Ethical Considerations

[DJ Dubovsky]

Wow, you guys brought up an aspect I hadn't thought of. It is possible for someone to have manipulation done to a photo with ulterior motives. Blackmail, you name it. Scary. What's to say we would even recognize it as such either? Say someone brought you 2 photos. Said one was of 2 friends and wanted the other person from the second photo put in it to unite 3 old buddies. But in reality he may be setting up a compromising photo to use against someone. Unless the photos are obvious in their content, ie, porn or such, you would have no way of knowing you just aided a criminal. Of course, that's highly unlikley to happen but even putting a guy and girl in a photo could be creating a broken relationship down the road if you don't know who you are dealing with. Are you so sure you will be able to recognize the situation when or if it occurs? Kind of makes you think of the power we have here and how easy it could be to overstep that line even unwittingly.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

THATS exactly what I mean by "ORWELLIAN"!! I really dont know how you could prevent your skills from being abused by someone with less than honorable intentions but asking lots of questions, relying on "gut " feelings, reading the body language of the client and turning away the job if anything seems even a little "funny" all might help, and having some sort of contract which spells out the job, relation of the client to the parties in the picture etc., might help cover you from legal hassles. Tom

[Ed_L]

The unintentional aiding of someone when providing a service is something few of us have thought about. I agree -- something needs to be in the agreement to release you of any responsibility, if that's possible.

Ed

[thomasgeorge]

ANYONE: If you are working on a photo which has a very real historical value as a singular view of a recognized Historical incident and there is damage which includes destruction of portions of it , how would you handle the restore? Are there things you wouldnot do and why? Tom

[DJ Dubovsky]

I'm not sure I would even attempt to restore something like the "Dead Sea Scrolls" or the "Magna Carta" by trying to scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner.
I think I will just save those high end jobs for the real pros.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

AHhhh----BUT WHAT IS A PRO? What if someone came to you with a photo of,say, the aftermath of a natural disaster ,and the photo had pieces of image data missing. Remember, this is a unique historical document of a well known incident--a head is missing, you cant quite make out parts of the background, etc.. How would you go about restoring this? What would your thoughts be concerning a plan of action? WHY? The answers to a whole bunch of tricky and as yet only dimly formulated questions lie down this road. Questions which we as the vanguard of a new industry are going to have to answer at some time or other. Tom

[DJ Dubovsky]

Maybe my avatar would've been more representative of my character if I chose a Chicken.

If a historical doument was missing a face and I cloned another one in it's place. (Assuming no other image of the person was available to copy from) Wouldn't I then be falsely altering that document? Maybe there is a point where restoration shouldn't be done. Or I could try to peice in a chunk of words that may or may not be the true words. In situations like that, I would say preserve what you have. Make a copy to save against further destruction but leave it as is. I think historical value is different than sentimental value. I may be wrong. It's a tough call.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Dj, EXACTLY!!! At what point, even when dealing with a sentimental photo do you come up to the "line" that says. "this far and no further". You see, ORWELLIAN photo restore is to me the most nightmarish and dangerous aspect of this business. In George Orwells novel, 1984, the manipulation of documents was actually the job of a government agency charged with re-writing history. Now, if you have, say, a written document saying one thing and a restored photo showing something completely different, which to trust? Is the document correct because it was NOT restored or is the photo because it WAS and otherwise hidden detail brought out---or was it created? Without guide lines established by the people doing this work I fear that respectability, trust and general acceptance of this work will be a long time coming. It is not uncommon for folks to say to me when I tell them I do Computer Photo restoration work," Oh like swapping heads and that?" We have to get the word out BY EXAMPLE, that the Supermarket Tabloid type photo junk, (You know: "Woman who smoked gives birth to two headed lizard baby with butt at end of spine" sort of thing,) IS NOT what we do and IS NOT legitimate Photo restoration/repair. Thoughts anyone, Dj? Tom

[Ed_L]

Debbie and Tom,

I think you both hit the bulls-eye on that one. Where is the line? I agree that historical documents need to be preserved in a fashion that is representative of the original. Added words, people, or whatever, make the document non-historical. But then, I suppose you could get into the fact that simply by doing it digitally, it might have lost some of it's significance. For instance, if you copy a Daugerrotype, and correct the tonal values only, it might well be an excellent example of what the original was like. BUT - it is no longer a Daugerrotype! It might be very good indeed, but it is no longer an example of the first widely known photographic process.

You two have my head spinning on this one, and it's relatively early in the morning. Take it easy on me!

Ed

[thomasgeorge]

Good point ED, but is the historical value, a trancendental value, affected. Does a copy of say the Constitution of the United States loose any that compared to the original, if the copy is exact? tom

[DJ Dubovsky]

Yes but in our business, the original stays the same. Even if we changed things the daugerrotype is still there untouched. All we do is try to bring out the image that is to faded to appreciate.

As to the value of a document copied in perfect order, the meaning is still there in the words but the phisical worth has dropped significantly with the copy. You'd you pay full price for a copy of an original?

As for creating forgeries, that has been done for as long as man has been around. It didn't take the digital age to make that a possibility. It's been done to religious icons and in the art world and we have been trying to safeguard our money by trying to add features that make counterfieting more difficult. There will always be those motivated by greed and dishonesty, we can only live by our own code of ethics. It's just the world we live in and things won't change because we are more advanced.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Dj, Good points. I am really,though, not as concerned with the money value of copy vs original ( although there is an interesting thread contained therein) as I am in preserving the original in an improved but still accurate state. The problem of forgeries, as you so accurately point out, is probably never going to go away. However the well meaning but misguided restoration of an old photo is a somewhat different can of worms. When do you STOP restoring and START admiring? Tom

[DJ Dubovsky]

Ahhh.... but then beauty and art are in the eyes of the beholders. I have a client who wants her black and whites made color because to her they seem more real. Yet there are those who prefere the simple beauty and contrast to a good black and white. It boils down to who is paying and what they want to see in the final outcome. As long as the original is left alone I don't think there's that much to worry about. What of the restorers who do work on the originals themselves? Wouldn't this question apply more to them since they are infact changing the one and only? Who can answer such a question? It's a real thinker hey?
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

AH yes, but consider: Changing the mode,from color to BW or vice versa, doesnot affect the Historical content of the image, as in the actual objects placement,composition, shape,size, etc.. Many Museums and collectors may perfer displaying retouched/restored images as should something happen---oh well, lots more where that came from, instead of AARRGHHHHHH. Since the original will never be put on public display, folks will only have the retouched/restored version to examine and what they see they will accept as accurate, thus....When to stop working on such an image and when to start enjoying? Tom

[thomasgeorge]

Oh yes, the Colorization question is going to have its own thread methinks. What an interesting can of worms there. This IS FUN!!!Tom