What reaction would you have

The_Traveler

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What reaction would you have if someone posts quite a nice photo in a forum for Urban, Candid and Photojournalism images but does not mention, until it came up later many congratulations and thanks yous later, that the photo was not a grab shot but posed?
 
meh. a good photo is a good photo. i dont think i would personally have an issue with it. a little misrepresented? yea, I suppose. i just don't see myself getting upset about it.
 
Eh I wouldn't bat an eyelid.


That said it depends on the rules and how strictly they are enforced for the site in question - take our wildlife/nature section here on TFP we regularly allow pets and captive animals to be shown even they are not true "wildlife" photos; and generally no one really cares too much about the situation only the quality of the photo itself.

If the site had strict section rules for what was allowed where then the only issue would be moving the thread across to the right section and informing the member to use the sections correctly.

The only time I'd expect to see annoyance (and be partly annoyed myself) is if the photographer originally displays the photo directly within the thread AND makes direct claim that the photo is "candid". Ergo if the photographer openly lies about the origins of the photo then there is an issue - otherwise enjoy the art in all its forms.
 
I did get irritated, mostly at the way the photog sort of squirmed around the circumstance.
Someone said that if the photog had gone there with the intent of making the picture that would be troublesome.
The photog said that they hadn't really gone there but when the situation came up, the photog asked the person to stay and hold the pose - so it really wasn't planned.

Maybe I am pretty rigid about what I consider candid shots but I know how difficult it is to get good shots and to see a posed shot being passed off as capturing an instant and taking the applause without mentioning the circumstances really toasts my cookies. To me, faking a shot is like lying and is unethical.
 
It doesn't seem from the description that it completely adhered to what would be considered to be candid or photojournalistic in nature. It depends on the purpose, if it was for display/critique I suppose others could comment accordingly about whether or not it seemed to meet the standards for that category. If it was for a competition then it might be more of a concern that it may not have followed guidelines that were given.

I wouldn't think it gives a photographer credibility to present a photo in a way that may not have been an accurate representation of how the photo was taken, or at least that didn't quite fit expectations for the situation.
 
I did get irritated, mostly at the way the photog sort of squirmed around the circumstance.
Someone said that if the photog had gone there with the intent of making the picture that would be troublesome.
The photog said that they hadn't really gone there but when the situation came up, the photog asked the person to stay and hold the pose - so it really wasn't planned.

Maybe I am pretty rigid about what I consider candid shots but I know how difficult it is to get good shots and to see a posed shot being passed off as capturing an instant and taking the applause without mentioning the circumstances really toasts my cookies. To me, faking a shot is like lying and is unethical.

I would have been very irritated too, because in my mind that person was cheating. But, I personally wouldn't carry it with me any further than that. This is because I've learnt from personal experience in similar situations that people who 'cheat" like that either get kicked out of the group they are trying so hard to impress, or, they are the type of person who has a short attention span for projects/hobbies, and they disappear in a pretty short time frame. Either way, I have found that getting stressed out about the people who aren't quite honest isn't worth the energy.
 
What reaction would you have if someone posts quite a nice photo in a forum for Urban, Candid and Photojournalism images but does not mention, until it came up later many congratulations and thanks yous later, that the photo was not a grab shot but posed?

A lot of photos are posed.
Some look natural and are posed.... Some look posed but were natural.

And some photographers make just photos, that become sometimes art. And some artists make art by using a camera, are these photographers too?

Too many interesting questions. :)
 
After nearly thirty years of taking photos, I know that, for me, getting a really good candid shot is one of the really rewarding things about the hobby. Every time I manage this, I float around on cloud nine for a day or two and cannot stop myself poring over the shot for what seems like hours on end.

I would be quite ticked off with anyone who posed a shot and then passed it off as a good candid.
 
Ok, so it's not a true candid, but could it be that it fits into one of the other categorys? If it does then I wouldn't mind. I also think there's a difference between asking permission to take a photo of someone and deliberatley going to shoot a model.
 
The thing here is that so many of you are professionals that know a set of rules and abide to them. to me it is still not very clear where to draw the lines.

A candid, snapshot, nature, wildlife, pets, family, half posed half snapshot.... It is complicated.

I would be upset by someone who is lying, not by the fact that a picture is in the wrong category.
 
I see this in the same light as people manipulating images in Photoshop. For me there is still art going into the final product even if it is staged or manipulated. If you can't spot that it was posed I think the photographer did a great job in recreating the candid shot.

All of this is now part of photography and art even if we don't like it.. : )No problem from my side on this...
 
If the genre emphasizes a candid approach, any posing/set-up should be acknowledged when posting for critique.
To not do so reflects badly on the photographer, regardless of the quality of the shot.
Whether or not PJ or Street can be posed or processed is another discussion.
Know your audience and their expectations or expect some backlash.
 
I would understand it's the internet and wouldn't care either way.
 
And how many believe that all 'reality' shows on TV are 'candid'?

Some years back, a friend of mine was the producer of a weekly show on PBS where the crew would travel to various locations, interview the managers & employees at the location, etc. What the viewing audience didn't know was the list of questions was 'settled' beforehand...weeks beforehand. Of course, some adjustments were made when the crew arrived to shoot, etc. And that was 25 years ago!

More and more, whether on TV, Youtube, or anywhere else, 'candid' is becoming a myth.
 
You're not emphasizing process over results are you, Lew? ;)

It is inherent in photography, because of the way it is a literal tracing of reality, that we believe it more. We trust photographs far beyond what we ought. We are therefore let down and feel cheated when anything of falseness is revealed. See also "photoshopped news photograph" and so on.

These are non-issues for painters, since we assume that they are improving and altering reality already. Whether the painting is of a true scene, or a posed one, or a fabrication of the artist's imagination seems to matter naught, and this is because we arrive at the painting with an assumption of artifice.

(these ideas are not mine, this is Sontag, who I suppose probably stole them from someone else)
 

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