Digital images can't be trusted, says war photographer Don McCullin

[brainwood]

I just spotted this in todays Guardian. Ok sounds it's a bit of an attention grabbing headline but interesting thoughts by an acknowledged master. I don't entirely agree with his comments. I shoot film for my own work but my other life as a film editor sees me editing digital footage often of war zones and difficult situations and I don't share his distrust of the medium . I'm certainly not trying to start yet another film/digital battle but I thought the article would be of interest here.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/nov/27/don-mccullin-war-photographer-digital-images

Great news too that a restrospective exhibition of his work will be part of Photo London next May

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Digital, film... It is important to be documented as it was in real... You could fake it on film with something which not happened.

I grew up watching war on film in documentaries and feature films, looking on it in museums, monuments and parades. I'm sick of it and with what is going now sick even more...

 

[JP Owens]

No image can be trusted. We edit the world every time we point the camera and snap the shutter, whether we shoot with film or digital. The goal with photographic honesty isn't to determine if the the image is legitimate, but if the photographer has integrity.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

Am i misunderstanding? Does he seem unaware that film images can be scanned and manipulated just as easily as native digital captures?

Love his work, but this just reads like an 80 year old who resents the ease with which newcomers can produce images..... Even though he's using he same technology now.

And, as JP said, all photography is a selective process and inherently comes with a non-objective perspective.

 

[Ronald M]

Nikon and Canon both have image verification to insure no manipulation was done.

 

[olakiril]

Reading his comments (and knowing who he is) tells me how bad the choice of the title was. There are so many attention grabbing news out there so most journalists/editors use these click-bait titles to get readers.
Old age transforms personal opinions into aphorisms. That is perfectly fine but one should be aware of.
I perfectly see why he feels that digital images can't be trusted. Its not that film is better or cannot be faked, its the easiness and frequency that digital images are manipulated that creates this feeling of untrust when you expect accurate representations of reality.
And to that, the choice of the title comes as irony. Maybe it was intended as such, who knows.

 

[Baby of Macon]

I can understand that view from the perspective of a documentary photographer. But outside that narrow frame of reference, I don't think the argument against digital stands up. I'd hazard that had digital been available, the likes of Man Ray, Maurice Tabard and even Bill Brandt would have been flocking to adopt it.

 

[shimokita]

The writing and editing on the article is horrendous... No need to talk about reality in photos when reality in writing and editing are so poorly done.

A potpourri of ideas looking for a theme...

Casey

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Chris,

Grauniad? Click bait?

Surely not....

("Irony" does not mean "ferrous" or "magnetic".)

Cheers,

R.

 

[farlymac]

Brainwood beat you to it, Greg.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=153212

Oh, and you should have used a colon after McCullin.

PF

 

[farlymac]

The man is entitled to his opinion. However, the article sort of turns into a free advert for Photo London.

PF

 

[brainwood]

Grauniad? Click bait?

Surely not....

Roger
The Daily Mail are so good at it I think the others are getting jealous

 

[Addy101]

Hmmm, I scanned the article and I don't think he says it as much. This is what his most important argument was IMHO:

he was happier with film, recalling one of his best experiences this year, standing on Hadrian’s Wall in a blizzard. “If I’d have used a digital camera I would have made that look attractive, but I wanted you to get the feeling that it was cold and lonely,” he said.

McCullin particularly dislikes how digital cameras allow for manipulation of colours. “These extraordinary pictures in colour, it looks as if someone has tried to redesign a chocolate box,” he said. “In the end, it doesn’t work, it’s hideous.”

It seems not everybody knows that film photo's can be manipulated too and have been manipulated since at least the late nineteenth century. You don't need digital postprocessing to add or delete someone....

 

[sevo]

Hmmm, I scanned the article and I don't think he says it as much. This is what his most important argument was IMHO:


It seems not everybody knows that film photo's can be manipulated too and have been manipulated since at least the late nineteenth century. You don't need digital postprocessing to add or delete someone....

There are many "enhancements" we have come to consider trivial in recent years (like chroma adjustments), that were incredibly complicated and expensive back in film days, and completely out of range for a press photograph.

Where he is wrong is his idea that these properties of film photography escaped the digital era. Film has been routinely scanned and post-processed many years before the first useful portable digital cameras became available.

 

[newst]

It obviously wasn't necessary to utilize sophisticated technology like scanning to modify film images.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies

 

[traveler_101]

There are many "enhancements" we have come to consider trivial in recent years (like chroma adjustments), that were incredibly complicated and expensive back in film days, and completely out of range for a press photograph.

Where he is wrong is his idea that these properties of film photography escaped the digital era. Film has been routinely scanned and post-processed many years before the first useful portable digital cameras became available.

You're missing the point. Technically film can be and is digitalised narrowing the difference between film and digital, yes you are right there, but he is referring to the vast multiplication of images - a revolution that is mostly as a result of the proliferation of inexpensive digital cameras. The point is that digitalisation has both cheapened and emptied the meaning of images reducing our capacity to believe in the link between the image and thing-imaged. The result is that images come closer and closer to the emptiness of referring only to themselves. This means that the public's understanding of photography as a means of documentation (of the real) has disappeared. The argument is perhaps overdrawn but he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Trius]

I think part of what McCullin meant was that digital imaging (whether capture or post-processing) opened the door to drastic "re-visualization" (ugh, what a word) that has abused the whole concept of "straight" reportage and documentation. Yes, pointing a camera and choosing the moment of shutter release is somewhat editorial by its very nature. But there is no escape from this, and the viewer also interprets by the very fact of being alive and having the experience of life.

 

[sevo]

This means that the public's understanding of photography as a means of documentation (of the real) has disappeared. The argument is perhaps overdrawn but he knows what he's talking about.

I doubt that conclusion. Going by the massive reactions to fake or even propagandistic fake photographs on social media and the contempt the great unwashed on the same media have for written and spoken content in the press, photography (still) has a significantly higher credibility factor than text. Even though the latter never had a reputation for technical authenticity, so that its credibility should not have suffered the same "digital decline".

I tend to agree that mass media are losing credibility, but the reasons are far more complex, and at the core not technology driven.

 

[lawrence]

One area where I think that film -- and please correct me if I'm wrong! -- is superior to digital is copyright. If I have possession of the negative then I that would be prima facie evidence that the copyright also belongs to me. With digital, proving ownership of an image could be more difficult.

The idea that film offers a necessarily 'truer' image is wrong. Examples are Capa's falling soldier (claimed to be staged) and Doisneau's kiss (definitely staged).

 

[Bob T]

I could say that when shooting film there are negatives and contact sheets that can be checked for verification, not just digital files whose origin cannot be easily verified. But these days it's a moot point because people will not take the time to verify the origin or validity of images and will move on to the next thing. There's a sense of manipulation in images and the presentation of stories and everything is suspect in the media, the pursuit of money has ruined things (as it usually does). Take a look at how differing news outlets present the same story.