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After reading this article, I followed the link to NANPA’s “Truth in captioning statement” here. I was curious what photographers on this site thought of their captioning suggestions. My personal opinion is that they are too complicated to be practically implemented. It still leaves a lot up to the photographers’ personal ethics, as well. We all know how that works. Do you feel that something like this is necessary or desirable?

Joe

I would agree that it seems unnecessarily complicated and "picky". I have no problem with "Wild" or "Captive" but, IMHO that pretty much covers it. You don't need all that other stuff. As for post processing, I think there's an entire field left out - "Processed". I always clean up dust spots and errant, unwanted spots, sticks, etc. as part of my ordinary processing. I consider setting black & white points, determining global contrast, color management, and sharpening as just ordinary processing as well, but I do not consider any of that as "manipulation", where I'm adding something to the scene that was not actually there. I think NANPA is a fine organization overall, but they seem to be way too bureaucratic in this area.

This whole issue used to annoy me - then instead of referring to myself as a "wildlife photographer" I started to refer to myself as a "field photographer" - it cured my annoyance. It helps that I also got out of any commercial aspects of photography at the same time.

Personally, I always use the keyword "wild" and name the location (nearly always a national park) in the caption and keywords. I am happy with that.

I don't really see it as an ethical issue now either - its just about me creating an image within the parameters I set myself. others may set themselves different parameters.

I think commercial drivers are a major part of some people doing what others might consider "unethical" - after all in the commercial world the final image is everything, whether you are selling the image or selling a service that you want to associate with the image.

This type of discussion arises every now and then and is quite interesting. In my case, I feel that there is a difference between documentary image making and artistic image making. If I am to document an accurate rendition of a scene then nothing beyond dust removal, cropping, sharpening, should be done. Tone adjustment should attempt to reproduce the exact conditions my eye saw. Otherwise I feel free to do most anything other than adding elements which were not present in the original scene. Unwanted object removal, to me is routine. I do not bait animals other than utilizing my standard bird feeders with store bought seeds. HDR, focus stacking and Panoramas are clearly indicated. So, I am not sure if I would be seen as following the guidelines or not. However, I am creating images I like and enjoy showing to others.