It’s a thought often provoked by contemporary photographers creating surreal images with their new found technology. The absolute speed and ease manipulation can be obtained on a colour digital photograph is frightening nowadays and more and more agencies are beginning to notice and put up safeguards to protect against, for want of a better word, lying.
So when veteran war photographer, Don McCullin, nigh on superstar of the photography world speaks up and proclaims the digital domination of photography is “a totally lying experience” you have to stop and take note.
In conversation with Isaac Julien at the art fair Photo London, the Guardian reports McCullin discussed a wide range of topics with regards to photography including his own problems referring to it as art, preferring instead to likening it as a form of “communication and passing on information.” However, it was his comments on digital technology that had the industry ears pricking up.
McCullin is clearly a man that has grown up, lived and thrived in the world of film and isn’t struggling on the new digital playing field (unlike some other photographers.) He says he reluctantly uses a digital camera to alleviate the speed in which some editors want the shot however still has a darkroom and regularly processes film.
“These extraordinary pictures in colour, it looks as if someone has tried to redesign a chocolate box,” he said. “In the end, it doesn’t work, it’s hideous.”
All of the prolific photographer’s most celebrated images are quite naturally grainy, monochrome depictions of war. This fact doesn’t help to offset the displeasure he reviles in on speaking about colour digital photography. “It’s hideous” he says. While many may agree on this while looking through the HDR-ridden photopocalypse that is the Flickr Explore gallery one can’t help but think the fad of over saturation and high contrast might be coming to an end.
Despite the controversy this will undoubtedly cause, at Phogotraphy we believe that McCullin may be on to something. With record numbers of photographers disqualified from last year’s World Press Photo Awards, the now yearly tradition of Wildlife Photography winners being disqualified and the intentional lying of some themes within astrophotography it’s hard to disagree.
Arguing that manipulation can be achieved in many the same way in the darkroom is futile. It takes practise, lots of practise, the effort required is almost another industry itself.
“…digital photography can be a totally lying kind of experience, you can move anything you want … the whole thing can’t be trusted really.”
Perhaps the never ending discussion on photography’s greatest dichotomy is not about how much you can trust the user, but simply the limitations imposed on a roll of film. There is an infinite amount of freedom with a digital photograph that some, but certainly not all, can abuse. That is what Don McCullin is worried about.
Your thoughts are welcomed below or on our Facebook page. Do you trust film photography more than digital? Are you sick of the incredibly perfect hyper realised images frequently displayed in the best of 500px galleries? Do you think it’s a fuss over nothing?
via The Guardian
Phogotraphy 
Great post, really. Thanks for sharing it !
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Thanks Roberto
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the point is, ‘traditional’ film, paper & chemicals was (is) also a ‘cheat’ just as well compared to older “more traditional” methods of photography, which in their own turn were considered a ‘huge cheat’ by the old-times painters and illustrators, who had been ‘cheating’ by using the Camera Obscura toys for centuries already! 😀
only, now that digital has made it even easier to “cheat” for everybody, then … 😉
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Great point 🙂
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Yep… and in another twenty years, how artists create unique concepts will be looked on as cheating by us “old timers” from the day of digital. 3-D holographic projection anyone? Just because one looks back on the tools of yesteryear and become nostalgic does not mean one should cry foul when more creative ways of working are provided for us. Photography is one of the few art forms that constantly reinvents itself with new mediums of expression and will continue to do so as long as how we capture and how we create continue to evolve.
Look back on the past for guidance and inspiration, the present for what is, and the future to dream of what could be.
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Music shares in this dilemma. I liked the old fashioned Bluegrass records that were made live, on stage, into a single microphone. Now they make records that were made at a great distance: the fiddler in St. Louis at his computer, the banjo picker in Philadelphia at his computer, and so on. I almost think I can tell which kind of music I’m hearing, the “truth” or the “lie”. Billy Hamilton, Winston-Salem, NC
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at the core of this article is the use, over use and misuse of photoshop that is at the core of this article ~ regardless of medium ~ for instance, maybe you want a different face on your body ~ no problem ~ you want to be taller ~ shorter ~ skinnier ~ no problem ~ just tell me what you want and I’ll get photoshop it. The images that you and everyone else looks at every day are all photoshopped. And then, you put a teenager in front of those images (the biggest consumer of marketing images) and see what the result is ~ the world now has to manage the highest level of mental health problems internationally and those numbers keep on going up!
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Thanks Kevin
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Plenty of us take photos using digital cameras without manipulating the images, with many of us doing far less manipulation than film camera photographers did. Many of us, for instance, don’t do HDR, hyper-saturation, dodging and burning, and so forth as many film practitioners have done, and we don’t do manipulation, cloning, cutting and pasting, or other things. Sure, digital makes it easier to abuse, but many of us do not use the medium for such. Don’t paint everyone with such a wide brush. Many of us are perfectly aware of the gross manipulation that distorts people, and therefore, distorts how we feel a “perfect” or “ideal” person should appear. But don’t judge all of us who use digital cameras because some choose to do that. Thank you for your consideration.
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Hi Ken, Phogotraphy is well aware. Refer to the point in bold in the final paragraph 🙂
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It is also very much about intent. To split hairs on an article written and targeting the controversy caused by photojournalists is misleading as there are more genres than this article implies. What is perhaps missing is that journalism has become less about documenting and more about creating the story. This has in turn bled over into the photojournalists. This is where Don McCullin and the author needs to be clear – this is a story about photojournalists and not about artists. For journalists should not shape the truth, but rather report it. To do otherwise is unethical and purely self serving.
Certainly, the garish HDR really needs to stop. This we can agree on, but then HDR is for those lacking the experience or the vision to create something new and unique. Yet also recall, images aren’t just about what an image contains, they can be abstract, symbolic, or even surreal. This is where vision and intent come into play and why thought should be given before even the first click of the shutter.
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Sorry Sir,with all due respect I do not think it fair or reasonable to blame a process for the mental health issues found in the world today! I do hope that you were Jokeing us. I am a third generation professional photographer and also have a bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a focus of painter within my degree.
However,perhaps the’ No human interaction’ experianced while spending hours alone in a synthetic cyber world would leave almost anyone alinated and mal- adjusted.I think that lifestyle choices as well an open discussion with ones children for the various posible outcomes of each possible choice a young person might be faced with could create a healthy discourse and stimulate the desire for human inter-action.If eliminating “Photoshop or computers would bring better mental health throughout the world I would vote to put us back in the”Care Free” stone ages.Honestly, I do not think that it would help a thing. Using film is a process just like tempera or oils,vs. acrylics are processes neither good nor bad.I get the feeling that you are able to capture with the camera your special vision without enhancement. Please share with us- show us (the world) your unique sensability art making and vision.To care as an artist most likely historically has been a good positive thing. To dictate and enforce art making content,technique , philosophy,process has rarely led to significant manifestos,movements or great art.
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The capture medium – film or digital – does not matter. One can hyper-saturate, use HDR, or fake images regardless of medium. HDR has been done since the 1850s, and saturation has been overdone in times past.
Digital makes photography and subsequent manipulation or oversaturation easier because it can be done with one’s mobile, but in the hands of a masterful photographer, it doesn’t matter. You’ll still get great art no matter the capture medium. Regardless of what Captain Fuddy Duddy thinks, plenty of extremely talented photographers with a great feel for art will continue creating amazing images.
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Thanks Ken. I do think McCullin does understand as Australia of both.
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Right, but my point being that using such a broad brush to paint photographers who happen to use digital cameras is a disservice. I realize that more extreme views like this may get more clicks on the blog, but it really does a disservice to so many of us who don’t cut/paste, manipulate, clone, etc.
And if someone does do that but they are up front with it, I still don’t see the issue with it, as it’s not like you click a couple of buttons and it’s done. It still takes talent do to that. I just don’t happen to be enthralled with creating digital art, as I am more interested in the photography.
Just because there’s many more options digitally doesn’t mean that we as photographers want to do that. Just like I have lots of options while driving a car, I don’t choose to turn on the high beams, radio, mapping device, interior lights, turn signal, hazard lights, seat warmer, cigarette lighter, air conditioning, etc. and roll the windows up and down at the same time, so it is with art. We don’t have to do everything at the same time, and many of us choose not to do so.
Great art is still in the hands of the artist. Great photos are in the hands of great photographers. Nothing has changed.
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Thanks for your comments Ken.
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Talent and vision Ken. Excellent points. ^^
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I spent several days at the home of Ansel Adams in 1979 and watching him dodge and burn during printing I asked him if he still considered the result a ‘STRAIGHT PRINT’ he replied that ..”Dodging and burning are tools I use to correct tonal mistakes that God has made…”Today he would use Photoshop. MCC
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to further illustrate your point:
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It’s a whole new paradigm, so experimentation is crucial to see what works and what doesn’t.
I think Susan Sontag said something similar.
Still to say it’s lying is extreme. It’s not perfect, it has artifacts. Film gain cross processing are also artifacts used for expression. It takes 50 years for technology to be integrated into society. Classic photography had massive issues with the established artists saying it wasn’t art because it was too easy. The world now has integrated the photo.
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Part of the interview which we didn’t feel was so relevant (See Guardian link at bottom) refers to McCullin’s problems with calling photograph art and how he feels the art world has *just* caught up with photography in recent years. Thanks for the comment.
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As far as authenticity of the image is concerned. I think the manufacturers need to have another stab at steganography-based digital image authentication. Both Nikon and Canon had cameras with this feature and then abandoned it when the encryption was proven to be fallible. Digital encryption (when it works) is still the surest way of guaranteeing that an image has not been tampered with in any way.
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Thanks for the input Pixyst. You raise a good topic.
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I could buy the argument but film and paper print photography has alway been a lie also.
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Thanks for the comment Rob. I don’t think Don McCullin would disagree with you here. He thinks the ease in which manipulation can be achieved has progressed in digital at a much faster rate. Perhaps it’s because in Photoshop there’s an ‘undo’ tool 🙂
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I find that the complainers of the digital age were not able to make the switch to digital. I worked in a photography department at a college and witnessed it first hand, especially from instructors. Manipulation has always gone on during every time period. Lovers and purveyors of Greyscale generally love to snub and trash digital color, all the while dodging, burning, double exposing etc.,
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Hi Marilyn, thanks for your comment. Don McCullin does shoot and use a digital camera, he says he doesn’t enjoy the experience quite so much.
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yes, most photographers with an extensive background in film photography do miss those good old times (myself included) and if they can afford it, they re-add film photography too, which is what i love to do myself but i simply can’t afford it, living in a small apartment, with my bedroom serving me as also my storage room as well as the digital ‘studio’ as well as where i play music, plus where my little daughter plays and my wife sleeps too! 😀
and some young photographers also try film, for the ‘challenge’ at least … most good photography courses in colleges still start teaching the medium using film, which is a great idea indeed: once ‘tortured’ with the hassles of film photography, then digital sounds quite comfortable, especially to the beginners who were born into digital and find it boring or hard or whatever …
the fact of the matter is, digital is what makes photography ‘easier as well as more affordable’ and now we can say photography is TRULY for the masses! (something George Eastman started but is still expensive if we’re going to do it with film alone …) in fact, who made digital photography possible in the 1970s and 1980s? those who knew the older ways well enough and knew even more about its limitations, especially its rather high costs and slowness in production! (just as when the early photographers ‘invented’ photography: they knew well how so time consuming, costly, slow as well as ‘inaccurate’ painting was, especially when dealing with certain subjects such as portraiture …)
the ‘abuse of the medium’ has always been an issue, in photography or in other art forms and industries … but that doesn’t disqualify the medium itself, does it?
Lee Ken put it so right: many digital photographers use the new medium very similar to ‘straight film photography’ and they don’t manipulate their images much except for some basic ‘corrections’, which are a must in order to make the photo ‘viewable enough’ at least, even adn especially with film too … and as Marilyn put it, some film photographers did and still do a lot of manipulations to their exposures (using filters and other ‘tricks’ for example) and/or to their prints …
we’re not born to ‘suffer’ in a traditional, religious and romantic way when doing things, are we? when we can make any task easier to handle, we simply do it and it’ll never be ‘easy enough’ for us in the end really! that’s why we keep inventing and reinventing and … and sometimes we become abusive too of course, but not always and not all of us! so, it’s good to have HDR done much faster and easier with digital, but when people overdo it in some of their works, well, let them do it until the day they’ll get fed up with it and try something different! 😉
please check out this link and the 2nd photograph in it to see what how masters of film photography also did extensive manipulations to their photos:
in the end, it doesn’t matter what you do and how you do it, what matters is the final image no matter how you got there!
digital photography is a blessing for many reasons, ease of use and near-0 costs being perhaps the topmost ones, with some people taking photos using their cellphones, editing it on their cellphones too, and saving/sharing it on the Cloud … they do each image at less than a penny of costs and they save/share it for almost totally free! they don’t even need a ‘real computer’ anymore to do so and they are quite happy doing it perhaps without even noiticing it themselves! 🙂
but film is still great too and in some areas, it’s even better than digital, until the day digital can tackle those areas too …
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Great comment, thanks Shawk!
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Surely a photograph is about the message and narrative it creates, the emotion it creates and not the medium used?
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I think that may be a different discussion for another day Jon. Thanks for your comment 🙂
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The photos “that betrayed the world”, of UFO’s, the lochness monster and Bigfoot, just to mention a few known examples, were all made in a dark room with no way to prove or disprove it’s authenticity. So this just doesn’t hold water in any way. If anything people are just more aware now that photos can be manipulated, and that’s a good thing!
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Excellent points Espen. Although isn’t it true that the majority of people disregarded the three things you mentioned as hoaxes?
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Bigfoot is a hoax?!? Oh no!
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As a predominately film photographer who occasionally uses digital, I mostly agree with the content of the article. I disagree with some of the comments here that dodging and burning in the darkroom are cheating. They are tools used to overcome film latitude limitations and/or lack of precision in exposure and film development. That’s a far cry from many of the so-called professional images that feature over-sharpening to the point of showing pixilation. The positive side of digital to me is that more people are making images, recording snippets of life. The down side is the number of people who claim to be professional photographers, who rely on total automatic settings on thei digital camera, and wouldn’t know an f-stop from a bus stop.
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As Missy Mwac would say (P) is for professional. 🙂
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quite true but the shortcomings in exposure latitude or color balance etc of film/paper/chemicals material that forces the photographer to slow down and do things that s/he really prefers not to do if possible, thus taking him away from a ‘straight print’ are prevalent in digital photography too: sensors have issues, and a ‘straight out of camera’ photo that is perfectly or near-perfectly correct and well balanced (much less to have been manipulated further for special effects of any kind) is still an impossible dream in digital photograph just as well!
hence the need for a ‘digital darkroom’, which is now possible using computer hardware and software … curiously, at times, still some few special effects are much easier to achieve at the time of exposure and even using film and ‘traditional’ material, but in other times, most other times in fact, what digital photography does is way easier as well as faster and with even better results than film photography, especially when dealing with majority of commercial assignments …
and yes: film photography is now ‘art’ … a ‘challenge’ and with certain qualities digital either can’t match perfectly, or can ’emulate’ at its best … and for the worth of it, a good camera sensor’s performance is still compared to such and such great film emulsion’s performance that is no longer produced unfortunately and a great digital print is usually the one that makes the viewer ‘feel’ it was photographed using film! 🙂 (same in video too: majority of videographers yearn for a video camera whose images are “film like” rather than video-ish, especially for large screen … but there are possibilities in digital video, such as shooting as well as projecting in super high frame rates that are simply IMPOSSIBLE to do with film material!)
i guess we need both, i do at least … and the mixture of film with digital, especially when exposed/developed film is edited using photo manipulation software, is really one of the best ways of achieving great results …
and you’re so right of course: some digital-only photographers these days can’t tell an f-stop from a bus stop really, but who cares: some film-only photographers suffer from exactly the same problem too! 😉
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I went to school to learn film just before everything switched to digital. I bought a good digital camera, and had already been using photoshop so I was familiar with it. Ever since I quit film, I have slowly lost interest in photography. I just don’t feel like what I’m doing is the job of a photographer, but rather a computer tech. person. I don’t like the look of digital either. People say I’m nuts. Maybe it’s all in my head?
I recently decided to go back to film. I like it better in every way. I miss the magic of my picture showing up on my paper in the darkroom. I’m glad technology is advancing, I just prefer to not use it with my pictures.
And yes, I’m sick to DEATH of over saturated, manipulated pictures. This is my very humble opinion.
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Thanks for your comment Sally. There’s nothing like seeing that photo appear for the first time!
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fair enough but the way film photographers look down on digital photographers is symptomatic of the problem here. I recently did work on a Mamiya 645. The difference was marginal.
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Maybe when you are tethered into a big screen and you see the ‘boom’ moment instantly?
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I think that might be part of the difference Jon. We call it “instant gratification.”
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yes, i miss film photography too, especially the darkroom stage, and as soon as i can afford the costs and space, i’ll go for it AGAIN … but not to say goodbye to digital totally! a mixture of both is the ‘perfect combo’ for me! 🙂 (if interested, i have commented on this extensively above and you can read them …)
hint: there are digital enlargers too, under which you expose regular light-sensitive photographic paper and develop normally in tray or in paper processor, whichever suits you best! 🙂
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hint 2: when working with color paper, it’s practically impossible to watch the image appear in developer! not as comfortably as it is with B&W material at least …
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I keep thinking…this is like the vinyl argument for music. I think we need to separate technique from output, let’s not forget how digital has also liberated many many people to take up photography. Feels a bit elitist to me people saying that film is ‘better’ when as I mentioned earlier photography, for me, is not and never will be about the medium but the emotion it triggers and the story it tells. Who has the right to say what is ‘better’ surely that is a personal experience for the viewer? Personally I do everything manually (including strobe) on digital. The pleasure for me is in composing everything before I capture and maybe tweak. Even if I do use Lightroom it is minimal (cropping) and actually has more use to me from an EXIF, cataloguing angle.
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There are many well known photographers who take photos of models the place them in different backgrounds. The casual viewer would not even know that a manipulation occured. A lie? Maybe. But still artistic. And I am sur A.A. would be doing some digital manipulation. If you shoot in RAW you almost have to do some manipulation.
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and they do / did it with film too …
so, why not do it more comfortably and with much better results in digital now?
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yes, true: working in RAW, which is the best way of doing digital btw, is just as hard as working with film! you can’t get ‘perfect’ results unless you work on it further in the ‘darkroom’, which is now the ‘lightroom’ using computers and software …
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Sorry but the interview sounds like an old man who can not accept change.
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This debate has been going on for years, the only difference I see as a former large format photographer is that the “film” photographer trained its eye to “see” the picture before it was taken, and in doing so made the darkroom manipulations to “fit” the pre visualization. Now there is “machine gun” photography that is later fixed in photoshop.
Are ther talented people using digital? Absolutely! But as McCullin stated, it is mostly a lie. Then again we do not see the world in black and white, so we could argue that strictly speaking photography has always been a lie until the arrival of color film.
In the end TO MY TASTE I feel digital photography lack or trades emotion for impact. I have seen great color photography, but in handling the photograph one feels an artificial aspect of it.
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None of these “old school” photographers seem to have any problem with shooting with black and white film. Yet rendering a color scene in monochrome is an act of alteration as fundamental and profound as any digital alteration. Likewise, using Kodachrome (when it was still made) or Velvia alters the rendering of color.
The act of photography is intrinsically an act of manipulation. Heck, the act of framing a scene within a viewfinder includes some things and excludes others.
Photography, like all forms of art, is a lie. But the paradox of art is that some lies can be used to tell the truth.
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The camera is a tool. It can be used in the service of art or in the service of documentation. To impose boundaries on art is to state your own taste. The palate is there whether in oil or photoshop. Documentation as in the case of photojournalism is an attempt to convey a story without misleading. Of course every reportage is biased by the reporters vision. We hope that truth is not distorted so much in that case that light is shed on what is seen. To confuse art with documentaton is to limit your view or that of others. Great art or great documentary can each speak to the human heart and soul, it’s just important that we discern and respect
the difference.
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Thank you for making this fabulous topic an engaging conversation and inspiring this old, raconteur to muse on a Sunday morning.
The difference between a darkroom and digital editors is craftsmanship, not honesty.
I was a young, naïve account executive for a print advertising agency during the mid-1970 the first time and angry client bellowed, “This looks terrible, can you airbrush it?” because his product, shot by a top photographer with a 4×5 Hasselblad under perfect lighting condition his product would never exist in wasn’t better than real. I wondered, what is the advertising business really about?
Clients’ expectations their products look better than real are as old as humankind.
Life is color, not black and white. Can you not make the case that black and white photojournalism untruthful? Should truthfulness in photojournalism and advertising be standardized with legal boundaries?
Who decides those boundaries and where do we place them?
Artists have embellished life with oils, charcoals, pastels, clay stone, pens, pencils and any mediums they can create with since the beginning. If it’s art, should there be boundaries? And is art a lie?
Perhaps there should be different classes and categories for photo awards to differentiate between print, digital and quantity of editing.
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It’s our pleasure Gary
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Hi Gary, They have never produced a 5 x 4 Hasselblad perhaps it was a Sinar? ; )
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No more a lie than any other medium and a reason to get creative with it. I still shoot film, have digital backs and cameras, they are just tools to manipulate a medium to produce an image. It allows purity or complex manipulation, it is a personal choice that can be appropriately applied.
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Whilst agreeing with most of the comments above wrt what is manipulation and lying etc. there is also another point which appears to have been missed.
In his heyday doing what he did was elitist and unavailable to the masses, photo manipulation was an art performed by a few at great expense, photographers sent their contact sheets back to the lab for adjustments etc. etc. etc. today all of this great hobby and art form is open to everyone, it is not about who can afford it. Labs are no more because we can all preform these functions ourselves.
The problem is that today everyone thinks they are, or can be, a professional photographer and unfortunately as most of us know this is just not true.
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The idiosyncratic nature of reality shows us many view points make up the notion of what what is reality, yet photography can only present one view point, that of the photographer so although this maybe the truth too don the reality of the truth goes beyond his singular view point, therefore what he is saying is massively incorrect to assume his view point is the truth of the reality, what is lying from intention and what is just not true also lies in the subjective opinions of the viewer and the context in which the viewer receives the image, after all photography is made of two viewpoints the photographer and the viewer to which the images context plays more of a role in interpretation, rather than the method of creation. an example of this is Dorothy langues migrant mother, images can only contain the truth that is upheld to it as it can only represent a split second of reality.
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https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/wwii-soviet-image-manipulation-of-german-atrocities-for-propaganda-value.html
http://twistedsifter.com/2012/02/famously-doctored-photographs/
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