Colors have properties like luminance, chroma and saturation, all of which affect their appearance. In this respect, the images you’re looking at misrepresent the experience. But when you were at the wedding, the pink hair didn’t scald your retina.

You wanted these stills and videos to capture something of the experience you had at the time. Why assume that it’s the only way to represent reality? The fact that the pink hair in your photographic records of the event stands out to you in the way that it does arises from the interaction of these two interpretations. I’m not an expert on the human visual system either, but it, too, has to interpret the incoming pattern of photons. Certain white-balance settings, for instance, might aim for certain color temperatures. Use different algorithms, get different images. But I do know that the light that came into those (presumably digital) cameras would have landed on a variety of color detectors whose output has to be interpreted by algorithms in order to produce an image. This is not a technology column, and your Ethicist is not an expert on how cameras work. Would it be ethical to replace the hair digitally with a more neutral-colored hair? Or would it be disrespectful to the pink-haired guest? - Name Withheld In the video and most of the photos taken of the ceremony, with the white-snow backdrop, the friend with the bright pink hair distracts your gaze so much that it takes away from the focus of the wedding: the bride and groom. There was no seating chart, and the friend sat on the aisle toward the front of the ceremony. One of the guests invited a friend who had beautiful bright pink hair. There was a freak snowstorm, however, that put a layer of white snow down before the ceremony. My daughter recently got married in Washington, D.C., and it was a beautiful day.

The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton