What counts as altering a photo. Is it color correction or true photoshopping. If a photo is not direct from the camera is it considered doctored or altered.
You raise a question that's as related to philosophy as it is to photography.
All images are "altered" in one way or another, because no camera-lens-film/sensor combination duplicate what we see with our eyes, optic nerves and brains. All we can do is try to come close to the reality that we see, if that's what we want from a photo.
So any post processing that does not try to coax the resulting image back closer to what the photographer saw could be considered "altering." You mention color correction, which our images need but our eyes do not. That's a great example. Also, RAW images come straight out of the camera very flat, so they actually need some sharpening and contrast adjustment, just to get them close to what the photographer perceived while taking the photo. Likewise, a jpeg is using an algorithm to make a finished image, and that may not reflect reality straight out of the camera either. I have cameras that offer numerous different jpeg processes. The resulting images all look slightly different. Which one is "real?"
In the end, the photographer who is trying to make their images reflect what they saw will do what they can to overcome the limitations of the photographic tech and technique that was used, and nudge the image to reflect what they saw.
I had a deep discussion with a photojournalism professor when I was in college. All of us students had put our b/w prints from an assignment on the wall for critiques and grading. I had taken a photo on a day with a clear blue sky, and I used a medium yellow filter on my lens. He peered at that photo for a while, then challenged me. He asked if I had used a filter on the lens. I said yes. He said he didn't think that my use of a yellow filter was ethical, in a documentary photo. I reminded him that we were all shooting in b/w, and that humans don't see that way, so none of the images being graded that day reflected reality and were in that sense "unethical." Then I said that Tri-X will always
overexpose a blue sky, turning it nearly white in b/w images, but that using a yellow filter will return the tonal value of a blue sky to a gray that resembles an accurate rendering of what that blue sky looked like, relative to the other elements of the scene. Therefore, I said,
not using a yellow filter was unethical. He laughed and agreed with me (he was a great teacher and he really enjoyed that kind of a discussion with students).
So what is the photographer's
intent? Is the intent to change what something looked like in order to move it further away from reality? Or is the intent to use gear and techniques that will result in a more honest depiction of the scene that was photographed?
What Kate Middleton did was alter a photographic representation of reality. For her (and for most people) this was a harmless improvement to a family photo. But to the Associated Press and other outlets, this was a violation of commonly accepted standards* of photojournalistic imagery, hence the reaction in the world of journalism. She may not have intended to create a journalistic work, but once the House of Windsor released the image to the press, then it became more than a family photo.
All of the above is from my point of view as a photojournalist. It's very different from what a photographic artist would say. Or a hobbyist/amateur/astrophotographer/commercial photographer/etc.
*One item in the National Press Photographers Association's code of ethics says "
Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects." This code of ethics has been the standard of the industry for decades. Photographers' contracts for the AP, Getty, Reuters, etc. all flatly reject image manipulation.
Thanks for having this discussion! It's been fun to read the responses.
free and an AI app on her phone. How does manipulation question become relevant to that?
