View Full Version : Not "touching" photos
I have a little bone to pick here, so be forewarned!
I have just about had it with these people who take digital photos or scan film then claim "photo not touched up, no adjustments made, no photoshop" and so on. Are you kidding me????? This idea of the purity of photography is absolutely hogwash. Come on now people, we are not police photographing a crime scene (more on this later though) we are trying to pursue what is generally considered an "artistic medium". Art is all about adjustments, changes, creativity, and so on. Being stuck into a art school the last many years if there is one very important thing I have learned its you just cant expect good results from being rigid and not exploring potentials.
Which brings me to this, so many of you on here are much more well versed in the technical side of photography, but few of you (not to toot my own horn here) have the spark that brings all the things together with ideas and creativity. Its not that it is impossible to ever be that way, any "real" artist will tell you that it is possible to learn to see from someone who already can see, but if you bring something else to it, then you are doing something unique. It is a good idea to explore all avenues possible rather then close them off. Also just because you have this so called spark, doesn't mean you will take good photos. I have a friend, he has a great gift for seeing, his photos suck! Why? Maybe its not his medium, maybe its difficult for him to express a creative instinct with the technicality of a camera. Hard to say really. Another person I know, cant see worth anything, he just doesn't have the eye for it, but yet still produces lot of photos, but they all are so....soulless. He cant get past his own barriers to see beyond what he is doing. These things happen! I don't have to tell the people here that its just part of growth.
Which brings me to this: Why limit yourself when you are working with a photo? Scan, darkroom, whatever, anything you do with a photo is already altering the scene, situation, or whatever. By changing aperture you have altered your photo, shutter speed will alter your photo, moving your camera a single centimeter will change your photo. Your choice of film, place of development, choice chemicals, scanner model, local water supply, temperature outside, relative humidity....I think you get the point, there are a million factors to taking photographs. When you scan your negative then proclaim that you did nothing to the scan as a way of trumping the purity of your photography......please!
Anyone who would like to say otherwise, please go take a look at the greatest photographers that ever picked up a camera. Adams was a master of the darkroom. One of HCB's most famous photos is a heavy crop. James Natchway in his War Photographer documentary is shown working with a darkroom expert on altering the look of a photograph to get maximum result. I once saw a presentation about wedding photography, the photographers were so creative and unhindered, the images were truly amazing and of the highest quality, but all were altered in a way that made them very special.
If you feel that taking a digital photo or film shot and sticking it up with "no adjustments" is pure, my goodness, go read (any basic primer will pretty much do) what a digital camera or scanner has to do in order to even see a picture!
And to touch on a point above, even a crime scene photographer can change the context of a image if he is not careful with lighting, perspective, whatever.
In closing, photography is not a means of duplicating the real world. It is a means of interpreting the world through our own vision. Dont let creativity be hindered by foolish notions about "purity".
As my friend and teacher often tells me "issues, ideas, girls".
Adams was a master of the darkroom.
I don't think she's done much since she married David Beckham though.
I agree with you here. I really don't limit myself with the postprocessing of my images. I scan the negs and use photoshop to bring what I want from the neg, even if it doesn't resemble the original scene. If I like it, it's valid for me.
An example is a quite a neutral landscape I shot in B&W a couple of months ago. The negative is quite dull, but then I spent about an hour to make it look the way I wanted: Grainy over-the top stormy clouds, black menacing trees, a lake with a boat of black silhouttes. The people at my office loved the photo (they aren't even amateur photogs, just regular people).
My father on the other hand goes for "integrity" as you describe. He tries not to touch his pics too much, and IMHO, he's limiting himself. When he sees my pics, if I show him the original "untouched" and the final interpretation he says "Hey, it's clearly retouched". I don't care, I don't limit myself there. I showed him some photos of Yosemite by Ansel Adams and he said that they're overprocessed :eek:. He wants his pics to look just how they looked in place. That's impossible, and undesirable.
Nice read.
usagisakana
04-09-2008, 09:11
I think the anti-photoshop argument comes from backlash against the incredibly common HDR images you see looking around the net. I personally find them painful to look at... but I bite my tongue, because obviously that really appeals to some people. I don't see a problem with editing my images if I think it will improve them, but I think people see photoshop as encouraging people to not think about how they shoot before they press the shutter, that you can "fix everything" in post processing. But again, whatever works for people and makes them happy...
I personally try to get my image as close to how I imagine it, in camera, before editing it. However sometimes from the outset I have the idea of doing a certain form of editing to elicit a certain effect. I shoot both digital and film. Eventually I hope to have a darkroom where I can experiment with traditional processes.
Per HCB, "a hunter isn't necessarily a cook", nothing wrong if you're not interested in pixel fiddling :)
Personally I'm more into photography than computer assisted illustration. But I'm old. As long as I can do what I want, I don't much care about what others do or how they do it. Life is short. Do what makes you happy.
I don't think she's done much since she married David Beckham though.
Wooooosh! Right over my head. Isnt David Beckham that guy that was just accused for being the single greatest contributer to global warming ever? Actually I dont know who he is, besides that I think he is a football player, and his ugly mug is all over crap here.
oftheherd
04-09-2008, 09:19
Funny, I am sort of PS challenged. When I post and mention I haven't done much of if any PP, it is usually meant apologetically. I am not showing the full potential of the photo. Whether film or digital, it is difficult to get what you want without PP. That includes film and digital. It is good to get the exposure and composition as close as possible. But that is just to prevent excessive work afterwards.
I guess those who say they haven't altered the photo mean well. I just don't believe them. But as long as they believe themselves, I guess that is what is important to them. I'm not going to go crazy over it either way.
Funny, I am sort of PS challenged. When I post and mention I haven't done much of if any PP, it is usually meant apologetically. I am not showing the full potential of the photo. Whether film or digital, it is difficult to get what you want without PP. That includes film and digital. It is good to get the exposure and composition as close as possible. But that is just to prevent excessive work afterwards.
I guess those who say they haven't altered the photo mean well. I just don't believe them. But as long as they believe themselves, I guess that is what is important to them. I'm not going to go crazy over it either way.
Yeah, but there are many people out there that think that if you do anything to alter a photo in anyway you are in essence "lying". Not everyone is good at PS, fine, thats just the way it is. Im not all that great in the darkroom yet, but working on it. Also I am trying to learn how to use flash's, thats pretty complicated in itself.
Of course I am not saying that everyone should pull the best out of their photo and learn photoshop to the max and so on, absolutely not, that would be absurd. The point is....not to dilute ones self into thinking that there is a "pure" form of photography. My gf gets this problem all the time, her friends dont understand why she edits colors or shoots black and white or so on, to them (most of them are artists but not in our medium) its similar to committing perjury.
Per HCB, "a hunter isn't necessarily a cook", nothing wrong if you're not interested in pixel fiddling :)
;p that would be like being mad at Van Gogh for not painting 500x300 inch canvases to utilize "full potential resolution" ;)
:rolleyes:
Wooooosh! Right over my head. Isnt David Beckham that guy that was just accused for being the single greatest contributer to global warming ever? Actually I dont know who he is, besides that I think he is a football player, and his ugly mug is all over crap here.
British footballer, now plays in the US, married to Victoria Adams, member of The Spice Girls ;)
To be serious ;) ...
I think there are a couple of situations where it can make sense to say "No digital changes made". One is if you're showing photos that compare lenses, and you want to be sure that the differences in apparent sharpness, contrast, tone are due to the lenses. And secondly, if you want to explain how you achieved your result (though what you actually did do, rather than didn't do, would be more useful info).
But that aside, art is in the eye of the artist/beholder, and whatever makes images that best please you is all that matters.
nikonhswebmaster
04-09-2008, 09:42
I
If you feel that taking a digital photo or film shot and sticking it up with "no adjustments" is pure, my goodness, go read (any basic primer will pretty much do) what a digital camera or scanner has to do in order to even see a picture!
I have not noticed anyone in particular doing that. But, nothing wrong with setting personal limits.
I wrestle with it all the time -- how much manipulation should I do in photoshop? Should I limit it to touch up, or change to B&W, or even duotone?
All very personal. Nothing wrong with a totally pure approach, especially if like HCB you are not going into the darkroom, but rely on printers.
mcgrattan
04-09-2008, 09:54
usagisakana nails it above, I think.
Personally, I don't generally do much in photoshop, but that's just because there's a certain look that I like. However, that's just about making a certain aesthetic choice rather than really about a search for 'purity'. There's a lot of crude post-processing goes on which can be aesthetically displeasing (to me), and it's the reaction against that sort of approach (a lot of HDR is like that, as usagisakana says) that leads to the photoshop backlash.
Personally, I convert colour to black and white quite often and I almost always do some sort of minor level adjustment. But I don't tend to do much cropping or retouching. That's just what works for me in terms of what I like. The process is no less artificial for it.
Ironically, some of my favourite photographs (historically) were quite heavily manipulated. Thinking of Man Ray or Rodchenko, for example. But that's not really what works for me, personally, when I am taking pictures.
oftheherd
04-09-2008, 09:55
Yeah, but there are many people out there that think that if you do anything to alter a photo in anyway you are in essence "lying". Not everyone is good at PS, fine, thats just the way it is. Im not all that great in the darkroom yet, but working on it. Also I am trying to learn how to use flash's, thats pretty complicated in itself.
Of course I am not saying that everyone should pull the best out of their photo and learn photoshop to the max and so on, absolutely not, that would be absurd. The point is....not to dilute ones self into thinking that there is a "pure" form of photography. My gf gets this problem all the time, her friends dont understand why she edits colors or shoots black and white or so on, to them (most of them are artists but not in our medium) its similar to committing perjury.
I guess I've been lucky in that I have never run into anyone like that. I think it is pretty easy to show them how no one can come anywhere close to shooting "pure" unless with slides, and even then you are subject to the people who do the processing. Is it by machine, at home, dip and dunk, whatever? Has your camera been CLA'd lately? So many variables. :D
jan normandale
04-09-2008, 09:59
One of the most illuminating things I've ever seen in my life was a three week time lapse motion picture of Pablo Picasso shown at the Picasso Museum in Paris.
It showed Picasso painting a massive canvas for a mural. He worked on scaffold due to it's size. He painted the entire mural. Then he decided to change a part of the canvas. He primed a corner of about 2 square metres and painted over it to change about a sixth of the entire canvas. He then decided to change another piece of this canvas. Which he did. Several more minor changes followed making at least four changes to this massive 10 x 20 metre canvas.
The timelapse showed another day and Picacasso came in and painted the entire canvas white and began to repaint this canvas one last time.
There's a message there from a great one.
I have a policy "No Crop No 'shop". That basically means I take the photo, dev it and scan it flat. meaning that the whites are dull and the blacks muddy, then I use levels and make the blacks black and the whites white. nothing else is touched, I dont crop anything at all ever.
When I printed in darkrooms I did far more to the image then I have ever done (for my own personal work) on the hybrid process -film/scan.
What Im effectively doing is changing the intensity of contrast. Its there on the negative already but I have a consumer grade scanner and cant hope to get the results I need from it so I dont even bother trying.
I dont have any issues with my work methods do you have issues with my work methods?
If you feel that taking a digital photo or film shot and sticking it up with "no adjustments" is pure, my goodness, go read (any basic primer will pretty much do) what a digital camera or scanner has to do in order to even see a picture!
Some of this goes back to the mentality and pride of slide shooters, where you must get everything right the first time, where exposure, cropping, composition had to be right the first time, since once the slide is mounted, you couldn't really "edit" anything at all.
There's nothing wrong with being able to pride yourself in getting everything right "in camera". Just like there's nothing wrong with being proud of your darkroom skills (wet or digital).
Being at the right place, right time, right light etc, is not as easy as you think it is.
mcctoronto
04-09-2008, 10:18
if some people didnt photoshop bad photos into good ones then there would be no need. photoshop gives some people the ability to fake skill. to recreate something they heard was good without even knowing it. they send it to everyone show it off and try play the role of "photographer" as quick as they can. would you feel like a good photographer if you said "whatever i'll just photoshop it later" to everything ? Ive seen it many times.
On the other hand you have the realist who doesnt wanna be that fake. they want to create something they invisoned to begin with not just whatever cool tool they found this time on photoshop. I will always label no photoshop if its something online.. show those mistakes and learn from them. print is another story.
my bone to pick is why everyone is on ansel adams nuts?
"By changing aperture you have altered your photo, shutter speed will alter your photo, moving your camera a single centimeter will change your photo"
This is incorrect. You are not altering the photograph, the photograph has not yet been taken, you are merely moving inside the scene you are about to photograph. This is vastly different.
You should study the front pages of newspapers when all the papers in your city cover the same event, because this will give you an insight into how a scene develops itself with the eye in different places.
mcctoronto
04-09-2008, 10:32
whats the point of buying leicas then? i can just buy a 20 dollar camera and sharp mask and saturate the hell out of it in photoshop.. problem solved!
monochromejrnl
04-09-2008, 10:34
in the end the final products is what matters... the workflow and how the photographyer/artists/whateveryouwanttocallyourself does it is personal choice...
some will criticise, elevate, worship or condemn the workflow/technique but in the end all that matters is whether or not the resulting image has impact to the viewer...
everything else is noise...
Gabriel M.A.
04-09-2008, 10:46
Per HCB, "a hunter isn't necessarily a cook", nothing wrong if you're not interested in pixel fiddling :)
On the nosy. Too often you see dishes with hay and spent rifle cartridges. So to speak, of course. Don't try that at home, kids! :rolleyes:
nikonhswebmaster
04-09-2008, 10:46
my bone to pick is why everyone is on ansel adams nuts?
Not sure I understand your point.
Ansel Adams is considered of interest by almost all photographers, even if not particularly inspiring to many.
I don't think anyone dismisses him, but his reputation was built by a small (but powerful) group of critics and curators who are no longer in favor.
To be serious ;) ...
I think there are a couple of situations where it can make sense to say "No digital changes made". One is if you're showing photos that compare lenses, and you want to be sure that the differences in apparent sharpness, contrast, tone are due to the lenses. And secondly, if you want to explain how you achieved your result (though what you actually did do, rather than didn't do, would be more useful info).
But that aside, art is in the eye of the artist/beholder, and whatever makes images that best please you is all that matters.
Fully agree. Wanted to write the same but couldn't from mobile :)
Gabriel M.A.
04-09-2008, 10:51
Not sure I understand your point.
Ansel Adams is considered of interest by almost all photographers, even if not particularly inspiring to many.
I don't think anyone dismisses him, but his reputation was built by a small (but powerful) group of critics and curators who are no longer in favor.
The power of micro-politics. Politics, in any case.
His fame stands on his own achievements, though. Excellent technique. Excellent vision. Not my preferred cup of porridge, though.
But I don't understand it either; people talk about photographers like they'd talk about football teams. Loyalty does not become an image.
Unless you're into metaphysics.
If film and glass lenses are the purest and most honest form of photography, why so many comments about the effects of various lenses. "I prefer this lens because it is contrasty-soft-sharp or has better tonal rendition, etc?" And why do we constantly see comments about film emulsion preferences. "I like Velvia because it is more saturated." "I prefer Ilford over T-max because it ......"
And that's before chemistry choices enter the discussion.
Man has always eventually embraced new tools that make output of product easier, wherein lies the question. Is digital easier... not for all people.
The fact is it's all good.... let's shut off our computers and go shoot some film and capture some digital images. Whoooaaah!!!
Just to add a comment about my personal approach. I do very little digital adjustment; just the occasional a bit of sharpening and brightness/contrast adjustment (and cropping - but that's not a digital exclusive). I don't do anything with curves, etc.
But that's not for any purist or idealogical reasons. It's just because I know film and development much better than I know Photoshop (actually, I don't even have Photoshop), and it's the approach that gives me the most pleasure.
Agreed. I find nothing wrong w/doing in photoshop what I could (or actually wish I could) do in the darkroom, but I do have an aesthetic problem w/gratuitous tweaking. However, photography is a hobby for me, not a religion, so who am I cast stones @ those evidently think that Thomas Kincaid is a great artist (doesn't stop me from making fun of them, though)?
I think the anti-photoshop argument comes from backlash against the incredibly common HDR images you see looking around the net. I personally find them painful to look at... but I bite my tongue, because obviously that really appeals to some people. I don't see a problem with editing my images if I think it will improve them, but I think people see photoshop as encouraging people to not think about how they shoot before they press the shutter, that you can "fix everything" in post processing. But again, whatever works for people and makes them happy...
I personally try to get my image as close to how I imagine it, in camera, before editing it. However sometimes from the outset I have the idea of doing a certain form of editing to elicit a certain effect. I shoot both digital and film. Eventually I hope to have a darkroom where I can experiment with traditional processes.
Hmmm, sounds to me like you're getting worked up over strawmen.
Where the heck are these people you refer to? I know many photographers, personally & via the internet (flickr, etc.) & have yet to meet or correspond w/anyone who actually takes pride in never making any adjustments to their photos or somehow believes that no adjustments are ever acceptable. Or is this just a problem you're running into in Chongqing?
As others have noted, there are many shooters like myself who work @ getting the photo we want "in camera" w/a minimum of cropping & post-processing, but that doesn't mean we're out to denigrate other photographers, only that we take pride in our working method.
I have a little bone to pick here, so be forewarned!
I have just about had it with these people who take digital photos or scan film then claim "photo not touched up, no adjustments made, no photoshop" and so on. Are you kidding me????? This idea of the purity of photography is absolutely hogwash. Come on now people, we are not police photographing a crime scene (more on this later though) we are trying to pursue what is generally considered an "artistic medium". Art is all about adjustments, changes, creativity, and so on. Being stuck into a art school the last many years if there is one very important thing I have learned its you just cant expect good results from being rigid and not exploring potentials.
Which brings me to this, so many of you on here are much more well versed in the technical side of photography, but few of you (not to toot my own horn here) have the spark that brings all the things together with ideas and creativity. Its not that it is impossible to ever be that way, any "real" artist will tell you that it is possible to learn to see from someone who already can see, but if you bring something else to it, then you are doing something unique. It is a good idea to explore all avenues possible rather then close them off. Also just because you have this so called spark, doesn't mean you will take good photos. I have a friend, he has a great gift for seeing, his photos suck! Why? Maybe its not his medium, maybe its difficult for him to express a creative instinct with the technicality of a camera. Hard to say really. Another person I know, cant see worth anything, he just doesn't have the eye for it, but yet still produces lot of photos, but they all are so....soulless. He cant get past his own barriers to see beyond what he is doing. These things happen! I don't have to tell the people here that its just part of growth.
Which brings me to this: Why limit yourself when you are working with a photo? Scan, darkroom, whatever, anything you do with a photo is already altering the scene, situation, or whatever. By changing aperture you have altered your photo, shutter speed will alter your photo, moving your camera a single centimeter will change your photo. Your choice of film, place of development, choice chemicals, scanner model, local water supply, temperature outside, relative humidity....I think you get the point, there are a million factors to taking photographs. When you scan your negative then proclaim that you did nothing to the scan as a way of trumping the purity of your photography......please!
Anyone who would like to say otherwise, please go take a look at the greatest photographers that ever picked up a camera. Adams was a master of the darkroom. One of HCB's most famous photos is a heavy crop. James Natchway in his War Photographer documentary is shown working with a darkroom expert on altering the look of a photograph to get maximum result. I once saw a presentation about wedding photography, the photographers were so creative and unhindered, the images were truly amazing and of the highest quality, but all were altered in a way that made them very special.
If you feel that taking a digital photo or film shot and sticking it up with "no adjustments" is pure, my goodness, go read (any basic primer will pretty much do) what a digital camera or scanner has to do in order to even see a picture!
And to touch on a point above, even a crime scene photographer can change the context of a image if he is not careful with lighting, perspective, whatever.
In closing, photography is not a means of duplicating the real world. It is a means of interpreting the world through our own vision. Dont let creativity be hindered by foolish notions about "purity".
As my friend and teacher often tells me "issues, ideas, girls".
Florian1234
04-09-2008, 12:13
Avotius, I agree with you.
When you write "One of HCB's most famous photos is a heavy crop", which one do you mean here?
whats the point of buying leicas then? i can just buy a 20 dollar camera and sharp mask and saturate the hell out of it in photoshop.. problem solved!
I see no problem with this.
I've seen so many images taken with Holgas, Dianas, pinholes etc
that were incredibly beautiful.
Avotius, I agree with you.
When you write "One of HCB's most famous photos is a heavy crop", which one do you mean here?
The famous one of the man jumping the puddle, is heavily cropped.
Florian1234
04-09-2008, 12:41
The famous one of the man jumping the puddle, is heavily cropped.
Ah, thanks. I did not know this. Is there maybe the orignial frame somewhere on the net?
Somehow I'm highly interested in HCB these days. :D
In closing, photography is not a means of duplicating the real world. It is a means of interpreting the world through our own vision. Dont let creativity be hindered by foolish notions about "purity". Avotius (http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/In%20closing,%20photography%20is%20not%20a%20means %20of%20duplicating%20the%20real%20world.%20It%20i s%20a%20means%20of%20interpreting%20the%20world%20 through%20our%20own%20vision.%20Dont%20let%20creat ivity%20be%20hindered%20by%20foolish%20notions%20a bout%20%22purity%22.)
So many Phil. 101 conundrums in this one little paragraph! My goodness! Real world- do we see this with our sight? Uh oh! What is the difference between the relationship of our environment, our eyes, and our brains and those between film/sensor with light reflected off our environment? Didn't even mention time! But that just complicates things...
It could be argued that our personalities are a kind of photoshop! Is it changing for the better or covering up the bad? Or both? Hmmm...
Is not wondering through life with a particular vision, and adhering to it, a form of purity?
Sorry, the Matrix was on TV a couple of nights a go. :)
I think that bottom line is that Photography is an umbrella term. It contains lots of different approaches, often seeming as opposites. Art is one area where we can afford to be relativists. In photography, you can be a before, or you can be an after, or you can be both. I think...
My Dad watches F1 but not NASCAR. That doesn't mean he thinks carburators are crap. NASCAR occasionally lets their drivers make a right turn on one of their tracks. But not many.
There is a point in there somewhere...
The most essential editing skill--shared by digi and film shooter alike--is Total Crop (otherwise known as "delete file" or "don't bother printing."
I'm lazy. The best I feel like doing when I scan film is to get the contrast right, and cropping a little; which is more or less the same thing I'm doing in the darkroom. I couldn't care less about montage, because I find it tacky, except for the rare (very) example.
As for the "no edit" purity, it depends. Up to a point it's nice to know that what you're seeing on the photo results from something that has actually happened. Up to a point, of course.
It's still generally assumed that pictures have some relationship with reality, even in the 21st century, that making a montage pass for the real thing upsets people.
But I'm not going to pay more for someone's prints just because he has not cropped his neg. Otherwise it ends up being another useless information like the "I adjusted the levels in photoshop" tacked unto every boring shot in Popular Photography. Of course you adjusted the levels, but nobody cares, nor do they think it matters to know you used a 4GB SmashFlashUber CF Card to take your stupid picture!
Todd.Hanz
04-09-2008, 16:26
Wooooosh! Right over my head. Isnt David Beckham that guy that was just accused for being the single greatest contributer to global warming ever? .
no...that was Algore ;)
Todd
I have just about had it with these people who take digital photos or scan film then claim "photo not touched up, no adjustments made, no photoshop" and so on.
My sense is, at least here on RFF, the majority of posts where people have explicitly stressed the 'purity' of a minimally-manipulated image have stated or implied reasons entirely to do with addressing technical issues of lenses, film, development techniques, etc, and little or nothing to do with the aesthetics of the image itself. So in this sense I disagree with the premise of your post.
OTOH, posts that are strictly intended to be 'no words', non-technical posts of images rarely, if ever, overtly state some particular level of technical manipulation.
Which brings me to this, so many of you on here are much more well versed in the technical side of photography, but few of you (not to toot my own horn here) have the spark that brings all the things together with ideas and creativity.
Uh, that's making a strong leap of logic, into borderline presumption. This site seems to attract discussion of the intricate technical details of, primarily, handheld photography. Those who are interested in engaging in such discussion are not necessarily creative luddites. Many of us are, in fact, literate and skilled in both the aesthetic as well as technical sides of photography. It's just that, like many other photography websites, discussions of aesthetics end up sounding like arguments over religion or politics. Heck, take a poll as to what is each person's definition of 'art', and you'll end up with thousands of different answers, each perhaps different from what was fed to you in art school.
~Joe
I enjoy photos that aren't photoshopped just as I enjoy music that wasn't created with digital pitch correction.
I guess this means I'm old.
f/stopblues
04-09-2008, 21:40
As a caveat, there are those photographers who state their process as a way to define what the viewer is seeing. It's as simple as silver gelatin, giclee, wet plate collodian.. it can be further defined as PS manipulated, uncropped full frame silver print, etc etc.
The BS comes in when any photog touts his process as being superior to any other one. The impact of the end result is all I believe is important.
infrequent
04-09-2008, 22:05
there is a photoshopped image and there is a photoshopped image. sometimes ppl go so overboard that you can tell right away. often its the hdr shots or photos where the lighting is so perfect that you know it can't be real. i don't like such images. its quite fun to look at photos in flickr and try to guess which one has gone through the entire photoshop cycle. its basically the US supreme court understanding of art vs pornography: you know when you see it.
but i don't have any problems with ppl tweaking the curves, cropping, mono-conversions...you know, just the basics.
nikonhswebmaster
04-09-2008, 22:28
You guys argue about some odd stuff...
Just make the work.
jwhitley
04-09-2008, 22:40
I think the anti-photoshop argument comes from backlash against the incredibly common HDR images you see looking around the net. I personally find them painful to look at...
This recalls an observation from a music professor I had in college, paraphrased as: The lone desire to use new technology is the worst possible reason to create art. He then backed up this proclamation by playing a recording made by the then-chair of the MIT music department, who had performed a dreadful(!!) :bang: solo recorder piece using the newly-invented tape-loop reverberation technique.
It amuses me that the most interesting HDR-like work I've seen is the Prokudin-Gorskii exhibit (http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/) on the Library of Congress website, produced from remarkable sets of glass plate negatives nearly a century old. Probably old news to most folk here but worth mentioning again, IMO.
amateriat
04-10-2008, 00:33
Ah, mind-taxing time again. - Marvin
Nothing like a thread of this sort to make me go on a milk-and-cookie run (no cookies here, so have to put on shoes and head to the all-night place across the street) and fortify myself for a reply...
Avotius: I don't know if you're familiar with the Dogma 95 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95) movement in the world of cinema. This came about at a moment when the world of cinema, like still photography, was experiencing seismic shifts in technology, and concerned itself with what it perceived as the diminution of the craft by a boatload of slick, big-budget smoke and mirrors. While I have thought this movement more than a little childish at its extremes (CGI in movies, IMO, isn't exactly evil, just terribly tacky most of the time it's used), I think the movement was important in putting forth the question of what cinema is, and isn't, and can be, and too often doesn't get the chance to be.
Like the world of moving pictures, still photography is based on, and steeped in, technology and its changes. Movies have gone through the silent era, to "talkies", to color (one of the tenets of Dogma 95 is to always shoot in color, because that's based in "reality": raise your hand if you buy this one!), to wide-screen (from CinemaScope to IMAX), to 3D, to digital shooting and projection. Over here, in the still-image world, we've been dealing with the same thing, and haveing the same arguments about art and aesthetics. We've had our own Dogma 95 cliques over the last century (f/64, anyone?), and while the extremes of such movements could devolve into the silly and pointless, the argument sticks at least a little to the psychic ribs of those of us with a minute to listen and ponder.
How I work with images, and ultimately conjure them into prints, is my business, just as your methods are yours. When an image works, it just works; when it simply sucks, no amount of explaining makes it otherwise (in fact, further explanation usually makes it look all the worse). For me, though, the work I create isn't simply something spun from Gossamer onto film or paper: it's a record. A record of where I was, and when, and why. Photography only gets certain facts straight, and in 2D, no less, but it's a pretty good record-keeper nonetheless. This, for me, is important.
Not that I'm just into dry-record-keeping snaps (nothing wrong with that): there is the matter of reording things (hopefully) as I saw and felt them, and that's long been a tricky business. The advent of computers, scanners, and Photoshop have allowed others to get farther away from what they consider "reality", but the same technologies have allowed me to get closer to my reality than I ever could before. In another thread last week, I mentioned my regarding Photoshop as a "transcription" device for my scanned images, a more-precise means to get down as much as I can from that chip of plastic and emulsion. Sometimes, and image can come straight out of the scanner, without any other twiddling, and be the image i want. Sometimes, I need to tweak it: levels, curves, a bit of unsharp mask. One method (or non-method) doesn't pull rank over the other, just as in the wet darkroom.
And, of course, the final judge of what works is me, and me alone. I truly couldn't give a rat's ass what's "current" in the world of photography (maybe this an affliction that hits when you pass 40?). I mainly want to stay vital to myself, and show a little of that around for feedback, good or bad.
No dogma required. But I wouldn't object to developing a secret RFf handshake, just for fun. :)
- Barrett
Some friends of mine own a beautiful house with lots of glass and natural timbers that they built themselves ... the house is a delight of shadows and shape and I've always loved it. They have a friend who is a professional photographer and quite well known, who stayed with them for a weekend and shot a series of pics on a tripod with a D2 Nikon and wide lens and created an HDR masterpiece of the interior of their beautiful loungeroom for them. I was commenting one night while around there for dinner that I thought their house was one of the nicest I had ever been in. They rushed off and got the framed pic that their friend had presented to them and proudly showed it to me because they know I am keen on photography and wanted me to be impressed ... which I was not!
I thought the pic looked nothing like the house that I love ... to me it had light in places where light shouldn't have been and the whole shot had a surreal biscuit tin lid look to me. Apparently this photographer makes a lot of money with these types of pics and people pay good prices for them to hang on their walls.
This is a bit of a drift from Avotius's point because I'm only encompassing one type of manipulation ... HDR!
I hate it and don't understand why there is this need to drag details from shadows that don't get seen by the human eye in normal circumstances by overlaying mutliple exposures to create a photgraph that no camera is capable of taking!
Can someone tell a thicky what HDR stands for..:confused::(
Can someone tell a thicky what HDR stands for
High Dynamic Range - there's a Wikipedia article here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging).
I agree with the point made here by a number of people, that HDR is currently a fad and will go away as an end in itself. Then, it will become one of ever increasing number of tools that everybody has available in their toolbox (whether it's called PhotoShop or something else).
What I personally don't agree with, is the first assumption that limiting yourself is bad. I found my pictures improved when I moved away from my 2 special lens setup (28mm for architecture, 90mm for just about anything else including macro) to a single lens 50mm setup. I also thought my pictures improved when I moved away from my auto exposure (diaphragm priority) SLR to a full manual exposure RF. The reason is that these limitations forced me to be more aware of what I was doing. Maybe it's also got something to do with a change in my style. I didn't know what I wanted to achieve with my photography when I was playing around with the 28/90 setup, but when I went for the 50mm only, it's because I understood that I wanted to make portraits of people that are important to me. Instead of being lost in the jungle of tools, I knew where I wanted to go. I've known others just like me, but who didn't find their calling and who became fondlers. Great people to have around on forums: I learned a lot from them ! But for me, what is in the picture is more important.
That's why prefer to keep it simple and only study new tools when I really need them. Yes, I crop in a photo editor, and sometimes I correct the perspective. I will study conversion to B&W and I know a little bit about modifying contrast & brightness. I will try to use these tools (and maybe others) to create a look: I want to have a signature style that people can I can identify with and that others can recognise. And I want to achieve that in the simplest way possible, with as little tools as possible, because I'm too lazy to learn how to use them. So you won't hear me brag about "no photoshopping", but in practice, I'll be in the camp of the people who try to use the whole negative and who do only very limited postprocessing. Not because postprocessing is bad, but because I don't care about it because I find it gets between me and my goal, which is my pictures.
Peter.
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