This is another one of those posts “borrowed” from something I wrote in a discussion somewhere else on the web, in which some folks were debating the relative value of two versions of a photograph, one of which was more or less “straight from the camera,” and the other had been modified in post in a number of the usual ways. Here, with a bit of editing, is my stream of consciousness reply to that thread:

The boundaries are difficult and subjective. The “no alterations” people are denying how photography actually works with the possible (and arguable) exception of certain types of documentary and journalism photography. I know it isn’t news to most reading this, but photography is not an objectively truthful medium. In the end, I’m less interested in some hopeless attempt to literally recreate the subject than I am in what the photograph tells me about the artist behind the camera.

Specifically in landscape photography, an attempt to “reproduce” the objective reality of the original scene by eschewing “manipulation” is going to produce something in almost all cases that is not an honest or accurate recreation of the subject we saw as we made the photograph – even if that is what we were interested in. The nature of the subject and our perception of it is never wholly visual – it is bound up in a web of senses evoked by sound, the movement of air, warmth or cold, and much more. In order to somehow evoke something closer to what we felt when we saw the original subject – and that is what we are interested in, right? – we must strive for something other than a limited pseudo-true visual reproduction.

There are boundaries, but even they are not absolute. For example, many would call the classic landscape photographs more “truthful” than some of today’s color-manipulated images. But what could be less realistic than a black and white photograph? I’ve never been out on a day when it was black and white outside! On the other hand, a photographer who makes a claim to believable portrayal of the subject and then pumps up the contrast and saturates the color into Thomas Kincaid territory is going to encounter some issues about the honesty of his/her work.

G Dan Mitchell Photography
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