Rotary Cleanup - The Ethics Of Post Production

Rotary International held a cleanup in the Coyote Point shoreline, and I was contacted by the  Editor In Chief to provide a photograph for publication. Since it was an outdoor affair, I was sure flash would be necessary, but went with my X-T1 and X-T2 bodies with my 16-55 and a 50-200 lens instead of my more flash-friendly X-100T. My main flash was a Adorama Zoom Li-on (a.k.a. Godox) with a Nikon SB-80 speedlight in my camera bag as a backup. I carried 3 sets of spare batteries for the cameras, just to be safe.

The speaker has been raised to improve the range.

In spite of my best efforts, shots made during the opening ceremonies were destined to failure. The odd photo is the result of every possible correction I was able to make, but in the end I would be defeated by the shooting angle, the position of a microphone, and sun glasses.

I made the image my kneeling on the ground and placing the camera in the shadow of my main subject's head. This would insure that no stray light would be bouncing around inside the lens. However, atmospheric moister scattered the sunlight, making a supernova about my speaker's head. But the image is free of those lines of brightly colored polygons that usually appear whenever some sunlight sneaks into the internals of the camera lens.

The presence of an on-camera flash is not so obvious, in part due to the fact that the beam spread was not as wide as the viewing angle of the lens. The result is light fall-off at the top and bottom edge of the photo. Had the lighting been even, my subject's legs would be seriously overexposed. Luckily, the concrete helps silhouette the lower legs which helps the viewer "fill in the details" of the underexposed lower legs.

It was a fair walk to the shore from the staging area. I had an idea that I wanted a cute kid in the photo, but hadn't thought about the background.  When I grabbed this shot and saw the overhead powerlines in the background, I knew I had the include them, as they would immediately identify the Coyote Point shoreline.

As my subjects moved about, I made some sketch photos, thinking about what I would like to have them do for the photo. I knew I'd have to face the power lines so they could be in the background, but wasn't sure what I should put in the foreground.

It's interesting to see the shell bits fall from Hailey's fingers. The girls were picking out the small bits of glass that got mixed in with the shells.

A few minutes later, I saw Hailey deposit some trash in the garbage bag held by  her father. As soon as I chimped the image, I knew that this was what I was after.

I called Hailey over and showed her the image so she would understand exactly what I had in mind. Just then, her mother brought over a large, wet garbage bag held by one of those mechanical grabbers, so I told her to give it to Hailey while I changed position so the shoreline and the power poles would appear in the background. After a single shot, I adjusted the flash output and made the final shot. When I chimped the shot, I knew it had everything I wanted.

An Ethical Dilemma: Wide angle lenses introduce their own unique set of problems. While most people consider these visual anomalies "distortions", they are actually the results of an exaggerated perspective created not by the lens but by the distance to the optical center of the lens. In this case, the subject's left foot is physically closer to the optical center than the right. The short working distance exaggerates the perspective, resulting in the mismatched feet. But this is the price one pays for wide lenses and short working distances. 

Displaced Hip: You will see that in the left image, my subject's right hip appears more angular that it really is. In the right image, I used the Liquify Tool and flattened the contour in less than a minute. I wish that I could have sent the image with the recontoured hip, but as a photographer, I am bound to present an image that is unaltered, and therefore accurate, representation of what I actually saw. What adjustments I can morally make are confined to cropping (framing) and some exposure adjustments (brightness), but beyond that, nothing. So I sent the image, displaced hip and all, and hope the photo's viewers see only Hailey lifting that blob of gunk into the trash bag.

I promised to send the family a copy of the published image, and when I do, I think I'll be forgiven for sending them the recontoured version. The hip adjustment I made is very natural looking, but from a journalistic point of view, it's an unacceptable modification.