This is how it works: - $10 entry fee - 1,000 entries in total - 3x photos per entry - 3,000 photos in total - $10,000 cash prize for the best photo So 100% of the entrance fees goes to the grand prize. Hope that makes sense. There has to be an entrance fee otherwise people will submit 1,000 photos and there will be no way to get through them all.
@@cgriggsiv You are not so bright, eh? He will lose money orchestrating this competition even with the entry fees, which do not cover costs, as very clearly defined in the announcement website rules and details. Unless of course, he gets some of his coverage back from the youtube video income associated with contest related videos, But the contest itself even with the entry fee is an overall big loss for the channel. You shouldn't complain about things you clearly can't understand. Especially simple, obvious things. This only makes you look really, really dumb.
The cheating isn't in removing and altering things that ruins an image, it's in the claims that are being made about what the image really is and how the end result was achieved. Is cranking up saturation cheeting? No, technically not in most contests. Is claiming that it is what the scene really looked like? Absolutely is a blatant lie and a cheat.
No photograph in the entire universe looks exactly the same as reality. Specially because humans see things differently depending on many factors. Manipulating saturation could be seen as "reality" for the person that took that photo even if to you it looks over saturated.
Could not agree more. Imagine "tuning" war photos like that - it is easy to flip reality on a dime. Just remove a victim - or add one, for your "composing pleasure". Whatever this is, it is not a foto any more, it lost all authenticity. It might be art, but not a foto anymore. If you crop something you might also betray the true story of the foto, but you do not alter what is in the shot - at least.
Photography is not about sitting on a couch and manufacturering a image of and pretending they are real experience. It's about been there experiencing the moment and the self satisfaction of capturing that moment. Photography is about sharing u real life experiences , Ai has its own category but can never replace the personal satisfaction of capturing real world experiences
I've seen so many fake moon pictures lately it makes me angry. I mean people think it's real, but if you know moon photography 90% of the shots are basically impossible.
I'm seriously considering a lawsuit over an image falsification. I got an image in my mail. I was told it came from a drone. I was told that it was taken recently and that it showed showed damage and neglect of some property I own. It was going to be used to justify a fine and extra costs far into my future. I couldn't see the damages. I walked the property in narrow bands-like a one person grid search. I checked with the complainer. They said the survey photo was taken in the last six weeks. They said there were multiple 'defects'. I looked closer, I got a big magnifier and I looked again. Nothing. I sat back, had a drink and thought about the situation. Then a brick fell from the sky and hit me in the head! Stuff on my property was in the wrong places. Things that were showing in the photo had been moved and removed! First some planter boxes moved five months ago were in the older and wrong place. Six large trees showing in the shot had been cut down and removed eighteen months ago! Then I put the image into Photoshop. I put a luminance mask on the image and varied the mask coverage/opacity. The company logo that I saw on the image was local. The mask revealed a Google logo and time stamp from twenty months ago! Who should I notify first, the company who perpetrated the farce, law enforcement or maybe just a personal damages attorney. Decisions decisions.
No AI picture should ever be allowed. AI content of any sorts on YT, Pictures or whatever is NOT creative and you are not a creator, you are not a writer, you are certainly NOT an artist and do not have any rights to call yourself an artist.
I disagree. There are a some people who create images with a combination of ai and photoshop and I believe they have the same right to call themselves artists as anybody else - and to be criticized for it. The critical element is, that nobody should lie about whether an image is ai or a photo etc.
I've been a photographer for almost 50 yrs and the thing that's stood out the most over the years is how pretentious photographers are. Get over yourselves. Whether it's a photograph, a composite of photos, a drawing, or painting, or AI - it's all just imagemaking. Either you like an image or you don't. Who cares how it is created. Photography, like any fine art, is about personal fulfillment. Enjoy the experience you get from your work and stop criticizing people who create using other methods. Remember, there was a time when artists bemoaned photography as cheating because you could capture an image without having to take the time to learn how to draw or paint.
Completely agree. I didn't realise how pretentious photographers were until I started this channel. I'm a beginner sharing everything that I'm learning. I literally talk about the fact that I'm an amateur in every video. Yet the abuse from people with no portfolio, who seem to know everything about photography in the comments is crazy.
@@Photography-Explained agree - I've also found that the 'photographers' who bemoan people using Lightroom is simply because they haven't mastered it themselves. Pictures were always taken with the camera but made in the darkroom (now Lightroom)!
You are simply describing that you are (intentionally) clueless about the difference between a photograph and an artist's composition based on a photograph - which is pretty harsh if you have really been "in the business for 50 years" (or do you just mean that you have been taking photographs for 50 years, which is basically true for anyone who is about 65 years old and can hold a camera...). Just saying it's the same or that it doesn't matter doesn't make it so. People who cannot tell reality from fantasy are often called "crazy" - that is really a clinical definition. This is different, of course, from being able, but not caring, because you value aesthetics over truth, which is called ignorance, and may be the curse of our time, as people no longer care about reality (and what it means and how it differs from fiction). The end result of such thinking is that a convicted criminal and proven liar is re-elected (!) to the presidency because "people like his populist stories" - whether they are true to reality does not matter. Well - it does matter, and so does authenticity in photography.
Enhancing is part of the artistic process because effectively, they take the information captured in the camera and decide which aspects to prioritize to provide the desired mood or aesthetics. Adding/removing objects is a different story altogether.
This question really gets my goat. Artists have been removing/adding/moving features from their work since paint was invented, and it is dismissed/accepted as artistic license. However, if a photographer clones out an errant plastic bag, he is vilified as a cheat. Double standard? Definitely.
Cloning a plastic bag out of an image you shot in the field is a very different thing from sitting in front of a computer, and with a few keystrokes conjuring an entire image that plagiarizes the hard work of billions of images shot by other photographers over the last half-century.
Photography isn't painting. When people see a photo, they assume that's how was like irl. When people see a painting, they assume it's a creative rendition of the real thing. If you wanna add and remove big parts of your photos, you need to be very clear that the image was altered.
It depends on the rules of the contest. I’ve never entered one, but I’d assume you’d read the rules before submitting your stuff. If “healing” plastic bags isn’t allowed, then don’t, if flipping elephant ears isn’t allowed, then don’t It shouldn’t be that difficult On the other hand, feel free to do whatever you want with your pictures in your own environment: composite, add AI stuff, crop, rotate, edit, mask, do whatever, as long as upon being questioned you’re honest about what you did When doing astrophotography with dedicated telescopes, cameras and filters, the authors usually add a full description of the gear used, the exposure times, the number of light, dark, flat and bias subs used, when the picture was taken, what software was used for the composite, etc. Why? Because we’re just nerds, but also so that others can learn something
The photographer of the “Mega Moon” shot has actually been caught faking quite a few of his pictures, primarily a lot of his Northern Lights shots. You’d think you’d learn after getting caught once, but I guess not !
I just found your channel. As a photography enthusiast myself, I appreciate your "non-pro" perspective. On contests, I quit entering some time ago, mostly due to the bias of some of the judges towards particular photographers and in some cases the poor expertise of the judges who looked at images just as snapshots. Now in the world of AI, it's worse. Lastly, your example of the images where a trash bag was removed justified disqualification. As you said if the photographer had simply cropped the image, no issue.
The dividing line is always context relative and especially relative to audience expectations. For example, when we convert an image to black and white no one is fooled into thinking that the scene was actually black and white. This is because we have a set of expectations and beliefs about the world, the photographer knows this, and the audience knows that the photographer knows this. So there is no deception. The rule is this: do not make any changes to your image such that your expected audience might reasonably believe what they see to be veridical when it is not. If you do make any such changes, declare it. For nature photography, the expectations are different from, say, landscape photography. In the former, the expectation is that everything in the image was there in the scene when the shutter was pressed. In the latter, cloning smaller distracting elements out is generally accepted and again does not lead to deception. But as art (rather than an entry in a competition) you are free to do whatever you like because expectations of veridicality are generally zero.
I like what my camera's lens is focused on and my eyes see to be an accurate depiction of reality so I keep edits to a minimum. The photo needs to be taken with due diligence so as to make edits a last resort to have a presentable image,so in competitions keep your photo honest and present in a truthful manner.
No, thats what I thought to begin with, but its more than that - look at the images again and watch where the rip is in relation to the long tusk - the ears have been swapped (or the tusks have) - which is an utterly bizarre thing to do.
Editing photographs goes back to the darkroom days, burning and dodging, and few questioned it, now when digital the bar is set at the point where it has to be as taken. AI generated images is not photography, it is like entering a life like painting into a photography competition. Merging photographs together creates an image, but it is not a photograph.
Yes, I agree with you! Manipulation has always been part of photography. Some folks even claimed, that with the choice of the lens manipulation already starts. But nevertheless the old photos had at least a „true core“. ;-) Nowadays it needn’t have to have anything to do with reality - and it’ll be harder and harder to tell what is real and what is fake. If you think about it consistently to the end, the only thing you can trust is your own photographs and your own experience ...
The AI generated shot at the beginning looked so fake. If photographers so heavily edit their photos that iot looks like that then they have no one to blame but themselves that people think AI photos like that are "real".
in terms of art, I think highly processed and edited photos can look amazing, but in my opinion, the finished piece isn't a photos. It can be amazing art, it's just not an amazing photo.
Thom Heaton recently put out an interesting video about taking cloning too far. I was surprised at the broad support for cloning with the justification that it was art. It got me wondering where reality ends and the 'art' begins. Personally, I want my photographs to meet a viewers expectations that it is 'real'. Technically, photography is the 'recording of light'. Once we start digitally altering the content, it is no longer a photograph. (I'm not talking about colour/tone adjustments etc. They aren't altering the content, per-se).
Exactly, the assumption is that light passed through a lens onto a photo sensitive surface. You can manipulate and adjust that light or the surface or pixels to behave in different ways but once you start removing or adding new ones there's a limit. Different genres might reasonably have different acceptable limits as well but there's a point where it just becomes digital art. That's fine too, it's just not really photography anymore even if photography is part of it.
For a photo competition, you should follow the rules of the competition and not misrepresent your photo. It's not the amount of editing per se that is the problem but what is allowed in the competition. For something sold as art by a photographer, I'm more lenient on the editing but do want to know what the photographer says about the image.
While I agree, that editing out the plastic bag did not alter the image, or the main meaning of it, but it is the rule that you are not allowed to do it. The problem is when you allow certain "manipulations" where do you draw the line? is removing a trashcan at the edge of the photo ok, and what about editing out a person in a street shot, that just does not fit the look or mood you wanted with the picture. Think there was a similar case when a photographer edited out an advertising sign in the background of a group shot, which he entered also in a major contest. The photo was better without the sign, but it was no longer unaltered, which was a requirement.
Nowadays when I look at photography my first thought is "is it real?" That is something relatively new for me and it takes some of the enjoyment out of the hobby. Living in New England, this fall's crop of foliage pictures are so often over processed to the point that I feel there is no way that exists in nature. I find reality to be much more pleasing.
Hi. This is a very interesting subject; I have been an amateur photographer for 40 years; with film,DSLR and now mirrorless. I take photos for pleasure, a hobby, trying to capture that perfect wildlife photo or plane action shot. I don't heavily post process (mainly because I am too old and lazy), at most cropping and exposure adjustment. I never add or take away (maybe crop); photography is meant to capture what was there or what happened at the time. I see loads of AI images on FB claiming to be what was seen or happened. It doesn't bother me that much, but is clearly wrong in competitions. I like the challenge and adventure of photography; using AI ISN'T photography!
I hear you :). AI photography is hear to stay. As long as it's labelled appropriately I'm actually interested to see where it goes. Painters said the same thing about photographers that we say about AI artists.
@@Photography-Explained Thanks for the reply. I totally agree; I don't mind AI so long as it isn't passed off as what was actually seen or happened. I have upgraded my camera gear a few times in the past 12 months (better low light or better focus speed etc.) to get the results I want. It's my choice to walk 5 miles to the right location at the right time again to get the photo of what was actually there. I think painters were probably more worried because a photo shows a truer image, whereas as the painting relies on the painters skill. If anything we have come full circle- painting was if anything closer to AI than photography; a painting can come from the imagination (?), a photo is "real" ! Thanks again. Great channel.
I don't really have a problem with 'digital art' AI, so long as the viewer is well aware of it. What does concern me is the 'overuse' of cloning and normalizing it as a part of 'legitimate' photography. What is real anymore? Well, I think there will be value in 'real' in the longterm, and ultimately there will be occasions when photographers have to choose how honest they are about their work.
Few photographers use Photoshop anymore. But the programs they do use, like Lightroom, do many, if not most, of the things that Photoshop did in the past, and more.
I love it, not the price and subscription. I use it to correct colour fringing, color noise. Use layer masks and paint it in, correct too arks shadows, spesific areas where colour is slightly wrong. Remove lisence plate numbers and letters. I make things look as closely to how it did in real life as possible.
I really don’t understand why so many photographers feel like they HAVE to edit photos,like go straight to lightroom when finished with a shoot. I get everything right in camera,unless I make a mistake that NEEDS to be corrected or using sfx,I don’t change anything about my photos. I can’t stand people that go straight to editing messing with shit for the hell,like you’re SUPPOSED to.
I have never seen a picture SOOC that could not have been better when properly processed in Lightroom. I've found that most people who argue otherwise just haven't mastered the computer technology.
I live in the North West of England - It's been dull, gray and wet pretty much for the last two years - if we didn't enhance our photos a little - they will all be as dull and grey as the weather - However I make sure my photos just bring out the inner beauty and not create something that doesn't really exist - except in my own imagination.
Another cool video thank you....I am guilty of the moon shot....I put on in a free competition...I dare say lots of other do the same.... I was using my own photos though, where do you draw the line, it's now in every software in the market... I look at it as a tool of the trade. It's not going away...Love your videos Colin Devon UK
Photographers have set themselves up for AI by oversaturating and altering images for years. We have conditioned people to believe something that isn’t real is real.
There's a distinction to make between documentary and artistic photography. I'm *guessing* with the NatGeo/plastic bag, the image was supposed to be journalistic and/or documentary, which follows strict ethics about altering a scene in any way. If I were capturing a scene for artistic purposes (and not a competition), I'd 100% remove the bag unless it was part of the story. Or I'd simply crop it out. I do a lot of abstract architecture photography, and my post-processing involves virtual window washing and dirt removal. If my intention was to present a building in its literal state, I'd leave the imperfections. But the story is the line, light, form, etc., and the imperfections only distract from that. Only if the imperfection adds to the story do I leave it. When photographing plants and nature, I'll touch up distracting bugs or branches and other items that don't fit with my vision. I don't see this as cheating (unless I represent it as SOOC or don't follow the processing rules of a competition); it's just using the tools available to realize my artistic intention. One can take it too far, of course, and I try to avoid that. An image that's too "perfect" looks fake, even if it's real. Almost all of the AI images I see look fake and soulless, and no, I can't imagine that a computer keyboard is going to completely replace the camera, paint brush, pencil, or any other artistic tool. AI is here and it's not going anywhere, but we don't have to let it hijack the creative spirit and need to express ourselves through art.
People who cheat in competitions are pathetic. Photography is not just about the final image, it’s the experience of getting out and taking the photo. Choosing the shot, angle, lighting, etc. All these things are part of the experience. Sitting at a computer faffing around is a distant last behind that
Taking the elephant picture, I consider making a pleasing picture to wow friends and family by twiddling the ear is fine. However, the rules for Geographic competitions say no photo surgery. What you snap is what you get. Those are the rules. Same with reportage. No cloning and manipulation allowed.
Drawing the line is simple: If you enter a competition you have to accept the rules. easy as that! If you want to sell prints, you can do whatever you want...
Dude every single one of these photographs that you put up here I've already said that they were fake AI generated or manipulated in some way shape or form on Facebook because that's why I've seen them it was too easy for me to spot all the crap and there's still crap on there that I'm still specifying that's fake imagery
These people are editors not photographers, removing small objects to enhance the photo while leaving the rest of the photo unchannged is one thing, Taking an absolute terrible photo in bad light and poor exposure and turning into a spectacular picture in photoshop is not photography. Don't get me wrong I have seen some great works of art made in photoshop, but they are no longer photos, just works of art
Maybe that’s what painters said when photographers first started taking photos using their cameras. The person creating the AI image also needs to give the right prompt . Only they shouldn’t try to pass it off as an actual photo.
But don't all photographers cheat (well not me, my stuff is in the lens only) we have all these manufactures and youtubers convincing us we need cameras and lenses that cost the price of a new car because it will improve our pictures. Then they proceed to advise us on the best post applications like light room and photoshop, not to mention all the in built presets and god knows what else🥱It gets worse, they then show us how to change the skies, the colour of the grass, delete objects from the pictures etc etc etc etc I returned to photography 5 years ago after 20 year out, all the above nonsense depressed me so much, I bought an analogue camera like from my youth, ad went out and used my photography "Skills" sorry to use bad language, but to me there is photography, and then there is IT and graphic design, big difference!
Take it a step further and film photographers "cheated" as well. We carefully selected certain films because they made the reds or greens "pop". We used filters to darken skies, enhance sunsets, remove glare. We chose papers for their contrast, or how they improved color. We dodged and burned, creatively cropped to eliminate things, and sandwiched slides to add them! Ansel Adams wrote a book about manipulating images under the enlarger. An image has never been simple "reality", it has always been more what the photographer wants to convey. As long as you aren't deliberately deceiving people (if you are using AI, or adding things that weren't there, it's digital art..call it that) or breaking the rules of a contest or submission, it's your art.
4:17 A bit rich for Nat Geo to disqualify a person for removing a plastic bag when it made the career of a person who has a long trac record of adding elements that were never there and removing elements that didn't suit the story. The latter was elevated to legend status. That competiton winner was royally and hypocrtically robbed.
7:32 you could make an entire video on the photo manipulations by Elliot McGucken. He's got so many fake aurora images and he's been called out many times in his comments but he obviously doesn't care because he just "likes" those comments. And then when people praise him for taking a great shot, he doesn't tell the truth about them and just takes the praise. However, it is also his personal Instagram feed and he should be able to do whatever he wants on it. Was the moon photo featured here from a competition?
Yeah I used to follow him and naturally assumed some of his photos were composites but it went totally overboard with some things and there's no acknowledgement of it.
Philosophically speaking, almost all photography is a lie. The moment you put on a wide angle or long lens you skew reality... the moment you color correct, you skew reality. The trick for me has always been to dance around this lie... whenever I see competitions I have to laugh at myself for all those crops, and/or content aware fills I do to support those lies!
animals do have winter coats, and cropping and white balance are fine tools for realistic photography, but getting rid of what was there is not valid realism.
National Geographic has long ceased to be an authority for photographers. but they have their own rules and they stick to them, the photo was rightly disqualified. And similar problems have happened before.
As a question of morals? Yeah, I don't really care about photos being edited. From the context of a competition? It depends on the competition. Hope that makes sense.
I've taken some force perspective photos of the moonrise/moonset on the horizon, as well as various landscape photos at different focal length with the moon, and my pet peeve are people posting all these crazy copy/paste moon images as though they're a legit single exposure. Sometimes it can be difficult, because even a legit single exposure can look fake and sometime I'll ask a trick question about the focal length and distance to the foreground subject. If it's legit, the photographer replies with a workable answer and if it's not they typically ignore answering or they fess up and say it's a composite image
Honestly its one of the reason I've lost my passion for photography. Everything is so edited these days its like meh. Used to be even though the photos had "work" done to them you still had to have a certain level of skill to achieve good results.
There should be no competition in photography, simply because it all comes down to some "judges" opinion......who gives judges the ultimate power to call one image better than all the rest.... they're only human like the rest of us........
I disagree because without feedback you only have your own subjective thoughts about your work and as such may not drive yourself to improve whereas being judged will give you Input that can make you a more objective details minded photographer. Competition is a positive as it fosters excellence in all human experiences and people like to be motivated to do better because after all we are only human.
It's the same regarding astrophotography getting an APOD is considered to be a major feat & there's been a few people that have been caught out. One guy posted an ISS transit with Saturn in the frame which he claimed to have captured. Problem is the image got pulled apart by someone I know plus he wasn't in the correct geographical location to have pulled it off. Up until that point he'd captured a few ISS transits whether it solar Lunar of planetary which were legit but after this stunt his reputation plummeted. He wasn't the first either as quite a few have been caught out, mind you I guess where do you draw the line in astrophotography as all images are enhanced to get the best from the data fortunately I'm not very good at it lol.
What is obsolete is taking meaningless pictures just because the scene is beautiful. Get over it! You can still do it, but it will be easier with AI in the future. A well documented photo of some real event or place will never be obsolete. The elephant picture, by the way, could just have been mirrored. I would much rather doubt the reality of the sky in the winner version.
Wait, there's a contest that if you edit your photograph you're eliminated?! Wow. I guess folks are part of a perfection club or something. I get people might be on board with this. And obviously the are because a contest like that exists. But, it's just not realistic. My thought on the submission of an AI photo is just annoying to me. I mean as photographers we're now needing to "prove" ourself more than ever before. It doesn't help folks submitting pictures to make everyone even more spectacle if we really took the picture. You want to test judges, do it one on one. Because outsiders might start thinking everything is AI because judges were fooled. That can drop support for us selling our photography as art. Yes, AI can do some great images. But, it's not my imagination so I'm not worried. Still, doing things like this doesn't help the public perception. We don't need to see "tests".
Why don't we limits photo contests to JPEG and that will tell us who is a good or a great photographer by their skill not altering the product after you've shot it
I don't get the thing with the elephant ear. The image looks mirror-flipped to me, which does not match the explanation from the photographer, so that would raise my suspicion but I see mirror-flipping by itself not a a disqualifying issue.
Look at the tusk and the ears. If it was mirrored, the tusk wouldnt be on the same side. Well, though it does like like the ears are mirrored. but the tuck arent..
IMHO, other than cropping, all post processing is cheating. Dust shmust, clean your gear, or not, it add's character. :-). Any image that has been manipulated is no longer a "photograph". If you need to post process (lighten/darken/whatever); you're not a photographer, you're a graphic designer. :-/. However, I can see why darkening/lightening might be ok, i.e.: push and pull developing, but, with actual film, you can't actually "see" what's going on in the tank, so even doing it with chemicals requires skill and not an instant gratification slider.
paying $10 to win $10,000 is a scam and gamble, no matter what you say, want to make an award, make it free and let the good one, win. otherwise what you say in your video is contrary to what you, want to make your point
Oh dear... You pay $10 to enter the competition so that people don't spam. 1,000 maximum entries. The best photo wins $10,000. I'm literally losing money from the card processing fees... I can't be much clearer than that I'm afraid.
@@Photography-Explained I just don't believe that, what you're saying is 3 x $10, that means only 334 entries = 1,000 entries or 3,300 photos for 1,000 entries, but who's counting that you will only accept 1,000 entries or what happens if you don't reach the 1,000 entries does the winner still wins.
You believing something is irrelevant to the reality of the situation. 1 entry = submit 3 photos. 1,000 entries in total. 3,000 photos for the judges to work through. 1 of those entries that is considered the "best" photo will win $10,000. I'm the one counting the entries or maybe one of the admin from my team if I've not got the time. This is a hobby for me. Not a business. That is literally the whole point of the competition. Most photography competitions are a dodgy money making scheme. This will literally cost me money to run it. For context, I'm the founder of Salesman.com. I don't need to lie about entries on a photography competition to pay my bills :).
These are just a stupid exsamples total fake composite pictures but photographer cheating with light in Lr Ps every time to socollaed pocessed their images, to creating fake lighting and contrast etc to pop their images by using artificial instruments. One situtation you accept cheating but other hand its so normal.
It's a blurry line when it comes to editing photos. In my opinion, editing is okay only to fix scan artifacts or damage to the negatives. Something that was both unforeseeable, and un-correctable. If there is something in the shot that you wish wasnt there, better hope it was near the edge to crop out. Color adjusting is a no-no in my opinion. Maybe the shot came out more flat than it really was, and you want to correct it. Fine. But that's not where people stop- they keep tweaking it until it looks better than it did in real life. Once you remove an unwanted object, tweak the colors or exposure, or perform a little touch-up, it's no longer a photograph in my opinion. It's an image. Not to say that's bad. Images are beautiful and rightfully belong in frames. But they aren't true photographs in this purist's perspective.
@@Photography-Explained Well because the moon is very bright at night and most of the time when the scenery is not so you need to expose the moon differently then the scenery. Also the moon and stars move quite fast so a large portion of all astrophotography shots are composites of foreground and sky (stars moon etc). I haven't even got into taking many short exposures and stacking them and merging them which is also common. Now this particular shot had a daytime moon which is not much brighter relative to the scenery so the photographer was getting greedy by editing it to make it bigger. Unfortunately alot of photographers also fake the size of the moon to make it more dramatic. Only way to get a really big moon with the forground like in this shot is to have a really long lens and take a picture of objects infront of the moon that are far away from you to create the perspective. But you can also just be lazy and photoshop it.
Sometimes the moon rises before it gets too dark and so it's quite easy to get the moon with a foreground and you have no need to use photoshop and create a composite shot. Even if it's a bit darker, depending on the foreground (it could be a cityscape that is lit up) you could easily get a shot of the moon with the foreground in one shot as cameras nowadays have really good dynamic range.
@joits nnormaly a clear night after the moon has risen is way too bright for a city scape no dynamicrange will help it will be white. However, as i already mentioned, non night shots or some darker moonrises can be doable. But I never said all were composute. But as i learned a while back way way more than i had assumed before i got into it. At first, it was disappointing, but then I understood it. I still think it should be more widely understood.
In this increasingly developing world it’s becoming rare as rocking horse poop to find a scene to shoot that isn’t littered with wind turbines , buildings, roads or buildings etc. This leads to only the most wealthy of photographers being able to travel to remote areas to get unspoilt shots. So, one can argue that these rules help protect competitions from abuse and keeping photography pure but also it can make it inaccessible to a lot of competitors.
No such thing as "cheating" in photography. It's an art form, and you do what you want. The only precautionary thing to surely avoid is to pass off altered photos as 100% genuine, especially if you're a professional who sells your work -
Generally speaking: seeing photographs too good to be true makes me always suspicious and the first thought coming to my mind is "nice photoshop job". Personally I do not attend participating in a photo competition nor do I have the time spending daily hours on the same spot for a couple of months just to capture the absolute perfect shot. And as I have experienced many times over the camera may capture the scene completely different despite all the various and carefully selected camera settings. My approach to photography is different. Taking photos means for me going in the field and taking "sketches" like a painter did in the old days. I then enhance my "sketches" to a realistic level pleasing to my eyes which may involve removing distractions, color grading etc., until it has become for me personally a piece of art. Isn't the post-processing of raw files not quite similar? In any case I am of the opinion that solely AI generated images do not belong in a photo competition. There should be a separate section for it, if at all.
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@@Photography-Explained
I see how you get them $10 for every image okay speaking of cheating
This is how it works:
- $10 entry fee
- 1,000 entries in total
- 3x photos per entry
- 3,000 photos in total
- $10,000 cash prize for the best photo
So 100% of the entrance fees goes to the grand prize. Hope that makes sense.
There has to be an entrance fee otherwise people will submit 1,000 photos and there will be no way to get through them all.
@@cgriggsiv You are not so bright, eh? He will lose money orchestrating this competition even with the entry fees, which do not cover costs, as very clearly defined in the announcement website rules and details. Unless of course, he gets some of his coverage back from the youtube video income associated with contest related videos, But the contest itself even with the entry fee is an overall big loss for the channel. You shouldn't complain about things you clearly can't understand. Especially simple, obvious things. This only makes you look really, really dumb.
The cheating isn't in removing and altering things that ruins an image, it's in the claims that are being made about what the image really is and how the end result was achieved. Is cranking up saturation cheeting? No, technically not in most contests. Is claiming that it is what the scene really looked like? Absolutely is a blatant lie and a cheat.
Yeah, it can be quite subtle depending on the rules of the competition.
No photograph in the entire universe looks exactly the same as reality. Specially because humans see things differently depending on many factors. Manipulating saturation could be seen as "reality" for the person that took that photo even if to you it looks over saturated.
wow profound
Could not agree more. Imagine "tuning" war photos like that - it is easy to flip reality on a dime. Just remove a victim - or add one, for your "composing pleasure". Whatever this is, it is not a foto any more, it lost all authenticity. It might be art, but not a foto anymore. If you crop something you might also betray the true story of the foto, but you do not alter what is in the shot - at least.
Photography is not about sitting on a couch and manufacturering a image of and pretending they are real experience.
It's about been there experiencing the moment and the self satisfaction of capturing that moment.
Photography is about sharing u real life experiences , Ai has its own category but can never replace the personal satisfaction of capturing real world experiences
Agree I have written a very similar comment before seeing yours
Agree I have written a very similar comment before seeing yours
God bless you You've hit it right on the head it's about taking the photo the best way you can not going home and altering it
The elephant ear was completely mirrored and clone in from another photo. A fully manipulated image and that guy is a total joker.
I've seen so many fake moon pictures lately it makes me angry. I mean people think it's real, but if you know moon photography 90% of the shots are basically impossible.
Yup 😅. It’s either a great moon picture with black background or a crappy noisy background with a big bright circle 😂
You can kinda do it HDR style, that wouldn't be considered cheating
I'm seriously considering a lawsuit over an image falsification. I got an image in my mail. I was told it came from a drone. I was told that it was taken recently and that it showed showed damage and neglect of some property I own. It was going to be used to justify a fine and extra costs far into my future. I couldn't see the damages. I walked the property in narrow bands-like a one person grid search. I checked with the complainer. They said the survey photo was taken in the last six weeks. They said there were multiple 'defects'. I looked closer, I got a big magnifier and I looked again. Nothing. I sat back, had a drink and thought about the situation. Then a brick fell from the sky and hit me in the head! Stuff on my property was in the wrong places. Things that were showing in the photo had been moved and removed! First some planter boxes moved five months ago were in the older and wrong place. Six large trees showing in the shot had been cut down and removed eighteen months ago! Then I put the image into Photoshop. I put a luminance mask on the image and varied the mask coverage/opacity. The company logo that I saw on the image was local. The mask revealed a Google logo and time stamp from twenty months ago! Who should I notify first, the company who perpetrated the farce, law enforcement or maybe just a personal damages attorney. Decisions decisions.
Damn that is crazy. I imagine a lot of people could get duped by that.
No AI picture should ever be allowed. AI content of any sorts on YT, Pictures or whatever is NOT creative and you are not a creator, you are not a writer, you are certainly NOT an artist and do not have any rights to call yourself an artist.
I disagree. There are a some people who create images with a combination of ai and photoshop and I believe they have the same right to call themselves artists as anybody else - and to be criticized for it. The critical element is, that nobody should lie about whether an image is ai or a photo etc.
I've been a photographer for almost 50 yrs and the thing that's stood out the most over the years is how pretentious photographers are. Get over yourselves. Whether it's a photograph, a composite of photos, a drawing, or painting, or AI - it's all just imagemaking. Either you like an image or you don't. Who cares how it is created. Photography, like any fine art, is about personal fulfillment. Enjoy the experience you get from your work and stop criticizing people who create using other methods. Remember, there was a time when artists bemoaned photography as cheating because you could capture an image without having to take the time to learn how to draw or paint.
Completely agree. I didn't realise how pretentious photographers were until I started this channel.
I'm a beginner sharing everything that I'm learning. I literally talk about the fact that I'm an amateur in every video.
Yet the abuse from people with no portfolio, who seem to know everything about photography in the comments is crazy.
@@Photography-Explained agree - I've also found that the 'photographers' who bemoan people using Lightroom is simply because they haven't mastered it themselves. Pictures were always taken with the camera but made in the darkroom (now Lightroom)!
You are simply describing that you are (intentionally) clueless about the difference between a photograph and an artist's composition based on a photograph - which is pretty harsh if you have really been "in the business for 50 years" (or do you just mean that you have been taking photographs for 50 years, which is basically true for anyone who is about 65 years old and can hold a camera...).
Just saying it's the same or that it doesn't matter doesn't make it so. People who cannot tell reality from fantasy are often called "crazy" - that is really a clinical definition. This is different, of course, from being able, but not caring, because you value aesthetics over truth, which is called ignorance, and may be the curse of our time, as people no longer care about reality (and what it means and how it differs from fiction). The end result of such thinking is that a convicted criminal and proven liar is re-elected (!) to the presidency because "people like his populist stories" - whether they are true to reality does not matter. Well - it does matter, and so does authenticity in photography.
@@40hup Well, I didn't vote for the orange turd. Secondly - get a life.
Enhancing is part of the artistic process because effectively, they take the information captured in the camera and decide which aspects to prioritize to provide the desired mood or aesthetics. Adding/removing objects is a different story altogether.
This question really gets my goat. Artists have been removing/adding/moving features from their work since paint was invented, and it is dismissed/accepted as artistic license. However, if a photographer clones out an errant plastic bag, he is vilified as a cheat. Double standard? Definitely.
Cloning a plastic bag out of an image you shot in the field is a very different thing from sitting in front of a computer, and with a few keystrokes conjuring an entire image that plagiarizes the hard work of billions of images shot by other photographers over the last half-century.
Yes there is, but Tony still has a valid point as well.
Photography isn't painting. When people see a photo, they assume that's how was like irl. When people see a painting, they assume it's a creative rendition of the real thing. If you wanna add and remove big parts of your photos, you need to be very clear that the image was altered.
" THEIR work " is key in your statement.
It depends on the rules of the contest. I’ve never entered one, but I’d assume you’d read the rules before submitting your stuff.
If “healing” plastic bags isn’t allowed, then don’t, if flipping elephant ears isn’t allowed, then don’t
It shouldn’t be that difficult
On the other hand, feel free to do whatever you want with your pictures in your own environment: composite, add AI stuff, crop, rotate, edit, mask, do whatever, as long as upon being questioned you’re honest about what you did
When doing astrophotography with dedicated telescopes, cameras and filters, the authors usually add a full description of the gear used, the exposure times, the number of light, dark, flat and bias subs used, when the picture was taken, what software was used for the composite, etc.
Why? Because we’re just nerds, but also so that others can learn something
I think we, as photographers have to remember one thing. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.
yea...but its also about the actual photos
The photographer of the “Mega Moon” shot has actually been caught faking quite a few of his pictures, primarily a lot of his Northern Lights shots. You’d think you’d learn after getting caught once, but I guess not !
I just found your channel. As a photography enthusiast myself, I appreciate your "non-pro" perspective. On contests, I quit entering some time ago, mostly due to the bias of some of the judges towards particular photographers and in some cases the poor expertise of the judges who looked at images just as snapshots. Now in the world of AI, it's worse. Lastly, your example of the images where a trash bag was removed justified disqualification. As you said if the photographer had simply cropped the image, no issue.
The dividing line is always context relative and especially relative to audience expectations. For example, when we convert an image to black and white no one is fooled into thinking that the scene was actually black and white. This is because we have a set of expectations and beliefs about the world, the photographer knows this, and the audience knows that the photographer knows this. So there is no deception. The rule is this: do not make any changes to your image such that your expected audience might reasonably believe what they see to be veridical when it is not. If you do make any such changes, declare it. For nature photography, the expectations are different from, say, landscape photography. In the former, the expectation is that everything in the image was there in the scene when the shutter was pressed. In the latter, cloning smaller distracting elements out is generally accepted and again does not lead to deception. But as art (rather than an entry in a competition) you are free to do whatever you like because expectations of veridicality are generally zero.
I like what my camera's lens is focused on and my eyes see to be an accurate depiction of reality so I keep edits to a minimum. The photo needs to be taken with due diligence so as to make edits a last resort to have a presentable image,so in competitions keep your photo honest and present in a truthful manner.
With the elephant ear image, the photo is just flopped. The tear in the ear is still there. It's just on the opposite side of his head.
the tusks aren't flipped. The ears have been switched.
No, thats what I thought to begin with, but its more than that - look at the images again and watch where the rip is in relation to the long tusk - the ears have been swapped (or the tusks have) - which is an utterly bizarre thing to do.
Editing photographs goes back to the darkroom days, burning and dodging, and few questioned it, now when digital the bar is set at the point where it has to be as taken. AI generated images is not photography, it is like entering a life like painting into a photography competition. Merging photographs together creates an image, but it is not a photograph.
Yes, I agree with you! Manipulation has always been part of photography. Some folks even claimed, that with the choice of the lens manipulation already starts. But nevertheless the old photos had at least a „true core“. ;-) Nowadays it needn’t have to have anything to do with reality - and it’ll be harder and harder to tell what is real and what is fake. If you think about it consistently to the end, the only thing you can trust is your own photographs and your own experience ...
10 cheat sheets or 9? I only saw 1 through 9 available for download. Excellent video as always!!
The AI generated shot at the beginning looked so fake. If photographers so heavily edit their photos that iot looks like that then they have no one to blame but themselves that people think AI photos like that are "real".
in terms of art, I think highly processed and edited photos can look amazing, but in my opinion, the finished piece isn't a photos. It can be amazing art, it's just not an amazing photo.
Thom Heaton recently put out an interesting video about taking cloning too far. I was surprised at the broad support for cloning with the justification that it was art. It got me wondering where reality ends and the 'art' begins. Personally, I want my photographs to meet a viewers expectations that it is 'real'.
Technically, photography is the 'recording of light'. Once we start digitally altering the content, it is no longer a photograph. (I'm not talking about colour/tone adjustments etc. They aren't altering the content, per-se).
Exactly, the assumption is that light passed through a lens onto a photo sensitive surface. You can manipulate and adjust that light or the surface or pixels to behave in different ways but once you start removing or adding new ones there's a limit. Different genres might reasonably have different acceptable limits as well but there's a point where it just becomes digital art. That's fine too, it's just not really photography anymore even if photography is part of it.
Getting sick of the AI stuff.
For a photo competition, you should follow the rules of the competition and not misrepresent your photo. It's not the amount of editing per se that is the problem but what is allowed in the competition.
For something sold as art by a photographer, I'm more lenient on the editing but do want to know what the photographer says about the image.
These jack asses that over-process everything are shameless.
While I agree, that editing out the plastic bag did not alter the image, or the main meaning of it, but it is the rule that you are not allowed to do it.
The problem is when you allow certain "manipulations" where do you draw the line? is removing a trashcan at the edge of the photo ok, and what about editing out a person in a street shot, that just does not fit the look or mood you wanted with the picture.
Think there was a similar case when a photographer edited out an advertising sign in the background of a group shot, which he entered also in a major contest.
The photo was better without the sign, but it was no longer unaltered, which was a requirement.
Nowadays when I look at photography my first thought is "is it real?" That is something relatively new for me and it takes some of the enjoyment out of the hobby. Living in New England, this fall's crop of foliage pictures are so often over processed to the point that I feel there is no way that exists in nature. I find reality to be much more pleasing.
Hi. This is a very interesting subject; I have been an amateur photographer for 40 years; with film,DSLR and now mirrorless. I take photos for pleasure, a hobby, trying to capture that perfect wildlife photo or plane action shot. I don't heavily post process (mainly because I am too old and lazy), at most cropping and exposure adjustment. I never add or take away (maybe crop); photography is meant to capture what was there or what happened at the time. I see loads of AI images on FB claiming to be what was seen or happened. It doesn't bother me that much, but is clearly wrong in competitions. I like the challenge and adventure of photography; using AI ISN'T photography!
I hear you :).
AI photography is hear to stay. As long as it's labelled appropriately I'm actually interested to see where it goes.
Painters said the same thing about photographers that we say about AI artists.
@@Photography-Explained Thanks for the reply. I totally agree; I don't mind AI so long as it isn't passed off as what was actually seen or happened. I have upgraded my camera gear a few times in the past 12 months (better low light or better focus speed etc.) to get the results I want. It's my choice to walk 5 miles to the right location at the right time again to get the photo of what was actually there. I think painters were probably more worried because a photo shows a truer image, whereas as the painting relies on the painters skill. If anything we have come full circle- painting was if anything closer to AI than photography; a painting can come from the imagination (?), a photo is "real" ! Thanks again. Great channel.
Glad you're enjoying the content :).
I don't really have a problem with 'digital art' AI, so long as the viewer is well aware of it.
What does concern me is the 'overuse' of cloning and normalizing it as a part of 'legitimate' photography. What is real anymore? Well, I think there will be value in 'real' in the longterm, and ultimately there will be occasions when photographers have to choose how honest they are about their work.
As an amateur I don't like photoshop.
Few photographers use Photoshop anymore. But the programs they do use, like Lightroom, do many, if not most, of the things that Photoshop did in the past, and more.
I love it, not the price and subscription. I use it to correct colour fringing, color noise. Use layer masks and paint it in, correct too arks shadows, spesific areas where colour is slightly wrong. Remove lisence plate numbers and letters. I make things look as closely to how it did in real life as possible.
I really don’t understand why so many photographers feel like they HAVE to edit photos,like go straight to lightroom when finished with a shoot. I get everything right in camera,unless I make a mistake that NEEDS to be corrected or using sfx,I don’t change anything about my photos. I can’t stand people that go straight to editing messing with shit for the hell,like you’re SUPPOSED to.
I have never seen a picture SOOC that could not have been better when properly processed in Lightroom. I've found that most people who argue otherwise just haven't mastered the computer technology.
I wouldn't call removing something from an image cheating.
If you’re entering a photo contest then follow the rules. If you’re creating your own “art” then edit as much as you want.
We make sure we have a Creative category in our annual competition where anything goes.
I live in the North West of England - It's been dull, gray and wet pretty much for the last two years - if we didn't enhance our photos a little - they will all be as dull and grey as the weather - However I make sure my photos just bring out the inner beauty and not create something that doesn't really exist - except in my own imagination.
I live in Cumbria and never needed to tweak a photo
@@andirutherford2615 Do you Jpeg or raw
Another cool video thank you....I am guilty of the moon shot....I put on in a free competition...I dare say lots of other do the same.... I was using my own photos though, where do you draw the line, it's now in every software in the market... I look at it as a tool of the trade. It's not going away...Love your videos Colin Devon UK
Every photo taken now by professional or semi, will be in RAW, so ABSOLUTELY no photo is real anymore and enhanced to with an inch of its life.
Every contest winner should have to present the raw file, or at least the original file out of the camera/phone
Photographers have set themselves up for AI by oversaturating and altering images for years. We have conditioned people to believe something that isn’t real is real.
There's a distinction to make between documentary and artistic photography. I'm *guessing* with the NatGeo/plastic bag, the image was supposed to be journalistic and/or documentary, which follows strict ethics about altering a scene in any way. If I were capturing a scene for artistic purposes (and not a competition), I'd 100% remove the bag unless it was part of the story. Or I'd simply crop it out.
I do a lot of abstract architecture photography, and my post-processing involves virtual window washing and dirt removal. If my intention was to present a building in its literal state, I'd leave the imperfections. But the story is the line, light, form, etc., and the imperfections only distract from that. Only if the imperfection adds to the story do I leave it. When photographing plants and nature, I'll touch up distracting bugs or branches and other items that don't fit with my vision. I don't see this as cheating (unless I represent it as SOOC or don't follow the processing rules of a competition); it's just using the tools available to realize my artistic intention.
One can take it too far, of course, and I try to avoid that. An image that's too "perfect" looks fake, even if it's real. Almost all of the AI images I see look fake and soulless, and no, I can't imagine that a computer keyboard is going to completely replace the camera, paint brush, pencil, or any other artistic tool. AI is here and it's not going anywhere, but we don't have to let it hijack the creative spirit and need to express ourselves through art.
People who cheat in competitions are pathetic. Photography is not just about the final image, it’s the experience of getting out and taking the photo. Choosing the shot, angle, lighting, etc. All these things are part of the experience. Sitting at a computer faffing around is a distant last behind that
The AI beach scene is easy to tell, the light through the water doesn't work that way. I would've called BS on that right away.
Is that room behind you real? lol.
It’s a green screen. The actual room is tiny :)
Taking the elephant picture, I consider making a pleasing picture to wow friends and family by twiddling the ear is fine. However, the rules for Geographic competitions say no photo surgery. What you snap is what you get. Those are the rules. Same with reportage. No cloning and manipulation allowed.
Drawing the line is simple: If you enter a competition you have to accept the rules. easy as that! If you want to sell prints, you can do whatever you want...
Dude every single one of these photographs that you put up here I've already said that they were fake AI generated or manipulated in some way shape or form on Facebook because that's why I've seen them it was too easy for me to spot all the crap and there's still crap on there that I'm still specifying that's fake imagery
These people are editors not photographers, removing small objects to enhance the photo while leaving the rest of the photo unchannged is one thing, Taking an absolute terrible photo in bad light and poor exposure and turning into a spectacular picture in photoshop is not photography. Don't get me wrong I have seen some great works of art made in photoshop, but they are no longer photos, just works of art
Maybe that’s what painters said when photographers first started taking photos using their cameras. The person creating the AI image also needs to give the right prompt . Only they shouldn’t try to pass it off as an actual photo.
What's even sadder is that the AI beach picture looks very fake if you know what you're looking at.
The reason housecats do not grow winter coats (and the reason they drink little water) is because they originated in the Sahara.
Looking at the rules for the contest, what if I don't have a RAW version of the photo I want to enter. Is the original jpg enough?
The elephant is a mirror image. His ear wasn't fixed; it's on the other side.
The ears were swapped, but the tusks aren't. So it's not quite a mirror image
But don't all photographers cheat (well not me, my stuff is in the lens only) we have all these manufactures and youtubers convincing us we need cameras and lenses that cost the price of a new car because it will improve our pictures. Then they proceed to advise us on the best post applications like light room and photoshop, not to mention all the in built presets and god knows what else🥱It gets worse, they then show us how to change the skies, the colour of the grass, delete objects from the pictures etc etc etc etc I returned to photography 5 years ago after 20 year out, all the above nonsense depressed me so much, I bought an analogue camera like from my youth, ad went out and used my photography "Skills" sorry to use bad language, but to me there is photography, and then there is IT and graphic design, big difference!
Take it a step further and film photographers "cheated" as well. We carefully selected certain films because they made the reds or greens "pop". We used filters to darken skies, enhance sunsets, remove glare. We chose papers for their contrast, or how they improved color. We dodged and burned, creatively cropped to eliminate things, and sandwiched slides to add them! Ansel Adams wrote a book about manipulating images under the enlarger. An image has never been simple "reality", it has always been more what the photographer wants to convey. As long as you aren't deliberately deceiving people (if you are using AI, or adding things that weren't there, it's digital art..call it that) or breaking the rules of a contest or submission, it's your art.
4:17 A bit rich for Nat Geo to disqualify a person for removing a plastic bag when it made the career of a person who has a long trac record of adding elements that were never there and removing elements that didn't suit the story. The latter was elevated to legend status. That competiton winner was royally and hypocrtically robbed.
7:32 you could make an entire video on the photo manipulations by Elliot McGucken. He's got so many fake aurora images and he's been called out many times in his comments but he obviously doesn't care because he just "likes" those comments. And then when people praise him for taking a great shot, he doesn't tell the truth about them and just takes the praise. However, it is also his personal Instagram feed and he should be able to do whatever he wants on it. Was the moon photo featured here from a competition?
Yeah I used to follow him and naturally assumed some of his photos were composites but it went totally overboard with some things and there's no acknowledgement of it.
Philosophically speaking, almost all photography is a lie. The moment you put on a wide angle or long lens you skew reality... the moment you color correct, you skew reality. The trick for me has always been to dance around this lie... whenever I see competitions I have to laugh at myself for all those crops, and/or content aware fills I do to support those lies!
Planes just over highscrapers....
animals do have winter coats, and cropping and white balance are fine tools for realistic photography, but getting rid of what was there is not valid realism.
National Geographic has long ceased to be an authority for photographers. but they have their own rules and they stick to them, the photo was rightly disqualified. And similar problems have happened before.
I do photo editting, but I do want realism to be the main aspect, as I hate AI/fakeness.
Can the images be cleaned up of distractions, cropping?
As a question of morals? Yeah, I don't really care about photos being edited.
From the context of a competition? It depends on the competition.
Hope that makes sense.
I've taken some force perspective photos of the moonrise/moonset on the horizon, as well as various landscape photos at different focal length with the moon, and my pet peeve are people posting all these crazy copy/paste moon images as though they're a legit single exposure. Sometimes it can be difficult, because even a legit single exposure can look fake and sometime I'll ask a trick question about the focal length and distance to the foreground subject. If it's legit, the photographer replies with a workable answer and if it's not they typically ignore answering or they fess up and say it's a composite image
As usual, we are always at extremes, they either don’t check at all, or they ask for the raw file and disqualifies for a few meaningless pixels.
Honestly its one of the reason I've lost my passion for photography. Everything is so edited these days its like meh. Used to be even though the photos had "work" done to them you still had to have a certain level of skill to achieve good results.
There should be no competition in photography, simply because it all comes down to some "judges" opinion......who gives judges the ultimate power to call one image better than all the rest.... they're only human like the rest of us........
I disagree because without feedback you only have your own subjective thoughts about your work and as such may not drive yourself to improve whereas being judged will give you Input that can make you a more objective details minded photographer. Competition is a positive as it fosters excellence in all human experiences and people like to be motivated to do better because after all we are only human.
THERE SHOULD BE BETTER RULES
It's the same regarding astrophotography getting an APOD is considered to be a major feat & there's been a few people that have been caught out. One guy posted an ISS transit with Saturn in the frame which he claimed to have captured. Problem is the image got pulled apart by someone I know plus he wasn't in the correct geographical location to have pulled it off. Up until that point he'd captured a few ISS transits whether it solar Lunar of planetary which were legit but after this stunt his reputation plummeted. He wasn't the first either as quite a few have been caught out, mind you I guess where do you draw the line in astrophotography as all images are enhanced to get the best from the data fortunately I'm not very good at it lol.
What is obsolete is taking meaningless pictures just because the scene is beautiful. Get over it! You can still do it, but it will be easier with AI in the future. A well documented photo of some real event or place will never be obsolete. The elephant picture, by the way, could just have been mirrored. I would much rather doubt the reality of the sky in the winner version.
Very interesting.
Is it just me, or don't the Elephant and moon pictures look totally fake, just from the weird colours and lighting ?
Yeah there's a lot of editing with them.
To me, ANY editing is cheating.
Wait, there's a contest that if you edit your photograph you're eliminated?! Wow. I guess folks are part of a perfection club or something. I get people might be on board with this. And obviously the are because a contest like that exists. But, it's just not realistic.
My thought on the submission of an AI photo is just annoying to me. I mean as photographers we're now needing to "prove" ourself more than ever before. It doesn't help folks submitting pictures to make everyone even more spectacle if we really took the picture. You want to test judges, do it one on one. Because outsiders might start thinking everything is AI because judges were fooled. That can drop support for us selling our photography as art. Yes, AI can do some great images. But, it's not my imagination so I'm not worried. Still, doing things like this doesn't help the public perception. We don't need to see "tests".
Why don't we limits photo contests to JPEG and that will tell us who is a good or a great photographer by their skill not altering the product after you've shot it
Because JPEGs can easily be manipulated too. There's no real way to know if the JPEG came directly from the camera or not.
👍
I don't get the thing with the elephant ear. The image looks mirror-flipped to me, which does not match the explanation from the photographer, so that would raise my suspicion but I see mirror-flipping by itself not a a disqualifying issue.
Look at the tusk and the ears. If it was mirrored, the tusk wouldnt be on the same side. Well, though it does like like the ears are mirrored. but the tuck arent..
He did not just fix the ear...he switched them....
IMHO, other than cropping, all post processing is cheating. Dust shmust, clean your gear, or not, it add's character. :-). Any image that has been manipulated is no longer a "photograph". If you need to post process (lighten/darken/whatever); you're not a photographer, you're a graphic designer. :-/. However, I can see why darkening/lightening might be ok, i.e.: push and pull developing, but, with actual film, you can't actually "see" what's going on in the tank, so even doing it with chemicals requires skill and not an instant gratification slider.
'Store bought, trashcan, math'. Do you think Americans can't understand you if you don't sellout your own dialect?
Yep :).
The first photo looks fake as hell
I'm so tired of these lame self-promoting stunts. Do these people also shoplift to call attention to lacking store security?
paying $10 to win $10,000 is a scam and gamble, no matter what you say, want to make an award, make it free and let the good one, win. otherwise what you say in your video is contrary to what you, want to make your point
Oh dear... You pay $10 to enter the competition so that people don't spam. 1,000 maximum entries. The best photo wins $10,000. I'm literally losing money from the card processing fees... I can't be much clearer than that I'm afraid.
@@Photography-Explained I just don't believe that, what you're saying is 3 x $10, that means only 334 entries = 1,000 entries or 3,300 photos for 1,000 entries, but who's counting that you will only accept 1,000 entries or what happens if you don't reach the 1,000 entries does the winner still wins.
You believing something is irrelevant to the reality of the situation.
1 entry = submit 3 photos.
1,000 entries in total.
3,000 photos for the judges to work through.
1 of those entries that is considered the "best" photo will win $10,000.
I'm the one counting the entries or maybe one of the admin from my team if I've not got the time.
This is a hobby for me. Not a business. That is literally the whole point of the competition.
Most photography competitions are a dodgy money making scheme. This will literally cost me money to run it.
For context, I'm the founder of Salesman.com. I don't need to lie about entries on a photography competition to pay my bills :).
@@Photography-Explained no one ask you about your bills, just this answer better explains it all...................good luck
Thanks mate.
These are just a stupid exsamples total fake composite pictures but photographer cheating with light in Lr Ps every time to socollaed pocessed their images, to creating fake lighting and contrast etc to pop their images by using artificial instruments. One situtation you accept cheating but other hand its so normal.
It's a blurry line when it comes to editing photos. In my opinion, editing is okay only to fix scan artifacts or damage to the negatives. Something that was both unforeseeable, and un-correctable. If there is something in the shot that you wish wasnt there, better hope it was near the edge to crop out. Color adjusting is a no-no in my opinion. Maybe the shot came out more flat than it really was, and you want to correct it. Fine. But that's not where people stop- they keep tweaking it until it looks better than it did in real life. Once you remove an unwanted object, tweak the colors or exposure, or perform a little touch-up, it's no longer a photograph in my opinion. It's an image.
Not to say that's bad. Images are beautiful and rightfully belong in frames. But they aren't true photographs in this purist's perspective.
Most moon photos with foreground are composites
Not playing dumb - Why is that?
@@Photography-Explained Well because the moon is very bright at night and most of the time when the scenery is not so you need to expose the moon differently then the scenery. Also the moon and stars move quite fast so a large portion of all astrophotography shots are composites of foreground and sky (stars moon etc). I haven't even got into taking many short exposures and stacking them and merging them which is also common. Now this particular shot had a daytime moon which is not much brighter relative to the scenery so the photographer was getting greedy by editing it to make it bigger. Unfortunately alot of photographers also fake the size of the moon to make it more dramatic. Only way to get a really big moon with the forground like in this shot is to have a really long lens and take a picture of objects infront of the moon that are far away from you to create the perspective. But you can also just be lazy and photoshop it.
Sometimes the moon rises before it gets too dark and so it's quite easy to get the moon with a foreground and you have no need to use photoshop and create a composite shot. Even if it's a bit darker, depending on the foreground (it could be a cityscape that is lit up) you could easily get a shot of the moon with the foreground in one shot as cameras nowadays have really good dynamic range.
@joits nnormaly a clear night after the moon has risen is way too bright for a city scape no dynamicrange will help it will be white. However, as i already mentioned, non night shots or some darker moonrises can be doable. But I never said all were composute. But as i learned a while back way way more than i had assumed before i got into it. At first, it was disappointing, but then I understood it. I still think it should be more widely understood.
In this increasingly developing world it’s becoming rare as rocking horse poop to find a scene to shoot that isn’t littered with wind turbines , buildings, roads or buildings etc. This leads to only the most wealthy of photographers being able to travel to remote areas to get unspoilt shots. So, one can argue that these rules help protect competitions from abuse and keeping photography pure but also it can make it inaccessible to a lot of competitors.
No such thing as "cheating" in photography. It's an art form, and you do what you want.
The only precautionary thing to surely avoid is to pass off altered photos as 100% genuine, especially if you're a professional who sells your work -
It's cheating as defined by the rules of the comps that they entered.
Then it is digital art, no longer a photograph.
@@simonmaney3438 Yep, I like photography, capturing images I see with my eyes. Not enhancing them to make them more artful.
Then one should become a painter or air brusher. Or you say I make fiction art of reality.
Generally speaking: seeing photographs too good to be true makes me always suspicious and the first thought coming to my mind is "nice photoshop job". Personally I do not attend participating in a photo competition nor do I have the time spending daily hours on the same spot for a couple of months just to capture the absolute perfect shot. And as I have experienced many times over the camera may capture the scene completely different despite all the various and carefully selected camera settings.
My approach to photography is different. Taking photos means for me going in the field and taking "sketches" like a painter did in the old days. I then enhance my "sketches" to a realistic level pleasing to my eyes which may involve removing distractions, color grading etc., until it has become for me personally a piece of art. Isn't the post-processing of raw files not quite similar?
In any case I am of the opinion that solely AI generated images do not belong in a photo competition. There should be a separate section for it, if at all.