Dieses Dokument auf deutsch

This site is about the defense of the term ‘photograph’ against its occupation by ‘photoshoping’ graphical artists for their derived work. As it is increasingly impossible to tell photo-realistic graphics from genuine photographs, we decided to mark our pictures as genuine photographs.

Our initiative for the labeling authentic photographs therefore is an act of self-defense. The advancement of the techniques of image editing got to a state that not only laymen but even professionals often have difficulties to tell photographs from composites.
Photo-realistic pictures constitute an illusion of reality with serious negative social implications. As they claim to be photographs they discredit the authenticity of all photographs. They bereave digitally ‘optimized’ models of their dignity and subsequently manipulate our idea of man up to a point where we compete with these artificially created chimaera and discern our deficiency.

What are GENUINE PHOTOGRAPHs to us?

To us GENUINE PHOTOGRAPHY is an authentic photography no matter by which means the pictures were taken.

Why do we consider the designation of photographs as GENUINE PHOTOGRAPHs indispensable?

The emerging of digital photography and namely the digital image processing went along with a change in the way the pictures were treated after their taking insofar as fabricated subjects were no longer the exception but became the rule.

We do not have any objection against the creation of pictures by digital image processing in general, but do not consider the outcome as photographs in their generic sense. Photography becomes an arbitrary medium, the decisive moment gets replaced by the fabrication of the picture on the computer.

Strictly these constructed pictures should be marked as composites. For obvious reasons the authors nearly alway prefer to do without labeling their creations appropriately.

How do we understand the term authentic?

• The photograph shows within its used crop all distinguishable  objects of the subject which were part of it in the moment of tripping the shutter
• There are no objects removed, added, changed in their relative position or altered in their proportions
• The textures of the subject elements were not altered
• As far as color pictures are concerned the colors of all parts of the subject were not basically altered.  “Basically” here means that an object which is blue is not made red. It is not meant that there is an identity with colors of the recorded real world object

What are the tolerable postprocessing steps to consider the pictures as still authentic?

Photographers of all times have influenced the expression of their photographs without basically altering the initially recorded information. We do not put any additional restrictions on the options of artistic expression to those mentioned above. The following list of post processing steps is an incomplete list of techniques which should show that the restrictions we put up nevertheless allow for substantial alterations such that the resulting photograph will never be a strict representation of the shown real world subject.

• Cropping and stitching of several part-takes of the same subject to a larger picture (as it is for instance done for the creation of panoramic pictures )
• Leveling of horizontal or vertical lines
• Adjustment of color saturation and contrast, including selective adjustments similar to traditional darkroom techniques like dodging and burning
• Use of filters as for the improvement of contrast transmission and other purposes during shooting
• Removal of dust and lint on the print
• Adjustment of perspective distortion, which can be done with appropriate cameras prior to the taking of the picture anyway
• Toning and desaturation of colors (i.e. transformation of a digital color picture to monchrome).

Who may join us?

Every photographer who complies with the above listed criteria may use the label ‘GENUINE PHOTOGRAPH’. Thus he will confess to the rules of a workflow which preserves the close link between the real world subject and its pictural representation.

It is up to the photographer to apply the label to single photographs or his whole body of work as far it complies to the rules. The label testifies the ability of the photographer to pre-visualize his subjects and thus create appealing and spectacular pictures without fallback on tricks of post production.