Blog 1: How “True” to “Reality” Should Photos be?

If you want to enter a photo contest, there are very explicit rules as to what you are allowed or not allowed to do in image post-processing. Generally, you may add a bit of vibrance and saturation to your picture (but do NOT oversaturate!), and you may even fiddle a little with the white balance. Cloning or removing distracting parts in the photo is definitely a no-no. And if you are changing the photo’s colorcast substantially, your entry will most likely be disqualified also. Why?

Some people and contest judges consider extensive post-processing as “cheating”, arguing that such a photo does not represent the reality of what the human eye or the camera lens captured. The photo on the right, taken of an iconic spot in the Tuscany, is not, of course, what the landscape looked like at 7am in the morning. The left version is the original, “RAW” shot out of the camera. It corresponds pretty well to what my physical eye saw that morning in April, but it is not what my imaginative eye wanted to convey. I was less interested in producing a photo of a well-known and often-photographed landscape than on highlighting the structures and highlights which invest the place with a magic of its own. It was an aesthetic decision rather than one aiming at “truthfulness”.

There is a difference – to be respected for sure – between contest rules and artistic vision, which of course by no means implies that I succeeded at the latter.