Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/15

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Subject: [Leica] No one would make liz taylor pimple free!
From: Kyle Cassidy <KCassidy@asc.upenn.edu>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 13:29:56 -0400

Eric welch sed:

>Cropping is fine, tonal adjustment is fine, spotting is fine. 
>But making Elizabeth Taylor pimple-free is not, because she isn't.

Spotting and pimple removal seem kind of similar ... Why spot dust on the
negative when it was there in real life? This argument, imho, has holes in
it ... There are things that a photographer can do "in camera" (to use this
example) to make liz taylor pimple free. The photographer can move the
camera, or shoot slightly out of focus, or have her turn her head in a way
that the pimples are not visible or are masked by a shadow. I'm not
convinced that it's any more "real" than spotting away her pimples in
photoshop or with paint and a spotting brush.

Photos only tell the truth for 1/500th of a second. Which often times is not
the whole truth. I have a photo of a guy playing with his dog at a protest
march where the dog's biting his arm trying to get a frisbee but it sure
looks like someone sicced a german shepherd on a poor defenseless hippy.....

I'm also reminded of the "behind the scenes" DVD featurette I saw for some
movie with anthony hopikis, & alec baldwin, when they're fighting a bear.
They show the whole "bear fight" scene where the bear's owner or human
companion or trainer or whatever is roughousing with an obviously very
friendly bear, and this is intercut with shots of hopkins and balwin falling
down, waving sticks, shouting, and it looks very convincingly like a
ferocious bear is trying to eat them when in all actuality it's not. No
photoshop. No spotting. 

I think truth and photography aren't necessarily related. And I think two
photos sandwitched together can be "truer" than either of the origional
unaltered photos.

Lets fight!

Kc
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Replies: Reply from Dan C <leicaman@sympatico.ca> (Re: [Leica] No one would make liz taylor pimple free!)