My Philosophy of Photography

My personal philosophy of photography is summed up in a Facebook Note I wrote in June 2010. An online discussion made me think about my philosophy and inspired me to record it. Here it is:


My philosophy on photography is constantly evolving, but it largely revealed itself to me when I read Alain Briot's book, Mastering Photographic Composition, Creativity and Personal Style. In an essay on his website http://www.beautiful-landscape.com/Thoughts_6.html, he considers images as either literal or expressive representations


My own philosophy is aligned to the same concept and I largely divide photography into two camps: photos of record and artistic photography.


PHOTOS OF RECORD


The goal of a photographer of record, is to produce images that as closely as possible replicate what a human eye would have seen at the moment the shutter was opened. The colours in the image should be true, there should be no distortion of line or shape and there should be no manipulation of elements within the image (cloning, healing etc). Clearly large-scale digital manipulation has no place in a photo of record. However, techniques such as dust removal do and colour balancing may.


A speck of dust on the image sensor of a camera will create a black spot in the final image. Software can remove that spot. The spot wasn't in the original scene, so digital cleaning makes the final image a truer record. An image captured under fluorescent lighting will have a distinct colour cast. This can be removed at the time of image capture with a filter on the lens, or it can be corrected digitally. Neither degrades the veracity of the photo of record, as it is correcting the image to produce a record of what the human eye would have seen. The human eye/brain interface applies colour correction automatically. When we look at a white sheet of paper under a fluorescent lamp, we don't say it's yellow. Similarly we don't say it's orange under candlelight. Correcting an unnatural colour cast is appropriate for a photo of record.


ARTISTIC PHOTOGRAPHY


For artistic photography, anything goes. The aim of an artistic image is to portray the photographer's interpretation of the scene. To invoke an emotional response that goes beyond scientific representation of the literal.


When we look at a scene, the colours invoke an emotional response. For instance, an orange or red coloured light source will 'feel' warm. A blue light, cold. When processing images, artists may choose to enhance the colours that promote the emotional response they wish to convey. They may promote the reds, oranges and purples of a sunset or desaturate a low contrast winter scene. They may even remove elements from the image (rubbish, powerlines…) because in their interpretation of the scene, those things weren't there.


Digital manipulation is a tool that artists can use to produce an image that conveys their interpretation of the scene. Contrast, brightness, cropping, cloning, healing, dodging and burning. These are all techniques at the photographer's disposal. (And all seven were available in a darkroom.)


UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHY


Underwater photography is a field ideally suited to digital manipulation. When we finish a dive and replay the events in our imagination, we filter out the sediment (backscatter) and we correct the colour cast (white is white, not green or grey). So for underwater photographers, it makes sense to adjust their images to reflect their perception of the dive, to convey their interpretation of what was there.


In the days of film, the colour temperature of the recording medium was preset. Most film was calibrated to daylight but tungsten and other were also available. Digital cameras do not suffer this restriction. I daresay most people use their cameras on auto-white balance and let the camera choose the best temperature at which to record the image. This can result in an image that bears no resemblance to the photographer's perception of the scene. Luckily, we have digital manipulation of colour balance, allowing the photographer to adjust their image until it matches their memory of the scene.


Backscatter is the bane of every underwater photographer who uses anything other than straight out ambient light. Whole chapters are written about techniques to minimise the annoying white snow that is light reflected by particles suspended in the water column between the camera and the subject. Again, digital techniques allow the photographer to clean up the worst of the backscatter by cloning and healing. In their mind's eye, the colouration of the fish didn't include white spots, so why should the image they captured be burdened with them?


A technique presently in favour with photographers the world over, is vignetting. Not the black corners type experienced with a wide angle lens pushed to its limits, but the intentional darkening of the 'negative space' in an image, to highlight the primary subject. This is a powerful technique (at times overused) that is useful with underwater images, when a 'busy' background distracts the viewer from the main subject. Many digital photo processing software packages have some form of automatic vignetting tool but the effect can be simply (and often better) utilised with an effect brush to strategically darken areas of the image.


CONCLUSION


Others will disagree with my philosophy, and that's fine; that's healthy and encourages debate. But from where I sit right now, my photography is my attempt to portray the emotional response I have every time I dive. To describe the sense of wonderment and awe I experience when I view sealife up close and personal. And if need to do a little work on my images to make that happen, that's fine with me.