thread. Most scans and digital camera files are "approximations" and need some tweaking in order to "print" correctly on the average monitor, just as with negatives and paper. For the present, my own goal is to just get a decently true copy of my slides on the monitor or the printer. But photography, as an art form, has always included "special effects" type processing. I think is a matter of "truth in advertising" that photos which have been significantly (whatever that means) altered be identified as such.
Art Wolfe set off a controversy within the nature photographers community when he modified some images without explicitly saying that he had done so.
From
http://www.washington.edu/alumni/columns/dec98/wolfe4.html------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In Migrations, I embraced the technology that was available to me," he says, "and I took the art of the camera to its limits. This was not a moral issue. It was just that in the beginning, we were naive. We didn't use identification. That is the sole issue. Photography has never been an accurate recording of what is out there. For years photographers have manipulated images by using different lenses, filters, films and in the darkroom."
Critics caught Wolfe by surprise by crying foul, saying digital imaging had no place in a nature book. Wolfe argued that the book was an art book-he says so in the book's foreword-and that the controversy was blown out of proportion because of one simple fact: he didn't identify the images he altered.
Galen Rowell, a contemporary of Wolfe's as an accomplished nature photographer, was among those who criticized Migrations. In a five-page letter to Wolfe, Rowell alternately scolded his friend and professed admiration for his work. His bottom line, though: "Don't do anything you wouldn't feel comfortable having fully revealed in a caption."
Others, such as Gary Braasch, chair of the North American Nature Photography Association, were steadfast: "Nature photography is one of the last bastions of pictures most people accept as real. Those who lie about the reality of their photos are taking advantage of everyone else and undercutting the basis of all our success."
True to form, when the debate was white hot, Wolfe always stood front and center to take on any naysayers, as he did in photography workshops around the nation, where he debated against naturalists and other wildlife photographers.
Today, the debate continues-- Atlantic Monthly recently ran a 20-page article on the ethics of digitally altering photos-but Wolfe has put it behind him. "I hated the controversy but was very glad people noticed," Wolfe says. "I wanted to capture spirits and uplift, and I won't apologize for that." Ever since Migrations, he has identified every image in a book that has been digitally altered.
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Some images are "obviously" altered, but when there is any chance of confusion, it is a matter of simple candor to say what was done.
And beyond all that, when "special effects" are involved in producing an image, the rest of us can benefit by learning about the techniques used, and learning is one of the reasons most of us are here.
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