Since Mathew Brady embarked on his groundbreaking Civil War photojournalism in 1860s (Tomlinson 52), photojournalism was also conceived as the “depiction of reality” (Newton 64). However, in this era of digital photography, the omnipresence of digital post-production (also known as “editing”, “manipulating”, “retouching” and “enhancing” (Solaroli 513)) in photojournalism leads to “a decline of public belief in visual truth” insomuch that Media Studies scholar Karin E. Becker claims that the control of this situation is no longer merely technical but “ethical” (381). Other scholars, in great measure, attribute this issue to the increasing habitual discard of the original image files (Newton 7) and the undetectability of the processed images (Tomlinson 53). On this basis, post-production in photojournalism is set in a binary question as to whether it is “deceptive” or “quality-enhancing” (Tomlinson 59). Or, is it possible to set scalable boundaries between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” (Solaroli 519) post-production in journalism? Among an assortment of provisions attempted to limn such demarcation by various news agencies, mention is made of the “darkroom principle” which circumscribes post-production in journalism within the “practices that were allowed in analog[ue] darkrooms” and the captions that notify the manipulations of the shown images, e.g. “this photo is ‘cropped’, ‘lightened’ or ‘darkened’” (Solaroli 519). These faddish principles were nevertheless recently proven to be inadequate for the industry (Solaroli 525).
Studies of this issue are, almost without exception, situated in the underlying premise that photos in any case are needful to present certain level of reality, especially in photojournalism where the depiction of reality is highly desired. However, as Art History scholar Allan Sekula suggests, “[a]ll communication [(including photojournalism)] is, to a greater or lesser extent, tendentious” (453). Many in the field often also acknowledge, “photographs had always been something less than depiction of reality” (Keith 64). For example, in an interview, a high-ranking news editor elaborated: “[w]e’re telling people…[a piece of reality]” (Newton 8). To this end, this argument points out that photos perhaps are seldom about reality. Further, I argue that photos represent exclusively the pieces of reality that photojournalists are committed to convey to their audience. Because of the implausibility for camera to achieve the real real, I thus quotation-mark all the following word “real” so as to differentiate the “real” in the discourse of this paper from the real real.
Because the Raw image format contains the uncompressed information the camera light sensor collects, most serious photojournalists would save their photos in this format. For the same reason, many believe that Raw format file is the digitalised counterpart of film negative, or “the new ‘original’” and “the ‘digital negative’” (Solaroli 524). They mistake the Raw file as a type of image file like JPEGs. In effect, it is, in photojournalist Francesco Zizola’s words, “…a numeric record of light-generated data that are not yet elaborated” (Solaroli 523). That is to say, Raw files are not image files but files that record light-generated data, thus cannot be displayed as an image before the data are computerised, which verifies Media Studies scholar Don E. Tomlinson’s prophesy in 1992 that “…there no longer will exist a[n]…original which might be examined or provide some evidence for or against a visual image having been manipulated” (54) (Yet, this prophesy is flawed because of its presumption that image manipulation is by default undesired). Plus, different algorithms used in such computerisation could yield significantly different default-computerised images. In short, if digital photos ever represent any reality, it is decidedly a piece of “computerised reality”.
Further, by opening Raw files, the default-computerised images are generated, after the default algorithm of the opening program (e.g. Photoshop) decodes the light-generated data contained in Raw files. These default images may not be as ideal, thus compelling the photo editors to adjust them. Besides, to adjust image files such as JPEGs could risk “removing or adding” pixels (Solaroli 525) whereas to adjust the Raw file is to adjust light-generated data, therefore impossible to change pixel quantity (pixels have not yet generated, the photo editors are still adjusting light-generated data. With Photoshop, this is done in an inbuilt programme, Camera Raw) and allows photo editors to idealise the photos with easy-to-use Photoshop-alike programmes (518 Solaroli) according to their wishes. To this end, it leaves the photo editors (often prompted by those with power in newsrooms (Becker 395)) to decide whether to idealise the images means to make them more “real” or more opinionated. Even if the photo editors claim that they aim for the “real”, the processed photos may only represent their pieces of reality.
Exceptional photographers consider post-production possibilities proleptically when taking the photos. A case in point is Italian phtotgrapher Francesco Zizola’s photo of Istmine village, which Zizola “‘…consciously underexposed [the photo] in order not to lose both the double rainbow and the village, as he [knew the exposure] could [be] post-processed…” (Solaroli 523). To expatiate, Zizola understood one of the eminent camera limitations, camera tolerance: the capability to concurrently record the details of the brightest areas, aka. highlight areas, and the darkest areas, aka. shadow areas. Such capability of cameras is much weaker than that of human eyes. Therefore, while taking the photo, Zizola could see all the details from highlight areas to shadow areas, but the camera could only record so many details (comparatively way fewer than what his eyes captured). On this basis, Zizola is compelled to underexpose because to expose normally is to lose the cherished details from the highlight areas; however with underexposure, he could still “correct” the exposure with post-production without losing details of highlight areas (I quotation-mark “correct” because to be precise, correct exposure is actually non-existent. “Correct” exposures are nothing more than the desired exposures varying from different scenarios and from different photographers). After the exposure “correction”, the post-processed photo is actually more “real” (in fact, more idealised for the photographer) than the default image computerised from the Raw file. In a nutshell, to pursue the “real” in digital photography, the photographers have to understand collectively and inseparably the camera limitations that deviate photos from being “real” and the capabilities of post-production that counteracts those limitations (However, this way of seeing post-production is nothing new, as Media Studies scholars Lev Manovich and William J. Mitchell discover “[p]ost-production…h[as] been [inherently] included in the photographic practice within a variety of social spheres [over the last century]” (Solaroli 518).). This upshot also invalidates minimal post-production or the “darkroom principle”.
Notwithstanding, to achieve the utmost “real”, the spatial and temporal differences between taking the photos and making post-production should also be taken into account. Usually, photographers take photos on the spot and make post-production in another place (e.g. in their offices or at home), because on the spot, photojournalists are too busy capturing the transitory photojournalistic moments. During off-spot post-production, as the space and the split second wherein the photos are taken are no longer available, the referents for the photographers to pursue the “real” could only be their memories and their constructs of the “real”. However, as enormous cognitive plus psychological studies have shown that memories could be very tricky in terms of restoring what really happened; as well, the photographers’ constructs of the “real” cannot guarantee to be the real real. Thereby, the eventual image outcome could only be relatively “real” (compared with the default-computerised images), or at best the idealised “real” vis-à-vis the photographers’ memories and constructs of the “real”.
Given that their perception of image reality is based on how close what the images re-present resembles what their eyes could see (In this paper, I do not want to dig into philosophical discourses that deem our sensorium is unable to reveal the reality.), by no means could any image be “real”, because the limited camera tolerance comparing to our eyes is “congenital” by virtue of camera technicalities and functionalities, and this intrinsic defect is not to be overcome (at least) in the foreseeable future . Put simply, cameras thus far could only record a limited part of what our eyes could see; therefore, photos could never be really real. To alleviate this drawback, a post-production process, High Dynamic Range (HDR) is introduced which combines “a few photos of the same scene” (usually done with tripods) but with “different levels of exposure (from under- to over-exposed)” into an image with (sometimes much) stronger camera tolerance (Solaroli 525). However, had stronger camera tolerance indeed indicates getting closer to the real, the “HDRed” 2013 World Press Photo of the Year by Swedish photojournalist Paul Hansen would not have drawn so much controversy (Solaroli 526). In this case, contrary to its original intention, HDR actually makes images less “real”, or leastways less appealing to the public. This deviation from being “real” may result from multiple “layers of computerisation” that transfer a large chunk of human agency to computer algorithms. In theory, photos are more convincing when applied fewer layers of computerisation. Apart from default computerisation of the Raw file and the adjustments of the Raw file as the first two layers of computerisation, HDR which in most cases, is done with pixelated images rather than with Raw files necessitates a third layer of computerisation, thus deviating images further away from being “real”. Thus seen, the analysis of HDR sheds light on a paradox: while post-production has great capabilities to counteract camera limitations that deviate images from being “real”, the more post-production is made, which essentially means attaching more layers of computerisation to the images, the further the images again deviate from being “real”.
Post-production is actually already happening during “ante-production” (shooting on the scene). That is to say, when taking photos, the photographers, to some extent, have already begun subliminally “making post-production”. For example, when seeing through the viewfinders, the photographers are constantly selecting what to include into and to exclude from their photos, or they are cropping if thinking in post-production sense; when shooting the same scene with different lenses (or with different focal length of “zoom lenses”), the photographers create different image distortions (from overly spacious with wide angles to spatially compressed with telescopes). With post-production, these distortions could also be created, exaggerated or mitigated (but not “corrected” because to say so is to innocently premise that our visions are not visually distorted). Thus seen, at many levels, “ante-production” entails a great deal of “post-production”; or better, they are closely bonded together.
It then becomes rather odd that many generously accept so-called “un-manipulated” photos (in that, default-computerised images) while backlash “manipulated” photos, as if “un-manipulated” photos are de facto “un-manipulated”. Instead, as I have mentioned in Zizola’s case, the exceptional photographers see “ante-/post-production” as a whole. More straightforwardly, unlike film photography where photography and darkroom manipulation could be separable professions, digital photography is “ante-/post-production”: with the absence of either, digital photography would not be complete. This assertion is substantiated by the fact that digital photographers nowadays more or less know some post-production themselves, and are more willing to make post-production by themselves rather than outsourcing to others (in fear of e.g. the overturn of their overall aesthetics or misinterpretations of their photos’ messages—in short, the photographers want to take maximal control of their images until the final image outcomes).
The chair of the US National Press Photographer Association’s Ethics and Standards Committee points out:
The public has a vision of what a photograph is and what a real news photograph looks like, and we must work within this perception if we are to communicate…with our readers…[W]e must work within the boundaries of public expectations. (Solaroli 526)
The chair elaborates that to fulfil the public’s expectation of the “real” is oftentimes more important than pursuing the real real. Becker explains this phenomenon, “…the public belief in [photojournalists’] work is essential, and that their credibility depends on the public’s ability to trust in their photographs as unconstructed ‘pictures of reality’” (Becker 396). Since losing audience’s trust of particular news source directly affects its readership, this distorted orientation towards the audience’s “real” is by and large media-market determined. In this sense, even if photo editors know what the “real” for the images should be like, they often make great concessions (sometimes under the pressure from their superiors) in face of such audience-reality quandary so as to cater to their audience’s tastes of the “real”. To put it another way, what the photo editors pursue is no longer the real real but verisimilitude, a term Webster English Dictionary defines as “the quality of…representation that cause one to [accept] it as true…” (Newton 4). It is not coincidental that at the onset of digital photojournalism, many senior newspaper readers complained that digital images do not look “real” because their style did not resemble the style of film photos that they have for years accustomed to viewing.
Contrary to public perception, this paper sets out to debunk the unjustified yet stubborn association between photojournalism and depiction of reality, and the misunderstanding that the use of digital post-production compromises photojournalism’s promise of reality. To recapitulate, Raw files, whenever seen as images (in fact, default-computerised images), are without exception computerised, for they are not image files but packages of light-generated data. Thus, it is also nonsensical to compare Raw format in digital photography and negative in film photography (Solaroli 525). Further, If the default-computerised images decoded from Raw files fail to meet the photographers’ expectations, these images are then to be digitally modified, or to be idealised, in order to narrow the gap between what the images present and what their photographer expect them to present. Emphatically, in this process, photographers’ ideal images in their minds come before, not after the actual images, and that the photographers’ creation of images is nothing more than the materialisation of their ideal images, instead of the realisation of reality depiction. To achieve this materialisation, exceptional photographers fully facilitate the capabilities of two interrelated tools—ante-/post-production (exemplified by the analysis of Zizola’s photo and of HDR)—to an extent that on one hand, the latter becomes un-detachable from digital photography as an integer; on the other, they sometimes unconsciously “make post-production” during ante-production. This process is not to mention the hidden task of many photo editors: to fulfil audience’s expectations of the “real” rather than the real real. All together, photojournalism mainly serves the photojournalists, and is demonstrably incompetent for pursuing the real real.
Work Cited
Becker, Karin E.. “To Control Our Image: Photojournalists and New Technology”. American Art, vol. 20, no. 3, 1 July, 1991, pp. 381-397.
Keith, Susan. “Back to the 1990s? Comparing the Discourses of 20th- and 21st-Century Digital Image Ethics Debates”. Visual Communication Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 2, 2014, pp. 61-71.
Newton, Julianne H.. “The Burden of Visual Truth: The Role of Photojournalism In Mediating Reality”. Visual Communication Quarterly, vol. 5, no. 4, 1998, pp. 4-9.
Sekula, Allan. “On the Invention of Photographic Meaning”. Artforum (U.S.A.), vol. 13, no. 5, 1975, pp. 36-45.
Solaroli, Marco. “Toward A New Visual Culture Of The News: Professional Photojournalism, Digital Post-production, and the Symbolic Struggle For Distinction”. Digital Journalism, vol. 3, no. 4, 2015, pp. 513-532
Tomlinson, Don E.. “Digitexed Television News: The Beginning of the End For Photographic Reality in Photojournalism”. Business and Professional Ethics Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, 1992, pp. 51–70.