Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/11/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Any familiarity with Salgado's work will confirm that he is a huge manipulator, in this sense of his images. So are Nachtwey, McCullin - in fact just about _any_ photographer working in black and white. Ironically, black and white lends itself to such manipulations in a way that colour does not, and yet black and white is still widely regarded as more "truthful" in some vague, but culturally pervasive way. Take Ted's dictum about clothes and souls, for instance. On that note, I came across an anecdote recently about James Joyce sitting to have his portrait painted. The painter was blabbing on about catching his soul, to which Joyce replied: nevermind about my soul, Tuohy, just see you get my tie straight! BTW - Interesting that I typed "nevermind" instead of "never mind" - my recent Nirvana addiction seems to be affecting my fingertips. - -- Rob http://www.robertappleby.com Mobile: (+39) 348 336 7990 Home: (+39) 0536 63001 All outgoing email scanned by Norton AntiVirus (TM) 2003 Professional Edition. - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Atherton" <tim@KairosPhoto.com> To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us> Sent: Friday, November 07, 2003 3:05 AM Subject: RE: [Leica] Journalism, altered photo's, and other ethical debates > > Tina, > > I have to admit that the standards in N. Carolina for journalism are way > > too high. The image of the firefighter with the background burned out > > is very borderline, but what disappeared was a very out of focus > > background that contributed nothing to my understanding of the image. > > The others are truly not enough different to matter. > > In the recent discussion along these lines on the NPPA-L I mentioned how > (highly respected) war photographer Don McCullin often quite dramatically > dodged and burned his skies, and by these standards a large proportion of > his images would be dismissed. Someone else responded that: > > "There is a scene in /War Photographer/ where James Nachtwey is > discussing with someone the sky in a print he is having done, they go > back and make the sky darker at least three times. No one said anything > about this because it was film and it is common darkroom practice. If > they showed them doing the same thing in Photoshop I bet people would have > been > up-in-arms over it." > > to which the response of one person (who writes a column on these matter) > was basically Nachtwey would be okay only as long as any dodging or burning > of the sky objectively and accurately reflected the sky as it was on the day > he took the picture, that the print should "reflect the scene as he > objectively saw it with his analog eyeballs". Basically, anything beyond > that was seen as manipulation and misleading the viewer... > > Quite frankly it's baloney and nothing more than a sort of politically > correct or puritan fundamentalist approach to photojournalism > > > tim > > -- > To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html > - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html