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Before and after – starting point of RAW file in color (right), final presentation mono (left). Is that ‘photoshopped’? To most audiences, it probably is; but it’s no different to using black and white film, processing with a certain chemistry and doing a little dodging and burning of the print. Nothing has been added or removed that was not physically present in the original scene.

Though the mainstream population has now been firmly in the digital era of photography for more than a decade, I’m sure we can all remember a recent time when we were asked ‘so how much photoshop did you do?’ when presenting an image. The misconception that a good image must have some degree of implicit trickery is problematic; to the public, ‘Photoshop’ has become synonymous with ‘digital illustration’, ‘compositing’, or worse, ‘deliberate misrepresentation’. As much as we do our best to explain that Photoshop is really no different to the darkroom and chemical processes of the film days, we are at best regarded with some skepticism. But it does beg the question: why not use all the tools at one’s disposal, and what’s wrong with it if we do?

I like to use the cooking analogy: the scene is like a supermarket; composition is like selecting and preparing your ingredients; actual cooking is capture, and Photoshop is no more than control over the final presentation – plating, if you will. In the process, we transform raw ingredients available to anybody using techniques we must learn and hone into something that not everybody can make. The higher the skill of the chef, the greater the transformation: but it does not happen in plating. As far as a fairly ‘conventional’ dish goes, taste does not change whether it is heaped in a pile or daintily positioned on a beautiful plate and garnished with suitable visually attractive accompaniments. However, I think we would all rather eat the well-plated dish – even if it would be completely lost after the first bite.

It’s the same with photography: the subject (main ingredients) can be the same, but the result can be different. (Ironically, in food photography, said components are often replaced with inedible ones because they photograph better – now that is the culinary equivalent to misrepresentative Photoshop work). Modernist cuisine may not be to everybody’s tastes, but it’s impossible to argue that sometimes things have to be served in a dry ice bath to avoid them melting and diluting – which would alter the final experience to the diner. Similarly in art, we often cannot separate the idea from the presentation. This I think is where we cross the line from ‘straight’ photography to art and conceptual work. Much as the medium matters in ‘traditional’ art – an image that works as oil on canvas would have completely different impact as pencil on rice paper, for instance. The same is once again true for food and photography.



That isn’t grill smoke.

Yet somehow photography has not transitioned beyond the expectation of literal representation quite as well as the other arts – granted, a lot of this is because of the nature of the medium. I think the literal-ness of it is both key strength and weakness: the illusion of reality is present by default, and photographs are assumed to be of ‘real*’ objects or scenes that exist in three dimensions beyond their representation. It means that we can easily create the feeling of being there, even if that physical configuration of elements does not exist (or cannot exist). This perhaps creates trust issues: as an audience, are we being deliberately and maliciously deceived? Has anything been added or removed that was not (or was) there in the original physical scene?

*What constitutes ‘reality’ is an entirely separate philosophical discussion.

In a lot of situations, this is of course undesirable: reportage, documentary, evidence-gathering etc. Never mind the subjectivity involved in composition – which itself is an act of selectively deliberate exclusion and may imply certain chains of causality or narrative. It is the expectation of fidelity that causes problems: manipulation is wrong. We expect a hamburger to contain real meat, and not some strange chemical derivatives. But in cases where perhaps we are open to something different – modernist cuisine aside, some Asian vegetarian dishes contain very convincing 100%-vegetable-based simulations of meat – then I think we have to ask ourselves not so much ‘why do it’ as ‘why not’ and ‘how can we make the most of it?’ So long as the audience is open, I think the outcome can be worthwhile and positively received.

Even before we hit the point of postproduction manipulation, we can already present alternative realities by arranging our ‘sets’ and lighting in a way that is not normally seen. We are still subject to the constraints of physical reality, though – gravity, for instance. This is where we need postproduction help. Whilst I almost never do the latter myself, and try to achieve everything in a single shot (without composite lighting, even) – this is the expertise of photographers like Guersky, von Wong and others, for instance – I am starting to wonder what else could be done if I adopted such techniques.

I suppose it’s almost like learning a new language: we have to first learn the basics (in this case, the part where we make the postproduction convincingly real) before we can dream in it, much less be fluent and lyrical. Figuring out what the limitations of the language are – or more like which limitations of our existing visual language we can now overcome – is the challenging part. But I think that’s the thing with creativity: though restrictions force us to find ways around them, it’s getting over our own inhibitions that really let us make great leaps forward. MT

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