The Ethics of Photography.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 479, 11 June 1890, Page 3

The Ethics of Photography.

Take the case of a sitter whose face is badly freckled (says Mr Alfred Paterson in the April number of the “Photographic Quarterly.”) What is the photographer to do ? In the photograph the freckles will c ome out hard and black, and cause it to look as if the sitter was suSerins from some all too frightful skin disease. No sitter but a blind man would stand this. By retouching these freckles can be removed. But ought they to be? Is it not untrue to nature to thus remove them ? It may be so, but it is at once pleasanter and at least more truthful than leaving the face as it appears in the untouched photograph. . Of course the most artistic, and therefore right, thing to do is bo so retouch carefully, that while not entirely removing the freckles they are so toned down as to be at the same time unobjectionable and truthful.. On the whole, it is certainly more artistic,. as well as more pleasing to the sitter, to minimise rather than exaggerate natural defects. Not for one minute would Ibe understood to say that a photographer is nob bo blame for inartistic retouching. The photographer who is successful in his profession and who is at the same time an artist, as all photographers should be, may nob, cannot and will not, alike for the sake of art and trade, be guilty of inartistic retouching. We have now at the top of the profession gentlemen who are true artists, and from the example set by their work we may, I think, reasonably look forward to the day when the rule, nob the exception, will be for photographic portraits to be like human beings rather than wax dolls. If by working by hand on the negative it can really and truly be improved, and I take it that such is the case, it cannot be wrong to do so. No respectable photographer would for a moment pretend that he had nob used such handwork. In fact, one reason why high-class photographers charge, and can charge, the prices they do, is because the retouching of their negatives is done by good artists. Unless all art is wrong, I cannot see why the art should be.