When photography came into being in the 19th century it was celebrated for its ability to accurately show the detail of reality.

Nobody considered that the first human in a photograph was Daguerre’s photograph of an almost empty Paris street with a man having his shoes shined. There is a lot of evidence pointing to the fact that in order to take this over at least 3 minute exposure Daguerre paid the man not to move.

The Soviet Union of the 20^th century deftly (and sometimes not so deftly) removed people from photographs in their propaganda posters.

In short photography can lie. I like to quote a Canadian press photographer, Nick Didlick who with the advent of digital photography (he was and is a master) said, “You can trust a photograph if you know the photographer.”

As a beginning photographer in the early 60s I liked to call myself an authentic photographer who eschewed any special effects or any kind of filters. I soon found out that in b+w film, yellow filters and orange filters can help diminish effect of the blue/ultraviolet sensitive film (it is also true to this day of colour film, video and digital camera sensors). So I began using those yellow filters to make the dramatic Mexico City skies look the way they looked to my eyes.

But in all my years I have had a few rules that I keep with me at all times. One is that I never persuade anybody to do anything they might not want to do. A corollary of this is that I never tell anybody to do something  I would not do.

A rule that kept me in good business with periodicals is that I made people look as good as I could (or even better). I never knowingly made anybody look worse except a couple of times and one I remember well when a magazine editor (Malcolm Parry) instructed me to go to City Hall and take an unflattering photograph of the mayor.

All kinds of early special effects like one called cross-processing (telling a lab to process a roll of slide film  as if it were colour negative film) I only used for my personal work.

While I used many kinds of lighting techniques, my portraits, I thought were honest.

But I can remember the first picture that I digitally manipulated. It was of Canadian mezzo soprano Jean Stilwell. She had short hair and did not resemble in any way you run-of-the-mill diva. The manipulated photograph appeared in black and white in the May 20 2004 Georgia Straight. My Photoshop was almost brand new. It is the same one I use now.

Now with negatives, slides, photographs I work with my scanner to go beyond whatever were my standards back in the 60s. But I will keep my standards in making my portraits as authentic of the person as I can muster, effects be damned.