BurntPhotons

Copyright Tim Norman

A frosted wreath sits in front the columns of markers at the Ohio Fallen Heroes memorial in Sunbury.

Over the next couple of days I will be showing a series of photographs I recently took in Sunbury, Ohio. I was assigned to find a photograph for the front page of the newspaper for ThisWeek Community Newspapers' Sunbury edition. As a staff photographer being sent out for wildart, also known as feature hunting, happens occasionally and when I get this type of assignment I try to look at it as a time to challenge myself and think more artistically.

On this occasion I was sent out in the morning with a photograph needed by noon. My plan of attack was to go somewhere where I thought I would find people doing something visual, so I went to the town square in Sunbury in hopes of finding someone shopping for Christmas or maybe working or enjoying the cold weather.

Generally our newspapers like to highlight the people that make up our communities but Sunbury seemed pretty deserted in the morning, so I started wandering and looking for anything that interested me. I figured if I couldn't comeback with a person I could at least find a visually interesting photograph or find something to make the reader think.

Eventually I made my way to the Ohio Fallen Heroes memorial where the memorial markers, morning frost and snow on the ground caught my interest. This visual made me think about some of my relatives who are serving in the armed forces and I thought that it would be nice to remember those heroes who are currently serving as well as those who have fallen and their families during this holiday season.

I spent about 20 minutes photographing different parts of the memorial and liked the image of the Christmas wreath in front of the markers. In the end this photograph was not selected to go into the paper. It was probably not the best image and the editor ran a photograph I took of a 90-year-old woman getting her hair cut for Christmas.

I do want to note that I manipulated this image. I desaturated everything but the wreath in the image to enhance the visual of the colorful wreath. This would break my personal ethical guidelines for photographs for the newspaper because it no longer shows reality. I chose to do it here (and make note of it here) as burntphotons.com is a weblog more for showing my personal vision than my newspaper skills. If you would like to see my newspaper work you can go to TimNormanPhoto.com.

I will always make note of any manipulation I have done to a photograph that misrepresents reality. (Excluding minor brightening and darkening to a photograph that is done to enhance portions of the image.) If you have questions about the ethics of photo manipulation for newspapers and what is and isn't acceptable please ask or check out the guidelines for photojournalists at the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA).

The subject of photo manipulation can be a murky area for photographers, and I believe the public does not understand what is and is not acceptable in getting a photograph ready for the newspaper industry. It is up to the newspaper industry to properly inform people what is and is not acceptable in this age of digital photography where it is simple to remove or add items to photographs. (Both of which are unacceptable.)