A Moral (Photographic) Dilemma
A couple of weekends ago Ann had to work on a Saturday (server upgrade stuff) so she had a comp day to take. She’s been wanting to go down to the Klamath Wildlife Refuge to see the birds and, after a bit of research, we found out that the bald eagles usually stay in the area until mid- to late-March before heading back up to Alaska. So this weekend we decided to take a long weekend and head south.
We put a lot of planning into this trip and it was planned as a photography trip. What initially started out as a wildlife photography trip, quickly grew to a wildlife/landscape trip as we started finding out all the things that were accessible in the area as well as what can we see (i.e. photograph) on the way there and on an extended trip back home.
What do I mean by a photography trip. Well, it means that you plan for different sunrise photographs and sunset photographs. You try to maximize photographing during the couple of hours around sunrise and sunset to take advantage of the lovely quality of light that exists during those times. You research different shooting locations before your trip, and scout other shooting locations during the mid-day period when the sun is high and it’s harder to get decent images. It means waking up early and “working” until dark, with no guarantee that you’ll get the conditions that make for a stunning photograph.
Here’s a quick summary of our trip. Up at 5 to take a quick shower, brew a pot of coffee and make sausage (pre-cooked the night before) and egg biscuits for the road because if we left by 6am, which we did, we would be in a position to take sunrise photographs of Diamond Peak from Highway 58, which we did. That got us into Klamath Falls fairly early - by 10:30, so we checked into our hotel, grabbed an early lunch and went scouting for locations until our planned evening shot. As part of scouting, we reserved a photo blind for the Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge for the following day (which meant another early morning the next day to get into the blind while it’s still dark). On that side trip we drove through the Tule Lake NWR (near the other NWR) and wound up seeing 3 bald eagles, and photographing one of them. We then rushed up to Eagle Ridge, 30 miles north by Shoalwater Bay at Upper Klamath Lake, to set up for our planned sunset shot (which didn’t turn out anything like I’d hoped, but we got something else instead, which made up for it).
Next morning we were up early and in our blind (before sunrise) for . . . not much wildlife. No eagles decided to hang out on the snag right by the blind and the ducks and other waterfowl were just not cooperating. Sometimes plans don’t quite work out. We headed back for breakfast/lunch, then out to the Lava Beds National Monument to first see some petroglyphs and then lava beds and caves. Ann started feeling sick, as did I (we’ve been battling colds), so we took it easy and got to bed early in hopes that we could recover for the next day. If not, we were heading straight home. So as it turned out, our "primary shooting day" pretty much turned into a flop.
Saturday morning we got up early to head out for a sunrise shot of Mount Shasta from the Lower Klamath NWF. On the way there, we came across the image above. Knowing that you don’t pass up a great opportunity for something you “hope” will be a great opportunity, we stopped. In fact, we stopped twice on our way to our destination. After making our intended photographs of Mt. Shasta, Ann asked, “How are you feeling?” “Fine, you?” “Fine. Feeling up to going the long way home?” "Sure!" So off we went to pack and check out of the hotel and head east, not north, to head home. We took a detour to see Bonanza, Oregon (no, the tv show wasn’t based on the town, but it looks like it was), and then drove north through the high desert. On the way we made a couple more short detours on potential photo spots, which didn’t pan out, before getting to our destination, Fort Rock.
As we were scouting locations for shooting locations on the way home, Fort Rock sealed it’s place in our itinerary for a simple reason, moonrise. With a program we have called Photographer’s Ephemeris, we can calculate the time and direction(as well as where to locate the camera) of the sun and the moon for any given location on any given day. As I was using the tool to scout photo locations and where the sun might be for key photographs, I had figured we could get a shot with the moon rising in the sky as the sun was setting in the west casting evening light onto Fort Rock. Things would have probably been better if we could have gotten there one to two days earlier (with the last light of the sun hitting Fort Rock with the moon very visible [did you know that the moon rises nearly 40 minutes later each day?]), but we were in K-Falls those earlier days - moon rise just after sunset (but still in twilight) would have to do. Still we got our shot. And arrived home at 11pm.
I tell you all of this because of our moral dilemma. No, it’s not a moral dilemma like which of two children do you have to let die to save the other one, but it’s still a dilemma for persons who attempt to have some integrity in their work. As I’ve mentioned before, the idea that photography is reality is an illusion. It is always an abstraction of reality, it’s just the degree of abstraction that varies from photograph to photograph. And while I am not a user of photoshop, my tools allow me to lighten and darken areas of a photograph, increase contrast and do other things like clone out things from images. And I confess that I have cloned out trash (think plastic water bottles, etc.) from landscape images. But overall, I am a straight photographer and try to depict, and show to others, things I see are there.
Yet this time I wonder whether I have crossed a line. You see, the beautiful photograph you see above, actually looked like this:
I’ll not make this a “can you identify the clone” game (if it hasn’t already jumped out at you) - I took out the airplane contrail. The contrail that runs from one end of the photograph to the other. This trip, more than any other, made me realize how much I hate contrails. “My name is Dan Terrell and I hate contrails.” It’s sad really, because later this week I’m taking a trip that will have me fly from Eugene to San Francisco at 6am, which would put me passing Klamath Falls at right about the time this was taken. But my contrail will be in the other direction, towards the west, so I won't ruin anyone's sunrise shot! (Does that make me a hypocrite?)
So the photographically moral question is, is it wrong to take out the contrail? I don’t have the answer to that, well, not a firm answer. I don’t think so in this instance, and I’m still thinking about whether there’s something different between adding things to images (more on that later) and taking things away. Does it matter if the removed item is something of substance? Does it differ if the image is used for personal pleasure, journalism or advertising? I’m sure it matters if it’s for a court of law. Does it matter if it’s a once-in-a-lifetime safari to Botswana that you’ve spent $15,000 on? For someone who considers himself a straight photographer, this question of limits - of how far is too far - is a serious one. So I think about it, and Ann and I talk about it.
Now there are definitely limits, even with contrails. While I could learn Photoshop and probably “save” this image, I simply won’t consider it for any number of reasons. (And please, there is no reason to point out that one of these contrails could indeed be the contrail from the flight I'm taking this week.)
I guess if the contrails pointed to Mt. Shasta it would help lead the eye there, but in this case the contrails lead your eye to the dark hill or, even worse, off the left-hand side of the image. Still, it was beautiful to be there that morning.
As described above, what I prefer to do is plan things to work out naturally if I want elements in my photos. Often I go out with nothing in mind other than to see what an environment has to offer, but as with the case for Fort Rock, there was an opportunity to have more, so we planned for it. This is what we got:
Before I go on, I must admit, Ann’s similar photo is much better than mine, but this will do given it was photographed with a point and shoot camera. Now I’ve seen a photograph similar to this online where the moon is nearly the size of Fort Rock. While you can increase the size of the moon due to the focal length of the lens (see how small the moon is on the image below), there are limits. The relationship of the size of the moon to the size of Fort Rock won't change. The online shot had the moon photoshopped into the image, which I am not about to do. Again, personal choices. (I would much rather personally see and photograph Bigfoot, or Elvis, than photoshop either into an image in an effort to make millions!)
And sometimes, things do work out. When we arrived at Fort Rock and started photographing inside it (it’s a giant horse-shoe shaped feature), there were plenty of contrails up above (imagine Dan shaking his fist up towards the sky and shouting “Damned contrails!”). Ann and I were worried that there would be contrails in the sky (yet again) when it was time to make the broader landscape shots. As you can see, we were fortunate. Disclaimer Statement: There were no contrails removed in this photograph!
I guess people don’t like to fly at 7pm.