Composites

Photography articles

May 2020
Are composits in landscape photography morally justifiable?

How does landscape photography work? You go somewhere, see something and by pressing the trigger of your camera you can make others see the same. But what if you created something that you could not even have seen with your own eyes? Is this still acceptable?

As photographers we strive for taking others on a visual journey by having them viewed our images. But do these images have to show the pure reality or could they be hyperreal scenes, so-called composits, as well?

What is a composite?
This is basically a picture consisting of different images which do not necessarily need to be taken at the same place and the same time. Such an image has to be created in digital processing, often under great efforts both in time and technical skill. In my opinion we can distinguish between two kinds of composits: realistic composits and surreal composits.

One basic image, two totally different results. To give you an idea of what composits are able to do, I created these examples you can see above. For me, composits don't have the slightest chance to replace "real" landscape photography, but they are a powerful tool to show more than reality. You are basically creating your own dreamscape.
You may have heard of focal-length-blendings before. That means that the final image is merged of different single exposures using a different focal distance. They don't show the scene in the exact same way we'd see it with our own eyes, but it is still realistic due to the fact that the single images are all (mostly) taken at the same place during the same time. You just use the different focal length to give a specific part of the image more attention. E.g. enlarging a mountain to make it appear more dominant, or increasing the size of some smaller plant s in the foreground to accentuate their importance in your composition. The artist decides where to put the focus.

Same with time-blendings. This kind of composite requires a careful proceeding as the single images normally show the exact same composition. They are taken at the same place but over a bigger period of time. With this method it is possible to combine different moments in one photo, e.g. the transition between night and day, from the last stars in the nightsky to the first rays of light hitting the surroundings. This is definitely not how we are able to witness the scene in real-life, but it gives us the possibility to show a larger part of reality at the same time. It exceeds our imagination and creates something new.

Besides that we can use composits such as time-blendings to enhance the image quality of our photographs. A well-known practice is combining an image from blue hour with a night shot. Let's say you shoot a milky way image with some rock formations in the foreground. In the middle of the night it would be quite difficult as you need a very long exposure for the foreground (and probably a higher ISO plus bigger aperture) just because it is way to dark to bring out all the details. During blue hour you cannot see the stars of course, but you are able to take all the required images for the foreground. This saves a lot of time and quality and doesn't harm the plausibility of your shot. Thus composits can even help to improve, to get the most out of our visual work.

All these images allow the photographer to picture the real landscape he or she physically has been with a bit of own scope in terms of space for personal ideas.

What I clearly DO NOT consider a composit is an image with the help of focus-stacking or exposure blending. These techniques have nothing to do with „faking“ an image but are even very useful and often necessary to achieve the best results in terms of image quality and correctness. Even with the latest state-of-the-art technology it's not always possible to capture the full dynamic range of a scene with just one photo. Same with tracked milkyway images and night shots. Critics often call them time-blendings as well, but everyone who already has some experience with night photography knows that it's just not possible to collect all the needed single shots within one moment.

But what about surreals composits, what about creating an image by combining various single shots from different places and different times? I've recently tried and done that myself. I used a night image showing some trees and an Aurora shot. The first one was captured just a few steps away from my front door in March 2015 during a clear night. The second one with the northern lights was shot in January 2019 in Norway. So I basically brought together two images taken in different countries and even different years, which means that there wasn't even the slightest chance to see this scene in real-life. But why did I do this then? Well, I just felt like experimenting  and creating a new visual outcome. Now here's my crucial question: is this still photography or pure cheating?

Another example of a powerful dreamscape. No, I've never seen this exact scene with my own eyes (I wished I had), but giving your fantasy so much space can be a very freeing feeling every now and then. Here you can see the final result and the two original files I began with.
I think it's both. Many people criticize that composits do not own any connection to nature. But they forget that the material you use to create a composite has to be shot in real-life first. Which means that it is necessary to put the same effort into getting these 'basic images' than normal single shots. Thus the reference to real nature is definitely given. But why not even pushing the boundaries beyond reality? Photography as an art has the power to do so, it is possible to create something entirely new, it is an enrichment. Photography can be so much more than just document our noticable reality and environment. Art begins where we let it begin, we decide what we do and what we don't do, there's no right or wrong. All kinds of art are subjective, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So why not giving it a try? Why not boosting our creativity, our fantasy, expanding our horizon and improving our techniqual knowledge and skill? At this point we return back to the question we began with – is this still acceptable, is this morally justifiable?

The key word is transparency. Claiming a digitally created composite for real is cheating. It is not okay to make the viewer believe what he or she sees is real when it's not. I appreciate real images more than surreal composits, but when you clearly communicate the truth, I do not see any problem.

As you may already have noticed, I'm not an opponent of composits, I even consider them an enrichment for our art, but still it's way more fulfilling to capture something which is really there. Nature has too much to discover than sitting in front of the computer would be worth it. And we are landscape photographers to instantly experience that. In the end I came to the conclusion that composit images have a good right to exist and stand for their own. They are digital art, but not landscape photography. Both has its value.
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