A little rant #2

[Ronnoco]

So here goes: We all know that photoshop allows us to clone bits and pieces into or out of pictures. Indeed, this is one of its most useful features. My problem is this: the extent to which this is becoming expected in the name of composition or a "tidy" photograph. A judge at my camera club recently marked down a photo of a line of trees because it had 6 trees in it. "An odd number of trees is compositionally stronger" he said, and suggested that one of the trees be cloned out. He was serious and it didn't seem to matter that there were 6 trees there on a rather lovely French landscape. What is wrong with photographing what is THERE, instead of what we would prefer to be there for compositional reasons?

The judge seems to have gone too far, since counting trees is not what any viewer does to an image either consciously or unconsciously. On the other hand, photography has never been about duplicating reality either. It simply can't be done. The simple act of making a 3 dimensional superwide image that we can see with our eyes into a limited two dimensional flat image falsifies reality. Our mind also tidies up the image by prioritizing what we see and often ignoring garbage or wires etc.

I have seen it in one of my own recent posts where some folk have suggested cloning out museum signs. Now I DO understand what they are saying from a compositional point of view (I really do, and I appreciate them taking the time to comment). I am not in the least calling their judgement into question - maybe they are right. The point I make here is not whether the picture might have been stronger without them, but whether it is really wrong to show what happens to be really there?

It really doesn't matter "what is really there", in that a photographer can never include everything that he can see with his_her eyes anyway. The photographer needs to be SELECTIVE in chosing from what is really there, what to emphasize and build his_her photo around. Is it the museum statue that you want the viewer's attention to be on, OR the museum donation boxes? Do the museum donation boxes destroy the possible mood you are trying to create with your image?....as in Oh, it is just a boring museum, or do you want to create the mood of an actual temple?

It seems that nobody sees value in a photograph half the time unless the power lines/mud splatters/discarded coke cans/etc (delete as applicable) have been cloned out in the name of art. And if that woman in the red had isn't exactly on the thirds point - just move her!!

But, that is what photography is, and photographers have been doing it for decades. Even before Photoshop, we picked up garbage, changed angles to avoid power lines, waited until a woman moved more into, or out of the picture. Sometimes we even asked her to move.

Now, I am as guilty as anyone in this, but it does sometimes make me wonder: What are we photographing? Reality as we perceive it? Or a sanitised version of it?

When you really think about it, we sanitize reality when we see it anyway. If all you saw was the garbage and the coke cans in a scene, you would not take a photo of it at all.
You take a photo because you see the beauty in the scene and in your mind you ignore the garbage. The viewer of a small 2 dimensional print however will be DISTRACTED by the garbage, so you take it out to centre the attention on the beauty in the scene.

Ronnoco