Darkroom Manipulation vs. Digital Photo Manipulation - Part I

Darkroom Manipulation vs. Digital Photo Manipulation

In a world of FaceTune and Instagram, it’s hard to imagine a time we didn’t edit our photographs to the nth degree with a few taps on a phone. It’s true, though — not too long ago, photographs were edited in a much more enigmatic, alchemical process.

If you’ve never hand-developed film or printed your photos “the old-fashioned way,” you probably don’t know what went on in that mysterious red room. Early photo editors did everything from head swaps to photo composites. Because the art of photography editing was so obscure, most people had no idea how such magic was achieved. Now we’re long since past the days when the photographer’s darkroom used to be a chamber of secrets.

These days, the world has accepted photographs manipulation as a coveted art form. Whether for commercial or personal purpose, editing plays an integral part in the photographic process. The advent of digital photography has played a major part in this. In the recent past, developers have handed us a magic wand in the form of photo-editing software. With the simple tools and techniques that these programs offer, anyone can turn to the art of image manipulation.

But the king of all editing software has only been around for 22 years. How did we edit photographs before Adobe gave the world Photoshop?

Darkroom manipulation

Darkroom manipulation refers to a variety of photo editing methods used in a dark room. Believe it or not, with simple chemical processes and a few basic tools, we could dodge, burn, change exposures, mask, and even perform swaps and composites. It wasn’t actually magic — it was just part of the darkroom process. Check "Darkroom Underground" (darkroomunderground.com) by Tim Layton excellent mentor and up to date on darkroom techniques and equipment, valuable source. He is "proud to continue the tradition of classic analog photography in the 21st-century technology-centric world". Tom Layton website "https://www.timlaytonfineart.com/home".

Photography manipulation involves transforming and alternating a photograph using various methods and techniques to achieve desired results. Photographs manipulations are considered skillful artwork while others are considered unethical practices, especially when used to deceive the public. Other include being used for political propaganda, or to make a product or person look better, or for entertainment purposes.

Depending on the application and intent, some photography manipulations are considered an art form because it involves the creation of unique photographs and in some instances, signature expressions of art by photographic artists.

Photographer Ansel Adams employed some of the more common manipulations using darkroom exposure techniques, burning (darkening) and dodging (lightening) a photograph.

Further manipulation include retouching photographs using ink or paint, airbrushing, double exposure, piecing photographs or negatives together in the darkroom, scratching instant film, heating the negative or through the use of software-based manipulation tools applied to digital images. There are a number of software applications available for digital photography manipulation, ranging from professional applications to very basic imaging software for amateur users.

Political and Ethical Issues

Photography manipulation has been used to deceive or persuade viewers or improve visual storytelling and visual self-expression. Oftentimes subtle and discreet changes can have a profound impact on how viewer interpret or judge a photograph, making it all the more important to know when or if manipulation has occurred (digital or traditional).

Joseph Stalin made use of photography retouching for propaganda purposes. On May 5, 1920 his predecessor Vladimir Lenin held a speech for Soviet troops that Leon Trotsky attended. Stalin had Trotsky retouched out a photograph showing Trotsky in attendance.

Photography manipulation, NKVD leader Nikolai Yezhov (the "Vanishing Commissar"), after his execution in 1940, was removed from an official press photo where he was photographed with Stalin. The pioneer among journalists distorting photographic images for news value was Bernarr Macfaddden, in the mid-1924, he invented "composograph". It is a method of photography manipulation is a retouching photographic collage. The process involved reenacting real news events with costumed body doublese and then photographing the dramatized scenes—then pasting faces of the real news-personalities (collected from unrelated photographs) onto his staged photographs.

In the 1930s, artist John Hertfield used a type of photograph manipulation known as the "photomontage" - new photograph created by superimposing two or more photographs, through cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping.

Ethical Issues

Some ethical theories have been applied to photography manipulation. During a panel on the topic of ethics in image manipulation Aude Oliva theorized that categorical shifts are necessary in order for an edited photograph to be viewed as a manipulation. In "Image Act Theory", by Carson Reynolds - ethical theory that evaluates photography manipulations in terms of social actions. In doing so, Image Act Theory borrows the approach of Austin's Speech Act Theory.

The benefit of this theory is that social actions are already analyze using a variety of ethical systems, applying it to photography editing and manipulations. In "How to Do Things with Pictures", by Andrei Pop, details the long history of photography manipulation and discusses it critically. Available for free at (https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/hwp/files/writing_about_art_final_web.pdf). William J. Mitchell's "The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era" (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), makes for interesting reading. It is available for free (https://web.stanford.edu/class/history34q/readings/Mitchell/MitchellHow.html).

Manipulation in Photojournalism

Photojournalism is the process of visual story telling using the medium of photography as a main visual story telling device. While a journalist will use their pen and paper to tell stories, a photojournalist will use their camera to capture the visual representation of a story.

Photojournalism is not immune from manipulation - an incident occurred over an altered photograph to fit the "vertical orientation" of a 1982 National Geographic magazine cover. The altered photograph made two "Egyptian Pyramids" appear closer together than they actually were in the original photograph. The incident triggered a debate about the appropriateness of falsifying a photograph, and raised questions regarding the magazine's credibility. Shortly after the incident, Tom Kennedy, director of photography for National Geographic stated, "We no longer use that technology to manipulate elements (line, shape, form, texture, pattern, color and space) in a photograph simply to achieve a more compelling graphic effect. We regarded that afterwards as a mistake, and we wouldn’t repeat that mistake today".

There are other incidents of questionable photographs manipulation in photojournalism. One such incident in 2005 - when Martha Stewart was released from prison. Newsweek used a photograph of Stewart's face on the body of a much slimmer woman for their cover, suggesting that Stewart had lost weight while in prison.

Speaking about the incident in an interview, Lynn Staley, assistant managing editor at Newsweek defending manipulation said, "The piece that we commissioned was intended to show Martha as she would be, not necessarily as she is." Staley also explained that Newsweek disclosed that the cover photograph of Martha Stewart was a composite. I believe that these assumptions are questionable and misleading.

Manipulating photojournalism dates long before the invention of the camera, as portraits of people (as well as landscapes and scenes) were painted with a little "artistic interpretation". As a result, many portraits of individuals were painted to be much more flattering. This trend was briefly allowed by Oliver Cromwell for a painting of him by Sir Peter Lely, where Cromwell was alleged to remark "but remark all these roughness, pimples, warts and everything as you see me." This was later reduced by various accounts to "warts and all", and the phrase has become a idiom for truth telling, regardless of how ugly it may be. With the arrival of photography in the 19th Century, kings and queens no longer had the ability to manipulate their painted portraits, and so could be photographed as an exact likeness. This trend was to set the precedent for photography producing true likenesses of people and events, with no room for dissumilation.

Photojournalism manipulation has undoubtedly affected the level of trust many viewers once had in the maxim, "the camera never lies".

A government photographer (unknown), edited official photograph of Donald Trump’s inauguration to make the crowd appear bigger following a personal intervention from the president.

The photographer cropped out empty space “where the crowd ended” for a new set of photographs requested by Trump on the first morning of his presidency, after he was angered by photographs showing his audience was smaller than Barack Obama’s in 2009. The photograph in question was a fraudulent composite of John Kerry taken on June 13, 1971 and Jane Fonda taken in August, 1972 sharing the same platform at a 1971 antiwar rally - the dissimulated photograph had "Fake Associated Press Credit" with the intent to change the public's perspective of reality and gives it visual social credibility.

Code of Ethics

There is a growing body of writings devoted to the ethical use of digital editing in photojournalism. The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) established a Code of Ethics which promotes the accuracy of published images, advising photographers not manipulate that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects or objects. Infringements of the Code are taken seriously, especially regarding digital alteration of published photographs, as evidenced by a case in which Pultizer -nominated photographer Allan Detrich resigned his post following the revelation that a number of his photographs had been manipulated, he submitted at least 79 photos digitally altered for publication.

Readers may ask why this important, what’s wrong with altering the content of a photograph that is published in a newspaper? The answer: It is dishonest, photojournalism is a truth-telling form of visual art . It can capture beauty brutality, humiliation, shame, and gruesome truth, to create an illusion or deception (in contrast to mere enhancement or correction)

Part II coming soon

Input : Misha Hettie, Maurice Sherif

Photographs : Maurice Sherif, Associated Press, Nikolai Yezhov, Allan Detrich, Goverment Photographer