it's presented. cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
