I don’t feel the need to respond to every UHH thread. I saw this one when it was first posted and passed. But I will leave some of my thoughts here now.

Full disclosure, I have not read through this thread’s eleven pages, so what I am saying may have been hashed over and over already .

But as a longtime photojournalist with a code of ethics, but also as a Professor of Photography that teaches photography to university Art students as well as to Journalism students, I have to navigate both major sides of this issue.

Photojournalists have a responsibility to the public trust, and that means providing, maintaining and preserving truth , reality, and the important legality of their images. Knowingly violating that trust by manipulating the truth in their images has cost many a photojournalist their jobs.

As a former elected member of Executive Board of the NPPA, the National Press Photographers Association which is the major organization of both Still and Video Visual Journalists, I follow the NPPA Code of Ethics, and teach these ethics to my university Photojournalism Course students, and they have to operate within these Ethics in this course.

NPPA CODE OF ETHICS: (BOTH #6 RULES APPLY THE MOST TO OUR DISCUSSION HERE)

"Visual journalists and those who manage visual news productions are accountable for upholding the following standards in their daily work:
• 1Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
• 2Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
• 3Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
• 4Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
• 5While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
• 6Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images' content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
• 7Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
• 8Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
• 9Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.
• 10Do not engage in harassing behavior of colleagues, subordinates or subjects and maintain the highest standards of behavior in all professional interactions.

Ideally, visual journalists should:
• 1Strive to ensure that the public's business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.
• 2Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.
• 3Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.
• 4Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one's own journalistic independence.
• 5Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.
• 6Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.
• 7Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Visual journalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it."

I earned my BFA degree in Photojournalism/Filmmaking. But I also earned my Masters Degree in Digital Photography from a major Art University, and I teach Digital Photography and 35mm B&W Film Photography courses to university Art Dept. majors, and in Art, anything goes. Use of any medium, technique, including any and all forms of digital manipulation is fair game and all part of the artist’s palette.

In my photography if I choose to create a manipulated image, it is art and then I will also label it a “Photo Illustration” and will never falsely profess or represent that “art” as being true reality.

I have all the latest imaging software, but I wont even do sky replacements as I find it dishonest when represented as truth, and when represented as original work of the photographer. And I personally find it far more satisfying and fulfilling to do all the hard work to plan, explore, and sometimes just get lucky to capture a real spectacular sky, than use someone else’s image and still call it your own. I won’t even use my own sky images as replacement skies in another of my images ,unless in a Photo Illustration. .

I know you can’t put the genie back in the bottle once it is out, and I know it has always been human nature to use whatever new tools and technologies we have to manipulate and create imagery.

But think about all we risk losing, if we lose visual truth and reality in our society, if our entire visual world is reduced to a series of "CGI-like movie frames", made in a computer.

Major photojournalism photo contests now require the winners to submit their original raw file for any winners to claim their prizes, to stop manipulation of the truth.

As we already know, a recent Sony Photo Award winner admitted his winning image was AI generated and refused to except his award. But that image was entered in an experimental photo technology category so Sony stands behind their award.

It may ultimately be a losing battle to try and control the tide of AI taking over the visual world , but we can try to set some rules along the way. There are more than aesthetic reasons to set some rules, there are issues of legal evidence, and issues of our truthful recording of human history, that also matter here.

If we have nothing real to believe in, then we are left to rightly or wrongly believe everything we see is fake.

1)Years ago I was asked to create a cover image to illustrate the X-Games coming to Philadelphia, Pa. I made two images, one of an X-Games BMX Biker practicing ( I shot from below, silhouetting the biker against the clouds and sun) , and then I made another image of the Philadelphia skyline and a sailboat along the Delaware River. I combined the two images using layers in PS and come up with the image below. I made sure it was labeled a Photo Illustration so the public would not believe it was a real single image.

2)A real sky, not a sky replacement, and its real reflection in the water at the marina of the Disney Resort at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Click on download to see better image quality.

There are no easy and/or all-encompassing right or wrong answers to this question and our dilemma. But for sure we are at a crossroads that will help define the present and future of our shared visual expressions and experiences.

Cheers and best to you all. .

I so totally agree with you, but then I'm from the same background. Those who have never worked in the photojournalist field probably don't understand. I think the issue is the photographer being truthful. I find that when I look at a spectacular shot and think that it was captured as is by the photographer, I immediately want to know how s/he did it, the settings, the perspective, etc. But then I find out it's a composite, and I admit my opinion of the image changes, as well as my opinion of the person posting the image. Now if that person says up front it's a composite (or HDR or whatever other manipulation), then I judge the image on that basis.

Some years back in an art league there was a discussion about a painter. Some claimed that she had downloaded an image from the computer and printed it on canvas, then painted over it and called it an original painting. She claimed she painted it from blank canvas. The harangue over this became a really big deal. I think everyone can understand why. To use someone else's work and call it mine should violate everyone's ethics. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

I so totally agree with you, but then I'm from the same background. Those who have never worked in the photojournalist field probably don't understand. I think the issue is the photographer being truthful. I find that when I look at a spectacular shot and think that it was captured as is by the photographer, I immediately want to know how s/he did it, the settings, the perspective, etc. But then I find out it's a composite, and I admit my opinion of the image changes, as well as my opinion of the person posting the image. Now if that person says up front it's a composite (or HDR or whatever other manipulation), then I judge the image on that basis.
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