On 10/2/05, Winsor Crosby <wincros@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I don't think that either of you was going as a journalist to
> document the country, but taking pictures of things you encountered
> that pleased you about the place. I don't think there is any lie of
> omission in that. The goal of travel photography is different. As a
> viewer of photographs I think you have to take into account the place
> you find the pictures. A traveling friend is going to show you
> pictures of things that made him enthusiastic about his trip. You
> would expect something else from a journalist documenting a stated
> aspect of a country or event.
Yes you're right here. But, let's look at it from the travel
photography perspective. I was taking photos for my personal
enjoyment. My photo teacher's comments were in reference to him
feeling that my work was of professional quality but if I wanted to do
that type of work professionally then I would need to be aware that my
photos weren't showing a big aspect of Vietnam (that it's very
crowded). A lot of that would depend on the type of piece I was doing
and what type of idea I wanted to convey.
I think with travel photography you still have some responsibility to
give people an accurate idea of what the country is like. While in
Cambodia visiting the Khmer temples in the Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) area
I took great pains to keep tourists out of my shots. From an artistic
perspective that's nice. But if they were included in a travel guide
for Cambodia it gives the impression that the temples are relatively
deserted and quiet. That's absolutely not the case. The temples are
crawling with tourists as well as local vendors and children either
begging or trying to sell you stuff. There's a balance that you have
to strike between beautiful images and accurate images. Most of the
guides I've seen show the beautiful shots with no people. Even if the
text mentions crowds it still creates a romantic idea in your mind
that you can be the completely alone in these very beautiful places
and enjoy quiet spiritual moments.
> Interestingly discussion keeps talking about cropping and omission of
> detail that changes the import of the picture. The article also
> included the additional element of a clenched fist that was inserted
> and not in the original. That goes beyond the genteel term of
> omission and is just falsification and a blatant lie. Photoshop is
> returning us to the era before photography when newspapers were
> illustrated by artists who did what they were told. Just something to
> grab the attention for the article and to match the sense of the
> article.
I didn't recall seeing anything about the raised fist in the article
so I double checked and don't see anything in the text about that.
Yes, the 2 photos differ in that regard but it's important to note
that they're by different photographers. The top photo was shot by one
photographer and was included in the newspaper article. The other
photo was shot by the author of the article. I suspect in this case
it's just a question of the timing of the shots. For instance, you can
also see that there are different people in the background.
However, that's not to say that photo manipulation doesn't happen but
I think that's a separate issue. The article mainly talks about
cropping. My points about travel photo is more of an issue of shot
selection (although cropping comes into play as well).
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