Troy Hudson

Photo manipulation is common practice, and tacitly accepted, in some publications, e.g. fashion magazines, and strictly forbidden in others, e.g. newspapers. Some photographs, then, are held to a higher standard than others. All photographs reflect the unique vision of the photographer and/or editor, and this includes post-processing, whether in a chemical darkroom or software like Photoshop.

Like a painting, photographs attest to the singular vision of an observer who documents what she or he sees. The categorical difference is that a painting may be generated from pure imagination, whereas with a photograph, we know that actual light reflected off actual objects was captured on film (or digital sensor). This has led many people to associate photographs with absolute truth, but this faith in the veracity of photographs needs to change; not only because of the distorting power of photo manipulation, but because photographs themselves are not capable of providing an objectively true depiction of a subject.

If we release photographs from their supposed obligation to present an objective view of reality, we can begin to appreciate the true power of photography.

It is the marriage of an individual vision of a singular moment with ingenious, but nonetheless limited, technology to recreate what the photographer saw (or felt) when looking through the viewfinder. Photography provides us the ability to look through another’s eyes (albeit through a glass darkly) at a particular moment, which is magic enough, but we expect too much of it. Since photography’s rise as the most authoritative form of visual reproduction (though perhaps video has now usurped it), we have placed unreasonable expectations on photographs to be our infallible records of the past. Photographs do indeed have the power to tell us something about the truth, but are not that truth itself. Viewed this way, photo manipulation need not be viewed in so harsh a light.

When photos are used to mislead the viewer, certainly this is an ethical dilemma. But perhaps the fault lies not only with the manipulators, but also with an unscrupulous public who expect from photographs what cannot possibly be delivered. If we would accept that photographs are the subjective, temporal compositions of individual human beings, then altered photos could be no more than impressionistic interpretations and not damnable betrayals of trust. Individual publications may put restrictions on the degree of photo manipulation that is acceptable, but they can never eliminate the personal, subjective nature of photography itself.