I'm processing various photos at the moment, several of which are 'scarred' by (modern) graffiti.

These are from a couple of sites used in the Second World War for munitions storage, but which have been considerably vandalised in the last couple of decades with a lot of graffiti.

Is it acceptable to digitally remove it, or should it be left there as to modify the photograph by removing such graffiti is considered excessive tinkering?

My opinion is leaning towards removal...

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If it wasnt made by miners I think it is a great idea to get rid of it.

I think it depends on whether you consider the photo in question to be a historical document or a work of art. If it's a work of art, then you are entitled to manipulate the image in whatever way suits your artistic aims. However, if it's to be a historical record of a mine or mine feature at a particular point in time I suggest it should be left with the graffiti visible.

If AditNow is to substantiate its claim to be "an information sharing resource ... for the mine exploration community as well as industrial archaeologists, researchers, historians and anybody with an interest in mine exploration or mining history" then I think the 'historical record' approach should prevail.

With regard to considering the photos as historical records it would help if the the date the photo was taken and a description of what the photo shows is available. If an image has been manipulated so as to change it in a significant way then this should be explicitly stated.

Dave :smartass:

Here we are, a quick comparison:

🔗Glynrhonwy-Isaf-Slate-Mine-13-09-2006-Image-42716[linkphoto]Glynrhonwy-Isaf-Slate-Mine-13-09-2006-Image-42716[/linkphoto][/link]

🔗Glynrhonwy-Isaf-Slate-Mine-13-09-2006-Image-42715[linkphoto]Glynrhonwy-Isaf-Slate-Mine-13-09-2006-Image-42715[/linkphoto][/link]

Not the best of photographs and processed rather hurriedly!

My personal opinion is that it looks a lot better with the graffiti removed and gives a much better feel of what the place originally looked like.

Dave's suggestion that the photograph be annotated is very sensible.

The editing, incidentally is non-destructive in that I keep the original RAW file (NEF format) untouched, with a processing file stored alongside that which contains the instructions for processing colour temperature, balance, contrast etc.

The third file to be kept is the JPEG which contains the editing, eg the removal of graffiti and that is resized to make it easier to upload and view.

Thus, an unedited file can be created merely by opening the RAW file again, which will generate a processed but un-altered copy.

I've only moved over to using this sort of workflow since updating Photoshop to a stage where it's compatible with the camera file types, but it seems to be a very good method of working.

The crux, I guess, will also be to back up data!

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I think it would be great to see the place without all the crap on the walls but allso ceep the original coppys as were for historical reference.

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I tend to agree with Davel but generally if its say one particular shot of importance to me where I want to get the atmosphere of the place/subject as I once imagined it, I will occasionally manipulate but quite rarely. I always retain the original any way though.
Railway photography has got stupid with people taking out whole crowds and all sorts trying to recreate the 60s look... but its 2009!

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However unpleasant (or pleasant) it may look, graffiti is part of the historic record of a site. Not through what it says or looks like, but as a social commentary.

In other words, at this point in the life of the site, people came here to spray paint on the walls. If the site was only to be recorded as it was when in use, then we'd be taking no pictures at all.

Hopefully in 20 years time people might look at a photograph and say "My goodness, did teenagers really do that sort of thing? Thank God we've sorted that one out."

I agree with the idea that, if the image is "tinkered with" significantly - as in the removal of graffiti, then certainly the caption should be annotated to record the fact. If possible (and certainly in ones own records) one should keep the original image and the cleaned up one as well.

Beyond a certain point, tinkering becomes something else - as in the case of removing crowds etc. In which case the phot has become a work of art, rather than a record, as someone else mentioned.(can't see all the thread at once!)

Cheers

Grahami

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The recent graffiti at the ammunition store is really ugly and serves no purpose. Who wants to know that so and so was there in 2003 etc.
But if one of the miners or quarrymen that worked at a particular mine put their mark there then I would say leave it.
There are some mines I know of which has 'diwrnod olaf' (last day) with the names of some of the workforce written down.
That is an important artifact as it records a historic moment in time.
Just a matter of keeping the balance right.

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To be honest, I'm beginning to think that the example photos above do justify the post-processing.

There are some very interesting things written on the walls at Glynrhonwy (a subject for another day) but I fail to see that any of the recent graffiti is worth preserving.

In fact, I might suggest that it detracts from some photographs and reduces their use as a reference to an extent.

To my eye, the edited version is not just more pleasing, but the modern graffiti does not detract from the image - for example, I think the 'C11' marking is more obvious in the post-processed example than the original.

Admittedly it's not a true record of what's there now, but it's certainly a better record of what was there.

Moving on a little bit, I've also been processing a pile of photographs from a similar site down south, where in one instance I've removed graffiti on the basis that it's a profanity: to my mind, there's also an issue with publishing such material on this site unless the profanity is first removed?

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i have seen some drawings in ridge from the mod bit in the war that show naked women
probebly rude then but histery now
peter burgess has said that 50 years is the american cut off?

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Both versions side by side perhaps?

I tend to use the site to choose places to visit (or daydream of visiting 😞 ) I probably wouldn't not visit somewhere just because there was graffiti but I might get a bit of a shock if I went somewhere I'd seen recent pictures showing no graffiti and found scrawlings everywhere :ohmygod:

graffiti can be history.

I was at El Djem in Tunisia last year. The amphitheatre there is heavily marked with graffiti, from which you can see that it has been a target for essentially similar inscriptions at various times in its 2,000-year history.

There have been Roman tourists, Greek tourists, Napoleonic soldiers, 19th Century European gentry on the Grand Tour, Second World War British, Italian and German soldiers ( including my father, possibly ); but all their inscriptions say much the same

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