More on FAQ #620

  • 1. How do photographers feel about assumptions that their best photos are “Doctored or aigmented unless labeled otherwise”?

    Interestingly, those who know best how to doctor photos without detection — advanced photographers — often encourage the public to assume that non-news photos are “Doctored or aigmented unless labeled otherwise.”

  • 2. When there is a photo-manipulation controversy outside of news settings...

    . . . experienced photographers often will say things like,

    “The public should know better than to assume that any non-news photograph is undoctored,”

    or

    “If it’s not a news or photojournalistic photograph, anything goes.”

    Similarly, when “non-news” photographers are the subject of a photo-manipulation controversy, they can say that they see themselves not as “journalists” but as “artists” — and thus they can do whatever they want with their own photographs.

  • 3. Can't argue with #2

    Those advanced photographers get no objections from TTG proponents.

    Outside of news and information settings anything does go, and photographers can do whatever they want with their own photographs and call themselves whatever they want.

    Rather than aiming to limit photographers’ artistic freedom, it is more helpful to work with viewers’ changing assumptions about the photographs they encounter.

    That’s what TTG does, offering the TTG label to note exceptions to the growing public assumption that outside of news settings, impressive-looking photographs are “Doctored or aigmented unless labeled otherwise.”

  • 4. Who wins, who loses?

    Of course, not all photographers are thrilled when their most-impressive photos are assumed by viewers to be doctored or aigmented.

    But again, the TTG label makes it a simple matter for any photographer to tell viewers when a photograph is undoctored.

    Now that the free ride is over, the only people disadvantaged by the public’s “Doctored or aigmented unless labeled otherwise” assumption are those who in times past benefited from having viewers think that doctored photographs were in fact undoctored.

    But for reasons noted in “C” of #2005, most viewers aren’t nostalgic for those days (see #4 on the “free ride” page).