When the world saw the very first photographs, the idea of being able to capture the world as we see it took off rapidly. In a relatively short period of time, film photography evolved from black and white to color photography. From there, it made motion pictures possible, allowing us to see the world from our couches at home. When the first digital camera was invented, little did the inventors know that it would later revolutionize the world of photography and media in general. Today, billions of images are captured and shared between people and the number of image recording devices is growing at a rapid, unstoppable rate. There are cameras literally everywhere – in our mobile phones, homes, computers, cars and even in wearables like eyeglasses and watches. We trust these devices to give us a glimpse of reality, documented moments of time that we can go back to and review. And yet with the fast growth, ease of access and use of image and video manipulation tools, we have been seeing more footage that can twist reality: whether we are looking at popular magazine covers, Internet sites or news media, the imagery we see is getting harder and harder to trust, since it is being altered, faked or staged. Media turned out to be a powerful tool to influence and manipulate people, which brings up the question and the importance of ethics in photography. Should photography only be allowed to display reality, or is it acceptable to alter images for presentation purposes? And if manipulation is acceptable, what are its limits, if any? These are very hard questions to answer, but with some common sense, we can create a set of ethical rules and guidelines that should help photographers in determining what’s acceptable and what’s not.
In this article, I do not want to get into the depth of the discussion of ethics in media, since it is a huge topic on its own and does not belong to a photography site. Instead, I will focus on specific types of photography and the practices we should follow. Please keep in mind that most of the thoughts in this article are based on my opinion and experience. If you disagree with any of them, please state your thoughts in the comments section below in a kind matter, so that we can have a friendly discussion that benefits everyone.
1) Image Theft
With billions of photographs being available so widely all over the Internet, it is not uncommon to see not only individuals, but also companies using other people’s work for their own benefit. In some cases, theft is loud and clear, with images being used without any permission; and in other cases, images are “borrowed” to be altered and manipulated to create something different. No matter how it is done, theft is still theft and it should not be ever welcomed in any shape or form. How would you feel if someone stole your images that you post in common social media platform like Instagram, printed them out and sold them for thousands of dollars without sharing any of the money with you? If you have never heard of Richard Prince, check out his website and his gallery:
Yup, he does exactly that: steals other people’s work, prints them and sells as his own “artwork”. One could argue that he “repurposes” some of the images and that may be true in some cases where he significantly transforms an image to something completely different. But even then, he should be requesting permission from the original source first and even after receiving permission, he should clearly state in his artwork that his work was based on someone else’s idea or images. The worst part is, some people (including himself), believe that he is a true artist and he has every right to do what he does. In my books, this guy is nothing more than a thief!
2) Photo Plagiarism
What about situations, where a photographer borrows another photographer’s idea and perspective to get a very similar, if not identical shot? Now this one is a topic of endless debates, one capable of sparking huge arguments on both sides of the game. As photographers, we often have our own knowledge, skills and experiences to create something unique that has never been done before, at least to our knowledge. It could be finding a particular subject, angle, composition, subject placement, or perhaps specific use of colors and tones to create something original. Is it acceptable to re-capture such images, taking inspiration from the original author? And if it is acceptable, should permissions be asked and credit provided? I think the answer depends on a number of factors. If an image is copied exactly one-to-one, using the same angle, perspective, composition, subject and colors, making it look identical to the source, then it is a clear sign of plagiarism and it should never be welcomed.
However, there are certain exceptions. For example, in landscape photography (covered in detail below), there are situations when one photographer can find and popularize a unique spot where certain angles and shapes work very well. Throughout history, there have been many such images – for example, Ansel Adams made the Snake River overlook very popular at the Grand Teton National Park:
Copyright Ansel Adams, Image Source: Wikipedia
And since then, countless images have been taken with a very similar perspective and angle by other photographers. Does it mean that they should be crediting the source every single time? This is a hard question when it comes to ethics, because landscapes change all the time and if one photographer does manage to capture an image one way, chances of capturing another image with exactly the same light, cloud formation, vegetation and color are fairly slim, even if exactly the same composition is used. In the case of the above photo from Ansel Adams, since he has captured the shot at the Grand Tetons, many trees have grown and fallen and even the snake river most likely slightly changed its shape and looks a bit different today. Does it mean that other photographers should not be taking the shot with a similar composition? I don’t think so – I believe it is perfectly acceptable for others to capture images of popular spots, provided they are not deliberately trying to make an exact replica of the shot of the original author, with the intent to copy it. Now if someone edited the trees to look exactly like the ones in Ansel Adams’ original shot, turned it into black and white with the same aspect ratio, similar shades and cloud formations, then it could be considered as deliberate plagiarism.
However, landscape photography almost feels like a different beast when it comes to plagiarism. While using the same subject, perspective and composition are often acceptable in landscapes, attempting to do the same thing in other types of photography, such as portraiture and fashion photography, is an inevitable path to plagiarism. For example, if we look at the work of Tyler Shields, we can see many of his images were borrowed ideas from other existing works. Take a look at some of the examples:
Image Source: Vice.com
In this image, we can clearly see that Tyler Shields attempted to copy the work of Irving Penn, by making a very similar image. The idea is the same, the crop is the same. However, he did change a few patterns, adjusted colors and made a slightly different image. Does it mean that his work is original? Of course not – it was clearly based on someone else’s work. There is nothing original about this piece. And yet Tyler Shields never credited Irving Penn for inspiration in creating this photograph. Let’s take a look at a different image of Tyler Shields:
Image Source: Vice.com
We can clearly see the pattern of a copy-cat. Again, the same idea of bruised legs of a ballerina standing straight up and only showing the affected area. One side has a shoe, the other does not. He attempted to make his work appear different and original by swapping the shoe, having different bandages and bruises, but nevertheless, it is still not an original idea by any means. In this case, if Tyler Shields used Henry Leutwyler’s work for inspiration, he should have given him proper credit.
In some cases, images can indeed look very similar by coincidence. And when it does happen, it would be truly a “one-off” case. However, if you look at the many works of Tyler Shields, you will see that the above are not cases of coincidence or sheer luck. He deliberately borrowed other people’s ideas and executed them in a similar fashion to make a name for himself.
Sadly, in the world of social media, plagiarism is almost inevitable. Photographers steal ideas from other photographers all the time and some do a very good job at it too, often succeeding more than the original author, as in the case of people like Tyler Shields and Richard Prince. There is nothing ethical about what they do and I would discourage all of our readers from repeating the same mistakes…
3) Photo Manipulation
Let’s now expand the topic of ethics in photography to photo manipulation. How much manipulation should be allowed and what are the limits? Photography purists will argue that photographs should never be altered in any way – that they should retain their originality. Some even argue that cropping should be a prohibited practice. On the other side of the extreme, we’ve got people who take no shame in severely manipulating images, sometimes in order to influence people’s minds, alter their perceptions or their opinions. Is there a sweet middle that satisfies photography ethics? I believe there is, but it is not an easy answer by any means – we need to look at each photography genre in detail, as it is a very complex topic.
3.1) Documentary, News and Reportage
Today, news outlets rely more than they ever have on images and footage provided by the public. Although the most popular media outlets try to have their own staff provide media, it is not always possible, particularly in areas of conflict and inaccessible war zones. When the public sees such footage, there is an immediate level of trust in what they see. As a result, such content can play a huge role in shaping up public opinion, potentially even influencing their future decisions. Because of the importance and the potential influence of such documentary footage, it is only ethical when such imagery is provided without ANY manipulation whatsoever.
This includes documentary photography, news and reportage of any kind, which in my opinion also includes street photography. When we see images of people, affected or unaffected, we want to believe in what we see. Such images become historical records and we cannot allow them to be manipulated. Take a look at some of the altered images that have appeared in media in the past:
At the time the image was taken, it was probably unacceptable for the Iranian state media to present only three missiles in the air, with one looking like it failed to launch, so the image was altered in Photoshop to make it look like all four rockets took off. In addition, a smaller car seen behind the rocket launching vehicle was also removed from the image to remove the unnecessary distractions.
Here is another image by Brian Walski, which was heavily altered to make a single composite from two different images:
Sadly, Brian Walski thought that it would be a good idea to make a composite image from the two images to “improve composition” and thought it was acceptable for him to make such heavy edits. In some cases, people that practice such manipulations should be persecuted in court, especially if a photograph is used as any form of propaganda to lie about the actual facts.
We can see many examples like the above two all over the world. If you want to see some of the best examples of altered images in history, check out this website by the Bronx Documentary Center – you will find some shocking examples of altered images, some of which were used to manipulate the public.
It is clear that such documentary photography and footage should never be allowed to be manipulated. The good news is, those who get caught often get fired and potentially even jailed for doing it, but I bet there are far more cases where things go by unseen. If photographers destroyed their original images and only left the original footage, they would leave it up to public to decide whether their work is authentic or not. It is very uncomfortable to think that people would do such things, but sadly, it does happen.
What about cropping images? I believe that cropping should only be allowed, if the cropped out area does not represent area of interest to the viewer and does not change the meaning of the photograph after the fact. This can be tricky to determine, so if there is even a slight doubt that cropping would change the message in any way, then it should be avoided at all costs.
3.2) Portrait and Fashion Photography
Portrait photography, and specifically fashion photography, is without a doubt one of the most Photoshop-influenced genres of photography today. Practically every image you look at today on the cover of every magazine is digitally altered. In some cases, changes are very subtle, but in most cases, people go through complete transformations, making them look drastically different compared to the reality. Such retouching changes are so common today, that they are now widely accepted as a “normal” practice to make the model or celebrity look flawless. So where is the fine line between what should be considered ethical and what should not? That’s another tough one to answer, because there will be people defending both sides heavily.
Personally, I believe that retouching should be acceptable, but with certain restrictions. While adjusting colors & contrast, fixing skin blemishes, removing excessive hair and taking care of wardrobe mishaps should be allowed, altering someone’s physique and general appearance should be prohibited. Consider the following photograph of Angelina Jolie:
To me, this is the borderline of what should be allowed. The retoucher removed all skin blemishes from her face and made the skin of the actress look flawlessly smooth, which as we know, is almost never the case. However, facial features do not seem to be drastically altered, as in the below image of Kelly Clarkson:
Here, the retoucher went to the extreme – eyebrows and eyes changed, face shape altered, body shape altered, especially towards the lower body. This is an example of heavy retouching that should not be allowed. This kind of imagery takes us away from the reality, making our youth believe that people can look as perfect as they do in the magazine covers. These are not the ideals to pursue and this kind of “fake” beauty should not be welcomed by the public.
Having assisted my wife in photographing weddings, I have come across a number of brides, bridesmaids and other people, who made special requests to make them look thinner in photographs via Photoshop. Although my wife certainly did experiment with such capabilities and knew very well how to use specific tools such as “Liquify”, she found it quite frustrating to agree to such requests. Not only because it is a lot of work, but also because it is just not right – people should not assume that such practices should be commonly acceptable. Overtime, she learned how to position the subjects better and capture them at particular angles that made them look slimmer, but she completely stopped heavy digital manipulations that made the person look different than they were in reality.
3.3) Nature Photography
Humans are drawn by the sheer beauty of wild and mysterious nature. Having witnessed it in real life, we know that nature can present itself in vibrant and beautiful colors especially during those peak golden hours, and at the same time can really impact our moods with those gloomy, cloudy days. So when we immerse ourselves in a photograph with a stunning landscape, we always make the assumption that we see the reality: we want to believe that the photographer was there at that right moment of time to capture the natural beauty. While we can make assumptions about the fake nature of photographs of celebrities in magazines, we practically never make such assumptions on images of nature. Why is that? I have been pondering about this question for a while and I think the answer to the question is quite simple – we want to believe in nature being as beautiful as it is presented to us. We look at nature as something raw, innocent, something that has not been corrupted by the humanity.
The moment we are introduced to a nature photograph that clearly looks unrealistic, or worse yet, when we discover that a photograph that we perceived as real was in fact not, it leaves us with a feeling of distrust towards the photographer. We feel cheated and faked.
Take a look at the two images below, one straight out of my camera, and one after I slaughtered the hell out of it in Photoshop:
Five years ago I thought that my edit looked “cool and dramatic”, although I knew upfront that it looked very fake. Without moisture or cloud formations in the air, the sky could have never be that colorful! And yet at the time, I thought it was a cool effect to use on an image, giving it more of an “artistic” feel. I often make fun of myself with this particular photograph in my workshops, because I want others to see that we all go through the stages of experimentation and it is perfectly OK to try out things. I would never make this image as part of my portfolio and would never present it in a gallery, because it skews reality and presents nature in its most unrealistic form.
Here is another image that really upset some of our readers when I posted it:
Although it is pretty clear that the image is a composite, people got really upset that I copy-pasted the different phases of the moon to a completely different scene. For this composite, I photographed the moon on its own, then moved to another location after the eclipse was over in order to capture a more attractive foreground, which I later used as a backdrop panorama for the arcing moon. I wrote about what I did to the image in detail in my “how was this picture made” article, where I explained the process in detail, for the purpose of education. The above image is not something I would ever claim as real – in fact, I purposefully made it look fake (the moon never arcs like shown in the image), so that it was clear from the image itself. This is another image that I would never display at a nature gallery, because nothing about it represents the reality. Sure, the moon phases are real, the landscape is real, but the two never took place together as shown in the image.
So what kind of editing is ethically acceptable in nature photography? That’s the million dollar question and the can of worms to open! In landscape photography, I consider it acceptable to adjust exposure, colors, shadows, tones and contrast, to perform selective boosting / dodging and burning, to crop images for better composition and to perform other adjustments, as long as they don’t make the image appear too unrealistic and fake. I am not against HDR photography either – in fact, it can be a great technique to use in order to recover data that cannot be otherwise captured by modern camera sensors, as long as it looks natural at the end (no Grunge HDR please!). I am not against blending techniques to bring out details from different parts of the scene either, as long as they are not overdone. Lastly, I also find it acceptable to remove distracting objects from the scene. Basically, I don’t mind most types of editing!
Here is an example of the type of editing that I find acceptable:
In the above case, I cropped the image to get closer to the rock, adjusted white balance of both the foreground and the sky, added some more color to the clouds and added a bit more structure to the clouds to make them stand out a bit more. After I was done with the basic edits, I realized that some of the footsteps on the playa left by other photographers looked rather distracting. I used Photoshop’s clone stamp tool to remove some of the obvious spots, to keep the scene looking cleaner and not as distracting.
Here is another set of images from Wadi Rum that I captured last year to illustrate the point of what I consider to be acceptable in terms of post-processing:
The changes in the “after” image are a bit more aggressive than in the previous case. Aside from the standard editing steps like boosting contrast and colors, I removed both cars and their tracks from the scene, since they looked too distracting. While I did not make too many changes to the foreground, I did remove a couple of distracting elements there – take a look at the white stone in the foreground, to the bottom left side of the frame. When I was shooting at that particular location, I was literally jumping between rocks in order not to leave any footsteps and really struggled to find an area that provided me a clear composition. As I was taking this photo, I already knew that the stone on the lower left had to go, because it was incomplete and it was pushing too far to the bottom frame. I was able to fit the dark rock on the left, but the white one was too big to fit (you only see a portion of it in the shot). As I went through the image, I also removed some white dots and other imperfections in the sand, since they looked a bit distracting.
Now that you have seen the type of editing I personally consider acceptable, let’s talk about the editing practices that I would not recommend. Basically, any kind of composite imagery, especially ones where multiple unrelated images are put together to create a dramatic scene that never actually existed or took place, is something I consider unacceptable. Those photographs, or rather “artworks” do not belong in nature photography or fine art galleries – they have a place of their own. Nothing wrong with such creative photography / composites, as long as it is made obvious by the photographer, either through the image itself, or as part of its description. Again, the idea is not to mislead people in believing in something that does not exist.
Another big factor in ethics in our involvement, influence and impact on nature as we document it. We have written quite a bit about this topic in the past, but sadly, it is something that continues to happen. When I was at the Death Valley National Park just a few weeks back, I saw an interesting scene – a young couple took their car way into the Devil’s Cornfield for one stupid reason – to take a selfie. Sadly, people do these kinds of idiotic things all the time, thinking that they are doing something cool, when in fact, they are destroying the landscape for others to see and enjoy in the future. I have personally witnessed people camping at the Race Track playa at Death Valley, and I have seen rocks removed from the playa, with the selfish intent of having unique images that nobody else could have. We have seen Michael Fatali burn up Delicate Arch and a few other spots in Arches and Canyonlands National Parks to capture unique photos at night and not only for himself, but also for the workshop groups that he was teaching at the time. And there are many cases like this that we see over and over again, with photographers doing all kinds of damage to landscapes, all with the goal of doing something unique that was not done before. Such acts of vandalism and selfishness are huge problems of our time, since we are failing to learn how to share the beauty around us with the current and future generations.
For more information about ethics in nature photography, I would recommend to visit NANPA’s website. You will find a wealth of information in regards to ethical practices when shooting in the field.
3.4) Travel Photography
There are many ethical concerns when it comes to travel photography. Unfortunately, there are no set rules or guidelines that apply to all countries, or cultures, tribes, groups and individuals within them. I believe that we as photographers should do prior research about the cultures, religions and other social norms before making decisions on who or what to photograph. Not abiding to very specific rules provided by government authorities in countries like North Korea could easily land you in jail there, and if you were to photograph people in particular areas of Mexico where they perceive photographs as something that steals their souls, you could easily get in trouble. Local laws, rules and norms should always be respected and we as photographers hold responsibility in properly representing all other photographers. If some of us sneak in and break the rules, it will surely affect the rest of us.
Take the recent case of a German teenager, who climbed the Great Pyramid of Giza, completely ignoring the Egyptian law that specifically prohibits it. Climbing ancient structures in Egypt is prohibited for a number of reasons. First, it is very unsafe. Over the course of many years, the stone blocks have been eroding and collapsing, and many tourists have died or injured themselves while attempting to climb in the past. Second, those sandstone blocks are not as strong as they seem to be from a distance – imagine what will happen to those pyramids if everyone continues to climb them. There will be nothing left for future generations to see and enjoy.
People have been vandalizing ancient structures like this for many years and we can clearly see the evidence today. Even on top of Giza, you will find carvings in different languages from people who wanted to leave their own traces of history. What a selfish bunch! I personally have little respect to daredevils like this, who break the law to promote themselves. The same goes for rooftoppers, who only do what they do for the act of self-promotion, status and social media “likes”. Most of them have zero respect for laws, regulations, private property or privacy – they are known to break locks and walk into closed areas.
Aside from the above cases, there are many other ethical factors we have to consider when doing travel photography. Is it permissible to photograph people for money? You have probably seen pictures of fishermen with cormorants in boats, with lamps in their hands and beautiful distant mountains in the background. Practically every single one of those photos is staged. In fact, there is now a whole army of these fishermen, ready to model in exchange for money. That area of China where the photographs are taken, practically has no fish left due to over-fishing and pollution, so the traditional culture of cormorant fishing only exists today for photographic reasons. So is it ethical for us to employ such practices? I cannot answer this question, but one must think about both pros and cons of such actions and how they affect people. It has become common in many parts of the world to pay people in exchange for taking their pictures. In some popular tourist hotspots, people can be offended and even get aggressive, if you snap their photos and forget or refuse to pay them.
What about asking for a permission before taking pictures? This applies to all kinds of portrait photography, especially street photography. Is it acceptable to take pictures of people without asking their permission, especially if the goal is to profit from sale of such images?
If one explores the inner world of travel photography, there are a lot of dark stories to tell and hear. I once heard a horror story of photographers paying children to pose naked in front of a camera (picture young monks showing their private parts), again, for the sole purpose of capturing something unique nobody has previously photographed. I felt disgusted and saddened to hear of such stories.
3.5) Drone Photography
In the past few years, drone photography has been really taking off. Photographers and videographers are using drones to capture unique footage from angles and distances that are impossible to capture otherwise. While the idea of drone photography (see our detailed tutorial) sounds appealing to many, it does bring up a few, rather serious concerns.
Drone photography is something very new and largely unregulated. Although after a number of cases of drones posing threat to passenger and government aircraft, falling into protected areas (remember the guy who crashed a drone into the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone?) or crashing into buildings, the Federal Aviation Administration of the USA made it mandatory to register drones. Aside from basic guidelines, there are still no specific laws or rules in regards to how drones should be operated. This has been creating a huge problem for everyone, because people are making all kinds of assumptions about what they can and cannot do. Nothing is said about flying over private property, privacy concerns and recording footage of people or their property. Things are getting even more complex overseas, where governments and people never had concerns of aircraft flying over their heads and now they find themselves in dire need of protecting their landmarks and secure zones from tourists operating drones.
Seyðisfjörður, East Iceland. Photo Copyright Spencer Cox
Sadly, many owners operate their drones without much practice, crashing them into government and private properties. Since drones cost a lot of money, they often end up breaking into closed areas and trespassing in order to retrieve them, causing all kinds of aggravation from the public.
There are many ethical concerns with drone photography and I believe that this subject should be explored in detail, as it will become more important with the growing popularity of drone photography.
4) The Ethics of Photography Competitions
Photo competitions historically have had rather odd set of rules, often disallowing any kind of post-processing on images. Some do not allow any retouching, while others allow very slight changes involving color and contrast adjustments and perhaps some cropping. While I disagree with “no editing” rules of competitions and believe that some editing to images should be allowed, I would certainly disagree with rules allowing any kind of editing and photo manipulations. Once you go into the “free for all” zone, photo competitions can quickly lose their appeal. There are some real Photoshop wizards out there, who will make stunning-looking images from images that others would consider below average. A little bit of imagination and Photoshop drawing skills can really bring something that never existed or took place into life. That’s not to say that such composites and artwork should not be allowed at all, but those should be judged separately on their own, away from photography competitions.
Consider the recent case of Chai Yu Wei, a photographer from Singapore, who not only borrowed another photographer’s idea to capture a ladder leading up to the sky, but also had the guts to insert an airplane to the center of the image before submitting it to a competition hosted by Nikon. Sadly, when asked, he even claimed that he was lucky to capture the plane like that. It did not take much time for other photographers to discover that the photo was a fake:
Nikon ended up removing the photo from its Facebook page and apologizing for selecting the photo as the winner, and the photographer issued an apology as well. However, this particular case will serve as another reminder on why photo manipulations like this should not be allowed. Chai Yu Wei wanted others to believe that he was at the right moment and at the right place to capture a photo of a plane passing by right through the center of the leading composition, something that obviously never took place.
The same ethical guidelines apply to wildlife photography competitions as well. We have seen a case where the photographer José Luis Rodriguez captured a photo of a wolf jumping over a fence, stating that the image portrayed a real wild wolf that was hunting farmer’s livestock:
It turned out that the wolf was in fact not wild and the photographer basically staged a tame wolf to jump over the fence, while he captured it with flash at night. While this particular image was not a composite and was not edited as the previous image, it has a huge ethical problem – lying about an animal being wild, when it is not. If photographers are allowed to stage tame animals for wildlife competitions, then there is no point of photographing wild animals at all: one could capture stunning images of domesticated and tame animals, with some beautiful backgrounds.
5) The Ethics of Feeding Wildlife
There are cases where some wildlife photographers might get upset with other photographers, who might not necessarily use a tame or a domesticated animal as in the case above, but might feed a wild animal in order to capture unique shots. Many wildlife photographers practice such feeding procedures and take no guilt in doing that – some of them are quite open about it as well. Whether it is setting up bird feeders in the backyard, or putting mice in fields for those awesome shots of predators flying towards the camera, the question of whether those acts are ethical or not come up all the time between wildlife photographers. I will leave this one up for discussion: Do you think it is acceptable for photographers to feed wildlife to capture unique shots? Are there cases when such practices should be allowed?
Nasim, Richard Prince was taken to the court by the owner/s of the photos stolen by him and he….WON!!!! For me this guy is simply THIEF, but somehow the court saw it differently and why!!!????
The Judiciary System, based on the current law, let Richard Price, free!!! How come, that this is 21 st Century with Judiciary System of the Age Stone!!!???
“and he….WON!!!!”
Unbelievable :-\
In current U.S. copyright law, it is permissible to use an image created by someone else, and then transform it to make it a new piece of art. I’m not in support of this law, BUT the reason he won the court battle was because it proved to be legal under current copyright law. Actually this form of appropriation is the basis for much of the Pop Art in the 60’s.
What is the punishment for plagiarism
execution!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really hate to say this but generally anything submitted to social media becomes the property of where ever it’s posted to and the work no longer remains solely with the creator. Depends on the outlet but you’d have to read the EULA to know for sure.
Andrew, that is generally not correct. What you are granting (on most social media sites) is a “license” that allows them to display your images. I have not seen any instances where a copyright is transferred. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but generally the big boys behave pretty well in this regard. It’s always smart to read the terms and conditions before posting though.
you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License).
Instagram does not claim ownership of any Content that you post on or through the Service. Instead, you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, subject to the Service’s Privacy Policy, available here help.instagram.com/155833707900388, including but not limited to sections 3 (“Sharing of Your Information”), 4 (“How We Store Your Information”), and 5 (“Your Choices About Your Information”). You can choose who can view your Content and activities, including your photos, as described in the Privacy Policy.
It seems that 2 major soc media’s have the same license ability that is dependent on your privacy settings. Also there was a big stink about people taking naked pictures of others and posting them on the internet. The end way to stop them from being on the internet was to apply for a copyright on those images and file a suit against the infringing parties. So it doesn’t become their property but they have a license to use it how ever they want. If you share it with the world there isn’t much you can do.
Andrew, a “license” and a “transfer of copyright” are two entirely different things. Posting a photo on Facebook or Instagram does not involve the transfer of copyright or ownership of your photograph. You are granting them a license to use and share your photos.
Instagram’s T&C also states that the license agreement (they have with you) will end when you close your account. Facebook states that your images will be removed if you close your account.
Neither of them state that your images “become[s] the property of where ever it’s posted to and the work no longer remains solely with the creator” as you initially stated.
One more little note… you state that “The end way to stop them from being on the internet was to apply for a copyright on those images and file a suit against the infringing parties.”
Andrew, if you are the creator of the artwork, under U.S. law you are automatically the copyright holder under the U.S. copyright laws, unless you are somehow infringing on someone else’s work. You don’t need to apply for copyright status in the U.S. for a piece of art.
[disclaimer: I am not an attorney. It’s always wise to contact an attorney if you have questions]
Check this out to be sure but it is my understanding that unless a copyright is registered, a federal court will not hear a copyright infringement suit.
John, that very well could be. But again, any questions about copyright law should really be directed to an attorney.
I was just trying to correct the original false statement that “generally anything submitted to social media becomes the property of where ever it’s posted to and the work no longer remains solely with the creator.”
Copyright is absolute and starts from the moment the shutter is released.
Registering the copyright just makes it easier to sue for compensation as the infringer has no defence in law.
“Copyright is absolute and starts from the moment the shutter is released.”
Betty, most of the time this is true, but not always. There are some restrictions regarding copyright in terms of photography of public sculpture, architecture, etc. In these cases, the original creator is the copyright owner of the sculpture or design. Use of the photograph is a gray area in these cases and it’s best to speak to an attorney before you claim rights to sell or publish photographs of these types of things.
I ran into this as a photographer for a local public sculpture organization. They required me to get written approval from the sculptor before I could publish a photograph of their sculpture. This is also true at another more infamous gallery the Walker Art Museum who has a huge outdoor space for local art museums
One example of this is the following case:
petapixel.com/2013/…sed-stamp/
In these cases, it’s best to consult with an attorney before you publish or sell your photograph of this type of work.
OK, in the USA I believe sculpture is protected, but in the UK copyright is pretty much absolute and pretty much anything in a public place or visible from a public place, can be photographed legally and without hindrance of any kind.
Here, sculptures situated in a public space can be reproduced (two dimensionally) without the copyright owner’s consent although there is an obligation to publish an acknowledgment of the author.
There have been issues here with police trying to confiscate cameras when they themselves have been photographed – they lost and had to compensate the photographer.
Likewise with security people trying to prevent photos being taken of corporate buildings – they lost too.
I only photograph wildlife, a little bit of landscape and holiday snaps, so thankfully it’s not an issue for me.
Birds, bees and bears don’t even need a model release form!
Waldemar, sadly, our judiciary system is not suitable for photography. Richard Prince should have never won that case – he is a thief and should be looked at as such. Sadly, people buy his work and he profits from those who think of him as a great artist. Don’t get me wrong, he does have some solid work of his own, but not this Instagram theft BS.
Lol, it seems our Judiciary system is not suitable for many things…regardless which country you live in :-)
I wonder what Richard Prince will do the day someone takes his “artwork”, copies it, manipulates it, and sells it for a profit. Perhaps he will be back in court on the other side…
Likely he’ll be humbled and pleased. It would call more attention to his own work.
By the BIGGEST OFFENDERS are people who buy STOLEN art, allowing thieves like Richard Prince to prosper out of stolen photos. It would be interesting to know if R. Prince would be able to get away with his crimes in the other countries too??!!
Waldemar, that’s true – many of them probably don’t have a clue that the works he printed out are not his own.
I miss the days of film cameras!
Tim, film was manipulated heavily too :) That photo of Ansel Adams went through a lot of post-processing in lab, with selective dodging and burning, cropping and other techniques. Ansel was a darkroom wizard of his time.
The question of ethics in photography is not related to a particular medium – it applies to everything.
The whole point of Adam’s Zone System was to expose for maximum information capture for future manipulation in the dark room. Black and white is always manipulated; there is no reference, no “right”.
This changed with Kodachrome. With chromes you had to nail it in the camera (none too easy with their narrow dynamic range). Buyers insisted on viewing in-camera originals. Manipulation withered.
And now we’re back. RAW, like Adam’s black and white, merely captures information for future processing. There is no “right”. It strikes me that we’ve become a bit intoxicated with this freedom, and are tweaking our images for all they are worth and then a bit more. I expect that many of them will look out-of-date in a decade.
Adams zone system was geared toward negative film, not slide film. What changed was the transition of black and white photography to the digital world, not negative film to Kodachrome film.
His zone approach is still very much alive in the world of post-processing (HDR, Lightroom “Shadows”, etc). Most photographers no longer work with negative film, although I do hear that B&W film is making a comeback in younger generations.
That was my point. In the black and white era photographers captured unprocessed images in the camera and had to manipulate them to get them to look like reality. Adam’s Zone System was a way of doing this.
But the black and white era ended in the 1950s after a run of one century. After that professional buyers — Life, National Geographic and their lesser ilk — not only required color, they required color stock that they could evaluate before ordering very expensive “pre-press” separation into plates (one plate for each of the four colors, CMYK). That meant chromes, slides, they could put on a light table and examine with a loop. “Post processing” consisted of the plate maker matching the slide.
The chrome era lasted half a century, nearly three generations. By the time the chrome era ended, no living, active scenic or journalistic photographer remembered manipulating images before publication, a la Adams or Weegee. Now we are back to manipulating, by necessity. Once again our native images look nothing at all like reality and have to be beaten into shape.
PS. Here’s an italics test. If it works it means I can format magazine names the way God intended.
Hmmm… well, I don’t believe the B&W era has ended, as you mentioned. Certainly there are different tools and processes, but it did not end with Kodachrome. Most of Adams fine tuning happened in the darkroom. Obviously he had to have a correctly exposed negative, but his work continued well after the 60’s.
I was referring to photo-journalism, travel, and scenic. (Second paragraph, second sentence.) Stuff you could actually make a living off of. Galleries may still love black and white for all I know, but magazines such as Field and Stream stopped buying them sixty years ago.
IMHO, art photography is limited to people with day jobs, most especially tenured art professors who can get display space from their university and use their prestige to influence private galleries. I don’t consider it “real” photography, photography so good that someone is actually willing to spend serious money on it.
Fine art photography is real. It is the only branch of photography where a photographer has a decent chance of making a living. Who buys fine art? Decorators who work with commercial buildings from office buildings to hotels to hospitals.
In an era where everyone with a smart phone thinks they are a photographer and a portrait photographer needs $100,000.00 to $150,000.00 worth of equipment to complete and part time wedding photographers will sell a wedding shoot on a disk for $150.00 it is not worth the time and effort to spend the years to build a successful business.
Thanks for the reply. Since you practice fine art photography seriously I was hoping you’d answer, if only to set me straight.
That’s my take on it — that to make a living you need to market to decorators who specialize in commercial clients. This, however, is as functional as photography for magazines, books, and textbooks. Hotels have bare walls that need to be covered, and the covering has to appeal to customers. This is how I always envisioned scenic sales; the publishers had bare page space that needed to be covered in a way attractive to customers.
I am under the impression that those who curate fine art in galleries for collectors would sneer at the decorator market just as enthusiastically as they do the textbook or magazine market. But since they present blown-up tweets as Fine Art, they are hardly in a position to criticize actual photographers with skills.
PS. I think you are right that fine art/decorator is one of the few niches profitable enough to support a full time freelancer. The scenic market used to be good but collapsed in the late noughts. Buyers once paid handsomely to those who could aggregate a wide, on-target choice of slides good enough to survive plate production. This is no longer necessary. Internet search aggregates the images. Direct examination of the full size image is all that is needed to evaluate for final use, a matter of minutes and pennies instead of days and hundreds of dollars.
I have seen ‘straight’ prints made from Ansel Adams’ original negatives.
They don’t look too good.
The magic happened in the darkroom.
He and others like Minor White, are reputed to have spent literally days making literally dozens of prints before hitting on just the right combination of development, paper choice, dodging and burning that fulfilled their previsualised version of reality.
Finally an article that I was looking out for. I was always curious to know what was the borderline to edits. Thank You very much Nasim. It is always good to know what the limits should be although I am just a hobbyist and like to play around.
Talking about Thieves – They normally do get out off the court easy winners or on a light warning and it happens always don’t it? It is all over the world and the Judiciary sometimes is a farce when an individuals rights or work is robbed but completely different when a reputed company is involved. Even if Right or Wrong.
Peter, you are most welcome and thank you for your feedback.
A very wise man once told me – those that forgive thieves are thieves themselves. People get angry at harsh sentencing of thieves of some other countries, but they don’t understand how effective it can be. If a thief gets away each time he/she commits a crime, they will do it again…
wonder if the writer of “The Last Nomadic Hunters-Gatherers of the Himalayas” reading this.
Pol, while the photographer used interesting colors to represent the tribe, I don’t believe he removed objects or made modifications to misrepresent the tribe. In my view, what he has done to the images is acceptable – for me, it is very similar to converting images to black and white. A change of colors did not change his story. Now if he did heavy editing to misrepresent those people, then it would be a different story. Just my 2 cents.
I was referring to last section of your article. Photographer had to buy goats and other things for the tribe in order to be liked and accepted by them. If you want true represenation of life in the tribe, give a camera to one of the tribesmen and ask them to photograph their life during one or two years.
Buying goats is just a way of gaining acceptance in a way that is normal for the tribe.
It doesn’t alter their everyday behaviour or impinge on their culture in any significant way.
I hope your suggestion that the photographer ask one of the tribesmen do his work for him was intended as a joke?
You are very good with words but who says things like ‘impinge’ these days.
My point is that it is unethical to buy friendship of the tribesmen and women so that you can take pictures of them.
When you go photograph some hippy community in the forests of middle America do you take cannabis seeds for them as a gift and a way of gaining acceptance.
“You are very good with words but who says things like ‘impinge’ these days.”
People who are literate.
“My point is that it is unethical to buy friendship of the tribesmen and women so that you can take pictures of them.”
Why is it unethical?
It’s a legal, mutually agreeable, non-exploitative transaction from which both parties gain a benefit.
Capitalism at its best.
I doubt that the photographer was buying friendship which, as you should know, cannot be bought.
What he was ‘buying’ was access to their community and permission to photograph their daily lives.
I would think of it more as a smal recompense for the inconvenience of having him hanging around, being a mild nuisance, for a while. Why should they put up with him poking around their houses for free?
It’s surely no different to paying a model for his/her time or paying a fee to photograph in a national park or museum.
“When you go photograph some hippy community in the forests of middle America do you take cannabis seeds for them as a gift and a way of gaining acceptance.”
Why not?
I’m not sure whether you mean Middle (North) America where, I am given to understand, hippies are to be found but not much in the way of forests, or Middle (South) America which has forests but not much in the way of hippies?
No matter, in either case, I personally wouldn’t bother with the seeds…?
It is not like paying a model in the park. No way. Think what that hot brunette would say if you turned up with a pair of goats instead of dollar, dollah bills.
These people have very hard lives. Those photos in that article don’t show it in a slightest bit. The reason why is because the photographer wanted a fast track into the tribe life by buying livestock for them.
“It is not like paying a model in the park. No way. Think what that hot brunette would say if you turned up with a pair of goats instead of dollar, dollah bills.”
With respect, that is an infantile thing to say.
Payment is payment.
Goats are appropropriate for one place and dollars are appropriate for another.
Even you must surely be able to figure that out?
“These people have very hard lives. Those photos in that article don’t show it in a slightest bit. The reason why is because the photographer wanted a fast track into the tribe life by buying livestock for them.”
With respect, more illogical and irrelevant comment.
First, whether the tribesmen have hard lives or not is irrelevant to this discussion.
How do you know and who are you to say?
Their lives may be simple by our standards, but equally they are probably perfectly happy living as they do.
Not everyone needs an iPhone and MacDonalds to be happy.
Second, what the photos show or do not show is also irrelevant to this discussion.
Third, of course buying a few goats is a means of fast tracking access into the tribe’s life.
Just as paying a model is a means of fast tracking to a time slot into her life.
Just as paying for a bus ticket is a means of fast tracking your way from A to B.
They are all transactions between a buyer and a seller.
It’s the way all societies work.
Silly boy.
You win.
As she should, she is quite correct. This is no different than paying a guide, or do you find that unethical as well?
2.) Several years ago I took an angled shot of a bridge that showed a beatiful basilica through one of the arches. Just yesterday I came across a shot on Elia Locardi’s page which was angled the same way. I could get billions of suing him, ha!!! :) I think taking the same shot cannot be challenged, since everyone has the right to stand at any spot. You can’t tell someone not to set up a tripod at a specific location because you set up yours there earlier. Landscape photographers simply have to swallow this pill. Copying ideas like the painted mouth is a completely different matter, because the original artist added something that was his/her own creative, abstract idea. With landscapes, everything you see is done by nature and belongs to everyone, imo.
3.3) Again, Elia Locardi comes to mind (I’ve been checking his work since the other day when the article about him was published). In my eyes, swapping the sky is over the line, but he explains why and how he does it, so I’m able to understand and respect it, even though if it’s not something I would do. I think the difference is that he has “honest intentions” – he thrives to create a work of art that he visualised, and works hard for every piece of it.
5.) I think that’s part of “setting up the shot”. For me it falls into the same category as asking your human subject to pose in a certain way. I see no harm in doing this, provided that the person does research on how to feed the animal properly. For example, about 99% of urban folks feed ducks with breadcrumbs, which is harmful for the animal.
I bet this debate was just as lively 400 years ago when court painters competed for the most famous portraits of royalty… :)
Judit, perhaps you misunderstood, but I did not advocate against taking pictures of the same places from the same angles. I doubt Elia Locardi was trying to copy your picture exactly the same way – he probably had a slightly different angle, probably different environment / lighting and post-processing. When I was talking about plagiarism, I was referring to making deliberate, exact replica’s of someone else’s work. Obviously, none of us can claim rights to a public photo spot.
Also, in regards to Elia Locardi demonstrating how to copy a sky from one image to another, I explained that Elia himself would never utilize such techniques – he only showed it as a part of his tutorial. Elia and I are good friends and we have discussed this topic via email before :)
Of course, I was just joking about the bridge shot :) It ‘s just an example that nearly identical shots, especially taken at famous urban or landscape spots, may even be the result of coincidence. Hard to draw the line.
I respect Elia’s work and I appreciate his honesty about the sky issue. There’s a video on youtube where he presents a couple of pictures where he applied the sky swapping “trick”, but I totally get where he’s coming from and don’t think that it’s cheating or anything.
Nasim,
Thank you very much for this article, I think this is one of the best articles that Photography Life has put out and this is one of the reasons why I keep coming back to the site.
I do not have much to comment on right now because it’s nearly 0130 hours and I have been at work for the past 17 hours (my own fault), but your post was interesting enough to keep me awake and alert while I read it. Here are my brief thoughts
First off, there is no instance that I can think of where photo theft or plagariasm is acceptable. I think that what Richard Prince is doing is total and utter nonsense. I actually have much stronger words that I would like to use, but for the sake of Photography Life I’ll keep things as respectful as I can. You also mentioned Tyler Shields, someone that I have never heard about until I read your post. In my opinion that borders photo theft as well. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being inspired and using an idea for creativity purposes, but the execution and final result of the examples you posted above is to close to the original photograph for Tyler to say that it is his own. But with that being said, in an era where billions of photographs have been shot, originality is hard to come by as well.
When it comes to documentary, news and reportage photography I DO NOT like, or condone editing of a photograph that alters the photograph more than would get out of a processed JPEG, short of minor corrections. My take on it is pretty basic, what ends up on the print should be the image that was seen through the eye while the photographer was there shooting the scene. I think what is important about that is the honestly. I served in the military to include tours all over Europe, Africa and the Middle East. I can’t think of anything more dishonest, short of plagarism and blatant theft, than trying to pass off a photojournalistic image for something that it is not, especially with war and conflict photography. I once had an encounter with a reporter while I was in Baghdad trying to stage a scene with my unit. I was pretty disgusted over that.
With that being said, short of what I mentioned above, I don’t think that we have the right to tell photographers what, or how they should edit photographs in other areas of photography. I have always been comfortable with edits.
For example I like some of the work that Trey Ratcliff’s puts out, not all of it, but some of his images have been pleasing to the eye. I also like some photographs that depict a landscape in a different way that we would see it with our eyes, such as your eclipse photograph. I have also seen portraits that are heavily edited, but there was something unique about what I was seeing that I liked.
I think the reason why I am comfortable with these edits is because of the honestly involved with these photographers not trying to pass off their images for something that it isn’t. When we are looking at these edited images, we know what we are looking at. When I saw your edited eclipse photograph I knew that you were not trying to pass that photograph off as unedited realism, at least in the sense of the moon being in multiple positions in the sky at once. No, we all knew that it was edited and that photograph depicted realism in a different way. I think what is best depicted in that landscape photograph isn’t the landscape itself, but “time”, the past, present and future. To me, sometimes seeing an image differently than what I would have saw it in person is very thought provoking. But again, to me what was interesting about your image was your artistic take on that scene, you made it your own. I can’t find fault in that, I actually like and encourage it.
I also don’t think that just because a photograph is edited such as your landscape example, that all realism is lost either, I think there are different states of realism in art and sometimes the story that someone is trying to tell isn’t what is obvious to the eye, but sometimes it is what isn’t so obvious.
I don’t like putting labels or rules (short of what I talked about above and perhaps that makes me hippocritical) on photography. I think if we are going to classify photography as an art form, than the art in photography starts not with the camera and the lens, but with the idea and what you are trying to say.
Jason, thank you for your feedback and for sharing your thoughts on the article – looks like you weren’t very tired after a long shift, since you put a very detailed comment.
I don’t disagree with what you have said regarding editing – I believe we should be able to experiment, we should be able to flex our artistic side and potentially show our way of seeing images. That’s all perfectly fine with me. However, such “artwork” is not a depiction of realism, it is our interpretation or our vision of something. As such, these kinds of works should be in a different category – they do not belong to nature photography and fine art. Perhaps there should be a separate category for “composites” and “artwork”, where the photographer is free to use any tools to create something of their own.
As for your last sentence, I don’t want to open another can of worms, but I don’t consider most types of photography as an art form. Art is most certainly highly dependent on the artist and his/her vision, whereas photography is often a frozen moment of time. There are exceptions, of course, but that’s a discussion for another day!
Nasim,
I respectfully have to disagree. Photography, as I see it, is a form of visual representation. I think it is dangerous to assume that a photograph is a slice of time or proof of reality.
As photographers we make choices about how we represent the scene in front of us and the resulting image is always a mediated version of that scene. Even the JPEG engine in a camera is making an interpretation of the scene in front of it. We choose focal lengths, shutter speeds, apertures, we decide what to include and what to exclude in the frame. We make decisions about exposure and colour balance. These decisions all affect the final image and can create significant differences from the “reality” of the situation in front of the lens.
I think the most important thing we can promote in society is the ability to look at photographs (and the general media environment) critically and the understanding that at best they are only approximations of reality. Images are the result of a both a person and at least a couple of machines interpreting a scene. The same can be said about written accounts of events. People need to realize that our biases are baked into our perspectives and that neutral objectivity is largely a fiction.
Dominique, I don’t categorize documentary photography and war photography as art, because we are not dealing with a visual representation – we are dealing with a frozen moment of time, from a particular angle. Movies can be art, but your local news coverage is not. Photographs are most certainly a slice of time and proof of reality when they are not manipulated and the information is captured for documentation purposes, without particular agenda attached to it.
I do agree with your last paragraph and understand where you are coming from. But let’s keep things simple, as it could get into a whole different level of discussion on the meaning of reality, subjective objectivity, perspectives, so on and so forth.
In my humble opinion, we should be able to separate moments of time vs artwork. The former is the photographer’s best attempt to depict reality, the latter is the photographer’s own interpretation of the scene or the subject(s).
To simplify this a bit, at least for me, the difference is am I “telling a story” or “telling the truth”. My story I can do anything I want, it is a story, should not be taken as “fact”. On the other hand if I am “telling the truth”, photographs of an accident for example, that must be unaltered, unless I clearly state that it IS just a “story”. The worst abuses I see in this area, and you hint at this with your use of the word “agenda”, is when something is taken out of context and then presented as the truth. This is case both photographically and verbally.
We can look at the PSA rules to get an idea of what they consider ethical in many areas of presentation and competition. They even split “Wildlife” and “Nature” to take into account zoo’s and game farms. One of my favorite rules is the one for cloning, where it is allowed to clone unless you are cloning out something that is “material” to the image. Nothing like such a subjective term in the middle of an objective rule to cause controversy.
Another poster noted that these issues have probably gone on for a very long time. Our technology has just made it much easier to cheat, and I expect this will get worse over time. Worse to me, and hinted about as well in another post, is how more people are coming to see this behavior as acceptable. Somehow I don’t thing those people would be so accepting if I simply decided to “borrow” their car for a period of time of my choosing.
Good article, Nasim, and a subject we should all be aware of.
Perhaps the fundamental reason why it is the person whom activates the camera shutter button is deemed to be the copyright holder of the captured image is so simple that it is frequently overlooked. During the time interval that the shutter was open, it was physically impossible for anyone else to have had their lens entrance pupil located in the same place [i.e., capturing the same perspective of the scene], during the same time window.
Each and every captured image is a unique snapshot of the ever-changing four dimensional space-time that constitutes ontic reality [aka objective reality]. A camera is a recording instrument that is based in science and the scientific method, therefore, the images it records constitute empirical evidence.
Paintings, drawings, and digital manipulations of elements within the scene constitute anecdotal evidence [a highly subjective and biased version of ontic reality]. Art for art’s sake is wonderful. Artistic manipulation masqueraded as empirical evidence is despicable — irrespective of how frequently it is used in the mass media and lapped up by its consumers.
Caveat lector and caveat emptor are still highly applicable in the 21st Century, as are: “Always ask for evidence!”; and “By far the easiest person to fool on the planet is ourself.”
Pete, excellent points and very well said. Thank you!
I have never thought of it in that way.
Why do we so often overlook the obvious?
Why do we so often overlook the obvious? I think it is because everyone is taught during their childhood to learn in layers, e.g., multiplication is a layer above addition; punctuation is a layer or two above spelling. This seems an entirely reasonable method of learning, however, we are never taught the fundamental layers 1, 2, 3…; instead, we start our learning at a much higher layer. We all know that 1+1=2, but how many people understand this basic equation well enough to ever ask themselves what it actually means and how it applies to reality? Very few.
The reason that quantum mechanics is so mystifying is not because people haven’t attained a high enough layer of understanding, it is because they were never taught layers 1, 2, 3…, which are the layers required to gain a basic understanding of all quantized systems.
Another explanation of why we so often overlook the obvious is because it only becomes obvious, to us personally, with post hoc reasoning and/or additional knowledge. It is obvious to you that you need a fast shutter speed to capture a bird in flight, but this scientific fact was not at all obvious to any of us when we were five years old.
Learning is fun for the same reason that comedy is fun. If the punch line is obvious before it is delivered then it isn’t funny, but when the punch line is obvious only retrospectively, we thoroughly enjoy it. Our laughter is caused by our sudden realization of our ineptitude :-)
My ineptitude in this instance could be my failure to spot that your question was intended to be rhetorical!
“My ineptitude in this instance could be my failure to spot that your question was intended to be rhetorical!”
LOL.
Interesting nevetheless – as ever.
The vocabulary of art as presented in many college curriculum is listed below.
The positioning, framing, lens selection. timing and settings on the camera allow the photographer control over each of these, post production or not.
Are not these considerations of ‘art’ what makes a compelling photograph in any form?
VOCABULARY ELEMENTS OF ART
The visual components of color, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value.
Line – An element of art defined by a point moving in space. Line may be two-or three-dimensional, descriptive, implied, or abstract.
Shape – An element of art that is two-dimensional, flat, or limited to height and width.
Form – An element of art that is three-dimensional and encloses volume; includes height, width AND depth (as in a cube, a sphere, a pyramid, or a cylinder). Form may also be free flowing.
Value – The lightness or darkness of tones or colors. White is the lightest value; black is the darkest. The value halfway
between these extremes is called middle gray.
Space – An element of art by which positive and negative areas are defined or a sense of depth achieved in a work of art .
Color – An element of art made up of three properties: hue, value, and intensity. Hue: name of color
Value – hue’s lightness and darkness (a color’s value changes when white or black is added)
Intensity – quality of brightness and purity (high intensity color is strong and bright; low intensity color is faint and dull)
Texture – An element of art that refers to the way things feel, or look as if they might feel if touched.
Other definitions, that are likely to be an order of magnitude more valuable in the long-term to the endeavour, are: joy; fulfilment; income gained.
The initial novelty of learning how to ‘paint by numbers’ quickly wanes once the learner comes face-to-face with the domain of practical reality.
Thank you, Jason! Your thoughts are very interesting! The metaphoric and symbolic aspect in photography is very important if we talk about photography as a pictorial art like painting or film.
Baiting wild animals is unethical.. period.
As a wildlife photographer I know how difficult it is to get action shots in the wild. People who bait birds are actually putting these creatures in harm for many reasons I will not go into here. This practice has become so prolific now that some of the top photography workshops are conducted by people who actually show you how to bait and get the ‘once in a lifetime’ shot.
Can it be done in a responsible manner though? I have no exp with wildlife photography, that’s why I’m asking. In theory, I see no harm in luring the animals as long as they are not fed the wrong type of food, or the practice doesn’t affect their natural habits or put them in harm’s way (like luring them too close to roads or something where they can be in danger).
There is always an influence, even if it does not bring immediate harm to the individual or is clear/evident to us. It may even have unforeseen community-wide cascading effects.
Imagine you are feeding an eagle. You are also indirectly affecting the survival of its prey – imagine a sick rabbit which is able to escape that time and then pass on the disease to other animals.
wildlife should always be left untouched with minimal interference as possible. Chances are that all wildlife is already somehow influenced by our activities.
I see what you mean. Thanks for the reply!
Of course all wildlife is influenced by human activity – that’s ecology. I don’t have a problem with bird feeders in yards or public places during winter, as long as the feeding is consistent and appropriate to the species visiting. Nor does a properly-maintained hummingbird station bother me. I particularly approve of suburban and rural native plant species cultivation and appropriate environmental enhancement. For example, someone in our photo club designed, built, and photographed a “realistic” running water pseudo-stream/pond. This, plus the native plantings, makes their suburban yard popular with migrating birds. There is some educational value to seeing visiting wildlife. Interactions of humans / human environment with wildlife can be valid subjects, even if the subject is a house sparrow that has made its feeding grounds at a place where humans eat outdoors (crumbs!). Some power companies have sponsored or allowed webcams to be set up on the elevated equipment platforms that are popular with the ospreys for nesting sites.
All that being said, I enjoy observing and photographing behavior in wilder settings (conservation areas, national forests, wild parks), not least to demonstrate the interaction with food sources/species, preferred reproduction site and habitat.
Nicely summed up.
The important thing with feeding birds is that it should be consistent – especially in winter as the birds drawn in become reliant on the food source.
I also feed in the summer as it relieves parent birds of the burden of feeding themselves (easy meal) and leaves them free to concentrate on finding insects for their young.
If some photographic opportunities spin off from this, fine.
It is the lack of consistency (baiting) that has the potential for harm particularly with raptors.
The making of ‘mini wildlife refuges’ is also commendable given the widespraed haitat destruction so prevalent today.
I have just cleared an acre of woodland (which for years had been used as a dump by the local farmers) behind my newly bought house and reseeded it with native plants and grasses and included a wetland area. I hope it will yield some good images in the coming years! This, in my view, is the best kind of ‘baiting’!
Interesting comments about feeding (baiting) wildlife. For many years I had many feeders for the birds outside my back door where I could observe them. What I hear being said is that if I feed the birds to help them survive the winter, I can never photograph them if I should desire to do so. I totally and emphatically disagree.
Very muddled thinking.
Feeding wild birds is an altruistic act but can arguably be justified if carried out consistently and responsibly.
However, feeding wild birds can in fact endanger them and shorten their lives. Where I live, the bird feeder makes an easy killing ground for the local sparrow hawk. Perversely, it could be argued that both benefit – both get an easy meal – or perhaps nature should be left to find it’s own balance?
Baiting wild animals is an entirely selfish act from which the animal gains no benefit and for which I can find little justification.
Baiting wildlife for selfish photographic gain can make the animal or bird dependent on this food source which when arbitrarily withdrawn, can result in hardship and even starvation.
Also, baiting predators and raptors brings creatures which are normally territorial and solitary into close contact, leading to stress and conflict. A lose-lose for wildlife.
Baiting is for photographers who are too lazy to gain the knowledge and spend the time necessary to embark on this most demanding of photographic pursuits.
It’s an interesting topic. In Minnesota, certain forms of baiting are illegal when it comes to hunting (bear and deer).
In terms of photography though, about two years ago “baiting” was a hot topic here because Snowy Owls were showing up in the Twin Cities, which is very rare. There were photographers trying to lure these birds thru baiting and a law was actually proposed that would prohibit it by the Minnesota Legislature (via the DNR). Not sure if it passed, but it became apparent that baiting for photography purposes is very much frowned upon because it endangers wildlife.
“In Minnesota, certain forms of baiting are illegal when it comes to hunting (bear and deer).”
This is just photographic baiting taken to its logical conclusion.
Just as baiting for photography is for lazy, selfish and ignorant photographers, so baiting for hunting is for those too lazy to learn fieldcraft, too inept to learn the shooting skills required and too cowardly to face a wild animal on its own terms.
These heroes wait for their quarry to approach the bait and then shoot it at point blank range from the safety of a platform.
It’s not hunting – it’s ritual execution before a firing squad.
This practice reaches the ultimate depths of depravity in Africa where lions are bred in captivity, are drugged to stupify them, and are then shot from a safe distance by wealthy narcissists to demonstrate to their friends how courageous and manly they are. (With a competent shooter in close attendance to protect them if they miss and/or despatch the animal if it is wounded rather than killed outright by their trembling client.)
Incomprehensible.
“Rights have to be asserted. Animals cannot make such assertions. We have to make representations to ourselves on their behalf.” — Christopher Hitchens.
John, this one is a subject of never-ending debates. On one side, people say “if everyone puts out bird feeders, it will change the bird’s feeding habits and impact their survival”, where on the other side of the fence, people will say “I help birds survive the winter”.
Lots of photographers feed birds to take their pictures. They set up props, branches and other things for the intention of photographing the bird. In some cases they even put out a carcass of an animal, or even injured animals for birds of prey to come and feed. Is that an ethical thing to do? I don’t know, but I can see both sides are right on their own.
*Sigh* Let me make a quick note on true ethics.
If you feed the bird, the “predators” will follow their prey. If the predators follow the prey, the humans pull out guns and shoot the predators, if the humans kill the predators off, they get to declare “hunting season” where they go INVADE the innocent animal’s habitats and shoot everything that moves.
Do you have any idea how many bears get killed simply because an idiot camper who wanted to kill a bear leaves his food laying around. Bears, learning humans have good food, go digging around the campsite… human, wanting to shoot something that is alive, says “OMG, A BEAR… I MUST KILL IT CAUSE LIKE IT DANGEROUS! DIE DIE DIE! I R AWESOME, READ HOW I WAS LIKE MAULED AND STUFF!”
Humans are generally the stupidest animal of them all; we claim we’re “helping” creatures that we like… but when it attracts those we don’t (like coyotes or wolves around our homes) we shoot them. When we TRAIN the wildlife to seek out humans, and a maniac who brings a gun on a camping trip kills some innocent creature, we don’t send that freak to prison. If you want to talk about “ethics” talk about what is best for the other animals who aren’t humans; ethics is not what benefits you, but what benefits others most… and feeding wildlife does not benefit it at all and has numerous documented negatives with the only positive being “Human get pretty picture… animal got run over after but that okay, got pretty picture!”
Brent B
Thank you for appointing yourself the arbiter of ‘true ethics’ – whatever that is.
It is quite difficult to make out what it is you are trying to say, but it has been shown conclusively that feeding birds has no impact on their behaviour but can have a beneficial effect by increasing survival rates during harsh conditions and improving breeding success. The fact that feeding attracts predators is irrelevant as predators have to eat too. The survival benefit of additional food is counter balanced by the increased risk of predation.
Where larger mammals are concerned, I tend to agree that these are best left to their own devices as attracting them close to human habitation generally ends badly (for them).
Hunting for amusement is an incomprehensible and unedifying pastime restricted to us humans.
Agree 100%. A couple years ago a photographer baited an owl into an area pre-lit with flash. Sadly this was done about 50 yards off a major highway. This owl flew into a logging truck. That owl would not likely have been there without being baited and probably more than once (potentially associating people with food). This type of stuff happens all the time and is completely out of bounds.
Sadly, I know this person…..and will not speak of it again or reply.
Just don’t do it…simple.
Baiting is a lot more complicated than your statement implies.
a) There is almost a complete absence of scholarly research on the impact of baiting or feeding wildlife in conjunction with photography. Bird feeders are widely accepted as appropriate. Supplemental food in feeders helps to preserve some threatened subjects. I’m aware of one small study on the impact of baiting – on a small population of finches – and they actually found a benefit from baiting.
b) There is an absence of instruction and sound science around best practices for baiting. If it’s not practical to prohibit baiting, what are the practices that reduce the impact? This should be pretty simple.
c) How can you prohibit baiting for the purpose of photography, when in the same location baiting is widely permitted for hunting? In Minnesota, there was discussion about prohibiting owl baiting. But in the same area, black bears and deer are widely baited and hunted. Waterfowl is commonly baited by growing corn and cutting it to attract wildlife.
d) Stock agencies and commercial publications place no limits on baiting or use of artificial means. The images of the mountain lion and the Hollywood sign involved bait and camera traps. But that was the only way to document the existence of the big cats in the area. At least, let’s establish the use of keywords to segregate baited or fed subjects as well as captive subjects.
e) Commercial photo tour groups for owls and other wildlife typically involve baiting. How would you feel about going on an owl photo tour and only seeing a couple of distant owls over 5 days? Safari tours in Africa typically involve habituation or baiting – is that okay? Both of these situations involve economic arrangements that encourage baiting. Perhaps permits for baiting should be required.
“Safari tours in Africa typically involve habituation or baiting”
I would not disagree with anything you have said – with the exception of the above.
Safari tours in Africa, in my 15 years experience, do not involve baiting – at least I have never seen it.
National parks and private concessions have strict rules regarding baiting, feeding or interventions of any kind. Contravention is punishable by the guide losing his guiding licence (and hence his livelihood) and/or the concession being withdrawn from the operator or not renewed.
Habituation to vehicles is of course inevitable, particularly in the busier parks, but this in no way alters the animals’ natural behaviour – they just treat vehicles as non- threatening. In one or two places habituation to people has taken place as a result of longer term research studies where the researcher has spent two years or more closely observing behaviour on the ground, but again these animals are not ‘tame’, they have simply learned to ignore people.
Feeding, baiting or physical conact is strictly prohibited unless the animal initiates it.
I have a short piece of video where I am lying on the ground photographing meercats when one of them climbs onto my back, onto my shoulder, onto the back of my neck and stands up with its feet on my head looking for all the world like an artistic director. The meercat was of course just checking for predators and I happened to be a convenient ‘look out post’. A memorable, funny and harmless experience for us both.
Permits for baiting seem like a good idea.
Artists use other artist’s work, and will continue to do so. It’s a non event. “Good artists borrow, great artists steal” – Picasso.
Photographs have never told the truth, they are completely reliant in individual interpretation.
The quote “Good artists borrow, great artists steal” associated to Picasso is one of the most mis-interpreted quotes ever. I do not believe for a second that he was stating it’s okay to steal someone else’s imagery. I believe he meant that it that it’s okay to take an idea, BUT make it your own.
I challenge anyone here to find the original context or source of where this quote appeared. I do believe that is taken out of context.
It’s all in the interpretation. It doesn’t actually matter who that quote originated from. It makes sense, if interpreted correctly, and if so, completely relevant.
Much ado about nothing really. Photography is a multi-faceted tool and the user can do what he/she wants with its output. The very title of this article – importance of ethics in photography, is indicative of the narrow focus – excuse the pun – of the author’s vision of what a photographer is capable of encompassing.
Well, it does matter because I’m confident he wasn’t talking about photography.
In his world, a piece of art is created by hand and the process of creating a work of art by hand already introduces a unique element to the work. Unless you’re involved in forgery and intentionally creating a copy of another person’s work. I’m confident he wasn’t endorsing forgery…
In the photography world, there seems to be little interest in creating unique work. Just do a Google image search for “arches national park” OR “golden gate bridge” and look at all of the similarities in the images. I don’t think this is what Picasso was talking about (if he did indeed make this comment) or was endorsing.
Why is photography excluded? Isn’t photography an art? Frankly I’m more than a little bemused by backward thinking. Having completed an honors course in photography as of 2015, I studied the so called ethics of photography where it relates to art, and not wanting to drone on about details, it’s enough to say that post modernism allows an artist to do what he/she wants and call it art. If the viewer doesn’t like it, then the viewer is free to dis-engage. It’s all very simple really, and a non event as I mentioned earlier.
Stephen, I think you’re missing my point. The original Picasso quote here is placed in a discussion about the ethics of photography. Having studied photography and art history as part of my BFA and MFA, I can guarantee that I see photography as “art”.
That said, I originally questioned the context of the Picasso quote because it hints that he (PIcasso) was encouraging the “stealing” of someone else’s work. As you know this is much easier to do in photography than it is in painting or drawing. This was NOT what he was stating OR what his work was about.
Picasso certainly “stole” other people’s ideas, BUT he made the final work his own, in his own eyes, and with his own hands. He was not speaking of a photographer who could copy someone else work (which is quite easy to do) and call it their own. This is my point.
I really don’t see the difference between appropriating ideas or appropriating work to use in the creation of new work, or by the use of appropriation put it into a different context. Re-contextualization is part of fair use.
“I really don’t see the difference between appropriating ideas or appropriating work”.
What Picasso was talking about was “stealing” ideas, not stealing someone’s work. He wasn’t talking “copy and paste”, he was talking “copy and revise (and enhance)”.
The original comment was:
“Artists use other artist’s work, and will continue to do so. It’s a non event. “Good artists borrow, great artists steal” – Picasso.”
Certainly great artists take IDEAS presented in someone else’s work. But, a great artist does NOT make a copy of someone else’s work and present it as their own. This was not what Picasso was stating.
By the way, there’s still no proof that Picasso actually made this comment.
Apparently Steve Jobs at one time attributed this quote to Picasso, but there’s no proof that Picasso actually said this. There’s an interesting analysis of this quote at quoteinvestigator.com/2013/…sts-steal/
The bottom line is that it’s NOT okay to steal someone else’s work.
Borrowing implies asking permission(giving credit) and stealing implies the opposite.
I wonder if whoever coined this quote was implying that one could never receive as much credit for a borrowed/stolen piece of art if they give credit to the original artist.
You guys seem to be stuck in a loop of indignant outrage or something.
No, it’s not that at all. This is calling attention to an interpretation of a quote that may or may not have actually been made by the person cited. It also questions the applicability of this quote that was made by a non-photographer at an earlier time before the age of digital photography.
Stephen, it is one thing to base your work on someone else’s work for inspiration, and totally different to steal the idea and make an exact replica.
What is and isn’t acceptable in nature photography is so hard to be precise about. The extremes are clear enough.
I try to avoid changing things. Recently I was producing a series of prints for display. The print process raises its own issues. Choosing different paper profiles can end up flattening the colour so much it is often necessary to tweak the original, even after setting colour space, colour settings and icc profiles. For example, i adjusted an image so that the subject (a yellow tailed black cockatoo) stood out more clearly against the background. I then had to add a layer and use a graduated fill (as subtly as possible) to get the part with sky back as close to the original as possible. If the objective is to compensate for the limits of the technology, manipulation seems ok, surely.
The problem is, what exactly is going too far? How much extra tweaking is acceptable? It always comes down to personal values.
I am so glad you said it is OK to experiment as experimentation is an essential part of gaining the skills you need to establish your own ethical standards.
I avoid entering competitions. The temptation to manipulate is just to great for many people when prizes are on offer.
Martin, I totally agree – I stated my opinion and I cannot say what I do is the only right way – every person makes their own decision on how far to push their editing. And experimenting is not just OK, but necessary in my opinion, because that’s the only way to find out our personal “limits”.
Thankfully, in most national and international wildlife competitions and salons this trend to manipulate and cheat has recently been reversed by the introduction of a rule that forbids any manipulation that involves the addition or subtraction of any object from an image. This allows normal processing and colour, contrast, white balance, etc, adjustments in moderation (must look natural), but forbids the addition or subtraction of pixels.
So now, I am allowed to burn in a highlight but I cannot clone it out!
This can seem a little too harsh at times since removing an intrusive leaf or distracting background highlight can hardly be said to alter the truth of the image, but cheating had become so rife that these draconian measures were deemed the only way to stamp it out.
In addition, finalists are now required to submit their original RAW file for scrutiny by experts before before they are put forward to the final stages of judging.
The penalties for cheats have also been made harsh – a lifetime ban.
An interesting, level-headed article. As you make clear, manipulation though easier is not the preserve of digital images — think of Holbein’s portrait of Anne of Cleves, for instance, or Capa’s ‘Falling Soldier’, or Rosenthal’s raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. The first duped Henry VIII, the second was likely staged, and the third was definitely staged.
So the issues raised are timeless. But it is certainly true that it is easier now than before for greater numbers to ‘mess’ with the image.
We should be careful about demonising the ‘copy cats’, though. There is no copyright in an idea, so Tyler Shields (eg) appears to be showing poverty of imagination rather than anything more sinister. Provided he is not attempting to ‘pass off’ his works as someone else’s, he perhaps deserves pity for his failure to demonstrate any conceptual originality.
My efforts in photography focus on landscape/townscape. I try to do as little processing as possible to the Raw files. I want anyone visiting the places where the shots were taken to recognise them. I’m not sure, Nasim, that I’d want to go as far as you have done in your first example of an image displaying an acceptable level of editing. The change in the white balance and the intensification of structure/colours in the sky is a legitimate enough interpretation of what the sensor ‘saw’, but were I to visit that part of the world I reckon, having seen your photo, my eyes might feel very slightly misled!
Well said.
The over manipulation of images, apparently the norm, is crass. Also it leads to competing ever brighter colours that we are daily bombarded with.
Nasim himself constantly overcooks his images (IMO), and frankly this makes for a demoting of the subject and website; although his effort is commendable both with his work and the website.
Another earlier post said “I miss the days of film cameras!” Agreed. Not due to the destructive chemistry poured down the drains, but for the reality check.
It appears photographers cannot resist to “mess” with images.
If enough people name and shame the offenders, soon enough the trend will wear thin.
“Messing” with wildlife is also deplorable for the reason it shows ignorance triumph and thrill seemingly more important.
Anyone know where we’re headed?
Andrew, thank you for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I will be honest with you, I personally don’t like overcooking images myself. The ones I have for myself typically have around 20% less saturation in them, because I prefer more natural colors than those deep red and blue ones. Overtime, I came to the conclusion that people in general like to see a lot of color in images. For instance, if you look at film galleries from famous photographers, you will see that they typically used deeply saturated film (Fuji Velvia was quite popular in its time for a reason) along with polarizing and warming filters. The same goes for modern photographers that display their digital work in galleries – images are practically always over-saturated. So I started doing the same for the images I post at PL as an experiment and indeed, most people preferred those instead.
However, I want to change things up a bit later this year. I want to start my second experiment with more subtle colors and see what the reaction is going to be like. I am no post processing wizard by any means and I am still experimenting, but if you find my work to be overcooked now, I would love to hear your thoughts on the upcoming images. I will be replacing all of my images in the gallery with very different edits. Part of the reason is – most images have never been touched since I edited them a while ago (and I have learned a lot in between) and the other part, I am not happy with most of my old work.
Now on missing the days of film, I don’t think we should mislead people of film being more realistic than digital. You could still use different kinds of films that created different looks and you could use all kinds of darkroom techniques to enhance images.
How refreshing, Nasim. I was expressing my opinion of YOUR work, and your response was exemplary.
Yes I used to have fridge full of single batch film stock, but other than push-process there was NO manipulation (part the reason we all had to use transparency). I have done GAUDY, Velvia and a PL filter constantly attached to my distagon 50mm wide. I do not recall anybody switching film stock/type other than for a laugh?
If Ansell Adams were given a DSLR and Lightroom today, he would likely come up with some frightful results due to not having the benefit of learning gradually by mistake.
This over-enhanced trend is a shame, if only delusional.
Look forward to more of your articles, bet you wish you’d kept Raw rather than convert to DNG.
By the way I don’t pity your example photographers (Prince + Shields) for their lack of original idea. They’re the ones that have scored, is that not original idea and reward?
All the best Nasim
Andrew, I always welcome feedback on everything I do and reader feedback has certainly helped me to get better in every way. Your comment about over-saturation is something I have been thinking about for a while, because it was not something I felt good about doing anyway. So going forward, I want to see what your and other readers’ reaction will be to the work I post. I have some plans to re-edit some of the old photos and extract the ones I have edited for myself, rather than for the website. It is certainly easy to get used to cooking images, because they look good in prints and uncalibrated hand-held devices and tablets.
If you’ve shot with Velvia, then you were already adding quite a bit of saturation to images…couple that with a polarizer and you get some very nice colors. I think Ansel Adams would have loved Photoshop, but who knows, maybe his early work would have looked too experimental. He was known to be very detail-oriented though, so perhaps he would have spent countless hours to learn the tools :) In my view, once you have a good eye for what a solid photograph should look like, you should be able to produce consistent results with any medium. It might take some time to learn, but at least you know where you are headed…
Once again, thank you for your feedback!
I for one would like to see your experiments with more natural, less saturated images. I shot with Velvia for years, and with the more saturated Fujichrome before that. But Kodachrome 64 also produced brilliant saturation, but with a different set of hues. Ektrachrome was just a dull bluish mess, a guaranteed lost sales. When you look at reality there is no one correct set of hues; hue is a matter of perception.
There are, however, more and less credible choices of hues, and it is possible, indeed common, to choose less credible (or incredible) hues. I would go for a “match the slide” goal, except there is no slide to match. That is, there is no objective reference; it’s all opinion and memory. Subjects like your Wadi Rum are particularly difficult. Did the rocks of the formation in the distance really look magenta, as shown in your RAW as preserved in your final version?
Let’s take a look back in history. Until the mid 1800s if you wanted a picture of yourself, your family, your dog, your horse or even a battle, you had an artist draw and paint it. That was the way reality was recorded. Then along came photography that could record the details of reality far better than any artist. Art began to change from a recording of reality to an art form that manipulated reality to achieve a visual effect. When Manet painted what became the forerunner of the Impressionist Movement in art, everything shifted. Artists no longer had to be concerned with reality. They had been freed by the camera to pursue the interpretation of reality and the visual impression of the resulting image on the viewer.
Now, roughly 150 years after the advent of photography, we are still debating the ethics of how to present an image based on reality. Well guess what? When painting took a turn toward art, it was soundly rejected. The “unethical” painters could not get their work displayed in the accepted galleries. Someone made the observation here that there are few photographers who are working toward an artistic image rather than a reflection of nature. Perhaps a lack of artistic skill plays a part but I have to think that the kind of criticism I find here also plays a part. That criticism is very much like what the painters in the Impressionist Movement faced.
If I take an image and put textures on it or distort it to get the visual impression I want and do not imply that it is reality, don’t dare call me unethical. O have only used Photoshop or Topaz as a tool to achieve the effect I want. It is time that photographers realize that photography is a rich field for artistic interpretation where the visual impact on the viewer is not the main thing but the only thing. Sure there is room in photography for the exact recording of reality but there is as much room in photography for it to become a distinct art form that may bear little resemblance to reality.
John, perhaps you misunderstood what I tried to say in the article, but I never said that it was unethical to create your own artwork – I simply tried to categorize photography and artwork as two separate buckets. Of course you are free to do whatever you want, nobody can force you to adhere to rules – art does not have any rules. What I have been trying to say, is that there are photographs that depict reality (or at least attempt to do so) and there are photographs that are the photographer’s interpretation of what they are seeing. One is a moment of time getting presented to the viewer, and the other is an artist’s work. The two should not be mixed together.
That I can agree with. My comments were in response to the posts about manipulating images. There seemed to be a consensus that there should be little to none. Photography as an art form was not discussed. I feel we are past overdue to fully explore the artistic side. Also overdue is the education of photographic consumers to artistic photography. Perhaps then galleries would consider photography as an art form which they do not now.
I suppose , most of Steve McCurry’s work is also overcooked including all of the Kodachrome 25 & 64 shots.
Christopher, great points, thank you for bringing them up. Just to be clear, I was not blaming digital photography for manipulations – we have seen that happen in paintings and in film before too, so the ethical issues come up in all cases. Digital photography just makes such manipulations easier. You don’t have to spend many hours in the darkroom anymore or using a paintbrush to copy someone else’s work. Some basic knowledge of layers and blending techniques and you can make pretty realistic-looking composites.
In regards to Tyler Shields, I agree that we should pity people with lack of imagination, who need to borrow ideas of others instead of coming up with their own. I was not demonizing him, just suggesting to avoid such practices, which when uncovered, do not make the person look good in public.
Regarding the photo I presented as “acceptable”, which I assume is of the rock in Death Valley’s Race Track, the change of white balance itself already resulted in a lot more colors showing in the image – the camera I used was not able to correctly determine white balance at the time. However, I still did add a bit more saturation to the sky in that image to make it appear more red. This brings up another potential question – how much color and saturation is acceptable to add to images? And here is another one, what do we do in cases where color is not visible to the human eye, but visible to the camera? Think of those Aurora Borealis images and very long exposure images or capturing of the details of the milky way that one cannot see with the naked eye. These are all interesting questions!
Feeding wild animals or not?
In Finland, some photographers and tour organizers do bear photography aided by a carcass. They drop a dead cow or pig at a good spot, and stage the shot. Some admit to it, others don’t. But the feeling is awkward, a bit like with doping. With too much feeding (regular cashflow..) the bears adapt to free lunches. And change their natural habits, perhaps?
I would definitely not support feeding to get shots.
100% right, IMO.
Edward, those are pretty bad examples of unethical practice, thanks for sharing!
Feeding predators is a BAD idea. Not just for changing the lifestyle and diet of the animal / bird – but for the danger to both the animal / bird and the humans. I am not personally experienced with bears, there being few in our region, but it is common enough for bears that have been fed by humans to learn how to extract food from tents, “bear bags” hung in trees incorrectly, cars, even houses. If the bear is aggressive and approaches humans, the rangers eventually have to kill it.
Wild animals / birds are opportunists. We have a fair number of eagles that congregate on the downstream side of the Mississippi River lock-and-dams. The fish passing through the Tainter gates experience a great deal of turbulence (think front loading washing machine) and are often stunned when they emerge on the downstream side – easy pickings for the eagles.
Beautiful article.. I Often feel sad after looking at that over editing pictures, and feel bad for my self when i take a natural good one..
Thank you for your feedback! Don’t feel bad – experiment with everything, including heavy post-processing. That’s the only way you will be able to establish your own personal standards.
Hi Nasim,
Interesting article, far from the usual “field reviews“ or “how to“ you see in many popular photography sites. I don’t think there is an answer to any of these questions.
Photography in a sense is very close to propaganda. Even with good intentions. You are trying to deliver a message, or influence, using an image. Regardless if it`s altered or not, copied of not. This will always be subject to interpretation and the extremes will always be different for different people.
What is the difference between Richard Prince and Samsung Galaxy vs. Apple iPhone. Or Sony PlayStation / MS Xbox vs. Nintendo ? What about Xerox who invented the icons that have become a standard in every OS ? Or the Zippers… Of course with a bit of common sense it is frustrating for the originator, but at the same time, it pushes people to stay creative instead of creating one master piece and sit on it. There is some people who will try to prove in court they have been copied. It is a long process involving a lot of money and the outcome are not always what we would think.
There will always be people that are trying to get to their goal as fast as possible regardless how they get their. I guess my point is what is acceptable for you ? Once you are honest with yourself, the rest doesn’t matter.
Simon, that last sentence is worth making in bold. And that’s what I have tried to point out in the article as well, giving mostly my perspective and opinion on the matter. I agree, there is probably not an answer to the questions raised in the article…
While I understand and fully appreciate the need not to make viewers believe one thing when the opposite is true, I also believe that in cases that do not involve nature, photojournalism, competitions, etc., etc. today’s photographer’s efforts require post processing as well as picture taking processes. Photography seems to be developing into another art form and photographers should be allowed to create art or artistic effects similar to that of all the other art forms for the purpose of creating something that looks pleasing. However, historical deception should be avoided.
In today’s digital era, photo editing takes place within the camera if you record events via jpeg files. Everyone’s camera today has it’s own photoshop processing center built into itself unless one takes pictures in Camera Raw. One other point, photo editing and manipulation is not new to the digital era, it has been taking place in the processing of film photography ever since film photography began.
I have entered many Pictorial competitions where photo editing and manipulations have no limits. In this case the Photographer can use his/her photo taking and post processing skillsets to create something unique and beautiful. It can be a lot of fun and may require much more post processing efforts than camera use.
Therefore, whether photo editing or manipulation should be allowed depends on the purpose of the photo and how it is used. While avoiding deception is key, it should be known that one can create deception by the taking of the photo itself without the assistance of post processing.
Mike, I agree with what you have said regarding being able to manipulate images to create your own artwork. For me, that’s something we should all try, because it allows us to enrich ourselves with experience and make us determine where we want to get with our photography. I am not against photo manipulation, but I am against mixing up photography with artwork. If you have a nature competition and photographers are allowed to do whatever they want, what is the point of one photographer to wait for the perfect light, if another can replace a dull part of the scene so easily? My personal take on this, is to separate these into two different categories.
Nasim, I am in agreement with you on this…
I recently showed a composited piece in a traditional photo show (there were no stipulations that composited images were NOT allowed). What happened was that (according to the gallery owner) people who saw my work thought it was an authentic image.
Now while this is somewhat humbling, my ultimate goal as an artists is not to deceive viewers, but rather to introduce new ideas and concepts through my work. I also fear that people will not take my regular, non-composited work as seriously.
SO.., what I have done is to create a new portfolio called “Digital Art”. This is a gallery of photographs that have been composited or altered beyond normal darkroom means (exposure, cropping, burning, color adjustments, etc). I believe this is a very ethical approach to what you have discussed here.
Chip, thank you for doing that, because you will only get respect from others for your honesty. Two thumbs up sir!
Chip, I am a fine art photographer period. I do not do portraits, children or weddings. My business card states very clearly what I do. Some images require little post processing because of the composition, lighting or subject matter. Others require hours of work. As previously stated, the entirety of the effort is to create a visual experience for the viewer.
John, I was not speaking of your work. That said, I am also a fine art photographer and was addressing the way I categorize MY work. This may not work for you, BUT as an artist I think it’s very wise to distinguish highly manipulated work from more traditional photography (that has only been slightly adjusted for exposure, etc).
I think as photographers, our work will face more and more criticism and scrutiny if we continue to go down the road of presenting our work as something that it originally was not. If it’s a heavily altered image, then I think it should be described that. If we don’t, then I think people will eventually view the medium of photography as a medium of deception and untruths. That would not be good for any of us.
Good way of say it! thanks
Nasim, in my opinion any manipulation no matter how small takes you further and further away from reality – if reality is what is expected and anticipated. I personally prefer photography that is as close to reality as possible and that’s something digital cameras do poorly, imo. The same subject photographed with 10 different cameras will sadly all look unique. You can’t you can’t believe ANYTHING you see in a photograph and EVERYTHING on the Internet is heavily manipulated. It’s all crap and you can’t trust it. Celebrities are fat and have warts, wolves do not approach photographers with 100 lbs of equipment, are incredible cloudscapes are rarely captured over scenic mountain peaks. Any manipulation is unacceptable if you represent the photo are something that is real.
John, you are absolutely correct about the different look that each camera medium produces. A number of people in this discussion mentioned film, but film was actually no better than most modern digital cameras in this regard, because every film type you chose had different colors and grain levels added to the image.
However, I don’t think I would go as far as saying that everything on the Internet is crap and you cannot trust it. I also do not agree with manipulation being unacceptable, except in the cases of documentary / event / war photography. But we don’t have to agree on this, as your views are based on your experience and your views, while mine are obviously based on mine. In this article, I was not trying to create rules – I was largely stating my opinion…
Nasim: thanks for the article. I currently teach a class in photography and have decided to add a slide on this issue – here are my thoughts:
There was a recent discussion of ethics in photography at Nasim Monsurov’s web site, Photography Life. It made me think about the issue and that it was an important topic to include in this class. Here are my opinions about it:
Stealing pictures from others – definitely ethically incorrect and should never be done. He mentions a photographer who stole Instagram pics and created a gallery using a different context for the pictures. Everyone owns their artistic and intellectual property and it should never be infringed upon.
Influencing Wildlife for the sake of a picture – Wildlife is simply just that: separate life from that of humans. Feeding animals to get a better shot could change the animal’s feeding behavior and even result in injury or death. Take the time to buy the equipment, learn the techniques and spend the time to get your shot – Wildlife photography is very difficult and in my opinion there are no shortcuts here.
Manipulating journalistic pictures – when telling a narrative, these types of pictures should never be manipulated. I personally would have no issue with making slight exposure or contrast changes but others would differ with that conclusion. I have talked to may of the photographers at the Albuquerque Journal and they are not even able to make these types of changes – they would be immediately fired if they did.
Manipulating Landscape images – this is a little tougher to take a stand on but I will try. Unfortunately, North America it not the same as when Lewis and Clark did there exploration many, many years ago. Human encroachment on the environment is everywhere and it turns up an the least desirable times when one is photographing, the absence of which could yield a much better photograph. I personally have no qualms about removing a car, house or power line in a photo but I draw the line at manipulation the landscape itself – I will not remove rocks or clone natural objects. Always apply the best photo technique to create a better picture – a shift of just a few inches may yield the best shot.
Hi Elliot
My 0.02$ comment:
For me its unethical to manipulate reality when the purpose is to sell you something such as a vacation place, or for some political reasons. Having said that, photography is an art, and with the exception of photo journalist work ,when you have the skill to modify a photograph why not using it ?. When women use make-up to make their skin smoother and more colorfull or their eyes wider, are they tricking us like a photographer when he manipulates a photograph ? I don’t see anything unethical reasons in trying to improve reality. Everybody knows to learn to manipulate a photograph is not an easy task such as pressing the shutter button of a camera , and for me its a toolbox when used with intelligence to improve reality .
Regards
Luc
Elliot, please feel free to add a slide for your students, as it is something worth discussing.
I have also added two extra sections to the article – one on travel photography and one on drone photography. Might be worth adding to the material, since those are also important points to discuss.
Nasim,
This is one of the best i have read on PL…There is lot to learn from this article.Thank you so much for sharing with us.
Thank you for your feedback Nirav!
Photography means writing with light. If you have the attitude of a creative artist everything should be permitted. You can even go from realism to impressionism and even to abstraction. Modern editing tools give you all the tools and you can create unique pieces of art with the camera and computer being your palette. I think many painters in the past have been criticised for not painting 100% realistic. In my opinion it all depends on the goal. Journalism for example is a complete different story. Would be nice if every photo would be accompanied with a little description about what is real and what is edited but of course this is not realistic. An other thing is that people love it to be manipulated and just want to see beautifull pictures even if it is not like real.
p.s. In principal I do not see a difference between warming up the sky and making a green tree completely red. We are just talking about the amóunt of manipulation.
What is too much for one is not enough for another…….
I completely agree – almost.
For me the only areas that are sacred are those where the truth of the image is paramount.
An obvious example is photojournalism where any manipulation (other than normal processing) is the first step on a very slippery slope into political spin and ultimately that instrument much beloved by tyrants and despots – propaganda.
Max, just to clarify, I never in my article stated that photography should always be pure and free of manipulation. I gave specific examples of where it should be allowed (IMHO) and where it should not be. But I would not be happy to see composites mixed up with nature photographs. For example, knowing that using a human being for scale in landscape photography can be a great way to show how grand the landscape is – if I can just copy-paste a person into any scene using Photoshop, it would be much easier than asking someone to stand and pose at a particular spot while I take a picture. If there is a photographer who worked hard on producing such photograph, how fair would it be to put him/her together with someone who can easily do that in post-processing? Also, what is the point of waiting for the best light when shooting landscapes, if I can just copy-paste elements of the scene and make it look as beautiful?
Well Nasim, this is an interesting but I am afraid never ending discussion but good to open. It all depends imo what you want to tell with your picture and what your goal is. Every photo is manupulation of reality and therfore an interpretation. Your point of view, lens choice and your decision about what you want to have in the picture and what not. We see the real world in 3d and a photo is 2d. We use extreme wideangle lenses tot get a feeling of depth in the picture while these lenses see an complete different angle than is possible with human eyes or we use extreme tele and pick one detail. It is all manipulation to get a picture that just contents what we like to show.
When I was in Egypt visiting a pyramid there was just one place to take a picture of the pyramid with the desert in the backround. Everybody took the same picture from the same place and you see this picture in every trave guide.. In reality the pyramid was as good as in the city surrounded by restaurants, parking places and souvenirshops. I think, if you are talking about reality, taking this picture from this unique place means manipulating more than hours of photoshop work. When I take landscapes myself I feel free to manipulate as much as I want as long as it helps to express my perception of that specific moment.
Robert Adams made a career of photographing Western landscapes with obvious human buildings, etc. There might be something interesting about a photo of the pyramids against the urban-scape.
Being a professional visual artist I consider the camera and computer just as tools to create an unique piece of art, it is my digital palette so everything (except stealing) is permitted. In principal I do not see a difference between making the sky in picture warmer or making the green leaves of a true purple. We are just talking abou the amóunt of manipulation.It is all a matter of art and interpretation. Many painters in the past were criticized for painting not realistic but what about impressionism or expressionism? Maybe these paintings tell more about reality than naturalist paintings. Photojournalism of courste is a different story. I think we are talking about an interesting but endless discussion. It is all about goal artistry and audience.
Hi Max
I totally agree with you. You are exactly saying similar things I wrote at 17.1
regards
Luc
Max, All discussion about ‘ethics…’ in Nasim blog should stop with your reply! The camera, lenses, softwares are there to be used to create a photograph of any shape, colour, dimensions, one wish to! Only photos in journalism and police investigation shall, and they are not, (police accepts only RAW file), not be manipulated. Ryszard Horowitz is clear about his photography when he says that cameras, lenses, softwares are for him just tools to create what ever he wants to! Please check his work here: ryszardhorowitz.com/digital.html and you will find that his pictures, which are sold for thousands of $$$, are highest art there in the world of photography, that people on this forum may only dream of making.
This has been a really interesting and long overdue discussion about photography. I would agree with Max, BUT there still needs to be accountability for those who work in a facet of photography that requires a truthful accounting of an event or image captured via a camera.
I guess I’m thinking mostly about journalism, but there’s also a lot of deception going on in the art world where people are misrepresenting their work. I’ve seen this happen often in photography contests where the rules prohibit certain types of manipulation. Unfortunately there are still people who bend or break these rules. I wouldn’t consider this “unethical”, but I do think it’s a very dishonest when it comes to the contest rules.
Completely agree and to those über-ethical purists: there is no image that is a colorimetrically true recording. In the film era, there was chemical image processing, highly manipulating color and saturation and now it is the camera’s JPG engine doing the same. If the photographer steps in, he or she is only changing the parameter of that image processing. What is ethical/unethical about this?
Martin, People like to ….talk about photography and not making it and that’s what is about on the forums. We feel lonely and …hop…Nasim gives us ‘the bread and butter’ to use for discussion and we do it passionately spending precious time, which otherwise we could spend to ….manipulate our crappy pictures to make them great ART!
Question about Photo Plagiarism. Suppose that I take the concept of the Eclipse Photo, and I make an Eclipse Photo but instead of a nature landscape I do it with a city landscape. Is that considered Photo Plagiarism? or will it be enough to give Nasim the credit for the inspiration?
Sergio, I consider plagiarism only when the photographer bases his work almost entirely on another person’s work. Taking someone else’s concept and building on it, creating something different as in your case, is not plagiarism. People are free to look at other works to get inspiration and ideas, but once you start replicating other people constantly, then you should really question your motives – it is not good to be a copy-cat.
Thanks for the answerNasim, and thanks for the great article.
Nasim, I have been following your postings since before they were incorporated into this excellent website, and I congratulate you, your wife and associates for such professional work. I always have liked the content. This posting, however, has provided the most interesting and challenging content to date. I look forward to reviewing the reader comments. Personally, I am comfortable with and practice moderate editing for landscapes. I’m ok with heavy editing if the viewer is informed that the image is “art” and not reality. I strongly believe that images used to represent “news” must accurately represent reality. Thank you very much. I would like to see more content on subjects like this.
Phil Perkins
Philip, thank you for your feedback, I appreciate it!
Great article Nasim!
On the topic of non-photojournalistic people photography (portraits, weddings, etc…), I’ve always been a strong believer in giving my clients “realistic” images, not “idealistic” images. What’s that mean for me? No changing shapes of bodies, no porcelain-smooth skin, no altering of a person’s basic features.
I tell my clients that if there’s something visible in a photograph that won’t be there next week, I’ll remove it. That means scrapes, scratches, bruises and blemishes. If a groom nicks his neck while shaving on his wedding day, not a problem. If a zit shows up on a high school senior’s cheek the day of their senior photos, don’t panic. Otherwise, it stays (orthodontic braces, stretch marks, piercings, etc…).
There will always be some people who want that “perfect” look of slimmed bodies and super-smooth skin and there will always be photographers who are willing to manipulate photos to give them what they want. Is it unethical? I personally don’t think so, at least not for private individuals. If that’s what they want and are willing to pay for it, I say go for it.
The fashion industry is an entirely different beast. Those images are of individuals that millions of people look up to and idolize. We shouldn’t allow them to represent an unrealistic body image that is unattainable outside of digital manipulation.
John, thank you for sharing your view on this matter.
I totally agree with you on people photography – bruises, blemishes and other temporary problems should be removed from images. But changing of people’s features and physique, is not something we should encourage as photographers, ever.
If a client wants to look beautiful for themselves, they can certainly hire people who will retouch them to look perfect. But such photographs should not appear on the media to lead others into thinking that the photograph is real. And that’s the issue we face today with pretty much every magazine cover. Plastic people, with unrealistic bodies. No wonder our youth is so obsessed with their appearance!
Good try Nasim on bringing coherence to the “rules of digital photography.” Over the past 20 years or so, to the beginnings of Photoshop and beyond, all kinds of good people have tried to tackle with fairness these questions of how much is too much. It is, it would seem, the labor of Sisyphus but it is the good fight. You bring far more balance to the conversation than most.
On HDR, which I use for the basic purpose you mentioned which is to reduce overall contrast in a contrasty image, more clarification would help. What unfortunately follows is that many folks think of HDR and tone mapping as one in the same, as if they are interchangeable terms. Of course they are not. I abhor tone mapping but I often find myself explaining to the neophytes of photography and art buyers that they are distinctly different. Let’s tell people that tone mapping may follow HDR but it is not mandatory.
HDR has been around about as long as film, although obviously that’s not the term we use decades ago, but in those days,of reducing contrast using masks and other tools, chemistry in the dark room, and then blending techniques in CS, the goal was the same as it is now in the world of HDR. Actually, I would call it a fairly conservative manipulation if you like, especially so considering how far the digital world of photography has taken some folks.
Thanks for all your efforts to produce a great and very useful website.
Thanks for the very interesting and important article, Nasim.
When discussing copyright issues we need to define precisely the rights that the copyright holder is entitled to own, to the exclusion of everyone else. I’ve never been able to find an internationally-agreed legal document that clearly states these rights as they apply to photographers and their works.
Christopher Wheeler stated in comment 11 “There is no copyright in an idea…”, which I think is correct. E.g., the first person to perform landscape photography cannot possibly be the copyright holder of landscape photography. Likewise, for the first person to photograph the Moon, and for Henry Leutwyler’s picture of the ballerina. Was Henry Leutwyler the first person to think of this, or was he inspired by something similar that he’d seen?
All but the first photographers have been copycats: it is cognitively impossible to avoid taking pictures that are unlike any of the images that we’ve ever seen. When learning photography the instructor provides us with examples of really good photographs — examples worthy of emulation, which means: to match or surpass (a person or achievement), typically by imitation.
So, if Tyler Shields is a copycat who should’ve given credit to Henry Leutwyler then by the same reasoning, all photographers should give credit to each and every person who has inspired their work. The list would be too long to read. If we are tempted to accuse Tyler Shields of plagiarism then all restaurants that offer, say, a burger and fries are guilty of plagiarism. This is absurd and it is a perfect example of when to invoke reductio ad absurdum to illustrate the illogic and untenability of the accusation of plagiarism.
The Wikipedia article on plagiarism states: “Plagiarism is the ‘wrongful appropriation’ and ‘stealing and publication’ of another author’s ‘language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions’ and the representation of them as one’s own original work. The idea remains problematic with unclear definitions and unclear rules.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
The article is worth reading because it is highly relevant to this dicussion.
Obviously, claiming original authorship of another author’s work is unethical without exception, and it is likely to be illegal under some (but not all) jurisdictions. However, until we have clearly established photographers’ rights and their limitations, it is perhaps best to refrain from passing judgement on those who we think are guilty of plagiarism. If we apply exactly the same rules to ourself that we use to judge others, we are likely to find ourselves equally guilty (sometimes, if not often).
Simon, in comment 14, inspired me to write the above with his ending statement: “I guess my point is what is acceptable for you? Once you are honest with yourself, the rest doesn’t matter.” Yes indeed, I think it is better to spend time on being honest with ourself, rather than wasting too much time on the plethora of people who have no wish to be honest with themselves and/or others.
Copyright theft and outright plagiarism are pretty clear cut.
The rest ranges from stealing intellectual property for monetary gain (Shields and Leutwyler) to the making of a personal version of Adams’ ‘Moonrise over Hernandez.’ Both acts demonstrate a lack of creative vision.
The former is cunning and dishonest, the latter a bit sad but essentially harmless.
But at what point does inspiration turn into emulation and emulation into imitation and imitation into theft?
It’s a very blurry spectrum with ill defined boundaries.
As you say, the most important thing is to be honest with ourselves and do the best we can. Ghandi said, “Whatever we do in life will almost certainly be insignificant, but it is nevertheless of paramount importance that we do it.”
It can be argued that whatever we do has been done before but if we at least start out with an original idea (even if it isn’t!) the result will have something of ourselves in it – for better or worse.
Betty, excellent points, you could not have said it better, especially in regards to the last paragraph. It is one thing if we imitate works of other people unintentionally, but totally different when we are replicating works of others, and passing them as our own ideas. Perhaps we cannot go after those people, but at least deep inside we know that they have lack of vision…
The most important thing is to question our own motives and figure out our own paths. Being honest with ourselves and doing the best we can is certainly something worth pursuing.
Pete, sadly, copyright laws are too weak to protect photographers. There should be one common law accepted across the board, that if anyone uses another person’s photograph without permission (and I mean using exactly the same photo, or its crop), they would be breaking the law. Doesn’t matter if it is Facebook, Instagram, a website or a print – every photo should be protected by default. A few cases of lawsuits should stop such theft, once it is enforced. Requiring people to register each photo with the copyright office is absurd – we take too many photos to even consider doing that.
In my article, I never stated that landscapes or even angles at which they are taken can be copyrighted. My specific example was of someone trying to make an exact replica of another photographer’s work – that I personally consider unethical. In the case of Tyler Shields, the man seems to suffer from being able to create ideas of his own and he uses other people’s work as a basis. I don’t see him getting into trouble for doing that, but that certainly diminishes him as an artist in front of my eyes. Perhaps others don’t look at it as a big deal, but if I were to consider hiring an artist with vision, it would certainly not be Tyler Shields.
It is true that we form our vision and ideas based on other people’s works, especially ones that strike us the most. I am not necessarily advocating about crediting each and every source that we might base our work off of. However, in the case of Tyler Shields, it seems to me that he was not just basing an idea from some work he had seen in the past – some of the photographs he has were made to look almost exactly like works belonging to other people. The photo with the paint on a woman’s lips – don’t you agree that everything about it looks too close to the original? In my view, Tyler Shields would have benefited from referencing other people that he borrowed the ideas from. Perhaps what he has done is not plagiarism, but rather a form of imitation. I love the question that Betty raised about such cases “But at what point does inspiration turn into emulation and emulation into imitation and imitation into theft?” That’s something worth thinking about.
Enjoyed the discussion. It would be so much simpler to have an ethics opacity slider in Lightroom.
LOL. I love that idea.
Steve, brilliant! :D
Thank you, Nasim, for raising this issue. It’s topical, relevant, and invites us to reflect on what quality photography is all about. More than film and printing, RAW files invite ‘adjustment’ (especially as they look duller versions of what we originally saw). And, thanks to the power of computing and software, everything can be manipulated. The power to alter files is amazing! But as they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our human foibles are the weakness, not the technology.
So now, with everyone wanting to photograph everything, we need to reconsider what quality means. Just like trashing pristine wilderness to get ‘that shot’, tricking people with ‘not of this Earth’ shots is really about our vanity. With an ego that’s out of control we’ll do anything to get attention – even deceive and destroy.
Kind of odd, given photography is about exploring personal realities. Because in the end, every shot we take is a personal statement: about what we see, value, and try to be.
Christian, excellent points sir, I could not have said better.
Thank you, Nasim! An important and difficult aspect of photography is the way to determine the owner of an idea, because we are all inspired from something that we have seen in the past. And that is not always conscious to us. What Tyler Shields does is very borderline. Perhaps he tries to sell his borderline ethical way to do pictures as an art precisely for this reason. In this way he gains a lot of free publicity.
Carmelo, you are most welcome!
I don’t see anything wrong with basing your idea on someone else’s work. I think today, given how much stuff is done, it is hard to come up with a unique, original idea. However, in the case of Tyler Shields, he is attempting to copy another person’s work, don’t you think? He might not get in trouble for doing that, but it certainly diminishes him in my eyes as a creative.
Drones:
When someone was flying a drone in my neighborhood, my dog freaked out from the awful noise it made, and wanted to get away quickly. I’m sure that most wildlife has the same reaction, but I would bet that there are people out there attempting to use these things to photograph wildlife anyway. Don’t harass! I smile whenever I hear of an annoyed raptor taking down a drone.
Landscapes:
I still see a lot of landscapes in which the lighting has been so manipulated, by HDR or otherwise, that it looks physically impossible and not even remotely realistic. These photos never “draw me in” to the scene, and paradoxically to the manipulator I suppose, look flat and unappealing. I like shadows.
If you can look at an image and tell that it has been processed as a HDR image, the processing was done wrong. I usually bracket when I shoot but only use HDR to open up shadows or add detail to blown out highlights when needed.
Richard, if an unidentified drone flew over my home, I would be one of those guys shooting it down and getting the bad press. I think people need to respect other people’s privacy. We should have protection from these things potentially causing harm to our daily lives. Imaging being a celebrity and worrying about paparazzi watching your every step from drones and surrounding every angle of your house. Such activities should be regulated.
I have just come across the following image and thought about this article – this, I think, is also a huge ethical issue:
www.theguardian.com/news/…all#img-13
I think this should be strictly forbidden and have severe consequences. In my eyes this is a serious breach of a person’s privacy and dignity. Yes, he was in a public place, etc., but photographing people when they are sick/unconscious/having a fit is highly invasive and unethical in my opinion. Imagine how that person might feel, collapsing in public, perhaps spending minutes in an unconscious state, and then seeing pictures of this upsetting experience the next day… :-
Remember the reports in the aftermath of the disappearance of MH370? Close-up, full frontal face shots of grieving, shocked, and completely devastated relatives were all over the place. The questions is not how can anyone be so insensitive and selfish to shove a camera in their faces at such a time, because people like that exist, sadly… but why were those images not taken off the internet immediately, and the photographers in question brought to justice. Disturbing people at times like that, and making money or any gain (like number of clicks/visits on a website) of them when they are in deep trauma and going through the worst time of their lives is an unspeakable offense in my opinion.
Judit, I agree with you on this. People should have their privacy, even in public places. As photographers, we should be respectful towards others. I hate paparazzi for this reason, as they will do whatever it takes to get the damn photo.
Nasim,
cropping an image, even cropping out vital information, is the same as using a longer lens at the time of shooting. This would never be misinterpreted as bad practice. So cropping for me should not be taken into consideration when taking about photo manipulation.
You are correct in most instances…However if you are i) intentionally cropping out something important to the photo that changes someone’s interpretation, or ii) intentionally composing your shot with a zoom lens for the purpose of leaving out something important to the photo, or iii) changing the colors, exposure, etc… of the photos for the same purpose… are all methods of deceit and photographers should not engage in such practice.
The famous recent example was of people pulling down a statue of Saddam Hussein in a Baghdad square. A viewpoint from within the crowd looking up at the statue was widely published, and was interpreted by many viewers as “Look, everyone in Iraq is out on the street celebrating the defeat of Saddam and the American invasion”. A wide angle view from a higher point at the edge of the square showed about 30 Iraqi non-journalist people in the square, and a similar number of journalists watching.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…estruction
Yes, an excellent example of how an honest, accurate, unmanipulated photograph can be entirely misleading.
Similarly, is the soldier holding the gun protecting the civilians or threatening them?
Context is everything.
Ludwig, agreed, unless cropping completely changes the meaning of a photograph :)
Great message Nasim: no to Fraud, yes to Honesty !
Since Photography has a rare capacity of capturing and representing the reality, it must be honest on few things.
It must be honest about its purpose and its creation process.
In photojournalism, there should be zero modification of the image.
On the other hand, for the purpose of Art, seems to me absolutely fine to stage and post-processes images as long as the author is honest about it.
I liked the example of the tamed wolf. It is a nice photo, and as a random piece of artsy image, it works for me – but it is a fraud in the fact that the author wanted us to believe it is a genuine wild life. Feeding wild life should be forbidden (there are already a few very good comments on this).
Vel, looks like you have understood exactly what I was trying to say in the article, thank you!
Nasim, Very nicely thought out article. So much of what you’ve mentioned is permitted under U.S. Copyright law when it comes to “Art”. For example, there would be no way to copyright a “perspective” of a landscape shot.
But, are the scenarios you’ve laid out unethical? Certainly the journalism point would be and that one is pretty vigorously enforced by publishers. I do NOT find any use of Photoshop to be unethical in any of the situations you’ve listed, UNLESS the photographer has made a claim or represents his work as being an actual accounting of an event. I don’t see any ethical issues with touching up blemishes, BUT if a shape is altered then I think it should be described as such.
Great article and lots to think about here. I’m sure there will be many ongoing discussions…
Thank you for your feedback Chip. Not all the scenarios presented are unethical – I was mostly raising questions and making the reader make the decision for themselves. I presented my opinion on some matters, but those are just my opinions :)
Nasim, this was a great read but I must say, it did strike a nerve. I mostly agree with all things said in the article. What I disagree with is the manipulation of landscapes, people or wildlife that is going to hang on my wall or be displayed on my website and not made for public consumption. I enter no contests and sell no prints. My work is not published in any magazine or newspaper. If I was to enter a contest, there would be little manipulation other that basic contrast, noise and saturation adjustments. However, when I make photographs for my personal use and enjoyment, who out there has the right to tell me what I should or should not hang on a wall. If I want to over saturate an image or remove a tin can or tree limbs, why should anyone care? Secondly, heavily manipulated images are (in my mind) acceptable IF the photographer acknowledges it (as in a composite).
As far as fashion photography, the photographer is being paid to make Angelina Jolie and Kelly Clarkson look good. My guess is that both would cry, “foul,” if the photographer/retoucher put the unprocessed shots on an album or magazine cover rather than the manipulated ones. Glamour shots, wedding photos, portraiture and senior pictures also come to mind. Who wants to spend several hundred dollars on a portrait session only to have the photographer tell him or her, “Well, that’s how you look, too bad.” How long would that photographer be in business? Personally, I would only hire photographer who would make my daughter’s senior picture look great.
When visiting the Tetons, what photographer doesn’t want stand at the overpass where Ansel Adams shot the Snake River? Would anyone bypass Schwabacher’s Landing or Mormons’ Barn just because someone else shot and published the same scene? How many different angles can you take of a scene that has be shot thousands of times before? Just asking. While on the subject of the Tetons, Adams’ Snake River print also appears manipulated. It’s in black and white and not color. I also would guess that during the processing of the print he used extensive dodging and burning to produce the masterpiece. Was that manipulation? Why is it acceptable to change a color scene to black and white and not acceptable to over saturate that same scene in color? It seems to me that photographs have been manipulated for years. Who never toned an image as an “expression of artistic interpretation” or that is how “I visualized the scene?”
Stealing or plagiarizing art and passing it off as your own is wrong. So is the manipulating or over-processing of images to enter into a contest or to present as fact in photojournalism. Breaking the law, copyright infringements, putting one’s self or others in danger, disregarding the welfare of animals or people, violating a person’s privacy, disrespecting local customs, etc., is not acceptable as well. People should be prosecuted, sued, disqualified or fired for those acts. However, for those images that I have taken lawfully myself or paid someone else to shoot for my private use, I should have the final say. Here, I don’t have to please anyone but myself. I should not be criticized by anyone who does not accept my “vision.”
For the record , Ansel Adams photographed his classic works, including “The Tetons and the Snake River”, directly on black and white film – not color film.:)
You are correct. Thank you for supporting my point. The world is not in black and white.
Ed, of course you are entitled to do whatever you want with your photos – I sometimes slaughter the heck out of my photos when experimenting with them and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Also, I think you misunderstood the points I was trying to make in regards to portraiture and landscape photography spots. Of course it is OK for photos to be retouched, but is it acceptable to make models looks like plastic dolls, with unrealistic physique that the young generation perceives as “ideal”? We should be careful about presenting such material to people. I also clearly stated that I am not against most type of retouching for landscapes, except composites and unrealistic-looking images.
Nasim,
This is a great topic for photographers to discuss. Ethics are a continuum, what one may find too far, another will be comfortable with.
While digital tools are incredibly powerful, I think we take them too far. Cloning out footsteps, rocks or trees in a photo feels wrong. I have a college who merged two shots taken on different days to achieve the ‘perfect’ sky with still water in a landscape, which feels disingenuous to me.
Wildlife opens up a much larger discussion. In much of North America, there’s very little true wilderness left. Animals which are approachable in national parks, are much more wary where hunting is permitted. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Serengeti twice and the animals are very habituated to people. Lions take no notice of the vehicles nearby. (Now, I’m not foolish enough to suggest getting out!)
If bird feeders are so detrimental to birds, why do both the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology both encourage backyard bird feeders?
Most would agree the Bosque del Apache is one of America’s premier birding locations. The fish and wildlife service farms the refuge to provide food for the birds. Why is this acceptable but not backyard bird feeders?
David, while I personally see nothing wrong with removing footsteps and other minor objects that distract the viewer, I personally do have an issue with composites that are not clearly labeled as such. There is nothing wrong with doing composites, but such works should belong in their own “digital art” category in my opinion.
In regards to bird feeders, that’s an interesting and valid take on the subject. I personally don’t know if it is right or wrong to do that – I have done that in the past myself, although it was not for the purpose of photography, but rather to have my kids watch birds.
Baiting animals for photo ops is no worse than baiting the less intelligent humans who’ll pose most anyway you want if you bait with money, alcohol or worse yet wedding cake. Talk about disturbing something’s life cycle.
Thanks Bill! You made me and my wife laugh !
Bill, thanks for the humor! :)
As someone already mentioned, in Finland it is a business to arrange bear photographing session using carcasses. I do not personally like it at all, though I am sure the bears are happy ;)
There are also potential problems, that the bears would become too used to human smell, which they should not. The problems arise if the bears are not afraid of people any more. I have always talked against this practice and would never attend this kind of “Bear Safari” myself.
I have been walking the wilds in Finland for 40 years and still to see my first bear, not to talk about taking a photo. That’s how difficult it is to see a bear! You really need to try hard, just hiking around is not enough, because the bear will see you but you will not see him. So it is not a wonder the safaris are popular.
Timo, in some parts of the world, animals don’t really give a damn about people. In Alaska, for example, you could be sitting right next to the river where bears catch salmon and they will be passing right by you. People don’t need to feed bears there, because there is plenty of food. But the story in Finland seems to be different…
In Finland, the brown bear usually avoids men at all cost. That is good to avoid accidents.
I fear that arranging bear safaris may change their natural behaviour. Of course the local people who benefit from this think differently.
“People don’t need to feed bears there, because there is plenty of food.”
If I might be allowed to put this in perspective…
The coastal bears in Alaska (and elsewhere) only have plenty of food during a small window of opportunity, during the salmon run in late summer. During this time they consume the majority of the calories for the year and of course fatten up for their winter hibernation.
For the rest of the year eat whatever they can get.
This ‘bonanza feeding’ is also seen in the Mara crocs of Africa, many whale species, and indeed throughout the natural world.
Alaskan bears ignore people first, because they are fixated on eating as much as possible (human beings are not a popular menu item) and second, because over the years, they have become habituated to photographers (who are not competing with them for food) wandering around with tripods and long lenses! This habituation is passed on to the cubs and so the cycle is perpetuated.
It would not be a good idea to saunter over to an non-habituated, inland Alaskan grizzly at other times of the year and ask him to pose for a portrait!
Oh, one more thing in my mind.
Although I don’t find feeding wild animals a very ethical practice to just photograph them, there may be exceptions.
All hikers in Northern Finland are familiar with Siperian jay, a very friendly and cunning bird, that will come to feed on you campfire weather invited or not. Nature photography of the year 2009 contents in Finland was won by such a picture.
www.vuodenluontokuva.fi/vlk/2009
Can’t find anything unethical in it, because it pictures the bird doing exactly what it naturally does: looking for any opportunity for an other tasty bite.
Back to wildlife. How about butterflies? I shoot butterflies in their natural environment (www.flickr.com/photo…o50/albums), without any strange and unethical tricks (like freezing them and then placing them on flowers, on which they would never rest…And such photos are always super-praised by the audience!!!). That’s unethical !!!
Gianni, love your butterfly gallery, great job! Always much more challenging and rewarding to photograph live subjects vs frozen ones. Agree with you on that one.
Come on guys (mostly guys), don’t be so self righteous. Have you ever tried to re-shoot a glamour shot? I did and assure you it never works, it is always a new pic. Where does your lust for censorship and court action end? Because you smeared some lipstick I cannot smear some other lipstick?
The only place where the word ‘ethics’ makes sense to me is (i) when a picture is stolen in the sense of taking the unaltered bits from the internet and (ii) when the picture is for news reporting. Even in point (ii) cropping should never be condemned as the same can be done by changing perspective and shooting uncropped.
Everything that pleases the artist is good and the spectators are the judges, not the courts.
Interesting quote from the photographer Jock Sturges…
“If somebody’s pointing a trembling finger saying you shouldn’t be doing that, follow that finger back, go up the arm and look at the head that’s behind it, because there’s almost always something fairly woolly in there.”
Having grown up in the same geographic location my entire life, the Pacific Northwest, I couldn’t agree more with our impact on nature. Too many times I have seen photographers sliding down and climbing back up hillsides that are closed for revegitation. Areas that were once lush and green for everyone to enjoy are now completely void of plant life after thousands of people have trampled over the barriers for that shot or to be in the shot. Areas that were teaming with wildlife are now much more scarce because of the harassment of people trying to get closer. People are proudly displaying these shots on social media where they are clearly out of bounds.
I don’t understand the message that people are trying to convey with their photography when the image is of a beautiful landscape that they had to destroy to take it.
Sorry, I’ve been holding that one in for awhile.
The inclusion of “graph” in photograph hints at its scientific nature. First get your camera profile sorted in your chosen editor/processor. Then your colours will be close/right for your instrument/workflow. Stray off this path at your peril.
Digital art is something entirely different. Surely its time to make the distinction.
Apologies to those that are unable to see the “ethics” inferred.
FWIW I like a lot of digital artwork.
Great article!
Another ethical judgement is bird calls. Some birders and photographers will call birds in with apps that play the bird’s song. During migration, breeding, and nesting season this can cause a lot of unnatural movement and undue stress. It can actually cause a migrating birds to use too much energy which can endanger them, confuse and anger breeding birds causing them unneeded stress and even messing up their breeding or nesting patter, and cause nesting birds to leave their nest when they should be guarding and warming the eggs and chicks. I am not opposed to calls after the nesting is done when the birds are just hanging out trying to get fat before migration, but if you aren’t sure, don’t do it.
As far as feeding birds with feeders at your home, the consensus among the birders and ornithologists that I know is that bird feeders are a benefit to birds. Their habitat has been so uprooted by humans that they don’t have the natural resources they once had and feeders are a good supplement. If you pay close attention (i.e. watch birds all day like me), even birds that spend a lot of time at your feeders will still forage naturally, and many of them switch to bugs primarily in the summer anyway. Feeders do not make them dependent upon humans or undesirably tame (some birds just have a natural fear of people and others don’t which is different than tame).
Now, if you are feeding birds and/or playing calls and you make a lot of great photography… where do you draw the line with disclosure? I tell people when I take photos in my yard so they know that they are not necessarily “wild” shots. Many people I know do not disclose that they used bait like mice to draw in owls, calls to pull birds in closer, and feeders in their yard (or in the wild which I would call baiting). These photographers kind of give the feeling that they are great wildlife photographers even though, in my opinion, they really aren’t because they have to disturb the bird or bait it in order to get pictures which isn’t really “wild” — but, again, that is just my feelings on it.
Sorry but I beg to disagree with one exception. If you are publishing in the Journal of Wildlife in Nature, or some such publication, then your shots should be done in the wild or have disclaimers.
Otherwise, if your intent is to create a visual impression in the eye of the viewer and not to tout yourself as a great wildlife stalker, who cares how it was shot? In my opinion, the impact that the image creates isn’t the main thing, it is the only thing. The great photographers of the past deliberatly created an impact with their images. If we are putting out images with no impact, we are showing snapshots.
I wasn’t making a definitive statement, I was positing my opinion and asking the question, “where do you draw the line with disclosure?” So thank you for answering with your thoughts. I’m not opposed to people taking great photographs of birds (I am opposed to using calls inappropriately though!). To tell the truth, most of the bird photographs I see are just snapshots from their yard, but they are having fun and I like to see what they share so I think even snapshots are a great way of sharing nature. I do occasionally see some people who actually do tout themselves as great (hobbyist) wildlife photographers who I know are baiting and using calls. It feels wrong to me that they take on a lot of praise and acclamation on Facebook and Instagram and in local birding circles. Partly this is because they do give the impression that they are working really hard to get these shots and they seem to fish for praise, so maybe if they were just posting the shots I wouldn’t give them a second thought. Again, that is just me. I’m happy that you have different views to express.
Something that wasn’t mentioned is whether it is ethical to sit on the sidewalk pretending to be homeless to blend in so that you can get better unposed street photography images.
Fantastic article. It makes us think a lot..My general thought is that postprocessing should be used as less as possible and only when justified (also by business reasons). An image (lighting, composition, meaning and message of it, etc) should be like a painting, conceived as much as possible before pressing the shutter. I know that this is difficult and that many photographers currently tend to take an average-good shot and later rely on their postprocessing capabilities. I had recently a debate with a friend; he advised me to send all my glamour shoots to a professional retoucher to get ‘the best results’. I refused, because the retoucher would have anyway modified my images on his own, changing the meaning I saw in them.
Unfortunately the current high average level has also pushed this approach; if you want in some way to stand out from the crowd you have to find any way to do it. Another problem is also that this has created a sense of general disbelief towards the artistic value of photography; perhaps that’s another reason for which great photographers of the past, that used only film, often enjoy greater recognition from critics and public opinion than the current ones.
I would just like to comment on your opening statement that in photography “post processing should be used as less as possible and only when justified”. If you define photography narrowly e.g. as the use of the camera itself; then I agree with your statement that little or no post processing should be used. However, I believe most photographers define photography today as a more encompassing process and in some regards as another art form. For this definition, I believe one should do whatever they feel will improve the end result; this of course includes as much post processing (or none) as meets that need. Accordingly, I feel that the only justification required for using post processing techniques, is that it makes you feel better about your work.
Certainly, this does not hold true for certain photo competitions, photo journalism or other aspects of photography that rely on the reality of the photo. This would include changing a person’s looks on magazines to something unrealistic.
Where would you place photos taken by the camera as noted in the following url? My understanding of this camera is that in essence this camera takes a photo with various lens and then blends the various results as you would like.
light.co/
The website states: ”
The Light L16 Camera is currently sold out. Sign up to get notified when the camera is available.
…
Where can I find the full technical spec on the Light L16 Camera?
We have not yet published a full specification for the L16 Camera. We are in prototype phase right now and many decisions remain before we lock our final spec. We plan to release that spec in Spring 2016. We will add details to the FAQ as we have them.
…
What is your refund/return policy?
You can get a refund for your pre-order deposit anytime before your camera ships. Just send us an email at hello[at]light.co.
Once you receive your camera, you will have 60 days to return it in its original packaging for a full refund.
” — retrieved 2016-02-13 17:28 UTC.
Hubert Steve asked: “Where would you place photos taken by the camera as noted in the following url?” Firmly in your imagination, at this moment in time!
Rich in hype, thin on verifiable information.
Sold out?
Does anyone own a working example?
I reserve judgment but my mum said if a thing looks too good to be true…..
“Sold out” has two meanings — the informal meaning struck me as highly amusing.
What Pete A said. Plus:
1. The picture of the camera’s front shows that the lens’s have front elements only a few millimeters in diameter. It’s nearly a pinhole camera. So I wonder what a 52 megabyte picture made by a pinhole camera will look like at 100%? What would a 50% crop look like?
2. They don’t publish a price, even though they claim to have sold an entire production run. Now that’s questionable ethics!
Hi! I’ve been trying to write about this issue since what happened about the image theft. But definitely you did it way better.
I’ve always wondered, would you mind if I translate posts of you to spanish giving you the proper credit and linking everything to your blog?
Greetings!
It is a very interesting article, I liked it.
I don’t agree with everything, specially on editing stuff. I do agree that for photojournealism and documentary and new stuff there should not be allowed any copy paste, maybe only balance and colors, but the photo must be similar. Also, to pretend something is when it isn’t true, etc.. If I take a pic of my house and paste it inside a forest and publish that image as house for sale, it’s a lie. If I just wanted the pic to say, “here is where I would love my house to be placed at” it’s a different story.
Also, trying to copy how somebody else took a photo can be educational, especially for us begginer photogs, where trying to emulate some other photo that we liked can be good. Publishing that as original with no credit to the original, well, that’s bad, but as practice I think it’s a good training technique.
Also, even where the Eiffel tower is big, there are just so many places where one would like to take pictures. Very likely one of our pics would coincide a lot with others.
Interesting article, and I was especially taken by the discussion of stupid vandalism. I just got back from Belize and a day trip to Guatemala, where I was astonished to find that some important buildings have been closed to the public because stupid tourists have tagged them! I find it utterly ‘gobstopping’ to imagine what goes through the mind of a person who puts graffiti on an ancient Mayan ruin. But then again, at one point I noticed a pair of tourists perched atop a pyramid, smoking, just behind the sign that said “do not climb.” Ain’t we speshul!
I once visited the Giraffe Manor, in Kenya. The giraffes were coming for their evening food, and one man had a drone. It disturbed all the other people, flew dangerously near our heads, and above all scared all the giraffes into cantering away!
Roger Fenton — Dead Valley — 1855 (Crimean War)
I suppose these ethical concerns of whether or not a person really captured a sincere, honest moment is valid, but I do believe that in some cases it doesn’t matter how an image was produced as long as it is beautiful no? To treat a photograph like a painting in order to illustrate a point rather than as a means of capturing the strictly real.
I have been considering 3 images for an upcoming competition. Two have been slightly digitally enhanced. The third was originally an image of a bird on a tree branch (both silhouetted), with a full moon in the background. While I took separate shots to get each aspect in focus so I could make a composite, I finally decided to superimpose an image of the full moon that I’d taken ( just the moon itself, at extreme telephoto length, so it was much larger than it appeared in the tree/bird/moon photo). I wasn’t sure I could ethically call this “photography,” instead of something like “digital imagery.” After reading this very helpful article, (and I agree with every word of it!) I decided not to submit the full moon/bird composite. Thank you for your opinions/thoughts, Mr. Mansurov.
Jan, I think that is very commendable on your part. I wish other photographers would be as ethical.
About two years ago I submitted a photograph to a competition. It was clearly a composited photograph, accepted and exhibited in a group show. The feedback I got was that it was a great photograph, but people were wondering if it was real. I was astonished that people would even consider this image to be real. At that point I decided that what I had done could be considered deceptive and I stopped submitting my composited photographs UNLESS I clearly stated that it was “composited image”. Designations like this are the norm in the art world, “ink on paper” or “mixed-media”, etc. I have decided to play by the same rules in the artworld and be upfront about my techniques and processes in the description.