Piedmont Photo

The word "Photoshopping" often carries a negative connotation. People assume that if an image has been altered in Photoshop that it's not reality, but if a picture is printed from film it is the real deal. Before digital and Photoshop, pictures depicted reality, right?

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The fact is that just because an image is "Photoshopped" doesn't mean that it isn't depicting reality. For instance, I mentioned in a previous posts how I "Photoshop" all my images, however, my manipulation usually consists of some simple sharpening or a little dodging and burning. What I do in the "digital darkroom" is no different, most of the time, than what I would do in a film darkroom. That means that the reality of most of my images are the same in digital format as they would be if they were in the format of film. Enhancing photographs is as old as photography itself and without enhancements, many times an image would not accurately resemble a scene as we remembered. Neither digital or film see the wide spectrum of light that our eyes see and images often need enhancing to compensate for the difference between the camera and our eyes. Manipulation often helps to show the reality of a scene that otherwise would be lost.

Sometimes, however, my intention is to manipulate an image past reality. I might remove blemishes from a model for an advertisement. The pimples might be real but the model will certainly look better without them. Sometimes I might make a composite image by adding an element that wasn't in the original image.  In the image to the right I have added a boat on the ocean at sunset to the lenses of the sunglasses. The model is real and the sunset scene is also real. Putting the two images together depicts a reality that didn't really happen but then again that is exactly what I wanted to achieve. It's they reality I want the viewer to see.

Many want to argue that images like this weren't around before digital. Film didn't allow elements to be added in a manner such as I have shown here. This is all true, right? Wrong. One of the most iconic images of Abraham Lincoln is in fact a composite image of Lincoln's head on John Calhoun's body. This was done well over a century before the existence of Photoshop. This is a widely recognized and accepted image of the 16th president and yet the public was shocked when TV Guide published an image of Oprah Winfrey's head on Ann-Margret's body. More famous film images that were manipulated prior to the digital age can be found here.

One can even argue that even the images in the world of photojournalism don't always show the reality of the situation. A photojournalist who intentionally alters an image can experience the worst of consequences and can end up performing an act of career suicide. But then again, what about the photographer who uses a flash when taking a picture of an accident scene at night. The scene was manipulated by the presence of added light. And when the picture is published in black and white are we forgetting that the original scene was in color?

Okay, so I've taken things to the extreme here but my point is that we can all scream about today's pictures being "Photoshopped" until we're blue in the face but we forget that all of what we see today was already being done in the photographers darkroom long before the age of image altering software. The great master Ansel Adams once said, "You don't take a photograph, you make it." Ansel Adams went to great lengths manipulating images into what he wanted. Do his images depict reality. Yes. Are they as the scene actually looked at the time the shuuter was fired? Not always. Does that fact take away from his photographic work? Absolutely not.

No picture is truly a reality. It can't be. It is merely a two dimensional representation of the reality a photographer wants us to see. Pictures have been manipulated throughout history and will continue to be as long as time exists. The only difference now is that it is being done in a digital darkroom instead of a film darkroom.

Do my clients notice? They might not notice the absence of a few wrinkles on their forehead or that the crows feet are less pronounced around their eyes but they are quick to shower me with accolades. They don't know why they like the picture, they just know that they do. "I usually don't take a good picture, but I love this one," some will tell me. Maybe they don't usually take a good picture but it is always my job to make one.

More to come...

 Rob on Google