![\"Kilauea](\"https:\/\/www.davidallio.com\/da-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/klh.jpg\")
<\/a>Kilauea Lighthouse | \u00a92007 David Allio for Island Heritage<\/p><\/div>\n
So, just how important is authenticity to photography?<\/p>\n
In the 19th<\/sup> Century, photography was discredited as an art form because it was too real \u2013 too authentic.\u00a0 In the era of digital imaging, the question of authenticity is credible and vital regarding photography as an accurate historical tool.\u00a0 But as the visual arts meld in the digital arena, is authenticity important?<\/p>\n Professional digital cameras now have an \u201cAuthenticity Key\u201d or code that is embedded in each original image.\u00a0 If authenticity were not significant, there would not be a need for that digital code to identify an original image.\u00a0 If authenticity were not important, news services would not have detailed documents dedicated to compelling accuracy in reportage photography.\u00a0 If authenticity were not the foundation of historical photography, then why did the photography world issue a collective gasp when the New York Times published notes from a 1950s interview with news photographer W. Eugene Smith in which he said, \u201cI didn\u2019t write the rules.\u00a0 Why should I follow them?\u00a0 I don\u2019t object to staging, if and only if I feel that it is an intensification of something that is absolutely authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n That statement brings into question the authenticity of some of his most famous photographs.\u00a0 Some of his most iconic photographs: \u201cDewey Defeats Truman\u201d, \u201cTomoko Uemura in Her Bath\u201d, and \u201cA Walk to the Paradise Garden\u201d \u2013 were they staged or enhanced?\u00a0 Were they authentic?<\/p>\n Artists have attempted \u201cPhotorealism\u201d, a painstaking, time-consuming, detailed reproduction of a scene.\u00a0 Within the past couple of centuries, art has also gone through a variety of other genre including, but not limited to: Minimalism, Surrealism, Modernism, and Conceptual Art.\u00a0 Most of these artistic styles were devised as a way of systematically segregating art and photography.<\/p>\n In the digital era, art and photography are merging, as exemplified by the November 2011 sale of the highest priced, to date, photograph ever sold.\u00a0 German visual artist Andreas Gursky created a photographic image in 1999 that, following the original sale and several re-sales, brought over $4.3-million at auction.\u00a0 The piece of visual art entitled \u201cRhein II\u201d is 73×143 inches in size and similar in style to a Minimalist artwork.\u00a0 The artist also admitted that the original photograph had been digitally manipulated.<\/p>\n \u201cThis view cannot be obtained in situ,\u201d he said. \u201cA fictitious construction was required to provide an accurate image of a modern river.\u201d<\/p>\n The question now becomes: Can a digitally enhanced photograph still be considered a photograph?\u00a0 How can a \u201cfictitious construction\u201d be considered an \u201caccurate image\u201d?<\/p>\n So, just how important is authenticity to photography?<\/p>\n The illustration accompanying this text is one example of a published reproduction by Island Heritage of Hawaii. This photograph has also appeared in calendars by the same publisher. Reproductions of post cards and calendars are available from the publisher. For the record, the rainbow in the photograph is authentic. For a brief period of time it was a part of this magical scene. It was not, as some have suggested, added during digital post processing. To learn more about the technical requirements for photography of an authentic rainbow, workshops are available.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to Webster\u2019s Online Dictionary, synonyms for \u201cauthentic\u201d include: genuine, true, real, original, veritable, unaffected, unadulterated, unalloyed, unmixed, or natural. So, just how important is authenticity to photography? In the 19th Century, photography was discredited as an art form because it was too real \u2013 too authentic.\u00a0 In the era of digital imaging, the question …<\/p>\n
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