Afterlight on Andromeda
Athabasca Glacier below Mount Andromeda, Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.
(click image to enlarge)
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
July 11th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
. . .Artists of pencils, chalks and tube-colors would rush to capture the perfect light of Your first photo. Then at home would finish-delete-tint-tone or do a ’series’ of that feeling. You are an Artist of digital data as your color palette captures instantly Your privied vistas, and our left brain values this B&W way of precise opposite/certain focus. But the true Artist sees colors bold/soft/ blended from the right brain creative. BOTH points of view are necessary as a Human experience. Your photos are original, authentic . . . no matter what You do to them. Your talents are such a gift to Us. So thanks for sharing ALL of them and your expertise at capturing such “Heaven on Earth” . .
S.E.J.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Consider that art is not concerned with legitimacy, with reality, with truth, but instead with presenting an image that entices an emotional response from the viewer. Landscape photography presents a dilemma as to how far one can take the deception, for unlike the impressionistic picture of a painter, which is overwhemingly the artist’s inner vision, landscape photographs are historical records, and as such, can only be manipulated with skilled delicacy. A good photograph ideally brings an altered state to the viewer; it triggers emotion based on the viewer’s personal history and memory. The photographer’s struggle is invisible, yet omnipresent.
Photographs are all illusory, not merely because of manipulation of reality, but because they stop time. Ideally, a good photograph can evoke emotional response again and again with each viewing, unlike the impossibility of seeing a beautiful scene in real time, (impossible because the light changes, etc.) Preferably the photograph brings about a joyous exaltation for the beauty of our planet. Reverance, respect.
Misrepresentation? Phooey! If it weren’t for our illusions, the place would seem dismal, uninteresting and as predictable as the images on our nightly newscasts.
Mr. Kraulis, use whatever alchemy is at your disposal. The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. It has been said, and the author escapes me, “a pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality”.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Thank you for your generous remarks, Echo and S.E.J. I don’t consider my work and most photography in general to be art, partly because for me it doesn’t matter, and partly because photography has a cultural significance far beyond that of all the graphic arts. But that’s a very long discussion. And certainly the work of Ansel Adams is high art. I remember seeing his grand prints in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and they seemed a very worthy complement to the classic Greek and Roman sculpture in the same spaces. Both were expressions of an ideal, of perfection.
But does Adams’ work owe acknowledgement to something more than art? I would argue that it does. If his prints are pure art, then anything goes. The moon in Moonrise could in theory have been added in the darkroom, and the quality of the image wouldn’t be in the least any different. But were that the case (it’s not), most of the meaning of the work for me would evaporate. What gives the image its power is the fact that Adams was a witness. He was there, feverishly setting up the shot before the light faded on the cemetery in the foreground. Through this great photograph, he shares with us the experience of singular event, in greater detail than even his own memory could hold.
The black sky in moonrise is part of the vocabulary of the medium; a photo-literate viewer would know that it is expressive and achieved with an orange or red filter. But that’s not the case with the moon; we can only know that it was actually there through Adams’ own assertion. Truth counts.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Cool. Janis you’re the Photoshop Master!! Who knew there were so many colours in that grey? A very enjoyable and thought provoking read. Thanks Janis!
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
Hello,
My name is Elizabeth and I am a Toronto based filmmaker. I was also born in Latvia. I have a question: I am currently working on a film that is set in the wilderness in 19th century, it involved a character walking around the landscape quite a bit… I was wondering if you could possibly suggest some of the beautiful ponds, rivers, creeks within approx. 2 hour distance from Toronto.
Thank you very much, I really like your work,
Elizabeth
October 26th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Hi,
I bought your book on great Canadian landscapes few months ago and I was reviewing it yesterday evening. After a quick search on Google to find more about J.A. Kraulis, I came across your question “What is real and what is illusion?” Well, I must say that this question came to my mind while I was reviewing your book. The light is so dramatic that it almost seems unreal.
But frankly, I don’t care what is real and what is illusion when considering art. All that matters to me is the emotions that get on the surface. Of course, tulip fields of Holland with a Himalayan backdrop might not get my attention because it is too unreal. But if well presented, even that type of work can get my attention. The author is interpreting - this is art.
On the other hand, if I consider photographic work in the context of journalistic work, the author has to be very careful with digital editing. I remember some Beyrouth photos that were published in a newspaper with some smoke columns that had been substantially edited to make the story more dramatic: this is not appropriate. In my humble opinion, editing journalistic photos is OK as long as it only serves to improve an imperfect image capture (a little more contrast here, dodge the face over here, etc.).
Comparisons can be made with other domains. In sports, we would discuss doping. Doping is cheating, as is digital editing of journalistic photos to render things that are not real. Digital editing to produce something unreal that seems real is just what a fiction author is doing in literature. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as no one claims its real.
I hope the fact that the “real or unreal?” question came to my mind while reviewing your book is not received as an insult. No matter the answer to this question, your book is a masterpiece.
Alain
October 27th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Thanks Alain!
What is legitimate in editorial is a long topic. Some opinions about that altered bomb smoke photo in Lebanon suggest that it is not really significantly more dramatic than the original, and that it was just a clumsy, too obvious effort on the part of the photographer to create a better composition. There was another case where a war photographer had interchanged the best poses of different individuals from two separate but very similar photos into one slightly stronger composition. All hell broke loose over that one. But in both of the above cases, did the photographer misrepresent the reality of what occurred? I don’t think so. When writers put statements in quotation marks, no one goes nuts when they don’t indicate the coughs, the stammers, the mid-sentence corrections, etc. In fact, any written piece is an interpretation, and so are photos by immediate virtue of what the composition chooses to exclude. Some of the debates over “doctored photos” are just splitting hairs. And some are purely political - the debate over the bombing smoke conveniently distracts from the fact that more than likely there were shredded bodies in the street below. The “controversy” is lamentable in that context.
Meanwhile, combined images such as the one mentioned by that combat photographer which provoked so much condemnation may soon be regarded somewhat differently. Many cameras now take both video and stills, but in fact in a few years, that may be true for all cameras, considering the recent buzz around the new Canon 5D Mark II. It is also now entirely practical to do “large-format” work by stitching together many overlapping smaller digital images. So the distinction between sequences of images and single shots is already blurred and somewhat arbitrary.
BTW, every image in my book which you so kindly mentioned was taken on transparency film. None were digitally adjusted, except for whatever steps the printer had to take to accurately reproduce the original. But that doesn’t mean they were true to life. If they had been digital photos, you can be sure that I would have tweaked every single one, and all would have looked (and probably been) more real.
All the best,
Janis
November 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Hi Elizabeth,
Sorry! I only just noticed your request today. I’m supposed to get a Wordpress notification whenever someone posts a comment to one of my photos, but that has not been happening consistently. Since I don’t manage the site, I don’t have access to your email address, so I can only respond here until I can reach Andy who is in Antarctica, I believe. If you still need some location suggestions and by some remote chance happen to read this, email me directly at kraulis@shaw.ca
Janis
February 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Janis: I just found this site, so I apologize for a comment that is months after the original post. This is a topic that resonates with me. Indeed in my own blog, a year ago, I wrote in “Get Real” that one of my professional photography teacher/mentors made the comment that serious photographers “make” photographs (as opposed to “taking” them). This was back in the day of film based photography. I never have forgotten this comment. It was, I believe, a milestone in my own photographic journey as I realized that as the artist, I was not just the photographer, but I was in fact “responsible” for making a successful photograph.
I truly appreciate your comments about what we “see” as photographers, and how we select what we see. And isn’t our goal than, as an artist trying to produce a unique photograph, to create a print that represents what we saw? This is a dramatic photo and whether it is “real” or not (something I believe to be almost purely subjective) matters not one bit to me. It certainly could be real.
I can see I need to look at the Canadian Landscape Book. Hope you’ll keep on making dramatic photos and thought-provoking posts.
April 4th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
[…] recorded first by Dajoseph on 2009-02-21→ Afterlight on Andromeda […]
May 19th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
As for truth and authenticity in a photograph one produces / captures, I wouldn’t outright place a judgment with regard to truth and authenticity in a photograph except where it is pertinent: as evidence in court and as news reporting - but even here it may only be relevant with respect to key (relevant) elements of the photograph.
For example, slightly tweaking the contrast or tone of a scene to enhance a photograph without affecting the “content” seems harmless. On the contrary, think back to the photo journalist who (poorly) manipulated a photograph taken during the recent Israeli-Lebanon conflict. The dark puffs of smoke were copied and pasted or cloned to make the scene appear more menacing. This photo journalist was “called” on this manipulation and if I remember correctly, reprimanded for it. I would say he was not justified in manipulating the photo in this way.
If you are photographing a landscape, are you obliged to render it as closely as possible to how you experienced it with your eyes? Why? Is it more important to produce an image that is more pleasing to you than the scene you witnessed? I think most photographers and professionals who review a lot of photos within their given field expect that an image has been manipulated to some degree while the average person with a less-trained eye might expect the image to be more representative of how the eye would see a given scene / situation, etc.
My two cents - hope they make sense