When I was a wee broth of a photographer and served my time in a portrait studio, one of the jobs was “Spotting” the final finished prints of a client shoot. (Now it wasn’t always portraits, as products and insurance claims and the like were the bread and butter of the High St. photographer in those far flung days.
Spotting was—for the uninitiated—taking a fine brush, some suitable photographic ink, and carefully touching up any white marks that dust or fine lint may have marred the photo in printing. Dark marks were removed with a touch of “ferro”, (a highly poisonous product, called Potassium Ferrocyanide), which would, if carefully applied, (and you didn’t wipe the brush between your lips to get a fine point), slowly dissolve away black silver on the print to match the grey surrounds.
Another technique was hand colouring of portraits and wedding assembles. Careful note was made of the colour of shirts, dresses, hats, etc and passed on to the Hand Colourist who would carefully add the appropriate colour to the, usually toned to sepia (brown), prints.
One studio I was associated with had a reputation among the southern Mediterranean clientele. One of them finally revealed the secrets. Oh, we love your photos as they always give us Blue Eyes!
The hand colourist not knowing any different had just added blue to the eyes as she had always done.
Fast forward to the digital age. And among the first things just about anyone who was on the cutting edge of that revolution did, was to take a face and put it into a daffodil or rose. A person I knew, gained quite a reputation for being ‘creative’ as he showed prints of family and friends all looking good in the garden. And now most phones have a built in app for just about everything, including the famous tic-tok filters. Or was that snap-chat, I can’t recall.
I once had to ‘do’ a country wedding. Involved five sisters of the bride. Who wanted a group shot of the girls. Should be easy.
Makes photographing wayward birds a walk in the park. Literally.
Said girls all lined up. But to get them to look in the same direction at the same time for just say, 1/250th of a second proved impossible. Too many people to wave at, smile at or generally get distracted. In the end, I made about 10 shots of the group, and sent them on their way.
Loaded up all the images in Photoshop, did a quick softedeged cut and paste of each face, placed each on a seperate Layer in Photoshop and then carefully positioned it in the right location, body! Lots of hair, and hats and stuff to hide the edges so for all intents—it looked the part. Made the prints. No one complained.
I was quite astounded at the brouhaha, this week when the good Princess KaKa had the audacity to ship out a family pic of the royal brood, and of all things it seems to have “been fixed up in Photoshop”
Really. Must be the first mother in al history that has taken a shot of the kiddiewinks and then had the thought to clone out a hair or two, polish up the shoes, or get that crease out of the dress. When will that child learn to dress properly.
(Another reason to hire a pro. We check for things like that before we press the shutter as we are not emotionally involved in getting to all smile at the same time. )
How it all got past the sleeping Royal PR team is beyond me, but really. It was a pretty nice photo of the family, and normally, a print to hang on the wall.
But truth in the news business is as we all know, of first importance. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
Famed photojournalist Steve McCurry got himself in a lot of hot water a few years back for some off-handed ‘photoshopping’ on some of his pics.
Incidently, Steve also shot some of the last rolls of Kodachrome.
Don’t know Steve. Think Afghan Girl.
I remember the day I walked into the local newsagent and the latest copy of National Geographic was on the front shelf. I think I was mesmerised.
Been a quiet week for us. Between awful weather, a scarcity of birds and a few family activities we’ve been a bit of the home body has us.
But
I do want to share a link to a Flickr friend on mine. He live in Wales and has a Sparrowhawk come and land on his back fence. True!
He has made a few minutes of video of it preening. This is right up there with the best of Steve Mc, so click on the link and enjoy an invitation to the best front row seat you’ll get with a Sparrowhawk.
Thanks Martyn, Sparrowhawk.
Oh, and the header photo of Cassia, of Cinnamon, has had a little play around in Photoshop. !!@$$#W****&&^% 🙂
Birds as Poetry —— Just because I WANDER - --doesn't mean I'm LOST 
Thanks for the yarn David.
I was just reminiscing with a buddy about how resilient our generation has been, navigating from the nonexistent TV to monochrome CRT TV age to the present digital AI age.
We had lots of risky exploits as a kid in the backwaters of Asia running around barefooted, catching insects and birds for entertainment. Hahaha
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Hi Jeremy, I do have to say when we get together as family and friends from those early years, the topic of ‘survival’ in spite of ourselves always comes up. If there are guardian angels for kids, then we all pause to reflect how many angels we must have squashed in our escapades :-)
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To misquote from “Casablanca”, I am shocked, shocked that you would do anything at all in Photoshop. It’s a gorgeous shot of Cassia.
I too have been shaking my head over the kerfuffle. My only criticism would be that she didn’t do a very good job of it. And by the way, she isn’t wearing a wedding ring it would seem. I’m surprised there haven’t been a whole lot of conspiracy theories about that.
Thanks for the link to Martyn’s Sparrowhawk footage. What a wonderful experience for him to be able to observe it for such a long time.
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yes, I know, old conservative bloke even contemplating doing something as serious as altering a photo. Hard to argue, but even in days of yore, popping on a red filter to darken the sky, or lighten off a red colour could be considered manipulation.
I’ve visited Martyn’s Sparrowhawk a few times and each time find something new that I’d missed earlier. Such a great moment
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Thanks Eleanor.
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Sometimes you just have to! Your tale of the five sisters takes me back to when I was doing the local hockey team end of season photos, PS was my friend then! For much the same reasons!
And yes it is a tad ironic of the media to be be screaming about a ‘touch up’! I will say no more!
Dave N
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Ahh, yes Hockey teams. Reminds me of country Deb Balls. Not the fancy hightech, whizzbangery that is today’s teenage bash, but we used to shoot in 4×5 inch on a Linhoff Technika, and armfulls of powerblocks to get enough lights into the average country townhall ballroom.
No mulit-shots. Lots of “Quiet Please” and then ‘click’ and woe behind the girl in the back row who frowned at that moment. Then every one relaxed and we shot the individual couples on 120 Roll on Rolleis. (my fav camera).
The band struck up “The Gay Gordons” and it was off to the races. :-)
how ever did I get here. 🙂
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Interesting reading the history of photography from your wealth of experience David. I have my black and white champion baby photo my mum received as part of the prize left which the then local photographer had touched up with colour, making my cheeks rosy etc. We did have the privilege of viewing Steven McCurry’s photo exhibition and distinctly remember that photo of the Afghan Girl as being his most noted work. As with all his photos there are stories behind them, and in some cases many hours and cost made in the effort to catch that right moment. He did not always just take a photo in the moment but would wait and return often several times before capturing what he wanted. The lack of birds continues being noticed here also, and more so now that we approach the changing seasons with migratories leaving for wormer climes. We have another wet cool spell here, in converse to warmer than usual ocean water swimming temperatures at 25°C. Enjoy your week my friend.
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ha, Ashley,
I’d forgotten about the rosy cheek colouring. Off course a necessary addtion to the little tyke. Let’s see the good Princess get away with that!!!!!
Had Steve been around when I was young enough, I’d have probably run away from home to travel with him. Not much more to that plan. (just as well).
You’re right, his impact on photography is that constant persistence and concern for the right moment.
I’m a closet photo-journalist, and bring those same sorts of skill sets to the birds we work with.
I accidently put a raptor up, out of a tree the other day, and at first thought it was one of the Brown Falcons we regularly work with. I castigated myself for about the next hour for my carelessness. When I finally looked at the shots, I felt a little better as it was a completly different bird and I didn’t feel quite as bad. Still annoyed it happened but.
We still seem to be on the very quiet side of no birds.
Haven’t been looking for the migratory shorebirds of late, but hopefully the weather will turn after Easter and we’ll be able to get out again.
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Very interesting read, as usual, David. Oh, the Afgan Girl! I remember my first encounter with that cover of National Geographic in my tiny new workplace in Manchester Unity Building, soon after my arrival in Australia.
The royal photoshop affair only made me shrug.
Many thanks for the link to Martyn’s photography on Flickr. I’m hooked.
Great photography weather is upon us and I’m looking forward to seeing more great pictures from you too.
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Hi Adam. Interesting the effect that Afghan Girl has had on so many people. I wonder how many such photos we carry in memory that have stuck with us as great shots.
I love that Manchester Unity Building. Each time I’d do a visit from the country, we’d go and look at that ornate foyer and the great doors and windows.
A friend of mine once borrowed a camera from me, and made a shot of the building from somewhere out of a 3rd of 4th storey window across the street, it was such a fine image, I was happy for him, and jealous I’d not made it. 🙂
So pleased you enjoyed Martyn’s Sparrowhawk, would that all of us could have such an experience.
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Well… This is the third attempt to leave a Comment…!!! The previous two attempts were lost due to dumb Operator Error…!!!
Thanks for the interesting reflections on the Ins and Outs of Photoshopping. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary in Kate’s rather sweet photo of her and The Kids – even when “Experts” went to great lengths to explain the “flaws” in said photo. Perhaps I need to go to Specsavers – or perhaps the uproar came about because British tabloids were having a slow week and needed to stir up some “excitement” in order to sell their newspapers. (The uproar didn’t even die down when Kate admitted that she had done a little bit of dabbling!!!).
As for the beautiful photo of Cassia (above)… Had you not admitted that Cassia, of Cinnamon had been ‘touched up’ I would never have known – and now that I’ve looked for any sign of such a touch-up, I’m still none the wiser. You are a master of the art of Photoshopping (and Photography!); I’ll continue to leave such work to thems who know what they’re doing (even if it means I can’t use the photo!!!).
Right, well: I’ve managed to get to this point without accidentally deleting anything, so I’ll finish whilst I’m ahead… Keep up with these interesting Blogs, wonderful photos, and artistic Photoshopping…!!!
Lance
Wellington NZ
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