My Photographic Ethics and Philosophy

Field Ethics

As much as possible, I approach animals in a natural setting; my subjects are wild and unrestrained, unless labeled otherwise. I always try to minimize disturbance to the plants and animals I photograph, as well as any others I may encounter while making an image. I love the feeling I get when I approach a wild bird, take intimate portraits and document its natural behaviors, then slip away without ever disturbing the animal. This sometimes requires special equipment, such as a blind, and other times simply requires a lot of patience. The rewards for such encounters always make the effort worthwhile. I occasionally take pictures of captive animals and cultivated plants; these images will always be labeled as such.

Digital Manipulation

Digital photography has changed the way I think about post-capture manipulation. A certain amount of tweaking and massaging is necessary to bring the most out of any digital image. I wouldn't call myself a "purist," because I am willing to take advantage of many tools available to the digital photographer. That being said, there are some manipulations I do, and others I do not.

Dust-spotting: A problem inherent in the digital medium is dust accumulation on the image sensor. In the film days, you got a fresh "image sensor" (i.e. piece of film) with every shot, and you didn't have to worry too much about dust accumulating on the film from one shot to the next. A necessary part of post-processing is removing dust specks that have accumulated on the CCD, CMOS, or whatever sensor the camera uses.

Color, contrast, and saturation adjustment: Here is one of the great advantages of shooting digitally. Especially when shooting RAW formats, the photographer has a great deal of control over how to interpret images straight out of the camera. In the realm of nature photography, I try to use these adjustments to make the image on my monitor match the image I saw in my viewfinder when I tripped the shutter. For me, a "match" does not necessarily mean it looks exactly the same as it did through the lens, rather that it invokes the same feeling. Film photographers make similar choices through their selection of particular films, but digital photography allows the artist to make these adjustments on a shot-by-shot basis.

Cropping: I think cropping is one of the nicest features of the digital workflow. Cropping a digital image is easy, and even subtle changes in composition can often increase the visual impact of an image dramatically. Photoshop also makes it simple to level an image during cropping, enabling the user to salvage a hastily-composed image taken in a fast action situation. I usually stick to a 2:3 crop when I crop digital images, because I find the 2:3 aspect ratio pleasing and natural. I occasionally use different aspect ratios, however, and sometimes these can create entirely new compositions with a very different look and feeling.

Sharpening: Sharpening is another valuable tool for digital shooters. Sharpening cannot turn a soft image into a sharp one. But a photographer can use it to make his images look optimally sharp at any output size. For me, sharpening is a totally acceptable form of digital manipulation. The process starts with only the original data captured by the camera, then optimizes that data for certain types of display (e.g. optimal sharpening for printing is very different than optimal sharpening for web display). It is easy to tell when a soft photograph has been sharpened digitally to the point of looking "sharp," so sharpening is a pretty honest form of manipulation.

Noise reduction: Digital noise can be objectionable in low light and/or at high ISO. Modern noise reduction software can often do a great job of mitigating this noise, and noise reduction is often part of my post-capture workflow when I need to shoot in sub-optimal lighting conditions.

Adding canvas: For most types of photography, this technique is probably unimportant. For birds and other fast-moving subjects, however, it can occasionally be useful. If I'm photographing a bird in flight against a clear blue sky and it gets ahead of me as I pan the camera to follow it, I might end up with shots that depict interesting flight behavior, but whose composition is unsatisfactory. Photoshop allows a skilled user to change the placement of the bird in such a simple composition by adding more of a relatively simple background on one side or another. The photographer can usually be sure the end result is what the image would have looked like, had he only been a little quicker in the field! I don't rearrange canvas often, but I have used the technique to rescue a handful of images.

Red-eye removal: Once in a great while this tool is useful for bird photography. In most cases, it is easy to avoid red-eye problems in the field, but in a few situations (e.g. when shooting owls after dark, with their huge eyes and dilated pupils), virtually any artificial light source will create red-eye problems. In these cases, a simple Photoshop fix for red-eye can save a great image from the Recycle Bin.

Cloning and other tools: Photoshop makes it relatively easy to remove distracting elements, such as errant twigs and leaves, from the background, and even from in front of the subject. If my objective were to shoot bird photographs for field guides, I might use this technique to tidy up my images. I photograph, however, to portray plants and animals in natural environments, and I think the background is an important part of every image. By removing bits of the natural context of the bird, I think one changes the content of the image, so these are not manipulations I currently perform.

Similarly, Photoshop makes it relatively trivial to "reconstruct" bits of the bird that might be cut off by the frame edges, as long as one has a suitable template from which to reconstruct. Wingtips are frequently added to birds in this fashion. This is another manipulation I do not use in my workflow. As with cloning out background or foreground elements, I feel it changes the content of an image.

How it all fits together: My digital philosophy

I haven't described all the digital manipulations used in bird and nature photography, but I have mentioned some of the most common. A few I use, others I do not. I don't intend my own rules to govern any photographers besides myself, and I certainly don't condemn photographers with different digital practices from my own. Digital photography gives us unprecedented creative power for altering our images, and some people harbor concerns that this may undermine the artistic integrity of photography as a medium. I disagree, though my reasoning may be idealistic. I think the vast majority of nature photographers create their images to portray nature, not to create it. I love nature, and I have enough respect for it to keep my images natural. I believe most photographers feel the same way.

Photoshop and related products are an important set of tools for nature photographers. I prefer to use them cautiously and with a priori goals in mind. My ultimate objective is always to communicate the vision I experienced when I captured the image.

I think that full disclosure of the digital techniques used in optimizing an image is a good thing. Photography is art, and art grows when artists share their techniques openly with one another. A good artist doesn't feel threatened by another artist using his technique; instead, he knows that his work can't be duplicated by technique alone.

In the case of published images, however, it is not practical to outline all the digital manipulations used; there just isn't space. In the case of substantial modifications, however, I think that a failure to disclose those changes is a disservice to the viewer. Nature photographers and publishers of nature- and conservation oriented media use photographs to educate people about the natural world – the real natural world. Therefore, although there is no easy answer to the question of disclosing digital manipulation in published images, I think this is an issue that the photographic and editorial community needs to consider very carefully.


Updated 12/24/2011.
Photographs, text, and design © 1999-2012 Neil Losin. All rights reserved.