With software advances now rapidly affecting every photographer out there. This is a very difficult question and it divides the photography community. As a professional corporate and event photographer from Edinburgh, Scotland, working in the corporate photography business, in addition to selling fine art infrared images, I am constantly asked this question. Personally, I love the advancement of software and the creative things we can now do as photographers. The problem is when people take it too far and in my opinion, this usually is more of an issue where people are concerned. You can change the way history looks by inserting or removing people from an image. Also, if you change the shape of someone dramatically, or change their face to the extent that they look very different, there is an issue there. They key is knowing when to stop. I personally think that for wedding photos, if you overly manipulate an image of the bride, for instance, this is also insulting to an extent, so you have to be careful. When the client says, make me look good, this doesn’t necessarily mean to change their shape and face beyond recognition. I tend to keep my editing to the minimum. When it comes to landscape photography, it is more about opinion, rather than offending someone and again, I think you have to take care. I don’t like composite images, where you change the sky for a better one that you have from a previous photo, or even worse, from a pre-set provided by someone else. A photograph is meant to be capturing a moment in time and replacing the sky does not fit that definition. Anyway it’s an interesting subject and one that will never stop being a subject of many an argument amongst photographers and non-photographers. www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk www.edinburghphotographer.com
