Tuesday 17 September 2013

The camera never lies

I suppose in some respects that is true.  In some respects.  The camera is, when all said and done, just an implement that records light.  Just how it records that light is - or can be - subject to human intervention.  Even with my fairly simple digital camera I am able to under- or over-expose and so alter the image that is recorded.

This glorious sunset, for example, was under-exposed in order to produce the saturated colour of the sky.

But it is not only when actually taking the photograph that the camera fails to tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  With digital photography it is so very easy to crop pictures to remove an object or person intruding into an otherwise tranquil scene or to rotate the picture slightly to level the horizon.  (It's amazing how often I have taken pictures in which the sea goes uphill!)

But there's more.  Graphic-enhancing software is so easy to acquire that one can never be entirely certain that a picture has not been manipulated.  We have all heard of film stars having their photos air-brushed for cosmetic reasons.  I have done it with landscape photographs.  This one, for example, had a strand of barbed wire running across the middle which quite spoiled the shot.  I dare say you will see what I have done if you enlarge the picture sufficiently.


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