{"id":26981,"date":"2014-10-03T06:40:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=26981"},"modified":"2014-10-03T06:40:01","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:40:01","slug":"cloning-background-elements-a-slippery-slope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/03\/cloning-background-elements-a-slippery-slope\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloning Background Elements – A Slippery Slope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sooner or later every\u00a0serious nature photographer must confront the question – How much image alteration during processing\u00a0is ethically\u00a0“too much”?<\/p>\n

I’ve said before that the clone tool is a temptress –\u00a0just because it can be done, should it?\u00a0 Most of us have no ethical issues with cloning out dust spots but what about other tiny imperfections like small\u00a0but distracting pieces of debris?\u00a0\u00a0Dark\u00a0spots on water surfaces?\u00a0 Out of focus insects flying around your subjects?\u00a0 Ugly perches used by birds taking off?\u00a0\u00a0Power lines in the background?\u00a0 And if cloning elements out is ok, what about cloning them in?\u00a0 The list is endless, as is the continuum from minor to major elements.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/p>\n

1\/2500, f\/7.1, ISO 500, Canon 7D, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, perch removed,\u00a0not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this beautiful rufous Red-tailed Hawk yesterday morning\u00a0as it took off from its perch in Utah’s west desert.\u00a0 I love the striking color of the bird and the dynamic take-off posture.\u00a0 But what you see is not what I saw at the time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"red-tailed<\/a><\/p>\n

The hawk had been perched on an ugly weather station near a small reservoir.\u00a0 Cropping cannot solve the problem of the perch and leave a pleasing composition.\u00a0 Only cloning will do\u00a0that and I couldn’t resist seeing how it would look without all that shiny metal in the image so I got rid of the damned thing.<\/p>\n

At the moment I’m in the process of negotiating the use of another image by a state agency.\u00a0 That image had the top of a power pole and a wire cloned out of the background, which I disclosed (as I always do), but the agency wanted the image anyway.\u00a0 Is disclosure enough and if so where does one draw the line in nature photography?\u00a0(a rhetorical question).\u00a0 I’ve struggled with that\u00a0question ever since I\u00a0began to photograph birds and I suspect I’ll continue to do so.<\/p>\n

A slippery slope…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sooner or later every serious nature photographer must confront the question – How much image alteration during processing is ethically “too much”?<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,334,16,450],"tags":[452,1787,865,916,918,126,226,451],"class_list":["post-26981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-photography-methods","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","category-red-tailed-hawks","tag-buteo-jamaicensis","tag-clone-tool","tag-cloning","tag-composition","tag-cropping","tag-ethics","tag-nature-photography","tag-red-tailed-hawk"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/red-tailed-hawk-8069-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-71b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}