The Camera Never Lies!

The Camera Never Lies. Or does it?

I think the majority of people are now coming to realise that, in this day and age of digital photography and computers, it is simply not true, and is but a myth. But the question is, has it EVER been true?

The answer to that is, sadly but definitely, NO, it has indeed always been a myth.

But surely in the days of film cameras it was true? OK, so let’s think about this for a bit. First of all, how many times have you taken a photograph of a beautiful landscape scene, lovely colours and light shining down, and when the photograph was developed, or these days, when you looked at it on your screen, you would say, “of course the photograph doesn’t do it justice, it was much more beautiful”!

The fact is that cameras see things differently to the human eye. The light is different, the colours are different, even the perspective can be different. When you take a photo with a wide angle lens you get curviture – things curve towards the centre. When you take a photo of something that is backlit, for instance a sunrise or sunset, then the photo comes out much darker than you see it with your eye.

In the days of film cameras, the skill would be in the dark room when the roll of film was first pulled out of its container. Developing was a fine art in that you had to judge when the image was ready, not a second before or after. Then there were the airbrushing techniques, where the developer (or artist!) would enhance the image, adjusting this, that and the other!

Many people complain about an image being ‘Photoshopped’, as though it’s a dirty word, saying it’s not a real photo. But they don’t realise that the same thing has always been done in order to produce a good photograph! But Photoshop, and other similar programs, are merely a tool as was the dark room – it will develop your photo just as photographers with a roll film would do so in the darkroom.