man & nature # 209 ~ sizzling hot
Tuesday, August 18, 2009 at 11:00AM 
The air was thick and damp • click to embiggenThere continues to be a fair amount of chattering and brattling re: manipulated pictures - no doubt fueled by the recent NY Times dustup. Various opinions have been put forth in an attempt to codify the idea of what constitutes a "manipulated" picture.
IMO, it's fruitless endeavour. In large part due to the fact that so many conditions of manipulation put forth have exceptions to the rule.
Consider the clone nothing in, clone nothing out rule. If a picture maker who has taken every step possible, within the medium's capabilities to do so, to make pictures that are true to the real - things like aiming to represent natural color and natural tonal range, using "normal"-ish focal length lenses, and so on ... if such a picture maker clones out a tiny spec of a branch which intrudes upon edges of his selected scene has he produced a manipulated picture?
Is his/her relationship of that of a cohort with the real been severed?
IMO, it has not - unless, of course, he/she has been hired by the NY Times to make pictures that bear testament to the proposition that stray-objects-never-intrude-upon-the-edges-of-pictures.
Consider my decay pictures. They are most assuredly "staged" pictures. With the exception of the background - the countertop, the sink, and the floor - everything in the picture has been selected by and placed there by my hand.
Are the decay pictures "manipulated"?
IMO, they are not. The pictures are about decay - the natural process of decay with which I have not interfered.
Did the decay happen in the place in which I pictured it? No. Did the decay happen on the surface of the plates, bowls, or other surfaces on which it is pictured? Sometimes, yes - sometimes, no.
Does this constitute "manipulation"?
In the context of what the pictures are about - decay - the answer, IMO, is once again, No.
Everything depicted in my decay pictures are represented as true to their real nature as the medium allows.
ALTHOUGH ....... are the plates (etc.) - part of those things denoted - chosen with an eye towards how they might draw the attention of the viewer regarding the meaning(s) - the ideas and notions connoted - to be found in the pictures?
Absolutely.
Those items, working in contrast to the decay, are selected for their illustrative ability to focus attention upon the illuminative properties of the pictures, that is, drawing attention to the notion of vanitas - which, means "emptiness" (from Latin) which loosely corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity.
IMO, neither of the aforementioned examples of changing or making a picture constitute manipulation, at least not in the pejorative sense that is most commonly used - that is the manipulation (no matter the method) of a picture with the intent to deceive.
Let me be clear about the notion of intent to deceive - this does not include making pictures with the intent to draw the viewer's attention to a particular idea or notions that the picture might connote as long as those ideas / notion are treated in such a manner as to be open to drawing one's own conclusions regarding those ideas and notions.
A negative case in point, this month's cover of Yankee Magazine. 
click to embiggenThe picture on the cover is used to make the idea of driving through Vermont in the Fall seem an attractive and desirable thing to do - which, if one avoids some wide-spread and significant areas of rural poverty, it most likely is. However, in a time-honored tradition of publishing / advertising, the photo editor and/or editor of the magazine has chosen to sell the sizzle, not the steak. In fact, steaks do sizzle, but the pictorial suggestion
that Fall in Vermont "sizzles" as it appears in the picture is an outright distortion.
Interestingly, and rather ironically, in the same issue of the magazine the editor has also chosen to publish an article entitled, The Leaf Seeker: Jeff "Foliage" Folger Is On A Mission To Memorialize Fall In New England - One Tree At A Time. In an article sidebar which illuminates Folger's picturing MO and philosophy, he quite clearly states:
I see pictures with colors that Mother Nature just didn't create. Just because you can take that slider for saturation all the way to the right, that doesn't mean you should.
Apparently, in making the cover picture selection, the photo editor and/or editor did NOT (the word "not" was omitted in the 1st posting of this entry) follow that advice.
In any event, like hard-core pornography which was considered hard to define by Justice Potter Stewart (as he stated below), what constitutes a "manipulated picture" may lack clearly-defined parameters. Nevertheless, I agree with Justice Stewart:
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it ...
Reader Comments (10)
However hard the concept of manipulation is to define, the discussion is necessary. The digital age has certainly changed the way most people understand and value photography. I am primarily a documentary photographer, although I sell some of my work to editorial and advertising clients. What sells commercially is the oversaturated contrasty images – like the one on the cover of “Yankee”. It has almost become the norm to distort photographs in this way and the public seems to embrace it. Just look around the billions of amateur images posted on various photography sites online. Manipulation is the norm. Straight, unmanipulated photography seems to be a thing of the past. While I understand that I’m a hopeless romantic and that what has been will never be again, I can’t help lament the death of straight photography. It’s just another nail in the coffin. Photography becomes as useful and valuable to the public as a Disney movie is to educate the public about the nature of animals.
<<Straight, unmanipulated photography seems to be a thing of the past. While I understand that I’m a hopeless romantic and that what has been will never be again, I can’t help lament the death of straight photography.>>
I couldn't disagree with you any more. Who cares at all what the amateur masses are doing? By claiming that straight photography is dead you are overlooking the work of lots of talented and truthful photographers.
Mark, I am far from being in your league as a photographer, but to me IMO, your "decay" series is art, it is meant to be staged. I think the big concern is about photojournalism, people want the truth, no staged images.
As far as Vermont goes, I live in Washington County right on the Vermont border and all you see are signs across our county selling "real Vermont Maple syrup", "real Vermont cheese" "Vermont apples", most people wouldn't know the difference between products from Vermont or East Hobeken New Jersey. It is like the foilage, make an image from New York, Massachusettes and Vermont and have people tell the difference. Hype baby hype.
I'm not the owner of the shot on the cover but I have many shots in the late afternoon that approach this. Maybe the photog took liberties or not, what you pulled from my article was talking about those who create colors never seen in nature because they don't know any better. I too have gone too far but I have learned what looks realistic and what goes to far... at least I hope so.. Do you jump on all those hdr photos because they create images whose colors are all over the color wheel? or are they just art and in the beholders eye?
If people like and enjoy the cover then all is good, if no one buys it because the photo is of poor quality then it is self correcting and they will learn.
Thank you for reading the article.. oh! did you like it? :-) Also you did review my photos to tell me they are too over the top?
Jeff "Foliage" Folger
Matt, I'm not overlooking any talent. I'm just observing that there is a shadow of doubt hanging over all photography. When showing prints I have observed a radical change in peoples response over the last 5-6 years. Before they used to be interested in the subject, now most people compliment by saying "you must be great at photoshop" or "you must use a really expensive camera", "you should have removed that pole". When taking portraits people expect that I'll remove blemishes in their skin, whiten their teeth etc. It's the fact that most people now seem to be climatized to photography that has been post processed and manipulated that I lament.It's a little sad to know that when you capture a spectacular moment of light in nature people won't belive it happened any more, and just assume you pushed some photoshop sliders to get there.
Long ago, who photoshop was used on scanned in images from film, gravitas took some candid beach shots of boogie boarders, umbrella bathers, etc. Since we were still courting, he chose one where i was in the center, and enhanced my curves. A friend saw it, and suggested he could have a side business "cleaning up" peoples photo albums. I am sure people are now doing this on their own. Good or bad? I don't know.
Good story wife :-). I'm not going to turn into some religious nutcase and claim that the great photographic God has spoken the whole truth to me. While it is prefectly natural to be self concious about ones appearance I think people should learn to live with who they are rather than conform to some ideal created by advertising.If you think about it, if we were to conform to the current ideals of beauty, 98% of us would be considered damaged goods. Ideals that make 98% of humanity undesired makes Holocoust pale in comparison. If one lives with both eyes open one will discover endless beauty. Reality overshadows even the greatest works of fiction and fantasy.
On first glance I thought the headline on the Yankee cover read "Most Scenic Drivel"
I'm thinking that if a publication or consumer wants realism in the photos then they should make equal demands of the text. Realistic text is an even slipperier subject to nail down.
Where's Hobeken, NJ?