When is a photograph not a photograph?

[Mike Warren]

At what point does graphic manipulation convert a photograph
into graphic creation?

We start by perhaps burning in the sky and changing the white
balance.

Intermediate stages would be things like adding a colour cast
or removing faint telephone lines.

What about removing a background digitally to achieve the same
result that could have been done by placing a piece of black card
behind a macro shot?

Adding a better sky is now easy and seems to be fairly common.

I'm curious about what people think about this.

[Marcel]

To me, everything revolves around "one's conception" of photography. In a
world where manipulation of a photo has become common place, the
photographer has the leeway to express him(her)self through the taking of
the photo and subsequent "arrangement".

While some painters would painfully "recreate" a certain scene, others would
seek more freedom and express themselves in other ways. This opened up the
way to many schools of painting. This is referred to as art (rubbish to
some).

In the same way, photographers are free to express themselves if they so
wish, using different lenses, filters and post photography manipulation.
This is not the same as modifying the photo to "trick the observer" or in
short, a photo that "lies". Sometimes, a particular scenery has "burned
itself into my mind". It is possible then to try recreate a particular mood,
say one of peace and tranquility. Arranging the photo to give the observer
this same feeling is indeed art, at least to my mind. This is NOT "trick
photography".

However, although Photoshop and the likes of it are in many people's houses,
although simple to operate, they do not confer good taste to every user. All
we need to remember is the advent of desktop publishing and the atrocious
flyers that people produced, with too many fonts, bolds and underlined, not
forgetting thick lines around text, etc.

[Mike Warren]

To me, everything revolves around "one's conception" of photography. In a
world where manipulation of a photo has become common place, the
photographer has the leeway to express him(her)self through the taking of
the photo and subsequent "arrangement".

While some painters would painfully "recreate" a certain scene, others would
seek more freedom and express themselves in other ways. This opened up the
way to many schools of painting. This is referred to as art (rubbish to
some).

In the same way, photographers are free to express themselves if they so
wish, using different lenses, filters and post photography manipulation.
This is not the same as modifying the photo to "trick the observer" or in
short, a photo that "lies". Sometimes, a particular scenery has "burned
itself into my mind". It is possible then to try recreate a particular mood,
say one of peace and tranquility. Arranging the photo to give the observer
this same feeling is indeed art, at least to my mind. This is NOT "trick
photography".

However, although Photoshop and the likes of it are in many people's houses,
although simple to operate, they do not confer good taste to every user. All
we need to remember is the advent of desktop publishing and the atrocious
flyers that people produced, with too many fonts, bolds and underlined, not
forgetting thick lines around text, etc.

When I see an amazing landscape I don't initially notice the car parked
in the middle of it but if I were to look at a photo of the same scene the
car would jump out at me.

That's the problem. With Photoshop anything can be done. I took
a photograph of my niece and her husband a few years ago when
they got married on a tropical island and placed them in a snow
scene as a joke. It looked real but should it be presented to a
viewer without explanation?

[Mark]

Depends on your intentions. If you are trying to trick millions of
Americans into believing there are WMD in a small country in the Middle East
it might be a bit unethical to present the photo without explanation. If
you are trying to make a social commentary through satire, then no problem.
Probably everyone has somewhat different standards of ethics, but as long as
you're not hurting anyone it's ok in my book.

Keep in mind that ALL photos are lies. The world is color, yet many of us
shoot in B&W. The world is 3D, but we render it as 2 dimensional. We shoot
from strange angles to create fresh perspective. We put makeup on before
portrait shoots and use artificial lighting. And so on and so on...

In a very real sense, the very act of taking a photo is the act of telling a
lie.

Ansel Adams referred taking a photo as as creating the desired "departure
from reality".

So there you go. :)