A note on "Image Manipulation"

All the images on my site are digital. There is an argument saying that any image that has been through a computer can no longer be called a "photograph", so below I clear up some of these issues as they relate to the content of my site. It's very exciting, as is the sexy picture of me.

Now "manipulated" means a number of things, so the question is:

"What has been manipulated?"

Well, all images on this site were scanned using a dedicated film scanner and then manipulated using Adobe Photoshop in the following ways:

• All the images have had dust and scratches removed digitally (Chinese photo labs not being the most careful at processing you see).
  
  
• Most have had fair amounts of digital enhancement to adjust their levels and gamma (in English this means contrast and brightness).
  
  
• Scanners inherently cause problems with colour balance (e.g. the whole picture coming out more red than the negative really showed) so this needed to be corrected.
  
  
• Some images have had distracting elements removed (by simply cropping the image or actually removing elements of the scene like power lines), or colours altered (any black and white shot started out life as a colour image, and sometimes sunsets have been made more "sunsetty").

"That's cheating! These aren't real photos!"

Okay, first off, it's very rare that I change anything so massively that you wouldn't easily recognise the image if you'd been there when I took the photo. Also, non of my images flat out "lie" as to what was going on when the shutter was triggered (a picture of me snogging Madonna at the Brit awards for example).

My view is that, yes the images I produce are not exactly as on the negative, but they are still valid images non the less.

Photographers have been using tricks for years to change reality - coloured filters, double exposures, blurring filters, dodging and burning in the darkroom… haven't you seen that picture of Lee Harvey Oswald holding the rifle? Using a computer is just an extension of the photography process, and I have no qualms saying that some images have been doctored to create a more pleasing result.

Technically then, I'm happy to say what you'll see here are "digital images" rather than "photos", although I think I'll leave the title at the top of this page as saying "photos" as it's just a concept (writing "… a selection of my travel digital images…" is being a bit pedantic).

In addition, I only used negative film in my early photography which unfortunately is not as good as the more expensive slide film. Until I can afford slide, then manipulation will certainly be needed to make my images more "punchy".

I believe that it takes just as much skill to amend an image on a computer as it does taking the photo in the first place. You can't change a crap photo into a good one, but you can change a good photo into a great one.

So there you go, if you feel that using a computer is cheating then that's your decision. I hope you'll enjoy the images shown on the value of the what you see - not on how it was created.

All this is a bit like the arguments that arose when people started using synthesisers to make music - "it's cheating!" they bellowed. Yeah, whatever.

~

On a final note to show how I've been completely fair in the manipulation of my images, I enclose below a tasteful, yet wholly lifelike picture of myself:

To those who care, my camera equipment consists of:

Digital Kit:

• A Canon 350D (aka Rebel XT)
  
• Tamron 28-70mm 2.8 lens
  
• Sigma 15-30mm DG lens
  
• Nikon Coolscan V

Older Film kit:

• A rather scruffy looking Canon EOS 500n
  
• Canon EF 28-80mm USM
  
• Canon EF 75-300mm USM
  
• Canon EF 50mm 1.8
  
• Jessops 0.42 Fisheye adapter = best purchase ever
  pound for pound.
  
• All the other usual crap: filters, tripod, etc.

A note on copyright:

Clearly all images contained within this site remain copyright of the owner and no reproduction, resale, downloading, or general naughtiness is allowed without the specific authorisation of the owner. If you even think of pinching these images for your own personal gain, I'll find out where you live and have you covered in molasses whilst a gaggle of midgets slap the backs of your knees. Then they'll give you a Chinese burn, poke you with sticks, and ridicule your genitals and assorted flabby bits. You've been warned.

You can contact the owner here.