I have increasingly become disenchanted with what digital photography has morphed into.
What started out as light editing here and there to make clients look and feel their best, has turned into something that is not a proper representation of reality…at all.
It makes sense to put concerted effort into picture day by curating outfits, cutting hair, and real life cleaning of dirt under tiny fingernails. As a professional photographer, it is my duty to edit out unwanted blemishes and temporary injuries. I enjoy highlighting the best of an image through color correcting, cropping, and using an artful eye to bring out WHAT IS ALREADY THERE.
I, a tired mama, am not against editing. I want a bit of that for my family portraits too.
What I am speaking of, is not just the shiny and polished, but the profound misrepresentation of reality. I see self described “artists” taking the place of “photographers” frequently among my peers because more creation IS happening to produce these images than simply capturing them. Splicing, deleting, blending, adding AI generated smiles, and swapping faces are all acceptable modes to producing a product that isn’t that family. That couple. That person.
It’s merely the idea of them.
I can understand, (though don’t fully agree with) why companies would use heavy augmentation editing through their marketing efforts. I can see how effective it is for political propagandists to fall to the level of lying with imagery against their opponents. I can laugh along with the best of them when heavy editing is used for parody or humorous reasons. (Your girl loves a good meme.)
I’m just not fully grasping the changing and fabricating imagery of a family. Your family.
Over editing has always been there on the cover of magazines and books. I just wonder why this over the top production is bleeding into our personal collection of pictures.
I suppose it could have something to do with unrealistic expectations from social media. Maybe deep down, real life seems disappointing when we stare at everyone else’s glossy photos that have been altered from reality. Maybe society is just a little too obsessed with filtering the irregular bits and pebbles of life through a digital screen into a uniform fine sand that is almost indistinguishable from the next person.
It is for some (and that’s okay!) but alas, it is not for me.
My job as a photographer is to *capture,* all the glory of creation.
Reflecting back the work of the ultimate artist is what I aim to do. There is no more beauty in the dystopian AI generated machine that so many images are doctored up by than real life.
On the contrary, in my humble opinion, there is less.
Less beauty. Less smile lines. Less inconspicuous smirks. Less sincerity. Less quirky irregularities. Less authenticity, honesty, and truth.
I don’t want to contribute to any part of that. What I want, is to produce truthful treasures for families, and their future generations–not lies.
So here I am…standing against the fast moving uniform sandy current of fake look alike images, and grins. holding in my hands the sticks and stones of reality falling more in love with the artist of creation–dirt and all.
