When Too Much Editing Turns Photographs Into Photoshop
In the modern world of the smartphone and the age of the internet, we are surrounded by photography and video. Everywhere you look there are digital images being presented to us for advertising purposes, ambiance and artists trying to make a quick buck. But with the ease of access to photography, digital cameras, and editing software are all of these images true representations of photography or are they cheap tricks and editing gimmicks amateurs are just stumbling onto for the first time?
Recently there was a blood moon with an annoyingly long and social media friendly name. I did not photograph this event nor did I stay up for it, I am pretty sure I was asleep before it even started to crest the horizon. I wanted to conduct my own little experiment with this semi-rare event and see how many people actually photographed the moon and how many did so and used photoshop to indulge some of the details. It's very easy to tell when the moon has been edited and taken out of context. Most of us do not notice this as the moon has a very interesting visual truck it plays on us.
The moon is actually very small in our sky and if you ever see a photo of the moon rendered very large against a strikingly small foreground the chances of it being edited to look this way are nearly 100%. See the moon looks larger when it is near the horizon and smaller when it is up in the sky over our heads. Now some of this can be attributed to the moons elliptical orbit around us. It does physically get closer to us at certain times in its orbit. However, the difference is not anywhere as extreme as some artists would make you believe. To see this for yourself simply find a tube, preferably an old paper towel tube and head out just after sunset and wait for the moon to show up. Doesn’t need to be full just enough so you can clearly see it in the sky. Close one eye and look at the moon without the tube and note the moon’s size. Now hold the tube up to your eye and isolate the moon in the center of it. Notice how it seems to shrink? This is the visual trick the moon plays on us.
Now I am not going to get into the physical reasons why the moon does this if you would like to find out more you can google The Moon Illusion and read more about it. But the idea I want you to think about and the big take away from this article is this, does too much editing make a photograph a lie? Where is the line between photography and compositing? There used to be a different attitude about photoshop, editing and faking certain things in a photo. The internet had a poor taste for those who editing things to death and no matter how good your photoshop skills where it was not okay to fake something and call it photography.
However, the first 10 posts on Instagram that had been shared and voted to be the best of the best from the moons big night were all fake in a few ways. One “photographer” in particular called his work an “artists creative interpretation of a perfect view” where he had actually shot the moon earlier in a different direction and with a different focal length. He then composited 3 other shots together not once mentioning it was photoshop, a real photograph or that it was a composite. He tagged it as a photo and made sure that it was shared by other photo sharing accounts. All of the comments praised him for his skill and his beautiful composition but not a single one cared to ask how the moon was in a position it could literally never be in and how it got so large.
There are many other instances of this happening, just search for the blood moon and see if you can spot them yourself. Rest assured you cannot photograph the moon at a perfect luminosity that also exposes the foreground. The moon will always be brighter than the foreground, even when it is being eclipsed and put in shadow. The moon is a beautiful drifter in our vast sky, a defender of the night and beacon of comfort for those who explore under its dim glow. But the moon is not some large, alien-looking planet that consumes half of our night sky as it passes close by. Like everything in life, the reality of the moon is that its a small, bright object that orbits our planet and doesn’t really change much. It's boring, mundane and very easy to predict.
When you are editing your work and out there consuming the work of others it's important to think about what you want your work to say. If you are someone who finds joy and excitement in compositing works in photoshop then please, by all means, continue to do so and share your work. I love well-done fantasy compositions that take the viewer on a journey to a different reality of our world. But if you are thinking of taking liberties to composite work and promote it as great photographic skill understand you are lying to the world, your fans and to yourself. Stop trying to get ahead by hiding your lack of photographic skill behind a cheap photoshop trick and some paid followers on your social media feed. Good photography will always be in style, gimmicks come and go with the change in weather.
