Who edits photos for book publications and what ethics do they follow?

Far as I know from my time in the business, each publisher sets their own rules. Some of them very loose.

Associated Press and traditional media have set some standards on what they allow - usually only very limited adjustments - but I'm not aware of any laws or universal standards.

Gato

You have good questions and I do not know of the answers but as just stated, it might vary by publisher. I do know that in terms of photography and 'galleries' and museums that the display of a photographers work might be entirelyl up to the staff and not the artist. So I assume the same with books.

I was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art a few years back where they had a gallery of work fromJudith Joy Ross. My wife had her as a professor in college so we had a chance to walk the gallery with her as our personal guide. I remember her stating that many images in the gallery were not placed in the sequence she would have placed them in.

Also....with in her book, she had little to no say, and in terms of revenue, she gets almost nothing from the sale.... That is a sad thing to see. The middle man is profiting but not the artist.

I took an image of her below with an OM1 film SLR so the grain is high, but that is okay.



Below, she is still teaching my 'wife'.... the far left.





--
jim lehmann https://jimlehmann.squarespace.com

.Rules and definitions vary all over the place..Here's the story of my book and its pictures.

Going to Town, Macfarlane Walter and Ross, approximately 425 published custom-taken pictures to illustrate over 100 summaries of the history and design of about 1000 houses and small buildings in 10 towns in the Canadian province of Ontario.

First step, before the publisher got involved.

A professional journalist moved to Canada, and started spending weekends looking at small cities as a tourist, who made notes. After a while, she thought this could turn into a book.

Second step, the publisher

The social and professional circles of the author and the head of a publishing company overlapped, and they began to discuss the idea. The author bought a point and shoot camera to take photos for research.

Months went by, more towns were visited, I was asked how photography would work, (not paid consulting) .

A decision was made to go ahead and the author researched interesting homes and buildings in 10 towns, with records on the history and background of about 1000.

Eventuallydraft galleys off al the write ups were edited, and the publisher looked for a photographer.

The brief was sort of simple.

Go to ten towns spread over hundreds of miles and take good but straightforwardd photos of about 100 buildings in each community. Shoot the pictures when the light was decent and garbage cans were not outside.

By now, there was a rough design. Two photos per page, each half a page wide. Three or four write ups per page. Pictures had to be of buildings on the pages.

We would not know which buildings were on which pages, and which buildings looked best, until well into production.

SO BACK TO THE QUESTION: cropping was designed to fit the two empty photo holes at the top of the page. Once we knew what listings were on the page, the author picked the shot.

BAK

Are you referring to Vivian Maier ? What is you source for the information in your post ?

mrdale said:

Are you referring to Vivian Maier ? What is you source for the information in your post ?

Click to expand...

I have read a lot about her and watched documentaries, among other things, one that tells the story of the person who bought her estate and through whom she first became known.

She certainly didn't have a photo lab in the house of the family she was the nanny for. There's even an interview with the small photo shop in the village or small town where she lived.

DirkPeh said:

DirkPeh wrote

Click to expand...

DirkPeh said:

..... who is doing the processing and are there general rules what is considered authentic and what not?

For example, would the editors do horizon straightening or even crop some photos or is there an ethics of „Don’t touch!“ ?

Click to expand...

I edited a small photog magazine for 13+ yrs and published a book of submitted images.

Text - editor can edit for technical issues, grammar, spelling, syntax, readability and fit. But not change meaning.

Images - can edit for production on a specific printer/profile (they are all different) and do RGB>CMYK conversion if required. Generally content editing (incl cropping) would not be done.

In both cases author approval (proof copy) is required unless you have prior approval to not request it.

Richard