Photographers have "added" things to photos since the beginnings of photography. Double exposures, sandwiched negatives, retouched negatives, solarization, darkroom tricks, etc.. I think that doing so, whether digital or traditional in process is simply a creative exercise that some photographers want to explore.

Much like you I suspect, I prefer to not use such tricks, but sometimes trickery is fun! So I draw no lines. I do appreciate "straight" photos a bit mere because the pre visualization and discipline required is the heart and soul of photography. I just wish I did not know when a minor thing like a bird was added. The best tricks are the ones you never know about...

Edwin, you are right that things were added before digital, but the issues were the same. For me, I want to know if something has been added. I feel that if I look at a picture where something has been added without disclosure that I have been conned. If it is disclosed fine, then the photographer has not made me believe something existed in the scene that in fact did not. To me not to disclose is like a lie.

As you know, Frank, I don't really have a line other than one of taste. If it's well done and plausible, I'm happy. If it's clumsy and 'fabricated' I'll punish it myself.

You know I respect your view, even though it's at odds with mine. I'm not prepared to live within similar boundaries as you impose on yourself. I do have a problem with the word 'lie'. Respectfully.

I suppose part of what makes "art" interesting is working within rather well defined technological limits, for example a pin-hole camera or black-white palette.

Often these limits are defined by tradition, but they may as well be uniquely personal.

I think Edwin is right about the traditional "limits" of wet photography. This is just a matter of historical fact. While intetesting as history, is tells me nothing difinitive about limits within which I might find interesting to work.

Personaly, it is the possability of easy manipulation of digital images that first interested me in digital photography. I'm just not interested in "reality". I'm interested in a pleasing end-product.

Rob and everyone I have no problem with photographers deciding to add elements to their pictures. I doesn't suit me to do so and I don't enjoy those pictures as I would a more representative picture. However, I strongly feel that if an element is added to the picture it should be disclosed, as you did Rob with a couple of your pictures. If it is not, then the natural assumption with photography is for the viewer to assume that that cloud or bird, whatever was really there when the picture was taken. If it was not and the viewer is not told then the picture "lies". This is not normally true of a painting as there is no presumption there that something was recorded.

I'm with Frank on this subject. Nothing against other kind of art expression. I actually like a lot computer generated images. See http://www.povray.org/ They even have a HOF http://www.povray.org/community/hof/

I believe that you have to divide photography in at least two categories : artificial and documentary. So about what we are talking?

If you like to be documentary like in reports, so you can´t add anything. But if you decide to be an artful photographer the heaven is wide open. And as E. Edwind mentioned above photographers have mostly worked more in the darkroom then outside.

And on this behalf, the result counts, not the way.

I don’t add or clone much to pictures because my PS skills are not good enough. One of the nicest and most interesting lectures I went to last year was by Mikkel McAlinden (Norwegian photographer). He makes pictures which look very real and true, but when you look closer you know that they just can’t be. No camera can produce such pictures, but still his pictures are more real and true than most photos.

He showed us and explained how he had made some of his pictures. One was of a birch, a lake, woods and a house in the distance. It looked three-dimensional with an incredible DOF and just as we could hold around or walk around the birch. He had shot several pictures with a Hasselblad camera, scanned them and stitched them together. He wouldn’t have got sharp leaves outdoors and had brought leaves to the studio taking hundreds of individual shots of them and then put them on to the three in PS (*lol* He said he spent three months pasting leaves to the birch).

He has made a three metre tall picture of a landscape where you see everything from the bottom of a lake (with stones, underwater vegetation), via the top of the lake to the mountains in the background and the sky. It looks so very real that you feel you could walk into it any minute, but even people who know very little about photography know that cameras can’t produce such pictures.

He has made a picture of an apple tree in full bloom which just look like the ultimate summer picture to every Norwegian; loads of apple flowers, green leaves, green grass around and deep blue sky. If I close my eyes and try to imagine what summer is like it’s like Mikkel McAlindens picture, even though I know that apple trees bloom in the spring when the sky is not deep blue, the grass not that green and the apple trees don’t have such fully grown leaves. But his picture is so very real, more real than reality.

He has made indoor pictures of people and of windows which reminds me of some of Picasso’s paintings. No matter where/from which angle I look at the people on the pictures they look back at me and the windows are also “moving”.

Mikkel McAlinden’s pictures don’t lie. They are very real and true…. and heavily manipulated. Non-manipulated pictures lie more to me than his pictures. :-)

I’m sorry I can’t provide you with links to his pictures (his web site is under construction and the other pictures I found posted at the web are too small to give a good impression of what his pictures look like).

Caroline, I agree that if the viewer knows or can tell from the picture that elements have been added then the picture does not "lie". If however, there is no disclosure by the picture maker and the viewer believes that this is a real scene that was photographed than the picture "lies".

While there are certainly many tricks you can pull in both the digital as well as the wet darkroom, it was drilled into me by one of my early photography teachers that if it wasn't in your viewfinder it's not in your picture. In class we were forbidden to even crop anything. While I strive for this standard, I don't always practice it. One of the reasons I feel more comfortable with my E-1 over any other digital camera I have ever used is that it truly gives me that feeling of what is in the viewfinder is in the picture. In addition, you must remember that much of the expense and complexity of any DSLR system is to give you that power.

Caroline, What a very powerful piece of information. Thanks for sharing. I would love to see his site when constructed. Lots of ideas here indeed.

I suppose I feel thatin the digital age one has to draw distinctions between photography in the traditional sense and digital art which has the original scene and add ons and plenty of post processing. But I think also that there is a blurred line between the two.

It is not realistic say for example to take a digital shot and then represent that as the final image, no more realistic than for film photographers to take a shot and say that is the final image as the negative has to be developed etc etc etc. And we all know that there are numerous interventions that film photographers employ to do this. B/w is an example of this. We don't live in a b/w world (and you get to know this more as you grow older :-) ) but b/w photgraphy is seen as the authentic expression of true photography. Colour photography was decried by many when it first appeared as not true photography.

Interventions then are made to the original negative whether it be film slide or digital so as the final print matches the envisioned image of the photographer, even if it is just to adjust contrast or usm it or whatever for eg.

Add ons do not trouble me unduly. Nor removals. I am more interested in the image and how it moves me if it does so. Should photography be 100% representational, can it be so at all?? I don't think so. I am an interpretationist. I believe that is what we as human beings do. We interpret our experiences through social relationships and we build our knowledge through language, discourse and relationships. There is I believe, no out there reality to be 'discovered'. Our knowledge is I believe socially constructed and I see photography in the same vein. We interpret what we see and give it meaning through our individual interpretations. In that sense you could say that all pictures are fabricated although I feel that such words may lead to a polemical debate that just results in entrenched positions that limit understanding, appreciation, sharing and mutual learning.

My thoughts on this (or the evolution of them) are in the original comments to Rob's post.

 Originally I thought  as Frank did, even feeling that maybe these add-ins are duping me in some way, despite the fact that I l often liked the results. After e-discussions with Rob and Denis as well as off 4/3rds I have come to change my mind considerably over the least few weeks. Like Edwin, I no longer feel it is important to know whether an element has been pasted in or not. And if anything, would rather not know; I don't want to be prejudiced one or another by how the picture is produced, just to be given a chance to view it on its own merits.

I also agree with the Eugene's sentiments, in particular that using words such as 'fabrications' or 'composites' or even 'hyper realisations' (which I wish I had never uttered) may be considered slightly derogatory, even if they can be argued to be technically appropriate. It is still a picture. This is a brand new medium covering all of what I used to think of as photography and going well beyond that. The challenges I face with it, in respect to devloping new expertise (PS), in realising what I want to realise in my images and also in coming to terms with new kinds of images are both daunting and exciting. Overall though, it is facsinating, educational and highly enjoyable. After just a fw weeks of 4/3rds I have become less prejudiced about how I see certain types of pictures, whether conventional or otherwise.

There is a continuum stretching fom 'conventional' approaches through to brand new approaches within the gamut of digital photography. Drawing a line anywhere is an arbitrary act that may or may not be recognised by others. There is certainly no reason at all why they should accept it. In which case it is back to square one!

Best wishes- Andy

ps. I find Caroline's post extremely intresting and I would be very keen to see links to this guy's photographic art.

Thanks Caroline for the description of Mikkel McAlinden's pictures.

Here is a link to a site that has a number of them displayed. At least I assume it is not an different artist with the same name.

That's him. :-) On page 3 there is a picture called "Undertow" which may well be the landscape picture I described (I remember it differently, but it's almost a year since I saw it in a gallery/museum). The small size doesn't give the same impression as when it was three metres tall, but I hope you can see all the way from under water to sky and imagine what it looks like real size. :-)

By the way – the price tag on the landscape picture was more than three times as much as we paid for the E-1 kit in November 2003. :-)

Thanks for the link Frank, my favourite in 'undertow', the girl in the bath is very good too. Very interesting stuff Caroline!

Best wishes- Andy

..I don't think that anyone is excluding the sort of documentary style that I think that you are talking about. But where do you draw the line? You're recent, and for me fascinating, post uses multiperspectives to great effect and you awarded a ten for what is clearly an impressionistic and highly worked over image (David's). Maybe I am misunderstanding you, apologies if so, but niether of these are strictly documentary to my eyes. Where then do you draw the line if both these approaches are acceptable, but others are not? Isn't the line impossible to define with any degree of consistency? I have given up trying, because I was imposing limits on my own view of other's work that I have no right to do. I felt that was unfair because they don't accept any such limits anyway! (I was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole). This applies to all art I think.

Best wishes- Andy

I don't object to people adding elements to their pictures. I just would like them to disclose that they did if it is not self-evident when viewing the picture. I do think there is a pretty clear line between adding something concrete that was not in the scene recorded and adjusting color, contrast etc. I have no interest in crossing that line and not much interest in viewing the pictures of those who do. Since a camera is a recording device it seems to me when what it recorded has elements added to it (e.g. a moon, a sunset, birds etc.) by the photographer he or she should disclose that fact to the viewer. I am also enjoying reading the different views on this subject.

John E – you say “the camera does have the function of recording as well”. I’m sure that if 20 MFT photographers (equally good photographers) were sent out with an E-1, the 14-54mm lens, same camera settings (everything on automatic for example) with the task of “recording” the same event (or subject) and do no post processing they would return with vastly different pictures.

All pictures “lie” – also those straight from the camera. The “manipulation” is not only the technical process, but how we view events/subjects (and that again is of course a sum of what we have learnt in life, our values and all that). I prefer to think of all pictures as lies. The other option for me would be to regard all pictures as true (including pictures like McAlinden’s more real than reality pictures). If I were to regard all pictures as true, each picture would still only hold a corner/small part of the truth (though some pictures more than others and some pictures to more people/viewers than others).

Just now I’ve read a discussion between someone arguing about fashion photography and the ethics of using PS to “give” female models slimmer waistline, longer legs, bigger breasts, whither teeth, softer skin etc. I don’t understand why they bring PS into the discussion. Tricks to make models look better have not only been done in the chemical darkrooms and with creative use of light, but also with make up, adhesive tape etc. Would you say that a picture/recording of a model who had had her wrinkles gone by the use of adhesive tape behind her ears would be a true photo, while a picture were PS was used to achieve the same effect (no wrinkles) would be a lie (untruthful photo)?

I have wondered what I could say until Caroline summed it up... except the "I prefer to think of all pictures as lies" part.

Am I the only one that does not see a photograph as either the truth or a lie? I actually see a photograph as a photograph; a drawing done with light. No more and no less. I can't actually think of a time when I asked myself if a photo was "the truth" or "a lie", except when watching any news program or channel. Plus, everything on TV, the movies, in advertising, plastered on the sides of busses, etc. is all suspect. To me it is all just a saturation of imagery, millions of little drawings done with light.

Caroline. all pictures "lie" in the sense they they are not perfect representations of of reality. After all they are two dimensional to begin with. However, what we are talking about here is degree. In your example they might all return with vastly different pictures, but none of those pictures would have people, or birds, or clouds, etc. that were not at the event. National Geographic is so concerned with this issue that they, as Jay said, require their photographers provide their raw files. Do you think a photographer should disclose when he or she has added objects to a picture and it is not self-evident from the picture itself? I still maintain that if I look at a picture where an object such as clouds has been added and I believe they were part of the original scene that I have been conned. Not only that, but I have lost something I find valuable. The sense that when I am looking at a picture it is a representation of what was really there when the shutter was fired.

just my view: no photography can ever tell a common valid truth. its always a subjectiv view with ones own truth. it doesn't matter if something was added or removed or if it is a image straight out of the camera. even purists shots lie. subjectivity starts with the cam taking into the hands (continues by looking through the viewfinder,..., choosing the exposure,..., pushing the button,..., processing the image) and ends in the mind of the viewer/recipient. the camera is just a tool for me to show my sight of the things. a tool just like a brush or pencil or the computer. i accept if someone prefer the image just out of the cam (like Helmut Wolfgang Schneider) also the one who compose his picture using all available possibilities. i do both. what counts is the result depending on the usage.

I too am enjoying the discussion, but dare I ask, what is reality?! Now, there is a discussion.

I think Michael is saying something important here when he says “what counts is the result depending on usage”. I thought I wrote in this discussion that I don’t mind manipulations in the digital or chemical darkroom unless the pictures are supposed to be documentary, but that was in the other discussion (Letting off volcanic steam), but even then I don’t mind minor changes as removing insignificant things in pictures. I think it is good that news photographers/editors are aware of and constantly talk about the ethics of manipulating pictures, but at times I think their practises verge on being ridiculous, like in the case of Patrick Schneider who got a suspension and lost an already awarded prize when he admitted that he had done some minor changes to his pictures. http://www.poynter.org/resource/45119/Story1.jpg....

We don’t expect journalist to quote the subjects they interview word by word. On the contrary we expect them to tell a story in a way which makes it as easy as possible for us (the readers) to understand the story/situation. We accept that quotes which are not the exact words a subject used is marked like this: - All pictures lies, says Caroline. What I actually said could have been “All pictures are nothing more than a representation of the truth and therefore I think that it would be more correct or useful/helpful to say that all pictures lies”. Why do we expect journalists who write to make it easier for us, while we (or many) don’t accept that photographers use the tools at their hand to make it easier for us? (Yes, yes – I know the answer – pictures are stronger than words – we believe what we see, but we don’t necessarily believe what we read. The point is that I think we fool ourselves if we think something we see must be true because we see it. And yes Edwin – I’m with you; in my heart I don’t view/regard a photograph as either the truth or a lie and I got quite surprised the first time I discovered how strong opinions some have against manipulations).

I also thought it was interesting to follow the discussions about the news pictures used after the bombing in Madrid last year, but I can’t say I think it was wrong of The Observer to convert red blood to grey or make bits and pieces of body parts less visible. The main thing came through well enough – I wouldn’t need to see blood and body parts to understand something terrible had happened. Personally I wouldn’t mind seeing it either, but I still think it was OK to manipulate those pictures. http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/cat_madrid_bombings.php

Press photographer Brian Walski was fired from LA Times for having cloned civilians into a picture from the Iraq-war. I don’t think that was an over reaction of LA Times. (http://foto.no/cgi-bin/nyheter/visnyhet.cgi?id=1876 – sorry about the link to a Norwegian site – couldn’t find the picture on English language pages).

I also thought it was quite embarrassing for National Geographic when they printed a manipulated picture of a stuffed out bird believing it was a live bird shot in natural environments. http://www.naturephoto.hu/natgeo_english/index.html

I don’t mind pictures like Walski’s and the stuffed bird being made, but I do mind finding such in papers and magazines which have a policy of not using “fake” pictures. I would also mind if they weren’t printed in magazines or shown other places where they had no such policy because the changes of “reality” are major while the pictures pass themselves off as documentary. I also find it questionable when pictures of wild animals are passed off as “wild life” pictures without information about the animals being photographed in a zoo.

Here is some statistics of different attitudes in USA, Britain and Australia to manipulated news pictures http://www.newsdesigner.com/archives/000293.php. Interesting. :-)

And here is a link to some of Jerry Uelsmann’s chemical darkroom manipulated pictures (for those who may think heavy manipulations came with photo editing programmes): http://www.uelsmann.com

I also find these pictures by Dag Thrane (Norwegian amateur) interesting. The pictures are straight out of camera (except for adjustment of levels and such): http://www.foto.no/cgi-bin/bildekritikk/vis_oversikt.cgi?brukerid=158&serieid=3204 (click on the thumbnails – in the case of the Apple-Mandarin Orange there is also a second picture showing how he made the picture: http://foto.no/cgi-bin/bildekritikk/vis_bilde.cgi?id=90906).

many many thanks caroline for this informativ and interesting article. as we can read and see the possibilties of manilutaing picture are infinitely.

i'm terrified about the reactions in the case of Patrick Schneider. burning and dogding got a long tradition in the wet darkroom and now its outlawed...? and this by the manipulating industry. strange!

pictures are not only manipulated by the photographer. the whole media industry uses the force of pictures to manipulate the public. if not active by composing, then only the selection of the 'right' picture or crop is enough. who nowadays believe in the truth of pictures is stupid.

Just a little BTW Michael: I confess that when I worked as a journalist and had interviewed someone I didn't like I always chose (from the archives) pictures which were not particularly flattering for the person to accompany the article. ;-) Journalist often do that. I should wish I could show you a selection of how Norwegian newspapers have contributed to the popularity and later on downfall of politicians they (the newspapers) start to dislike. :-)

caroline, thats exactly what happened at the time in germany: mr. schroeder felt into ungraciousness and ms. merkel (the (hopefully not) future kanzler. but the actual is also not first-rated) changes her public presence from a sadly looking grey woman to a friendly fresh looking winner. made by media.

thanks so much for the article links, caroliine...excellent reading!

best, john

All this talk about manipulated images has let doubt creep into my world. I don't know what to believe anymore. IS THAT OR IS THAT NOT THE "REAL" EDWIN IN THE PORTRAIT COMPETITION????

I never manipulate images, that's me, all four legs. Oh, and the grass is real and so is the sky... kinda.

I think it is fun to put things together sometimes, but when I do, there is no doubt anout manipulation. Such as http://www.myfourthirds.com/document.php?id=460 .

John E: I’m not sure if we agree or not, but I think my example is relevant (though probably not well enough explained). Imagine two (close up) portraits of the same politician taken within a couple of minutes – Tony Blair if you like. One of the pictures is going to be used as an illustration to an article where the main theme is that Tony Blair is arrogant and the other picture to an article about how nice he is and how close he is to his voters/the public. What do the photographers do?

In the first case the photographer would perhaps take a portrait of Tony Blair from a low angle – so that all those viewing the picture will get the feeling that Tony Blair looks down on them (the angle could be just slightly low – maybe so little that people didn’t really notice unless somebody told them or they were conscious about such things/tricks). In the second case the photographer may take a portrait straight on/same level and perhaps make sure that Tony Blair smiles.

The two pictures may be taken within a couple of minutes (with the same equipment – they could even have been taken by the same photographer), but they would be very different and give a very different impression of Tony Blair. Do you mean that the reason the two pictures look different (and give different impressions of Tony Blair) is only due to the photographer’s subjective, artistic experience? I don’t – to me that would be an example of how pictures lie (or tell just a small fraction of the truth) and most important, from my point of view, how manipulation sets in even before the shutter button is pressed and before any post processing of a picture.

Another example; at Norwegian television maybe 90 percent of the films/moving pictures we see of George Bush are when he stumble with his words, do something clumsy (like knocking down the microphone or trips over/fall) etc. To most people moving pictures are even truer than still pictures, but does that selection of technically non-manipulated films tell the truth about George Bush? Are they like that because of the subjective, artistic experience of the camera man?

George Bush does stumble with his words at least 90% of the time, Caroline, so Norwegian TV did not have to "select" a clip to show his language skills. His command of his native tongue is very weak, so what you see is probably as good as it gets. But he is not physically clumsy (that was Gerald Ford) and is in fact an athlete, running at the time a small plane violated the air space around the White House.

Those interested in the fabrication issue might find the historical examples displayed at the following of iinterest.

Hei Caroline!

I sudden found myself referred to here. That was nice, but I´d just like to tell you that the pictures on the Norwegian page also may be found on photo.net, here

I think the format there is better for just viewing, the comments and names are in English, and the best part: According to the rather strict rules of photo.net none of photographs are manipulated...

To everyone here is a very strict interpretation of what is NOT a manipulated photo. I might buy into it, but it would be so much harder to get an aesthetically pleasing photo if I followed such strict rules.

The photo.net rules are OK, but how do they help you as long as they define my photos as not manipulated?

It all depends on the work flow you choose, some do it in front of the camera, some in the darkroom and some in the computer. Those rules make the work flow more important than the photograph.

I agree with you Dag. Of course it’s OK for a photo site, a magazine or a newspaper (or a photographic genre as wild life photography) to set up rules for the pictures they accept/use. I find it incomprehensible to claim such rules should apply to all pictures if they are going to be called photographs.

Frank – in the link you have provided they (for instance) don’t accept perspective control done in PS, but they have no rule against use of shift lenses. Those who are against manipulations done in the dark room (digital or chemical) argue that it’s no longer a true picture and give the wrong impression of things how they actually were. That’s indeed a poor argument. You and I can go out with equal cameras and shoot identical landscape pictures. I have a grid screen and get the horizon straight. You don’t have a grid screen and your horizon tilts two millimetres. You are not allowed to perform perspective control in PS. My picture is better than yours, but what are we measuring? We are measuring equipment used – not our photographic skills, nor true pictures/reality.

The photo site doesn’t accept cloning away elements, but they accept cropping. I just can’t see there should be a difference if what they are measuring are the photographer’s skills at making pictures in-camera (and that must be what they are measuring as they have no rules against using equipment which changes “reality”).

Caroline I think they are approaching the rules from the standpoint of taking transparencies. In that situation you are limited to what you got out of the camera and your choice of film. I agree that if a "true picture" is the primary goal, manipulation intended to make the picture more true to what you saw should be allowed. If the goal is to demonstrate the photographers skills in taking the picture then Phot.net's approach makes sense recognizing that they probably should allow perspective correction in Photoshop to even out differences in equipment.

let me advice everyone who is interested on the current column of The Digital Journalist: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0511/trippett.html

Thanks for posting that link Michael. :-) Good rhetorical questions and the last paragraph (“Finally, for the true ascetics among you who discover in dismay that the dust spot in the sky that you cloned away with a sweet chunk of sky-blue pixels was actually an out-of-focus bird in flight, the absolution for that sin is only one Hail Mary”). :-D

I also think Dag Thrane said it well when he wrote: “It all depends on the work flow you choose, some do it in front of the camera, some in the darkroom and some in the computer. Those rules make the work flow more important than the photograph”.

thanks.

Thanks Michael. An interesting article. It seems to me the issue for a photojournalist should not be before or after, but what type of processing might cause a distortion of the "truth" of the scene. I am not a photojournalist and have a very loose standard. I simply will not add a concrete element to the scene (e.g. a sky from another picture, etc.).

One of the most famous instances of processing to alter the truth of the scene has to be the mug shot of OJ Simpson as shown on the Time magazine cover to make the picture more ominous...Newsweek used the same source image for their cover but they didn't process it the way Time did. The link to the images is (and a good article):

And earlier this year Newsweek got into troble by putting Marth Stewart's head on another woman's body in a specific pose...on page 3 they said it was an "illustration", but everyone thought it was really her and never noticed the disclaimer.

But it's different though if you're telling the news or making an ad (say for a resort hotel and you remove the power lines that would normally block the view).

I see NOTHING wrong with altering an "artistic" photograph...I even use filters, or unique lenses like the LensBaby with my E-300 that would not reflect the reality of what the scene would look like...but that's not what I'm into photography for...I'm not a news reporter or journalist...I'm in it for FUN and CREATIVE FREEDOM.

I do admit though that if I go into a competition, I do follow the rules, like only cropping and sharpening allowed for a nature competition.

But for my own stuff, I do it for my pleasure, and if the power lines are in the way, I clone them out. If I think the park scene could use a flower bed, in it goes. If I want to put myself in a picture with Thomas Edison (and thereby removing someone who was in that scene) it gets done.

I just happened to stumble upon this interesting article today; I normally don' t read articles on MFT :-( It's an age old question in photography; i remember the late Galen Rowell make a comment like he doesn't believe in adding/subtracting from a photo but fixing an imperfection is OK; he gave an example of a burnt spot on his slide which he needed to patch up; I can't decide for myself which practice is best; I guess as long as the image doesn't look phony or rigged then it's acceptable; for myself, I use PS CS2 to post process my images w/o exceptions and in the process I do enhance the colors, tonality, sharpness ...Sometimes I do remove 'imperfections' and clone them out to alleviate distractions so to speak; 1 thing I haven't done is to add elements to the image, like adding a bird , a leaf, a human to my captures; in short I do believe in preserving the actual image I see as much as possible, but I also reserve the right to edit out the elements deemed not desirable in the final image. If I do reportage or legal work, then of course, I wouldn't not allow myself to edit the image altogether but I'm glad I'm doing this just out of passion as an art and not under laws.

Cheers,