Photography Entry Sample

SUBMITTING A PHOTOGRAPHY ENTRY?

To help distinguish between Unmanipulated and Manipulated, please keep the following in mind.

*Is this level of editing something that could be carried out in the dark room for camera film? If yes, then it isn’t manipulation. It’s just basic editing. This type of editing would fall under “color and saturation adjustments” and “other minimal edits.

In the sample below, you’ll see three versions of the same image. The first is straight out of camera (“SOOC”). Definitely OK for the “Original-Unmanipulated” category. The second has been lightly edited to remove the yellow color cast that was either a result of me not having my camera set right when I snapped the image OR the result of Adobe Lightroom not being the best at interpreting my camera’s settings and thus reverting to a more generic color profile upon uploading the file into Lightroom. This type of edit should be considered OK for the “Original-Unmanipulated” category. The third image takes the editing too far, as I not only corrected the color but drastically increased the Clarity and Sharpness in Lightroom, and the Dehaze feature in Lightroom was also used to boost some of the colors and sharpness. I dramatically increased the exposure in the dark areas of the car and other black surfaces. This type of editing stretches into the HDR realm and SHOULD NOT be allowed in the “Original-Unmanipulated” category. 

*Would a traditional newswire like the Associated Press allow my photo to be uploaded to the wires under news content? The AP is a stickler about what’s allowed and not allowed, and it’s largely based in the question of real vs. fake/manipulated.