Working with this photo upset my smug convictions about photography and Photoshop, to the point where I’m no longer sure what is legitimate and what isn’t.

What is real and what is illusion? That has been a frequent, fertile theme in fiction, film, theatre and philosophy, but for the most part photography seldom lent itself, transparently or otherwise, to such a question. Then along came John and Thomas Knoll, and now many a too-good image provokes the skeptical “yes, but has it been Photoshopped?”

That digital editing software had turned photography from a reliable witness into an untrustworthy, potentially perjurious one was a lament which I used to consider misinformed and misplaced. While photography usually told the truth, never was it necessarily the whole truth or nothing but the truth. A scene of apparent pristine wilderness could be framed to exclude an adjacent clearcut or dump, and every ski photographer knows to steepen slopes with a slight tilt of the camera, to give just the simplest of examples.

Athabasca Glacier below Mount Andromeda, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.
(click image to enlarge)

Outright photo fraud was practiced by Communists long before there were computers, apparatchiks under Stalin being particularly vulnerable to ruthless elimination in the darkroom, and out. A web search for “faking photographs” will bring up many other famous examples.

But more to my point, the more I used Photoshop, the more I came to believe that it was in fact a tool for rendering a subject more accurately than was ever possible with film. Among other reasons, film was never able to record the full range of luminance the eye could see. In the real world, shadows do not appear as solid black, brightly lit areas never look overexposed, devoid of detail. Overcoming the limitations of transparency film could be achieved crudely and often too obviously with graduated filters, which allow for none of the precise adjustments and masks so basic to Photoshop.

Sure, I could also use the program to give the tulip fields of Holland a Himalayan backdrop, but why would I ever contemplate anything so tacky? And just as the truth in a piece of written journalism ultimately depends on the integrity of the author, so too for a photograph, today as yesterday. The invention of Photoshop changed nothing.

Or so I thought, until the day I saw the light illuminating the gullied moraine above the Athabasca Glacier below Mount Andromeda in Jasper National Park. However, I only saw this storm light - my favorite kind in the landscape - several months after I had taken the photograph, when I looked at the image on a computer screen. We see selectively - or we select what we see - and isn’t that what photography is all about, in a nutshell?

The second image in this series is the same photo, the identical digital file. The only difference is that all the selective adjustments to tone and colour made on the first image haven’t been applied. (The eyeballs to six separate variously masked adjustment layers, using only the curves and saturation dialogues were clicked off, showing the original RAW file.)

So is the first image a deceitful fake? Nothing in fact was added to it, no colour was painted in. There were just some selective edits, which as anyone who works digitally will tell you, involves throwing away data, not adding to it.

Every digital image prepared for print requires tonal and colour tweaks, sharpening, and other adjustments; it’s just proper technique. How much is too much? Could I honestly use the first (adjusted) image in a book on, say, the Canadian landscape? No, would be my answer. But I’m not sure I could effectively argue for it.

Athabasca Glacier below Mount Andromeda, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.
(click image to enlarge)

Consider the third image here. It is a straight, desaturated version of the first. As a black-and-white, I wouldn’t have the slightest reservation whatsoever in putting it in a book. It has always been standard practice to dodge and burn-in selected areas when making prints, and in fact the manipulation of B&W imagery has commonly gone far beyond that. The sky in that most famous of photographs, Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico was never even close to being as dark in actuality as it appears in the print. The same is true for many of Adams’ landscapes, the merits and integrity of which are beyond debate.

How can it be that the B&W version of Mount Andromeda is more truthful than the exact same image in colour?

Working with this photo upset my smug convictions about photography and Photoshop, to the point where I’m no longer sure what is legitimate and what isn’t. It seems to me that the first image crosses a line into misrepresentation, but it is an extremely indistinct and vague line. Comments would be appreciated.

© 2008 J.A. Kraulis

My Father sent me with a one-way plane ticket to work on Baffin Island at the tender age of 16 - not too happy about it then…

Canada’s Arctic has been part of my life for many years. I started reading about it when I was 14 - R.M Patterson’s classic - The Dangerous River; a story about the South Nahanni River quickly comes to mind. My Father sent me with a one-way plane ticket to work on Baffin Island at the tender age of 16 - not too happy about it then (made enough money to get home - true story) but the seed was planted. I have returned many times to live, work and more recently to explore the landscape with my camera.

Crocker Bay, Devon Island, Nunavut Canada (click image to enlarge)

This past fall - I returned once again but it was a photo assignment that brought me there, to document life in the High Arctic and Western Greenland for a film.

Landing in Resolute Bay at 74 degree’s latitude, a small community perched on the archipelago of islands in Canada’s high Arctic gives the visitor an introduction to being above the tree line. You are still almost 1600 kilometres from the North Pole but have travelled 5 hours by commercial jet from Ottawa to get there. Gives you an idea how big this country is. This is Nunavut (translated from Inuktituk means our land) - Canada’s third territory and self-governed by the Inuit.

That all being said - the Arctic is changing and rapidly. This part of Canada (Nunavut) is far removed from the cities in the south - an area of two million square kilometres and a population of 26,000 people of which 85% are Inuit. I travelled by ship across the eastern part of the Northwest Passage in mid September. There was no ice, not even the start of winter ice. This is the first time since 1978 when satellite imagery was introduced that the passage was ice-free.

A bit of pack ice blocked our passage to Baffin Bay out of Lancaster Sound but for the most part we were witness to one of the great changes our planet is going through in recorded history. The ice pack is melting faster than anyone imagined. Some of the scientific models indicate an ice free summer season in the High Arctic by 2030 while the latest findings indicate 2012. We are talking about the North Pole, a region traditionally icebound for 12 months of the year.

Canada is now building its first deep water port at Nanisivik to take advantage of this. This port looks like a Burtynsky photograph - containers, heavy equipment and large drops of cargo give the visitor a hint that something big is happening here. A new commercial airport is being built - all to be ready for that eventual day the passage is open for large-scale shipping. Imagine what Sir John Franklin would think if he were alive today to witness this. The shipping companies in Europe can cut 5000 kilometres off their Asian routes by going through the Northwest Passage. To add another number into the equation-scientists indicate 25% of the planet’s oil and gas reserves could be in the High Arctic.

Anna Quanaq, Arctic Bay, Nunavut Canada (click image to enlarge)

But more than that are the Inuit people who live on this land and have done so for thousands of years. They adapted to its harsh climate and are once again dealing or about to deal with change. This is a culture that battles constantly with the merging of old and new. Most do not travel outside of their remote communities except to other similar places within the Arctic. Hi-speed Internet is available to them providing young and old alike with a portal to a world to which they rarely get. Elders try desperately to hold onto a vanishing way of life but the youth are enthralled with a world of technology and a plethora of “toys” the Internet can provide.

Arctic Bay, a small town, close to Nanisivik (a place we visited for a few short hours) is about to experience the change as work crews arrive to build the new port. With the arrival of these new industries, our civilization’s pitfalls generally follow close behind. The Inuit all across the Arctic will be pushed into a new way of life and some may embrace it. For the most part, they won’t be able to escape it. Living in southern cities is not an option for most. We are now witnessing a change never seen before in this lifetime - cultural change for the Inuit and the changing of the Arctic landscape because of Global Warming.

© Rob Stimpson

I paused by the woman with the super hero cat - it had a cape, therefore it’s a super hero.

It’s bizarrely coincidental that two of the photographers from this blog were in Cuba at the same time. Despite the repetition, I like the shot so much I’ll carry on with our tour of this often confusing land of faux-capitalist socialism.

In Cuba, a taxi driver earns more than a doctor as they have access to the tourist trade that plies them with “convertible” pesos worth roughly 25x the value of a regular Cuban peso. This is probably one of the reasons that a large number of Cuban taxi drivers and street vendors could use their doctorates to sew your leg back on if the taxi toppled over in the street.

The shot shown here was taken on a day trip to Havana (or Habana as it’s correctly spelled and pronounced in Cuba), and is no doubt a commonly photographed subject as these ladies spend their whole day trying to entice tourists into snapping their well laid out compositions for a convertible peso (basically a dollar).

I duly succumbed and took a few quick shots with my Lumix LX-1. I love this little camera - probably the best travel camera I’ve ever used, it’s small and simple but most importantly it has a native 16:9 sensor that allows you to capture beautiful panoramic images. I find it opens up a lot of creative doors for me when composing simple handheld shots.

I was a little dubious about jumping on a tour bus with 40 bright white, overweight, complaining sonsofbitches.

I will scamper like a horny rabbit to the camera store if Canon ever wakes up to the fact that this sensor ratio is the single biggest differentiator in the consumer market and one that needs serious consideration for the pro realm.

Anyway, back to Habana. I was in Cuba for a wedding and so I was doing the family and friends thing for the whole time, which included amongst others, a day tour to the Cuban capital. If you’ve ever read my other posts, you’ll spot a fairly common theme regarding my disdain for tourists. As such I was a little dubious about jumping on a tour bus with 40 bright-white, overweight, complaining sonsofbitches. But, like I said, it was a family thing so what the hell.

As we meandered through the colorful streets of this fascinating city, half listening to the historical monologue supplied by our tour guide (who incidentally was a super nice chap), I paused by the woman with the super hero cat - it had a cape, therefore it’s a super hero - and embarrassingly took my pesos worth of 2 quick shots.

I hate photographing people, really hate it. Give me 10 beers and a crowd and I’m the life and soul. Put me sober, on my own, in front of a complete stranger, and I turn into a useless sack of shit, unable to remember any of the fundamentals of photography much less how to get someone to pose in an attractive manner. I guess that’s why I mainly stick to wildlife, where I can play voyeur and wait for the magic to happen. Fortunately, this lady was the consummate professional and did more than an adequate job of balancing her gargantuan cigar between her weather beaten lips for the few seconds it took me to work the angles.

I did a little post work on this shot, mainly to remove the pale yellow from the walls and street. Making this monotone really helped bang the vibrant colors of the clothing and clapper-board door shutters. A slight vignette, some dodging and burning, and I was done.

I know you can always crop a 3:2 shot from a regular DSLR, but the ability to visualize in 16:9 really helped to get this one right. Come on Canon, wake up and smell the panoramic roses.

For the record, I’ll never go on a guided tour again. Ever. The best part of this particular one was when the guide led us into a large church, at which point some pompous tart informed my girlfriend that she should remove her hat. After flipping this uptight zealot the metaphorical bird with her eyes, we were outta there. Quickly scanning the piazza for something better to do, we found the perfect antidote.

As we sunk deep into the chairs outside the nearest bar, we needed only a few carefully crafted words to heal the drudgery of the tour:

Dos cerveza por favor, rapido, rapido
Psffft, aaaaaah.

© Oli Gardner

…the saddest thing of all was a “Do Not Resuscitate” notice taped to the refrigerator door.

The new owner had hired me to photograph the old house. It was to be completely renovated. The images were for archival purposes and would be used as a reference for the renovations.

I wanted to capture the feeling of the house. I didn’t know much of its history but the little I did know certainly contributed to its forlorn atmosphere.

The house was built around 1902. Despite its rundown state it was still solid. Perhaps the anti-mold qualities of the old growth douglas fir wood with which it was built, had prevented rot from setting in.

Old House, Kitchen (click image to enlarge)

An old bachelor had lived there alone for many years and had very recently passed away. I knew next to nothing of the gentleman but it must have been lonely for him. I think it would have been depressing to be surrounded by a constant reminder of better days gone by.

A neighbour told me that the old guy admittedly cared nothing for the house but that he remembered how beautiful everything was when his mother was alive. She had been proud of her home and apparently had been a good gardener. But now, where a beautiful garden had once lain, a shocking growth of blackberry bush had taken over. The lawn was over run with weeds.  Paint fell off the house like flaky grey dandruff. To say that he had let it go was an understatement.

Some rooms hadn’t been used for many years. In the nether regions of the house huge six-foot square multi-layered sections of wallpaper surrendered to the decay and collapsed off the walls. The ceilings were tattered and deeply water stained. Junk and detritus were everywhere on the floors. Other parts of the house weren’t as stunningly bad but they weren’t good.

Undoubtedly the saddest thing of all was a “Do Not Resuscitate” notice taped to the refrigerator door. Perhaps the old guy had a preexisting condition. Perhaps his health had been failing in general and he wouldn’t have long survived. I don’t know but it was disturbing to see the notice on the fridge. The official form started off with something to the effect: In the event of cardiac or respiratory arrest, I refuse any resuscitation measures…

Sad.
Lonely.
Melancholy.
Neglected.

There isn’t a digital melancholy mode on my camera and I don’t own a graduated despondent filter. Melancholy. I thought, “shoot the house as it is”.

Old House, Bathroom Sink (click image to enlarge)

The air was damp, heavy and very musty. I opened some windows to let in some fresh air and to brighten things up a bit. Torn, formerly white, now grey sheer curtains pulsed in and out of the windows with each breath the house took. It was brighter now. It wasn’t any cheerier.

The available light was inadequate in most areas and so I dragged a pair of strobes with me from room to room. As I recall, it took me about six hours spread out over a couple of days to work my way through all of the house.

There is a lot from the shoot I like. The four images I am showing here are my favourites. I love the colours, lines and textures in the bathroom. Those images are very much as I shot them.

Old House Bathroom Tub and Sink (click image to enlarge)

But the images of the kitchen didn’t say enough about how I felt. For those shots I relied heavily on photoshop. Amongst other things: I darkened the edges. I emphasized the blacks. I dodged and burned. I desaturated the colour. I magnified the melancholy.

I was pleased to see my client’s reaction to the images. She loved them.

I understand that the house is soon going to be used as a set for a movie of the week. It won’t be a comedy.

© Andrew Wenzel

We finally arrived in the middle of a Cuban slum where we thought we were supposed to meet our models. Mangy half hairless dogs and an old guy name Luis kept us company while we waited for our models to show.

A working holiday, that’s what I told my wife and family. It was to be 7 days in the Caribbean sun. That didn’t mean that I was to have a camera permanently slung around my neck like some surveillance collar. There would be some downtime, but my primary purpose was to get some stock photos that I could potentially make some money off of.

The red eye flight left me sleepless and bleary-eyed . I knew something was amiss when I noticed the local airport workers were wearing pants and jackets. When we arrived in Santa Clara the island had been battling a week of tropical storms and the sunny skies and warm temps I had expected were no where to be seen. Still, for my brother and his family who just came from Winnipeg where it was -30° C it seemed positively balmy.

After a few days the skies cleared and presented some photographic opportunities. Unfortunately, the high winds whipped up sand near the beach, jeopardizing my camera equipment and making it difficult to get some sharp shots of the swaying foliage.

Things improved when we were treated to an unexpected pool-side Cuban fashion show complete with long-legged models in swim wear. I took many photos including a few token ones of the bare-chested male models just prove that I wasn’t sexist and for the benefit of my wife.

After the show, I approached some of the models and inquired if I could hire them for a beach shoot in the following days. A young male and female model agreed to the shoot but said that it would have to be done in the next town as employees like them weren’t allowed to go near the water on the all inclusive beach where we were staying. Further arrangements and directions followed in a phone conversation that night that put my bad Spanish and his slightly better English to the test.

After a one day trip to Havana (taxi shot), the day came for the beach shoot and I was shocked to find out there were no rental cars available to make the 100km round trip journey to the next town. In the end, my brother/photoassistant and I arranged a round trip ride in a crazy taxi that careened down the crowded streets narrowly missing carts and people at break-neck speed. This guy was in a hurry.

We finally arrived in the middle of a Cuban slum where we thought we were supposed to meet our models. Mangy half hairless dogs and an old guy name Luis kept us company while we waited for our models to show. After an hour it was evident either my translation skills or our hurried taxi driver had let us down. Our efforts to reach the right beach were thwarted by paths that dwindled to the ominous sight of two vultures (one for each of us) circling overhead of our intended destination.

“Let’s go back the other way”, we said to each other after it became apparent we were out of our element.

With no taxis in sight we started back towards the center of town and met up with some crab fishermen who kindly offered us some rum. We declined but gave them some beer to lighten our load. I didn’t feel safe hauling out my $5000 camera to take pictures, and really should have brought my canon G9 P&S along in this situation. Live and learn.

After a while we hitched a ride with a one-eyed bicycle taxi operator who peddled us to the town square where we met up with the same taxi driver who had previously dropped us at the wrong spot. He had another fare but promised to pick us up in an hour.

In the end we never did meet up with our model friends, my apologies to them if they are reading this. But we did enjoy a true taste of Cuba with our little adventure, something that we will remember much more than our all inclusive isolated compound, even if we don’t have any pictures to remind us.

© Bill Frymire