Why Do Photographers Follow This One 'Rule'?

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Is editing a photo cheating? I firmly believe the best photographers of all time were masters in the darkroom or in Photoshop. Because the best way to understand a photo is to spend time with it. In this video, I discuss how trying to follow made-up rules will burn you out before you can take your best photos. Break the rules, because in the end, nobody cares.
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[@anthonypc-248]

Love your reminder of fundamental principals like prescriptive vs descriptive language. That's a concept most people are unconscious of, and it actually is at the root of a lot of authoritarian dogma that polices how people lives in more significant ways than grammar on signs.

[@jellyscape]

long term digital photographer here who hasn't dipped my toes in film photography much yet. this is such a fantastic video. i'm a happy new subscriber.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it. Hope you'll dive deeper into film over time! Most people who gravitate to it do for the process, rather than the result, I find. At least that's how it was for me - wanting to make photos with my hands rather than on a screen.

[@iansimpson9351]

Editing starts when you choose which camera to use, which lens, which film. The time of day you take the picture, your viewpoint and a whole load of decisions that affect the outcome, so why should that stop at the negative.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

I totally agree! And sometimes you just have to be too quick to be perfect in the moment (or you'll miss the shot entirely).

[@thedrunkweddingphotographer]

0:37 And yet, these same people will NOT consider Ansel Adams a cheater.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

It's a bit strange, right? Because I'm sure he would have absolutely loved digital photography and Photoshop, since they'd have given him more control over the photo.

[@durango-CODEBUILDER]

It is interesting to me the practice of getting rid of objects from photographs. While I get rid of small unwanted textures and objects it still *sort of* makes me a bit uncomfortable when I use that tool. I agree it can be useful to the final version of the image however I can't ignore that I feel a bit dishonest when I use it. I would rather not use it, but sometimes it's necessary for the best image possible. People are doing cool things with it and it is expanding photography as an art form but why not paint if you're going to alter the reality of the photograph in such a way? I think it furthers the distance between photography and life. It's something I think about and struggle with when editing. Also for what it's worth I really like the original image with the boats in the background at 9:42 Really interesting video, thanks for the upload!

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

I know professional photographers who travel the world to create panorama photos. Quite often, because he's traveling for the purpose of photography, or he's traveling on a commissioned project, he's unable to get the perfect weather conditions for an amazing photo. So he changes the sky, adds fog, and sometimes sun rays. He will remove distractions, and otherwise do everything he can to make the perfect image that'll sell. He is a fine art photographer, so he does have some license for this, but at the end of the day, sometimes you have to edit and make alterations like that. In fact, I don't know any professional, working photographers who don't make edits like this. And thank you for that! I do have a version with and without the boats. Personally, because of all the red hues in them, I find they take attention away from the rock. My test is to close my eyes, open, and see where my eye lands. If it falls somewhere I don't want it to, or I struggle to look where I want, then I remove the part causing the distraction.

[@timdekyrke]

In my opinion Photography for the purpose of art has no restrictions. Remove, add, heal, dodge, burn, whatever you wanna do, just do it. The only thing wich is not acceptable is lying towards an audience and actually to yourself about your process (I always have to think about certain Hollywood actors saying they don’t use steroids and just eat chicken and work out at 6am daily). Most people don’t care anyway, so staying true to yourself and owning your piece of art is key. All photography with an informative character is different tho. If you have an obligation towards informing the public about topics you need a certain integrity (wich is hard to build and easy to lose) how you process your photos.

[@snoopytroops]

Great talk - thank you. It's absolutely not 'cheating'. I think it depends on if you are interested in creating images or documents - but very interesting that you frame not touching up as 'perfectionism'. I do photography to document important moments for me, so it would seem odd for me to want to drastically retouch/edit: as if the world is deficient. When removing objects from images, are we not also striving for 'perfectionism' but in a different way?

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

I think you're right, that when we do object removal we are striving for perfection. I think the difference is if you don't believe in editing, you might become too critical of your photos, or you might not understand why one image works and another doesn't. I see a lot of photographers who are stuck at an early stage in their photographic development because they refuse to retouch, and spend time with their photos - that's what I'm really trying to hit here. Photography is not easy, and I don't think it's about having a gifted eye - the best photographers have developed that sense over time and meticulous effort.

[@robine5280]

I'm okay with editing contrast, lighting, etc. but I'm not a friend of changing the look of something because I don't like it how it is (like slimming people, adding stuff to a scene that wasnt there or removing things).

[@sambroughton5520]

Thank you! You hit the nail on the head. I've been vocal for years that there is nothing sacred about the medium of film. Journalistic integrity is the best argument I think for little to no manipulation of a photo but as far as artistic expression I think anything goes. I often say for me film is just an analog sensor. A tool in service of an artistic vision. I've even experimented with color correcting polaroids with quite a bit of success! But I have to agree with you that there's not much that can be improved on when it comes to the beautiful colors of a raw polaroid.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

How do you color correct Polaroids? Is it just the temperature you let them develop at?

[@sambroughton5520]

@LearnFilmPhotography Oh I just take a high quality scan of them and adjust the balance digitally. My style with any photo I take including digital is to achieve a color profile as true to the eye as possible. Polaroid often skews much warmer or cooler than what the eye sees depending on the scene so I thought I'd see how difficult or easy it would be to adjust those photos to be more accurate. The basic temp and tint sliders in Lightroom are usually enough to get it close and then some basic exposure and contrast adjustments along with some vignette correction, saturation and sharpening is all that's really needed. The result ends up pretty good and from a technical perspective is definitely an improvement. However you certainly lose some of the appeal that comes from the natural qualities of polaroid film. So as an experiment it was definitely valuable as far as learning about photo manipulation and honing my style but now when it comes to Polaroids the most I'll do with the scans are subtle contrast and exposure adjustments along with saturation and some sharpening. Then what I like to do is make a large print. Seeing a polaroid enlarged and in high quality is probably my favorite way of enjoying my polaroids now.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

@sambroughton5520 that's really cool! How is the quality of the Polaroid when it's blown up to large size like that? And what technique are you using to scan them? I have a pretty big collection of Polaroids, including a book project I've made from them with Soft Grain Books. So that could be a cool project to take on - especially for an exhibition.

[@sambroughton5520]

@LearnFilmPhotography I use the scanner of a Canon MF4770n printer. It's probably not the best option out there but I was given it for free a couple years back and it works pretty well for my purposes. I make sure when I scan I set the highest DPI possible and save it as a .TIFF file to preserve as much detail as possible. Then in Photoshop I crop just the photo window making sure to use the exact aspect ratio for polaroid 600 film. I then bring the photo into Lightroom to make my final adjustments. After that I upscale the image also in Lightroom. Some people might not like this but it does a pretty good job increasing the resolution so that I get the best looking image possible when printed large. I might skip this step if I had a better scanner. The last step is personal preference but I'll then bring the image back into Photoshop to put a pure white border around the image in the same proportions as a real polaroid.

[@lelandfitz1762]

I don't think there are any rules in photography. There are rules in journalism, science and so on. Those are fields where editing of pictures can become very, very wrong. Anyone else can just do what the hell they want. I just see one *rule*: If you claim to be an analog photographer and want your pictures seen as analog, don't edit them digitally. Go in the darkroom and work on the negative, manipulate to your heart's content, just don't scan your negative, do everything you would do to a digital photo and call yourself an analog photographer. Then again, there is no law against it. It's just what people claim about themselves and the reality that isn't in line anymore then.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

I get where you're coming from. I'm actually one of those analog photographers who shoots and develops film, but scans and edits my film photos digitally. I still call myself a film photographer, because it's the workflow I like the most - I've done so much digital photography that picking up that camera feels like work, where film feels fun and artisanal. Definitely not doing it for the tones. As for the darkroom, I think the digital workflow is actually what's keeping film alive right now. I don't know if you've seen the prices, but it's getting so expensive to print. The papers have doubled in price since 2020, and it's a lot harder to get the look you want without going through many sheets. I still do it, because I want to get good at it, but that's never going to be my main mode of creating images, because it just isn't sustainable anymore in terms of time (~45 minutes to an hour per good print) and money.

[@lelandfitz1762]

@@LearnFilmPhotography Yeah the prices are sykrocketing for everything in film. I know the arguments from around the internet comparing "editing" from analog days to today's manipualtions with Lightroom et al. Of course it's never the print alone that counts. Pretty much everything we consume from film photographes from back in the day is scanned photos from them. I just see a barrier here where film editing ends and where digital editing takes over. Of course no one could tell people to stop at over or underexposing in Lightroom. As I said in my comment, there are no rules, I just think it should be part of transparency and honesty when people share their supposed "film" photos that they ad, that they were digitally altered. But that would only truly apply to galleries or media that showcase some work and maybe even want my money to see it. Of course everyone can do on the internet what they want. I just am very suspicious if people try to sell something that isn't truly what it is.

[@clutchnshift1]

A photograph is to provoke emotion. Just make it happen.

[@feefawfern8240]

I did enjoy the video, but a few years ago I would have had a greater appreciation for the video, now in the days of A.I., leaning towards some of these restrictive "rules" seems a little more attractive.

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

I think with the advent of AI, film photos will be more valuable in the future, just because that's the only way to ensure authenticity and limited editions - doubly so in the art world.

[@TheStockwell]

Painters retouch and revise their works. Writers revise and rewrite their works. Composers revise and rework their compositions. Filmmakers have editing and reshooting as accepted tools in their works. But retouching or otherwise improving a photograph is lazy and blasphemous - even though it's been accepted as part of creating photographs for nearly two centuries. That's as fussy and ridiculous as saying a chef isn't allowed to taste the soup he's making and adjust its flavour. Best wishes from Vermont ❄️💙❄️

[@LearnFilmPhotography]

Yet these attitudes towards photography exist everywhere! I see it come up all the time on forums, and even a bit in the real world, where some people believe real photographers shoot film since it's a more 'pure' process. But that can't further from the truth.

[@FrankGrauStudio]

When it comes to photography as art, there really are no rules beyond what the artist/photographer wants to create. When it comes to photography as journalism, altering a photo is akin to peddling fake news, because the purpose of the photo is to communicate what was really there, not create a pretty picture. Changing a picture in such instances misrepresents the facts and misinforms the viewers. To be clear, this has as much, if not more, to do with the journalism side of things and less to do with the craft of photography.