Redefining Photography - Specifically Digital Photography

The traditional definition of Photography state the following;

Mirriam-Webster definition.

: the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (as film or a CCD chip)

The Free Dictionary definition.

pho·tog·ra·phy  (f-tgr-f)

n.

1. The art or process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces.

2. The art, practice, or occupation of taking and printing photographs.

3. A body of photographs.

Yourdictionary Definition.

the art or process of producing images of objects upon a photosensitive surface (as film in a camera) by the chemical action of light or other radiant energy

Origin: photo- + -graphy

These definitions support the "accepted" notion that "the camera NEVER lies".

Today some people know that that was not the complete truth as many a great photographer MADE their images in the darkroom, including deleting and substituting unwanted objects, and even inserting "false" elements into photo`s that actually constituted fraud.  Such images were, because of the above "accepted" notion, even produced in Courts of Law as supporting evidence in finding people guilty, having them sentenced and even "legally" killed.

Even today in the mind of most people excellent photographs are created by a photographer using only a camera, maybe a tripod and flash.

UNFORTUNATELY this is about the furthest removed from the truth if ever there has been a "photographic truth".  The reason is simply because most Amateur (not the P-n-S type), Serious Amateur and mainly Pro or Semi- Pro Photographers do at least a minimum of manipulation of their photo`s.  Although this in many cases only include colour correction in some way it cannot be anymore defined in the strict terms that only the genius of the photographer with the camera as his only tools actually produced the "photo".  One reason is because most digital cameras already have some in-built image manipulation program that makes changes to the captured images.

Why this whole treatise?

Simply because recently two very high profile cases of FRAUD has been discovered and widely publicized.  These involved two prominent and "GREAT" photographers that pushed the "accepted minimum manipulation" to the level of producing images that we not the "truth".  In actual fact in one case this was not image manipulation but manipulation of the "element" which was a tame or trained fox .  IMHO this is NOT fraud but the Rules of the Competition stated that no tame or trained animals and the particular photographer should not have done this.

In the second case however an element(s) that was not even close to the locality was introduced and this certainly IS FRAUD.

Having made these statements it is important to take note of the fact there are "acceptable out-of-camera" techniques that are being applied by a great number of so-called Great/Good and even Mediocre photographers to ENHANCE and CHANGE the basic photo to a level that they would never have been able to accomplish with a camera only.

These include;

Sharpening ( bringing into sharper focus something that was not sharply focussed in the original photo) with Photo EDITING Software such as mainly Adobe Photoshop.

Creating "false" Depth of Field" by taking 2 or more images and then "stacking" these to create the ILLUSION that the PHOTOGRAPHER actually took the photo like that.  Now in my mind that is just as FRAUDULENT as the guy who put the object into the photo that was never there.

Changing White Balance afterwords in Software.  One "great photographer" made the following statement to me when asked about WB, "I always take in RAW and AUTO WB then just change it in Photoshop.

This is NO LESS FRAUD than what the "FRAUDULENT" photographer mentioned above did.

All Digital Photography Magazines actually PROMOTE these FRAUDULENT techniques.  Just look at the article on "Photoshop skills" in the July 2010 issue of Digital SLR photography where they insert a rainbow into an image and tout this as a skill to be mastered.  Then you blame the guy for putting a tiger or whatever into a photo.

So why then the big cabal about the FRAUDSTER?  IMHO more than the average so-called  photographers in this world are viewing these techniques as acceptable because it is touted my the Digital Photography Media as essential skills and thus ethically acceptable.

Dear sir/madam/etc THAT IS NOT PHOTOGRAPHY.  It may be called Imaging Art or something like that but IT IS NOT PHOTOGRAPHY.

Due to the "flawed" nature of digital sensors as well as the limitation of shape and size of sensors the only probable image manipulation that can be accepted as not altering the essence of a particular photo is colour correction and cropping. We know for example that no two digital cameras with the exact same settings of the exact same "scene" at precisely the same time will produce identical coloured or saturated images. 

Take note that the following two picture were taken "as-is" WITHOUT ANY MANIPULATION OF ANY TYPE SAVE THAT THE ONE IS THE ORIGINAL AND THE OTHER IS A CROPPED VERSION.

And guest what....  Although many a "photographer" advised me to crop the image I`ve had more requests for the UNALTERED PHOTO than the cropped one.

Cropped image.

Original image.

The reason for this is quite simply that the unaltered image place the trees more in context than the cropped version.