This Photo Is Lying To You

That’s the title of this article in the latest issue of Outside magazine.  The subject – the manipulation of photos – is something I’ve long thought about, but had given more consideration this year, as I started posting photos I’ve heavily processed.  What made this article particularly interesting to me was the subject matter.  The author created a composite photo of surfing on Oahu’s North Shore that reflected “how surfing feels to me. Not how it is.”  Which is almost exactly the issue I struggled with in composing photos when I was there in March.  The photo above isn’t manipulated in any meaningful way – it’s pretty much the light that fell on my camera’s sensor (there’s a slight vignetting added at the corners).  But it doesn’t really capture the sheer kinetic energy that was at the center of everything, that afternoon.  The manipulated composite in the Outside article?  Does.  So which is really telling the truth?