In your opinion, when is it beneficial, ethical, or appropriate to digitally alter photographic portraits? When do you think it is inappropriate or ethically wrong?

This is tricky, and I think that it largely depends on the situation and the audience that will be viewing the photo.

This topic comes up often in my journalism classes as a huge ethical issue. In my opinion, a photojournalist's job is to capture the very essence of a situation to the best of their ability, meaning that they are to show the situation in it's most raw and pure form. Even the smallest of edits can completely alter the look and feel of a scene, so I think that the photojournalist must always be very careful in order to give the most honest story to their audience. As long as the edits are working to clarify the message of the photo, editing would be okay. But then, how do you know that that is truly what you are doing, and that you aren't just adding a bias to the image? It all gets really dicey. Probably the best way to go is to just not edit the photo at all. Gosh--wouldn't that change the look of our front pages? I wonder...

Celebrity magazines would be VERY interesting if they were never edited. I think it would be great if they weren't ever airbrushed to remove a blemish or take some weight off of a celeb. Then, would the celebrities still allow these photo shoots?

 I even hard time editing my personal photos. While Photoshopping a few pictures I took at Lake Michigan, I kept having an inner monologue about whether it was ethical or not. I thought the picture looked so much better with a little more contrast and a blue filter... but then again, is it the same image anymore? Was that what I saw that day when I was taking the picture? It's almost like I was creating a moment that never really existed.