I really can't stand compositing in natural-looking photographs. If you're going for surrealism, or abstract, or some other synthetic aesthetic, or you're fulfilling a commercial contract like make the product look good, then go for it. Composite away. But when I see a photo that looks like a natural scene, and then I find out it was composited, I lose respect for that "photographer."
Why? Because the emotional power of a photograph is in the implicit promise that it captures and portrays a real moment in time--not just in matters of technical merit like color, composition, and sharpness. What makes a strikingly original natural photo impressive is the effort that it takes to really capture that moment.
Gluing a moon into the background of a nice photo is like walking around wearing a Google t-shirt and telling people you founded Google. It's fake. And it's not fair to the people who really did the thing you're claiming.
You can tell the matter of authenticity is important because of how many photographers lie about their compositing work. If compositing is indeed a valid artistic technique, why not lead with that in the title or photo description? But so many people and institutions, even very top folks like National Geographic or Art Wolfe, have failed to disclose compositing--and that's done on purpose. Even worse are folks (like apparently Peter Lik, based on this reporting) who invent stories (i.e. tell a lie) about the personal efforts they went through to get a particular photo.
Folks, please: don't composite natural-looking photos. And if you do, be 100% honest and up front about doing so.
> I have a lower bar: don't composite an impossible image. And if you composite, don't claim the opposite like Lik is quoted as claiming in the article.
I have an even lower bar: compositing impossible images is perfectly fine[0], just don't lie about it.
[0] There are plenty of interesting and thought-provoking visuals to be had there. A few years back there were compositions of gas giants instead of the moon which were interesting and beautiful, also the discussions of taking the picture quick before the entire scenery is torn apart by tides were funny
Agreed! I don't mind crazy composites at all. I like looking at all kinds of photography. I hate that he tries to claim its not composited. That seems impossible considering the clouds appear to be behind the moon. Also, how long of lens would be needed for that kind of compression? Seems impossible to have something that sharp at that kind of length. Several things point to a composite IMO.
"Compositing used to recreate what an observer at the right place and time would see is ok by me."
To me part of why I admire a picture is the fact that someone did the work to get to the right place at the right time. So compositing something that could have happened but the photographer wasn't there when it happened is still disappointing.
Someone I know used to be a fairly serious amateur photographer back in the film days. Did a lot of bird photos among other nature-related things. He pretty much got out of the camera club and photo contest scene a number of years back because, once digital scanning and then digital cameras became a widespread thing, most of the winning photos were increasingly "faked" in various ways.
Totally agree. I know a few professional photographers and some of their best shots were HARD to get. Days of recon, precise timing, sometimes significant physical exertion, and a healthy dollop of luck.
Learning that they had composited those shots would be really disappointing. Learning that some hack was "stealing" their income by compositing hard-to-achieve shots would be maddening.
It's a also a big problem for aspiring photographers. You practice a lot to get as good as the pros only to find out that they are manipulating their images. It's like trying to get really good at a sport and later finding out that the top athletes are all on steroids. It makes you very cynical.
> Days of recon, precise timing, sometimes significant physical exertion, and a healthy dollop of luck.
How disappointing it must be to learn that so many of those widely admired Ansel Adams' photos were taken from the road side, standing on his car roof.
I assume Adams still did some amount of recon. Driving around, sees something he likes, comes back when the lighting is better.
Two of the pros I know shoot professional cycling. Lots of time on the back of a motorcycle to get action shots. But some of panoramic shots of the peloton are what takes more work/planning.
And of course, my own personal biases come in as well. I strongly prefer photos that are on the "journalism" end of the spectrum vs pure art, if that makes any sense.
What would be relevant, is if you could show something to suggest that Ansel Adams considered his best photographs to be those that had required the most "physical exertion": those that were "HARD to get".
Meanwhile:
"Looking at Ansel Adams: The Photographs and the Man"
> don't composite an impossible image. And if you composite, don't claim the opposite like Lik is quoted as claiming in the article.
Let's say I took a picture of someone in a Halloween costume. Let's further say that I called it a picture of the Amazing Mutant Bigfoot, blew it up to the size of a building (in picture size though) and composited this "bigfoot" onto a city, apparently being trampled in his chivalrous outrage at bottom-feeding city dwelling humans.
RAWR, HUMANS, RAWR!!!
(notice the use of punctuation by bigfoot)
If I composite an impossible picture like this, sell it to Walt Disney for the movie, RAWR, HUMANS, RAWR, starring Scarlett Johansson, does that mean that people should believe the picture is real-life? If Marvel says that Thor, God of Thunder is not a Movie but a documentary, so what?
There should be no issue with compositing - photography itself is Art, choosing a smaller or larger aperture or shutter speed changes the image just like Photoshop - no reason to draw arbitrary lines.
Now, being clear about what* creative choices you made - that should be key and common sense as some publications/contests/etc have limits on what alterations they allow (Re: No compositing of a war photo on the cover of Time as an example).
Simply forcing photographers to provide their XMP sidecar (or equivalent) should be enough for validation IMO, I'm surprised such a standard for submission doesn't exist yet. I can't think of a workflow that wouldn't be possible in outside of crappy iphonography, and even there it should be eminently traceable.
Photography is taking a picture of a real thing.
Art is whatever you want it to be.
There were magnificent photographers, playing with light, distance, distortion, creating images in the camera, an image that was, at that point, a reality. This is what photography should be.
Compositing, image manipulation, retouching - sure, do it, no problem. Just don't call it photography, and definitely don't deny it.
Take your camera, set the shutter to 2 seconds on a tripod. After 1s, spin the camera. If you setup exposure correctly, you'll end up with a photograph with a sharp subject from the first 2s, and an ephemeral blur from the movement from the second second of the single photo. By your definition that's a photography, but doing anything in post production isn't 'photography'.
The point is that photography in general is an art that the artist (photographer) massively controls, the photographers vision of the moment. Whether you do it fully in camera or in post production is somewhat irrelevant as it's the same thing.
Restrictions on how that photograph is used should be clear though (no compositing in journalistic photography as an example).
Why not call it photography if it is photography?
Many paintings are also depictions of real things.
Art is art, no matter the tools. Or are we not allowed to call
black and white photograpy photography, because real things have colors?
We all see the different reality anyway (think about color blind people, etc.).
The aim of the photographer is not to show the world how it is (which is not really possible), but how they see it or want you to see it.
There were as many tricks in the darkroom as there are filters in Photoshop. Perhaps it's because the current generations of digital-only photographers don't realise so that they think old-school photography was absolutely 'honest'.
For great example, search for the famous 'Concorde eclipse' photo. It was a 1974 composite of two original but separate photos.
How do you feel other manipulations other than compositing? What about Ansel Adam's photographs? His photographs have extensive manipulations in the dark room. He dedicated an entire book to such techniques equally important as the camera part.
The "no retouching ever" seems to come from people who shoot color positive film. For this style of photography whether it 35mm fashion photography in the 80's or large format landscapes, the color positive slide is the final output. There are not many manipulations that can be done. The image is meant to be viewed projected directly from said slide. However the choice of film greatly changes the look of the image (eg Velvia vs Kodachrome). However extensive manipulation of B&W photos has been around for decades.
I think part of the challenge is defining the words we're using.
"Retouching" is not what Ansel Adams called his darkroom work. In my experience, retouching usually refers to removing or reshaping elements of a photograph (usually a portrait) to make the subject look more appealing. In a portrait this might be removing blemishes, smoothing out visible skin pores, removing blood vessels from the sclera of the eye, shifting outlines to make a person look thinner, etc. In a landscape it might mean removing telephone lines from a corner, flipping a mountain, adding or changing a moon, etc.
I think these things are generally not OK, and definitely not OK to hide (pretending the photo was "out of the camera"). Granted, there are certain areas where it is so common (like fashion magazine covers) that complaining about it is like shouting at the tides. But there are other areas, like natural landscapes, where the fight is worth it IMO.
Ansel Adams referred to his work as printing... the aesthetic choices were just part of the printing process. Occasionally they did stray into the realm of retouching; in one photo he burned a hillside unnaturally dark to hide graffiti from a local school. But in most cases he was adjusting tonality, not hiding or removing elements of the photos themselves.
And it's important to recognize in Adams the challenge of capturing the negative in the first place. Perhaps his most famous print is "Moonrise, Hernandez, NM", and in Examples he talks about using his knowledge of luminance values to realize that he could retain detail in both the foreground and the moon in a single negative.
Yes he liked to burn the sky when he printed that image, but it's certainly arguable that that was an interpretation of what he captured in a single negative. I think we would feel differently about that photograph if it came out later that he pasted the moon from a different negative into a boring shot of a cemetery.
Finally, I agree with you that the film context matters. Personally, I am less tolerant of post-processing adjustments to color positive landscapes than I am to black and white landscapes, because of the practice and traditions of so many color-positive landscape masters to "finish the shot in the camera."
Photoshopping the saturation of an average sunset into "WOW alpenglow" values is gross to me; there was a time when the only way to get those sunset colors was actually to be in the high alpine terrain at the right time. Those early photographers created the value of such an image by showing phenomena and places that most people had never seen. Late Photoshoppers are just riding that perception of value.
>some publications/contests/etc have limits on what alterations they allow
In general, news outlets have very strict policies about manipulation of editorial photos. Some limited adjustment of exposure and contrast is OK but the removal of even irrelevant background detail to make the photo look better is pretty much verboten.
I've stopped enjoying photography some time ago, due to the sudden realization of how photoshopped photography is nowadays [1].
Although compositing is the extreme case, I think most of the published photography, landscape in particular, is equally fake, in a way.
Professional phographers have a typical rationalization -
it's art, not retouching. I'll believe those are not excuses the day when I'll see tags clarifying that the subjects are digitally manipulated.
[1] I don't really know if 50 years ago photography was equally "photoshopped", in proportion, but I doubt that the tools were as powerful as they're today.
Oh well, I'm not assuming that they weren't (I wrote equally "photoshopped", in proportion); also, I think it's a bit more complicated than a spectrum not retouched at all/complete fake.
Specifically, my suspect is that easy of retouching has a snowball effect in the culture. By lowering the barrier to retouch, there will be a competitive incentive to be more and more aggressive with the tools.
However, interesting book. I'd be curious to read what it says about Ansel Adams.
I honestly think if folks paid attention to that last bit you said - And if you do, be 100% honest and up front about doing so - it wouldn't be an issue.
I understand making composites since you can get some really neat-looking scenes from such things. But the issue here is really the same dishonesty that a long-exposure gives: Folks going anywhere expecting to see a somewhat similar image cannot do so.
I would agree but its really hard to come up with a standard like that. All photographs are processed. Whether its film or digital. No camera captures reality as it exists. (Without even going into how display's can't accurately display all the color/tone variations in reality either) Every photograph has a tone map applied to it. The chemicals you choose to process film with will cause them to look a certain way.
Now you may limit it to whatever settings the camera chose automatically, but I'd say its a weak dividing line. Are composites allowed if I used an HDR picture mode on the camera that brackets the same scene with differing exposures? (all done automatically in camera ofcourse). What about automatic focus stacking? etc, etc. Technically all of those would be composites.
Processing is different. The camera won't capture the same thing you see with your eye. A lot of processing is done to try and make the photograph feel the same as it did to actually view the scene with your own eye. And that's perfectly fine.
What if I used the HDR mode on my iphone? It is a composite image made up of multiple photos with multiple different exposures? My eyes can do auto HDR, so certainly I would be make the composite to try to make the photo closer to 'reality'.
I would say the distinction between composite and simple processing to make things 'more natural' requires a more rigid framework of discussion. I get the gist of what you're trying to say too, so I'm not simply being thick headed here :)
I mean, technically it's a composite photo, but it's compositing 3 photos of the exact same thing (with different settings). That's not what we're talking about here when we talk about composite photos, especially because the whole point of HDR is to try and recreate what your eye is seeing.
I hate that too. A picture is not only for the looks but also to show what really happened. I am ok with HDR and focus stacking but replacing whole objects is just bad form in my view.
The moon in front of clouds... that is all you need to know right there.
It is an aesthetically beautiful photo, but it seems difficult to appreciate once that feature is noticed.
Early scientists in the pre-telescope era (I forget who), actually used the fact that clouds only appear in front of the moon to determine that it was a distant object.
I think it's important to note that the clouds are behind and in front of the moon. I suppose some clouds could look like they were behind the moon if they are thin enough and the moon bright enough to punch through them.
Not sure why your comment got downvoted. It's wrong, but raises a good point not previously addressed. Clouds can be thin enough so that their presence is undetectable against the "noisy" surface of the Moon. But that's not what's going on in this photo for two reasons. 1) The clouds are obviously too thick, and 2) the clouds would be illuminated by the Moon, with the brightness falling off exponentially further from the Moon. Also, the Moon's illumination would be the same color as the Moon (barring light pollution).
It's a stretch. Some of those clouds that look behind the moon look as if they're thick enough that they'd visibly affect the look of the moon if they were actually in front. Of course, that itself could have been manipulated to be invisible.
That photo screams heavy manipulation to me. But then Lik is one of those nature photographers with the big galleries whose photos I find technically impressive but I don't really love them for the most part. They're too in my face.
The article is a bit odd in acknowledging this fact and then saying he's going to ignore it "for the sake of the argument". I guess he wanted to document all the other tells, too.
In the video you linked, the brightness/aperture has been jacked up so much that the moon appears to be blindingly white. This just makes it blow out the wispy clouds in front of it so you can't see the clouds. This effect is clearly not possible for a normal moon.
I think people are just asserting what is and isn't possible without stopping to consider that they could be wrong. Whether the original photo is or isn't a composite, I don't know. Even as an amateur photographer, I do know that a non composite photo is possible that will look very close to the original.
Every single photo you linked to, the clouds are visible over the moon. It can be subtle, sure, since you end up with very wispy clouds that have a similar color to the moon, but the clouds are still clearly affecting the appearance of the moon.
The bpotu photo is the one that looks the most like the moon is over clouds, but I think that's just because the right side of the moon is so bright and the clouds there are so thin. But even there it does appear to be very slight discoloration caused by the clouds intersecting the moon.
I don’t care at all if a photograph from a photographer whom I’ve never heard of is a composite, but today I learned about the location of the moon North Pole, moon libration, and moon roll, and that’s really cool.
There are lots of "lies" told with fine art photography. I'd see a photo of a cool bird in an awesome tree and wonder how long the photographer had to wander around the woods to get close enough to a bird to photograph it that well. Then I learned the trick was to cut off a branch from a nice tree and put in on a tripod near a bird feeder with another large photo as the background. I use a similar technique with macro photography, bringing bugs into my kitchen and creating a small scene for them. Yet, even when I tell people how they were done, they're still impressed. And I'm still impressed by good bird photos, as well as photos taken with many other "tricks" I've learned.
But I think there's a clear difference in what Lik has done here and all of the other styles of tricks. It doesn't have anything to do with "in camera" vs. Photoshop. I can take an impressive photo of a spider standing on a sheet of paper, the scene I set up is more to avoid adding distracting things into the photo rather than to "lie" to the viewer. Also, virtually every photo you've seen of the Milky Way with a clear foreground view is a composite, but it's a composite of at least one, possibly two impressive photos that could stand on their own.
When you look at Lik's photo in the linked article, the individual photos are completely unimpressive in every way. The only thing that makes them impressive is the composite. The reality of it is, any rank amateur could have produced that photo. And I think that's way so many more people consider this type of "lie" worse than all of the other "lies" that appear in all types of photography.
> I'd see a photo of a cool bird in an awesome tree and wonder how long the photographer had to wander around the woods to get close enough to a bird to photograph it that well. Then I learned the trick was to cut off a branch from a nice tree and put in on a tripod near a bird feeder with another large photo as the background.
I have never heard of any photographer ever needing to do that. Could you please elaborate? I, as an amateur photographer (like really really amateur) can easily manage to shoot birds super close up.
You've got some good shots, but they're a bit grainy when you zoom in. With a staged scene you can use a flash or use the position of the Sun to make sure you have enough light so things don't turn out so grainy. I just Googled "Bird Photography Setup", and all of the top links had plenty of info about how it's done. Below is a video from a local (to me) guy, I learned of the technique from a colleague of his who he does workshops with.
>You've got some good shots, but they're a bit grainy when you zoom in.
That is because I have a cheap lens and don't use a full frame camera. It's as simple as that. My camera has twice the noise of a professional full frame camera. And using a professional lens would mean I can lower my ISO further reducing noise. I have shot with a 500 F/4. Its incredible, but I can't justify buying a $9000 lens.
>With a staged scene you can use a flash or use the position of the Sun to make sure you have enough light so things don't turn out so grainy.
Sure, but that doesn't require a staged scene. I would just hang out with the setting/rising sun behind my back and shoot in a narrow 30 degree arc of where the light is the best. To your point, yes staged _anything_ is easier than spending hours finding the perfect shot. But I don't think what you're saying is indicative of how a professional or amateur bird photographer goes about producing their work. One other thing, rare birds don't just hang out in your backyard,, you have to go to them - they don't come to you - making staged photography almost impossible.
If that works for you, great. But I can attest that this absolutely is a method used by many professionals. I've since met dozens of people who make their living off of photography who use it.
For birds that don't come to bird feeders, there are other techniques. E.g. if you want to shoot bald eagles, you can go to lock and dam 14 on the Mississippi (Le Claire, Iowa). People use slingshots to shoot fish out into the river so the eagles will dive in close.
There are forums for birding groups to post where rare birds have been spotted hanging out. Photographers will "flock" there and bait the birds to get a shot. So, a bit of a combination of going to the bird and bringing it to you.
For a hobbyist, spending hours out in the woods, to maybe get a shot, maybe in descent lighting, might make for a fun, relaxing way to spend some time. But people counting on getting shots for a living are going to use whatever methods make them efficient. The "honest" photographers will get beat out of the market by competition.
I don't think its dishonest to increase your odds of taking a picture, and sorry if this sounds rude, but I don't believe you that baiting is mainstream/necessary/all that useful. We're just going in circles so there's no point in arguing. You have your opinion and I have mine.
I was completely unaware of this photographer's work until an acquaintance mentioned that she wanted one of the photos as a gift from her partner. The impression I got at the time was there was an aspirational quality to owning one because they were very expensive.
She also wanted a Rolleiflex camera because that is what Lik uses.
I didn't think too much of the interaction until looking up details and finding the various allegations of fakery, and so forth.
I see a great deal of similarity between Lik's work and marketing and Thomas Kincade. And all that's fine and good, and people can spend their money on what they want.
But the statement Lik made about "pressing the shutter" (sic) makes me a little bit sad and angry. Leave aside the "false-advertising" angle. I'm bothered equally by Lik setting up a scenario that's unrepeatable. Anyone wishing to repeat what Lik claims to have done in a single shot is destined for disappointment.
>Anyone wishing to repeat what Lik claims to have done in a single shot is destined for disappointment.
Well, getting the right conditions with the right kind of cloud cover and light is equally improbable. Also, personally, I don't think that this shot is particularly difficult to achieve. Not identical, but very close is entirely possible.
The one of the left ("Moonlit Dreams") is just obviously fake-looking, to me, even before the article's tells. The clouds-behind-the-moon issue is pretty obvious, which might be twigging my "blatantly fake / videogame capture" detector.
To everyone saying "it's Art, they can do whatever they want" ... I think that's true, but if that's your approach, then you need to make Art that looks better than something I'd airbrush on the side of a van. So the demands are a good bit higher once you're no longer claiming the implied authenticity of an actual photograph.
It's like saying something's a True Story when it's not. When it's not, then you're held to a much higher standard of quality and creativity. Saying something is a True Story when it's not means you want to write fiction, but have the gentler criticism that is applied to true stories.
Same with photographs.
As Photoshopped images, those photos are freakin' cheeseball.
When the resolution of the source material differs or lossy compression was involved, it can be possible to differentiate between the parts. In it's easiest form you subject suspected forgeries to lossy compression and check with a visual diff whether the loss was uniform. Search for "jpeg artifacts forgery" to get an impression.
Some photo competitions will ask for original RAW images as well as the actual photograph, e.g. for the Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year FAQ:
What forms of digital adjustments are NOT acceptable?
Adding or removing objects (eg animals, animal parts, plants or people) is not permitted.
Why do you request the RAW file, original JPEG, original transparency or negative for all categories?
To check that any adjustments made to the image comply with our rules.
The tools are most effective against people that don't understand what they are doing. It's pretty straightforward to fool such tools if you know what you are doing a especially if you have access to them.
Being that an automated process would probably have a rather fixed set of algorithms to detect phoniness, the crook could work around them. A thorough check will probably always involve old-fashioned detective work, often specific to the subject and environment of the photo itself.
By the way, in one photo, the clouds appear to go behind the moon. Unless it's the end-of-times, that can't happen.
Why? Because the emotional power of a photograph is in the implicit promise that it captures and portrays a real moment in time--not just in matters of technical merit like color, composition, and sharpness. What makes a strikingly original natural photo impressive is the effort that it takes to really capture that moment.
Gluing a moon into the background of a nice photo is like walking around wearing a Google t-shirt and telling people you founded Google. It's fake. And it's not fair to the people who really did the thing you're claiming.
You can tell the matter of authenticity is important because of how many photographers lie about their compositing work. If compositing is indeed a valid artistic technique, why not lead with that in the title or photo description? But so many people and institutions, even very top folks like National Geographic or Art Wolfe, have failed to disclose compositing--and that's done on purpose. Even worse are folks (like apparently Peter Lik, based on this reporting) who invent stories (i.e. tell a lie) about the personal efforts they went through to get a particular photo.
Folks, please: don't composite natural-looking photos. And if you do, be 100% honest and up front about doing so.