A TOP World Exclusive

What are the qualifications for trustworthiness in a photograph? Here's something you haven't seen anywhere else.

Mike

Book o' this Week:
Sugar is the silent nutritional crisis that is hiding in plain sight. The best book about it might be the prescient 1972 classic Pure, White and Deadly by the British scientist John Yudkin. Recommended. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Comments

[Rob Griffin]

You, Mike Johnston, are the biggest reason I look forward to April first every year. No kidding, really!

[Oh, I had nothing to do with this. Really, no foolin'. --Mike]

[Don Craig]

Ah yes. The sacred iPhone jpeg that shows reality, truthiness, and trustworthiness. And yet if I process a raw and lift the shadows and drop the highlights I and my photograph are somehow no longer trustworthy? Twaddle.

[Lenya]

This is probably the most elaborate April 1st joke I have ever seen. Creating the website with all these thoughtful answers must have taken an enormous amount of time. But time well spent - one is always very close to the edge of believing this is real without ever quite crossing it. A great job!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I'd have to read them really carefully. I'm guessing that, say, Ansel Adams' photos would not qualify for their label.

If that's true it completely misses the point.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

So...I think they allow tilt and shift in the camera but not in post. I think they allow bokeh in the camera but not in post.

Nope, not interested. They're focusing on entirely the wrong things.

[c.d.embrey]

April First spoofing sucks ...big time! 8-(

[Moose]

"The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." Aristotle

On Sat, Mar 27, 2021 at 11:34 PM Moose wrote (in another venue):
It seems to me that there are always at least three versions of any subject.

The way it looked to me (or looks to me in memory.)
The way it looked to the camera, as converted from Raw with defaults.
The way it feels to me.
The way I hope will convey to others how it feels to me

Remember when we used to think of only the camera rendering as truly "honest"?

I certainly recall that as a theme of many photographers. I never really believed it. But until I could manipulate the images on my computer, there wasn't much I could do about it.

When I was quite young, early 20s?, I happened onto a gallery of St. Ansel's work in a museum I had gone to for something else. Among others of his iconic images, they had two prints of Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico next to each other.

I was stunned! the straight print was dull, uninteresting, the exhibition print stunning. I felt that the scene/subject could not possibly have been as dull as the straight print in person, or he wouldn't have screeched to a stop and rushed to get on top of the car with camera for the shot before the light changed.

I felt that the great print was possibly over some objective standard of accuracy, assuming such a thing could exist, but an accurate rendition of how it looked and felt to him, at the time."

TCQ opineth: "They depict “what the camera saw.”

A disturbing form of literalization and diminution of humanity. I propose, oddly enough, that the camera and the human visual system simply do not see the same way. If the photos were made to be viewed by machines, OK. But they are not.

If TCQ limited their statement and "Brand" to journalism, I wouldn't be bothered.

BTW, anyone who thinks faked photos started with Photoshop, should read Faking It: Manipulated Photography before Photoshop, by Mia Fineman. Wonderful book

[Eric Peterson]

I got a bumper sticker at a Printed Matter book fair. “What would Sun Ra do?” Beyond that, April 1st is something we must all endure.

[V.I. Voltz]

Thank you. Enjoy April 1

Voltz

[Speed]

The antithesis of trustworthiness in a photograph ...

... where you hit a button and the world rotates 180 degrees.

https://youtu.be/-gX4N5rDYeQ

[toto]

What the camera "sees" depends on many factors, including lens choice, focal length, filters, shutter speed, perspective, framing, exposure, camera shake, etc, etc. Ironically, shooting in full auto is probably the closest thing to capturing what a camera "sees".

[JimH]

At an Adams exhibit at Bellagio in Las Vegas a few years ago there were 4 versions of Moonrise!
All this shows that photographers are artists, interpreting the world around them.

[Mike Plews]

Before I retired from the news business we were seeing the certified check scam on the rise. Glad to see you did not bite.
We have a local charity that recycles electronics, including computers.
The first thing they do with a computer is wipe the hard drive and then drill holes in it and scrap it.
If such service is availiable near you it may be worth conidering next time you upgrade.
Our IT guy once told me that it is very difficult to fully erase all data on a hard drive. He is a very cautious guy but I figure better safe than sorry.