Photoshop Is Ruining Landscape Photography

Can't wat to read this, Abbie, then to opine.......great thread.

Making Art via manipulated photographs , whether done in camera or photoshop, is still Art.
Naming the manipulated outcome as Photography misses the point of Photography.
If a photo is reborn into an artistic outcome, good! What to call it? It's still a photo. Just not "natural" unadulterated.
It's time once and for all, seeing this terrible outcome, for the Photographers themselves to draw the lines they need as their official decree.
All this confusion is not that photographer's fault. It is the fault of Photography industry itself.

I like his crazy clouds and strange shadows. They make for a fine.....PAINTING !..................An artistic interpretation of the scene. Way more than a natural, darkroom enhanced PHOTOGRAPH.

Too bad all he's got is aFile !

Not just landscape photography, I'd say.

Off to read the article.

I hope David Byrne didn't spend the £10,000 before they asked for it back.

Back in the days of Black and White print photography a lot of manipulation was done in the darkroom; dodging and burning to emphasise a light and shadow that wasn't really there either. Photographers would get the credit, when often it was the work of a smudge in the dark that transformed a potential candidate into a winner.

Sure Byrne should be stripped of 'Landscape Photographer of The Year' title if what was in the presented 'photograph' wasn't in the shot of the landscape - 'clouds' and 'shadows cast in different directions'.

I hate to think what Ansel Adams would say.

Should the photographer have been stripped of his title? That depends on the rules of the competition. If they specified that only minor enhancements were permitted, then he should have stayed within the restrictions (or not entered that particular competition in the first place).

But that's not really what the article is about. Following the argument to its logical conclusion would reduce photography to a documentary-style recording of a scene, simply dialling in the appropriate settings to capture the focus, exposure, colour, depth of field, etc - as Mr O'Neill says, "Just leave photography to record what the camera sees not what the photographer wishes it had seen."

Photography as an art form is much more than that.

Jane, I agree. Perhaps what has changed for Photography, and Original Art vs POD,is the overuse of Photoshop?

I like his p/s enhancements. But, the outcome is 'more than photography'.......nor Painting,lol....it is a file, after all.

Maybe the Profession needs clarity now,.

Even 'documentary-style recording of a scene' is something of an art.

Good photography is not just about capturing the scene as it is, but about point of view; perspective; seeking out a different angle; and waiting for the right light or other elements to 'fall into place'.

Sometimes a little direction is needed - and a lot of luck. I try to get in the 'right place', even if it means getting down on the floor, and 'let it happen'. Then the battery fails.

Nothing new. Photoshop just makes it easier to do.

http://petapixel.com/2015/02/26/these-are-the-darkroom-techniques-photoshops-tools-are-based-on/

@Travel Pics...ouch

I agree with Jane. I think entering a competition with rules is one thing but producing an enhanced image from a photograph is an art. People have used the darkroom in the past to manipulate an image, now with photoshop we have endless opportunities to change the original but I don't see that as a bad thing, it still takes artistic vision to achieve the end result.

I would be interested in reading the rules of the competition. However, if you take two totally different images and merge them to create ONE image that is digital art and no longer photography. But that just my opinion.

I think photogs that have spent hours out there waiting to capture the right light and hoping a they wont have to return to it tomorrow deserves the prize. Not someone that created the atmosphere from another photo all together.

I can't believe they bring up Ansel Adams as an example of pure photography. He was a master of darkroom manipulation!

ALL images are manipulated as soon as the shutter closes. Whether that be via algorithms built into the camera by the manufacturer or the photographer in post. The same was true in the days of film where the properties of the film or darkroom technique determined the outcome. Everything is an interpretation of the original scene, even if someone proudly states 'No photoshop was used' as some sort of misguided badge of honour. If the rules were made clear from the outset that no manipulation was allowed, or if it was clarity on just what degree of manipulation was permissable, then it's an open and shut case.

Depends if the contest was for art or photojournalism. Organizations like National Geographic have strict rules. Doesn't say much for the judging to award something and then take it away.

If they had strict rules against enhancement they could have requested the raw file before giving the award.

Taking the photo has always been half of photography.

The other half lies in developing the image....it used to be done in the darkroom, now its done on a computer.

I always smile to myself when somebody says with a bold self righteous tone, "This is straight out of the camera!" Congratulations, so you are saying its but half as good as it could be?

Merging 2 photographs is photography.

HDR is photography.

Dodging and burning is photography.

Developing your images in the digital darkroom is photography.

Photography is....well...photography.

Now there are plenty of people that are really quite bad at the editing half of photography. I am trying to not be one of them.

And Ansel....yeah, one of the greatest darkroom manipulates ever.

Well said, Thomas!

Point of view, perspective, light, elements 'falling into place' are all part of the craft of producing an accurate recording of a scene, if that's the intention. But Mr Byrne said, "I treat my photography as art and I try to make the best looking picture." To censure him for doing that is like saying that Picasso should have painted photo-realistically!

The statement at the end of the article, "If something good can come out of this sorry debacle it is the lesson that landscape does not need our interference. The true joy of landscape photography lies in capturing its pristine beauty. Painting it in the crude lipstick of Photoshop is both unnecessary and an admission that we cannot leave it to speak for itself through our lenses." is ridiculous. Of course landscapes sometimes need our interference. There's very rarely such a thing as a pristine landscape anyway, unless you happen to be somewhere like Antarctica, and describing Photoshop as 'crude lipstick' just shows a total ignorance of the subject.

the moment they brought up ansel adams and honest photography, they lost. he edited his work like crazy, but many don't know that, they use him as a god of photography. if the contests said no photoshop, then he broke the rules. yes the clouds seemed to be upside down in that. but if it was a landscape contest it shouldn't matter how it was done. you can still call it photography. sounds more like sore loser talk figuring out a way to remove people and grasping at straws.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Agreed Thomas!

I don't see how merging two photographs can not be called Photography. To me, digital art is art produced using vectors or photoshop brushes etc to produce an image.

It also sounds like the judges were embarrassed to be criticised for poor judgement so they felt they had to make a stand. It really depends if he ignored the rules of the competition.

Did he also take the photo of the clouds? Perhaps this could disqualify in one of two ways - entering the work of another photographer or entering two photographs in to the contest.

To quote Ansel Adams: "You don't take a photograph, you make it"

"Some photographers take reality... and impose the domination of their own thought and spirit. Others come before reality more tenderly and a photograph to them is an instrument of love and revelation."

But I agree that it all depends on the rules of the competition.

I agree if the rules were violated he should have lost the prize. The real problem is the common belief that a photograph has to essentially be a snapshot with no after the shutter closes processing. I don't know where the line should be drawn. To me it's a matter of intent, was there intent to deceive? Was something called an oil painting when it was a manipulated photo?

"Half of the creative process occurred in the darkroom"

the funny thing is, if you set up the shot with lights, even a fake background in person, using special filters etc - then it's photography. do all those things on a computer and it's fake and they should be ashamed. i don't see why people are upset. what if he set up his own lights on the boat and the clouds happened to have been there - i wonder what they would have said then?

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Actually, the rules were posted by someone in the comments. There apparently was no limit on the amount of work that could be done in post. Sounds to me like they should give him his prize and money back.

"6. The judges are looking for photographs that epitomise the art and
craft of landscape photography. This will mean different things to different judges. Your job is to impress the judges.
7.
The Entries presented for judging must be photographic in origin (taken
with a camera), but there are no restrictions on post-production except
that any post-production must be the work of the entrant. You cannot
have someone else edit or work on the image for you. We consider this part of the art of landscape photography"

Chuck,

I have not drilled down on my original plans for mixing images, but in my mind proportions, shadows etc all
need to be one unified field, sensible composition, on the canvas. You can not put a shadow going in one direction and another
shadow going in a different direction and expect folks to say, "we are lucky we have two suns now". It
really wont work that way.

Mike note one of the upside down boats or whatever has bright light on it, the other has a shadow, even where the
sun is hitting it.

Dave

i saw the image, the reflection isn't always conducent to where a shadow will fall. it depends on the shine, and it depends on how he set the shot up. not everything is done in photoshop. i would need to see a bigger version of it. but i don't see a lot done in photoshop, i see this more as a set up shot outside with tweaking. everything else in that article was speculation unless there was a before shot i didn't see.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Mike - Winning the contest does mean £10,000. Might not help your cred; but does wonders for your credit.

How many prints do you need to sell to make 10k English?

Please explain HOW the "Ansel Adams argument is a bit of a straw man in this context", Phillip H. C. You clearly seek out the exact source of the rules, but you focus on the competition categories where it is pretty clear that ONLY minimal digital enhancements are allowed, and by these rules, I totally agree that the artist deserved disqualifying. But did the artist in question enter any of the categories to which these rules applied? -- I don't know. Does anybody know exactly what category he entered?

What Phillip H. C. seems to sidestep is the fact that this exact same competition DOES have a category where digital manipulation beyond the "Classic View" category requirements IS allowed. I quote the contest rules EXACTLY:

YOUR VIEW Category

What does the UK landscape mean to you? A stream rushing over pebbles, a foggy day in the Peak District, fish & chips on a deserted beach, you and your friends on your first big summit. ... Pretty much anything goes, as long as it is in the UK and in the outdoors. ... Use your imagination, as you have the scope for a very conceptual and personal approach. All entries must have been taken using a camera with a sufficiently high resolution to allow the image to be reproduced at A4 size or above, or scanned from film.
Digital manipulation is allowed and creativity is encouraged but it is important to remember that this is a photography competition.

Let's read the pertinent words again:

* . "Pretty much anything goes ..."
* . "Use your imagination ..."
* . "... you have the scope for a very conceptual and personal approach."
* . "Digital manipulation is allowed and creativity is encouraged ..."

Again, I do not know which category the artist entered, but THIS category seems like a no-brainer acceptable category for what he did. Otherwise, he simply made a blunder and did not read, did not understand, or did not follow the rules of the SPECIFIC category he entered. If this was the case, then I side with the judges. If this was not the case, then I do not.

yeah, thought while the prize is nice, if your caught cheating or someone cries foul, your overall photographer cred, something that took years to build up, can be lost just as fast.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Okay, ... it's really pretty simple. I found this:

http://petapixel.com/2012/11/02/landscape-photographer-of-the-year-2012-stripped-of-title-for-too-much-shoppin/

I have to inform you after a conversation with Charlie Waite I have been disqualified from the Landscape Photographer of the year awards, unfortunately I didn’t read the regulations and certain editing like adding clouds and cloning out small details are not allowed, while I don’t think what I have done to the photo is wrong in any way, I do understand it’s against the regulations so accept the decision whole heartily.

These are the dethroned photographer's words in an email that he sent to one of the detective photographers who scrutinized the manipulation in his contest entry. He clearly states that he did NOT read the regulations, which leads me to believe that he entered a category CLEARLY defining that what he did is NOT allowed in THAT category of entry.

He screwed up. Innocent mistake, ... NOT deception.

Learn to read, David!

The judges decision should stand, given the clarity of the defined context. He should have entered the YOUR VIEW category of the same competition, and maybe he would still have his moola and prestige in tact to boot.

I found that too. It shows him in a much more reasonable light than the article. The article makes him sound irresponsible and arrogant frankly.

Maybe some bashing to forward a particular agenda?

Perhaps worth mentioning that this location is exceedingly popular. Many photographers know it like the back of their hands. I was there myself in the exact same spot 6 mths ago. There's quite a lot of debris around these boats, all oddly missing from the photograph. Not such 'small details' either. Given the popularity of the location this image was never going to pass the scrutiny of other photographers.

If the guy used PS to put elements into the picture that weren't originally there, then I guess I can see why he was stripped of his winnings.

If he'd just used PS to bump up contrast, add a bit of sparkle or softness, surely there would be nothing wrong with that. As someone here already pointed out, Ansel Adams did that kind of thing himself - although it was a lot harder to do in those days.

It's a cool picture in any case. He should be able to sell quite a few prints of it.

Last month it was go after Peter Lik. So who is next?

It all comes back to the rules, the judges, and how the rules were applied...

It actually comes down to not reading the rules, which is a bit odd given that the catagories and their requirements are pretty clear.

As for who's next... probably whoever sets themselves up as a worthy target. This story is old news, Lik had his publicity. I expect there'll be another this year at some point.

It certainly does not indicate that "photoshop" is ruining landscape photography.

No, that it doesn't. That's just a deliberately provocative statement.

Good link Robert! Nice to read the other side of the story. All the more reason to point the finger at the judges!

I know, it WAS provocative wasn't it and made for a great thread. Thank you all SO much :D

Now the question eventually HAS to come up: "Is the dethroned photographer telling the truth?"

You would think that a professional photographer would be quite attuned to the details of competitions that he/she enters. If he did NOT scrutinize the rules, then this makes him look dumb. If he DID scrutinized the rules, ignored them, tried to deceive the judges, and lied about it all, then this makes him look dishonest.

Either way, the situation makes the photographer look bad. I personally believe his story. I believe that the writer who blasted photo shop looks even worse.

All the attention, in any case, is sure to make this photo quite a bit more valuable than it otherwise would have been. Drama, controversy, dirt, etc. ... sells.

anyone that puts down a program as being a source of evil is a technophobe or simply afraid of photoshop. many think its a miracle worker and those same people don't know that many people can set up a shot like that in person, even using models if they wanted too. there is one guy i think posted here once that did that with models and forced perspective. matched his section of road and car with the background making it look like it was parked there. it was a neat trick, was not photoshop, yet was not real either. i wonder if he would be disqualified too?

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Clarification. I don't think Adams ever did composites. He burned in skies or what ever but didn't composite. In contrast in the Migrations book Wolfe's team filled in empty spots of a zebra herd to make the image more uniform.

A couple year's ago the winner of the Nat Geo wildlife contest had taken the tiger photo at a zoo. People went nuts.

Bottom line - The rules have to be clear and the judging has to be well researched before the prize is awarded. After the prize is award the organization needs to stick to it.

I only skimmed the article. I can say my personal preferences align with the more 'purist' end of the spectrum (and no, I'm not 100% purist, I'm just very much on that end). But, I'm never gonna say most people are going to agree with it or the public is going to agree with it. Purchasers of art have their own preferences, as do creators, there's a market for most anything. (and while there may be a lot of 'ruined' landscape photography out there according to standards written by the author of the article or my own preferences, there are still going to be those who prefer to run counter to that) Anyhow, I really don't care for images like the photo in the article, but that's just me. I fully recognize a lot of people love it.

An interesting side note here is that "photoshop" gets used as a verb really meaning "digital editing". Yet people say this was "photoshopped" or that was "photoshopped".
Well, there's a lot of ways to edit an image without photoshop the noun.

So, "photoshop" is either used out of ignorance or as a kind of slang. It really makes me wonder if Adobe is in danger of losing the tradename because of it.

they probably will. it just means to edit these days. it was shopped, photoshopped etc. things like this were set up long before photoshop, even without darkroom.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Like people 'annoyingly' use 'Google It' for searching the Internet.

I would say in this instance , with the competition being photography, I would think it to mean, photographs captured with a camera. The organizers of the event didn't like the excessive manipulation so they called the shots on this one. Perhaps the competitions have to start defining how much manipulation they will allow. It all depends on what ones preferences are whether landscape photography is being ruined - I see many outstanding photos that have been manipulated, then some really awful attempts to make them look like paintings. I have a photographer friend who worked for Kodak taking pics all over the world and his work is wonderful. Since I am a painter, he would email manipulated photos of his work so they looked more like paintings. He thought they were great but for me they just lost the beauty and focus of the original photo.

The rules of the competition under discussion here were very clearly stated. The photographer under discussion here just failed to scrutinize them, J. R. S, ... or so he claims.

Any competition that I ever entered made a point of emphasizing that entrants need to READ and to UNDERSTAND the SPECIFIC rules, ... which I always did. Some people are just not scrutinizing enough, by nature, when it comes to certain arenas of their actions. You would think that a pro photographer WOULD be - this is what risks raising the question, "Is the guy telling the truth?"

HW, it's become a kind of slang, and has been for many years. I stopped trying correct people long ago.

There are a lot of former trademarks which are now Generic Trademarks: Bikini, Kleenex, Aspirin, Zip Code, Zipper, Yo-Yo, Escalator, Cellophane, Granola, Trampoline, etc....

Popularity and success are slippery slopes!


Dan Turner
Dan Turner's Seven Keys to Selling Art Online