UK Advertising Standards Authority banned an ad featuring Julia Roberts on the grounds that the photograph was “Over Photoshopped”. I have been writing about this “problem” encouraged by tacit approval of competition judges and unnecessarily used by photographers. It’s about time photographers shun this kind of technique-driven photography. Read more about it.
How interesting! Never thought that could happen, unless the “Truth in Advertising” law is violated. But it shouldn’t be because the ad is selling makeup, right? — So shouldn’t “retouching” be expected? LOL!
The issue in the UK is not about art, it is about fraudulent advertising illustrations. Our photographs are intended to be art, not advertising illustrations. Art takes many forms; paint on canvas, paint, ink or pencil on paper, bronze figures, gossamer sheets miles long blowing in the wind. It can even be a religious icon in a glass of urine.
There are certainly fields of photography such as nature and journalism where unaltered reality is a necessity. These images are intended to convey the truth of a situation to an audience who cannot be there in person. I readily accept that. There have always been and always will be purists who insist that an image must be presented exactly as it was created in the camera; no dodging or burning in the wet darkroom, no digital manipulation, not even cropping, and I take issue with them.
Adam’s manipulated images are accepted as photographs. So are the extremely manipulated prints made by Jerry Uelsmann in the 1960s. (see http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/jerryuelsmann/masterworks/index.htm if you are not familiar with his work). Why is it that altered photographs that come from a wet darkroom accepted while those made with a computer are taboo?
Art is personal. It is in the eye of the artist and in the eye of the beholder. And in some cases, the eye of the juror. In the case of photography it becomes a personal determination when an image crosses the line between that which is a photograph and that which is a digital work of art derived from a photograph.
The problem is defining the boundary. Shall we count the pixels and say that if 50 per cent plus one pixel have been altered it is no longer a photograph? I do not think it can be quantified, it can only be “I’ll know it when I see it.” And here it becomes the very subjective, very personal “eye of the beholder.”
That being the case how can the photographic purity police enforce the rule when there is be no rule?
Alan, we had similar discussions before in person, and I am sure you will remember that my point is not about or against “manipulation”, and I am very familiar with the works of Jerry Uelsmann and many other masters of creation. Even Uelsmann’s upside down trees, or Kertesz’s distorted nudes are far more “photographic” than many photographs we see circulating on the Web and in competitions today.
Purity is not the issue either, whatever it may mean. Photography, by its very nature “manipulates” reality by the choice of lens, film, from 3D world to 2D photograph, and so on; I accept that as the nature of the medium. The point is, and I believe the UK ruling, as well as the Dove sponsored commercial that you can see on my site, are making relates to “implausible being presented as reality”; not only that, the “reality” that supersedes “life”. The point is not about a boundary of pixels, or number of alterations, or any arbitrary limits either. Anyone can do whatever they very well please.
The core issue that I have been advocating, promoting, and defending has been, and is relevant in the UK decision, is that when the tool and technique come before the vision, art slides down the slippery slope, for vision drives art. Unquestioned beliefs can easily turn into dogma. It is healthy to question these issues and talk about them, write about them, think about them, read about them rather than passing them down the generations as the unshakable rules.