Matthew has decades of experience in still image making, as well as particular experience in technical and scientific imaging applications, including: macro, microscopic, wildlife, and laboratory. He is a member of the BioCommunications Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Media with
confident,
competent, and
careful design
Underlying each written, still, and motion product is intentional, iterative design — a culmination of consideration.
Contact
[first initial][last initial]@matthewcroxton.com
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Ethics, Integrity, Generative AI, and Image Manipulation
Every image presented in digital or print format is a product of manipulation. It is most often my intent to represent colors, tones, and spatial relationships with the highest standards of faithful reproduction to those experienced in the original scene, although I reserve the right to depart from reality in order to create the most effective and expressive representation in an image. Because no medium is able to reproduce originals from reality with perfect fidelity, most manipulations are in fact attempts to accommodate the incredible human visual system using media limited by much smaller dynamic range, color gamut, and contrast than the eye is capable of observing.
Examples of alterations done selectively in still and motion imagery of Croxton Media include: cropping, adjustments to tonality, hue, white balance, saturation, texture, correction of chromatic aberrations and lens distortions, optical vignette, and the creation of composite compositions. Examples of practices never used in visual productions of Croxton Media include the use of lengthwise image inversion (horizontal "flipping"), generative AI creation of visuals or "filler", and non-cosmetic retouching of human subjects. Finally, extensive "cloning" operations that alter scenes and subjects would be forthrightly disclosed in the medium most appropriate to give clarity to the nature of the use and extent. Minor subject or scene imperfections may be dealt with in this way without any special disclosure, if it does not violate the terms or intent of a client brief.
Scientific Image Ethics
Still images for publication, especially for journals and other peer-reviewed publications, have an even greater stringency applied to their production and post-processing. Croxton Media is able to produce images created with the aid of scientific instrumentation in compliance with journal figure and image criteria, providing technical documentation in advance of manuscript submission, so that image issues do not slow the editorial review process, or result in later revision or even retraction. Accurate disclosure of production and visual choices is facilitated through comprehensive imaging pipeline standardization and logging, as well as for post-production selections.
This African buffalo composite provides an example of how disclosure and careful compositing increase the value of an image by revealing animal behavior. In this progression, the mutualism between the red-billed oxpecker and the buffalo seems to take place on two buffalo and three birds. In reality, there was only one bird on a single buffalo. By showing the sequence from left to right, the viewer is able to appreciate how the oxpecker first foraged the right nostril, then left, before alighting to the horn to wipe off his bill. The buffalo image on the left has transparency selectively applied to the layer it is on, as an additional cue to the viewer that this is a composite rather than a natural juxtaposition: a close-up to show the "narial" birds at full opacity. The transparent portion of the left buffalo also permits a better sense of the right buffalo's bulky dimensions from tip to tail. Edits to better reveal the color variation, shadows, and textures of surfaces are also apparent between the original and the edit.