Most of you know my background, I was a photojournalist with two daily newspapers in Texas and later The Associated Press.   When you work for reputable news organizations, there are  written and understood rules, a code of ethics.  You don’t manipulate the scene, just like you don’t tamper with evidence.  It is a fireable offense, whether physically interacting with a scene, or removing something in post production.  

I still remember when in 1989 the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper came under fire for digitally removing a can of Coca-Cola from a photo celebrating their winning the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.  As it turns out, the can of soda was part of the story, Ron Olshwanger, the amateur photographer who captured the prize-winning image of a firefighter trying to save the life of a two-year-old child, does not drink alcohol, and was celebrating the win of one of journalism’s most prestigious awards with a soft drink. 

Yes, editors could have cropped out the can, an acceptable practice, but removing it by digital means (really not an easy task with 1989 technology) caused lots of consternation among the community of newspaper photographers across the country.

With my photojournalism days well in my rear-view mirror, I spend my photo interactions outdoors capturing landscapes and sometimes the critters that inhabit that landscape.  Sometimes I actually make a photo I am proud of. I typically don’t have a problem removing an offending tree branch or even people from my landscapes.

It took a while for me to be comfortable with that, and even now, a small voice in my head will sometimes ask if what I am doing is acceptable and is it needed.

Which brings me to a trip to The Wave, a most photographable place in the in the Vermillion Cliffs on the Utah-Arizona border.  This was in 2012. I had entered the lottery for a permit (access is limited) and after many tries, I received a permit for three and invited two of my close friends from my newspaper days to accompany me. 

It was everything we expected and more.  It was a great hike in (bring plenty of water) from the Wirepass trailhead and once we got to The Wave, we were blown away by what we saw.  The rippling waves of color look otherworldly. It’s one of the few times a photographer might appreciate the mid-day sun, all of the sides of the wave were illuminated. While I might have wished for interesting clouds, the bright blue sky abutting the sandstone walls is photo-worthy and worth the effort to get there regardless of the weather.

We walked all around The Wave looking for good angles, spending the better part of the day there. 

And in the middle of it all was was “The Tree Branch.”  We don’t know how it came to be there.  Maybe it was washed down from above, or maybe someone put it there to be something of interest to photograph. 

All I know is that tree branch did not move.  We did not touch it, we left it where we found it, and thus it appears in many of our photos, either by design or happenstance.  Sometime we photographed around it, cropping it out of the picture in camera, sometimes we made it the focal point.   But I can tell you, when we left in the late afternoon, the branch stayed on in its original location.

I think we were all still too close to our news photography days. 

Today, I would not think twice about moving it out of the picture, or to a better spot in the picture.  I might even carry my own tree branch down the hill if I thought it would make a better landscape photo that was true to my vision. 

But I am comforted to know that the practitioners of photojournalism even today have a code of ethics, their photography can be trusted.  I suspect the tree branch would stay on.