Photography-Owning Artistry

[Kirk Gittings]

Moving from the Fatali thread.....

Why don't color landscape photographers just own their artistic expression instead of pretending that they are documenting "gods light". Since when does photographing with supersaturated contrasty films and then goosing the color more in a Ciba print qualify as documenting nature?

I was just in Tom Tills gallery in Moab, superb images printed on Ilfochrome with way oversaturated color (so far out of gamut that red flowers were completely blocked) with off register masks etc. More documents of "natures glory"?

When did artistic expression and license become such a liability in color landscape photography? Is photography not an art form?

[Ash]

Kirk I guess it's down to a religious standpoint for some, and a fear of embracing any truly creative spirit for others.

I look at RJ's landscape work (www.luxcamera.co.uk) and I am stunned. I recall that he's religious but I'm sure he'd take credit for the wonderful images he produces. I'd hope so anyway. I rarely enjoy landscape work and his really is amazing.

Others may seek to document what they believe to be the images created from a higher spirit, and such cannot take credit for the image produced, even if they have manufactured it (through composition, colour balance etc etc).


Maybe I'm just talking rubbish, who knows.



Having checked your site I really enjoy some of your work also. Your landscapes are very dynamic :)

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks Ash and I take pride in the fact that my images do not look like what I saw. They are aesthetic interpretations.

[QT Luong]

In nature photography, there is an implicit contract between the viewer and the photographer that the photographer will not depict something that does not exist.

A lot of color landscape photographers consider themselves to be nature photographers.

[roteague]

Since when does photographing with supersaturated contrasty films and then goosing the color more in a Ciba print qualify as documenting nature?

Simply because those films and papers most closely approximate how I see "color" in the natural world, with my own eyes.

[roteague]

In nature photography, there is an implicit contract between the viewer and the photographer that the photographer will not depict something that does not exist.

You hit the proverbial nail right on the head.

[harrykauf]

Simply because those films and papers most closely approximate how I see "color" in the natural world, with my own eyes.

Just because you keep repeating this statement does not make is any less
illogical.

[naturephoto1]

In nature photography, there is an implicit contract between the viewer and the photographer that the photographer will not depict something that does not exist.

A lot of color landscape photographers consider themselves to be nature photographers.

Tuan,

Certainly those of us that do take color landscape photographs are nature photographers for some of our work. I consider myself a nature, landscape, and wildlife photographer. I choose my transparency films for the subject at hand.

Rich

[Kirk Keyes]

Kirk -

Have you seen Christopher Burkett's Ciba work? He prints it himself and is a master of the medium. Here's a gallery that represents him near you:
Andrew Smith Gallery
203 West San Francisco St.
Santa Fe, NM 87501
Tel: 505.984.1234

[Kirk Keyes]

As an athiest, you'll never hear me claim that I've documented "god's light". My religion forbids me from making such claims.

[Kirk Keyes]

I take pride in the fact that my images do not look like what I saw. They are aesthetic interpretations.

Isn't that what some people are actually doing be selecting say Velvia and Ciba? THey are using the materials available to best present an artistic interpretaion of the landscape that is before them.

I believe that Chris Burkett that I mentioned above, (who I understand to be a deeply religious person - he was going to be a monk at one point in his life), has used masking with Ciba to intensify selected colors in his prints. While Burkett has the skills and finesse to not blow out and oversaturate parts of his prints, he's doing just as you said above.

[roteague]

Just because you keep repeating this statement does not make is any less
illogical.

How do you know how I see color? You are making a false assumption that everyone sees colors the same way. You might have noticed that some people are color blind, some to varying degrees and specific colors. That in itself should show that color perception is variable.

[roteague]

As an athiest, you'll never hear me claim that I've documented "god's light". My religion forbids me from making such claims.

That is your right, just as it is my right to be thankful for the glorious world, that I believe was created by God.

[Ben Chase]

You hit the proverbial nail right on the head.

Yep - I agree also.

[alanps]

I may be missing something here - but it is all about interpretation surely? I don't care how good a crafts person you are it is not possible to capture nature, simply to select an abstract moment and somehow try to freeze that on film.
When I am out photographing, I don't just point at the horizon in front of me, I make many careful selections - I am influenced by the wind, my feelings, what surrounds me (not just what is in front of me) etc
For what it is worth I cannot stand oversaturated ciba prints either, but that is an aesthetic thing - because I do love the colors from a 5x4 polaroid print (that are not natural either - but look better to my eye).

[roteague]

For what it is worth I cannot stand oversaturated ciba prints either, but that is an aesthetic thing - because I do love the colors from a 5x4 polaroid print (that are not natural either - but look better to my eye).

That is the point I have been trying to make. We don't all see colors the same way.

[QT Luong]

You are making a false assumption that everyone sees colors the same way.

Some believe that even the same person sees (and remembers) things more vividly if they are in a certain state, such as having an intense physical activity. This would have explained why Galen Rowell tended to like saturated colors so much, since he was running half of the time in the mountains.

[Vaughn]

As an athiest, you'll never hear me claim that I've documented "god's light". My religion forbids me from making such claims.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! One of the funniest statements I have read in a long time...made my day!

And of course that someone took you seriously only adds to my joy!

Thanks again!

Vaughn

[naturephoto1]

As an athiest, you'll never hear me claim that I've documented "god's light". My religion forbids me from making such claims.

Though an agnostic (to be differentiated from an atheist) myself and trained in Geology and Biology, I can appreciate what I see and work with the light and gravitate toward certain subjects and lighting conditions.

My work does frequently get comments regarding God and religion and tends to get much the same reaction from people of many faiths and Native Americans. I do not know why this is the case, perhaps it is my approach to the subject matter and lighting. But, I have had 2 separate solo exhibits at the Interchurch Center Gallery (NYC, across the street from Riverside Church and headquarters of many faiths; 2 separate exhibits years apart) and a third at an Episcopal Church all through invitation.

Rich

[SAShruby]

I think we need to take same measuring tape for Black and White amnipulation as well. Why do you use red filter for landscape? Why do you dodge and burn to create surreal landscapes? AA did the same as people do with Velvia and CIBA. Using best process, chemistry film and paper it is available on the market.

I think it's time to look into our portfolios as well; We're not far from what color folks do.

[bsimison]

Simply because those films and papers most closely approximate how I see "color" in the natural world, with my own eyes.

Adjusting the output of our chosen capture technology (film or digital) is often necessary to get close to the scene as we saw it, but having seen Till's work and many others like him, I'll have to agree with Kirk G. The colors are saturated to the point of surrealism, almost as if they were bad test prints. When I first saw Till's prints for sale at the Arches gift shop, my first reaction was that he printed that way to grab tourists' attention, to make his photos literally jump off the shelf. It must be an effective marketing technique, as he seems to be doing well.

[roteague]

Adjusting the output of our chosen capture technology (film or digital) is often necessary to get close to the scene as we saw it, but having seen Till's work and many others like him, I'll have to agree with Kirk G. The colors are saturated to the point of surrealism, almost as if they were bad test prints. When I first saw Till's prints for sale at the Arches gift shop, my first reaction was that he printed that way to grab tourists' attention, to make his photos literally jump off the shelf. It must be an effective marketing technique, as he seems to be doing well.

Good point. I've not seen Tom Till's work in person, although I really love his work, so I can't comment on that point. I have seen Ken Duncan's prints in person, numerious times, but of course, he is a different person. I love his work, and visit his gallery in Sydney every chance I get.

[Kirk Gittings]

Isn't that what some people are actually doing be selecting say Velvia and Ciba? THey are using the materials available to best present an artistic interpretaion of the landscape that is before them.

I believe that Chris Burkett that I mentioned above, (who I understand to be a deeply religious person ......., has used masking with Ciba to intensify selected colors in his prints. While Burkett has the skills and finesse to not blow out and oversaturate parts of his prints, he's doing just as you said above.

I have no problem with manipulation, only the denial of it for marketing purposes, especially under a religious pretense. It is the hypocrisy that I mind.


he was going to be a monk at one point in his life

Me too, I used to spend long periods over many years at the Monastery of Christ in the Desert. And this means what?????

I have never seen originals of Chris Burkett. I would like to.


I think we need to take same measuring tape for Black and White manipulation as well.

I have publicly, dozens of times on this forum alone. It is not as common for B&W photographers to perform this charade as the simple conversion of a colored reality to B&W print is a obviously a huge leap of artistic manipulation from the get go (though I took one to task the other day. His website proclaimed that his prints were true to the original scene "with minimal burning and dodging" though his stunningly beautiful images were obviously heavily manipulated. What is wrong with manipulation? Are we artists or unmanned probes? After some discussion he changed the wording on his website).

[QT Luong]

Some color photographers are proud that it takes them two weeks in photoshop to create a master file, others that their images are un-manipulated. Each of the claims is just part of a marketing scheme (artistry ! authenticity !), but in fact there is no intrinsic value in the way one realizes his vision.

[Steven Barall]

Well, to keep things straight in my own mind I think of photography not as an art form but as a medium, just a dumb thing, but I do get your point and I think it's a point well taken. As a matter of fact photography is a great medium, maybe the greatest dumb thing and that's because it's so perfectly subjective. There is no difference between a sheet of film and a slab of clay or a tube or paint. The results are the same. The creation of something that wasn't there before.

No matter how sharp your lens or how absurdly big your print, the best you can hope to do with photography is show someone what something vaguely looks like. It's not even an imitation of nature really, it's something different altogether. There is nothing denotational or objective about photography. It is said that a footprint in the sand is the index of that foot. Photography is not indexical like the sand is. The impression is that of the photographer and not nature.

Anyway, my point is that the photographer is responsible for the photo. I think that things that we make can be just as beautiful as things we find. You can't take credit for a flower or a bird but that photo is all yours and that's good enough for me.

I love reading everyone's thoughts and opinions. Thanks all. Cheers.

[Kirk Keyes]

I have no problem with manipulation, only the denial of it for marketing purposes, especially under a religious pretense. It is the hypocrisy that I mind.

I do completely agree. And Fatali takes this to an extreme. You should sign up for his email updates...

Kirk

[Kirk Keyes]

I have never seen originals of Chris Burkett. I would like to.

You owe it to yourself to see some. They are quite exquisite. Swing by that gallery and let me know what you think.

Kirk

[Duane Polcou]

My mother was Jewish and my father was a Creationist. I believe the world was created in 14 days, then discounted by 50% to make people think it was 7.

[Kerik Kouklis]

My mother was Jewish and my father was a Creationist. I believe the world was created in 14 days, then discounted by 50% to make people think it was 7.
Now, THAT'S funny...

[Vaughn]

What is wrong with manipulation? Are we artists or unmanned probes?

For a long while now I have been making platinum prints and carbon prints. Except in very rare cases I do no burning or dodging...this has become an important part of my artistic process. I am practicing (learning), in my own particular way, the art of seeing. What is important to me in my own work is "being one" with the light and the forms it creates on the landscape -- then recording that light. Prints are my way of sharing what I have learned so far.

Even so, my prints are the result of a tremendous amount of manipulation. Isolation of a bit of reality is the biggie. Then exposure and development manipulation of the film (length of exposure also greatly affects the appearance of the image), and the choice of paper, pigments (for carbons), and the many other factors that go into creating the print.

It is true that we all see colors differently, but then we all SEE differently in all respects...not just as the result of the mechanical/biological differences in our eyes, but in how our brains interpret the signals received from our eyes. Our own brains act as filters of the data coming in. Our beliefs and experiences determine what we actually see.

If people have a "God filter" incorporated into their visual system, then that is the way they see. I suppose I have an agnostic filter in place somewhere in there. Part of the my process of learning how to See is reconizing all the filtering my brain is doing between me and "reality", along with the appreciation of the qualities of light reflecting off the landscape.

Vaughn

[Bruce Watson]

Since when does photographing with supersaturated contrasty films and then goosing the color more in a Ciba print qualify as documenting nature?

I don't believe that nature can in fact be "documented." Nothing that people have tried, from taxidermy to impressionism to photography has even a whisper of a hope of capturing it all. All we can do, any of us, is do our best to convey our impression.

For me this is often just the opposite of "supersaturated contrasty" in that it is fully desaturated B&W. But it shows what I want to show in such a way as to give my impression of the scene.

So... I'm with you Kirk. Anyone claiming to be able to document nature leaves me questioning both their perceptions and their honesty.


...When did artistic expression and license become such a liability in color landscape photography? Is photography not an art form?

It never did for me. I'll tell anyone who'll listen that they can go to the original scene and hold up one of my prints and be amazed at how different they are. Artistic expression is the whole point of the exercise. Photography is my art.

[Brian K]

I think if you are calling yourself a nature photographer you are obligated to photograph an accurate representation of nature. I would never consider myself a nature photographer because I am trying to turn what is there into something more, and that is not documentation but interpretation.

[Kirk Gittings]

I'll tell anyone who'll listen that they can go to the original scene and hold up one of my prints and be amazed at how different they are. Artistic expression is the whole point of the exercise. Photography is my art.

Exactly.

[Asher Kelman]

In nature photography, there is an implicit contract between the viewer and the photographer that the photographer will not depict something that does not exist.

A lot of color landscape photographers consider themselves to be nature photographers.

This, on the face of it, appears absolutely true. However, to be true, it does require that the viewers, like that wonderful kind of photographer, have the same view of what is "real".

In fact, according to strict interpretation, only for the visually disabled, with just B&W vision, would monochrome images represent what nature shows them. That viewing audience is fortunately limited.

When one views nature in the real world, sight is not aided by a telephoto or wide-angle lens. There is no ability to angle the plane of focus. One has not coatings for one's eyes to reduce flare. There are sounds and scents and the crunch of leaves or the snapping of twigs or sand in one's face. The brain's reality of includes all this. Sight is not separated from sound.

Color is an impression constructed by the brain. It's not real anyway. So there is nothing wrong with the photographer presenting a likeness of the scene with whatever nuances he wants.

The only thing required is openness. Don't change the color of a bird! Don’t make the leaves brown unless this is disclosed and the buyer is not deceived.

No picture exists as something that can be revisited. The paper has altered the contrast. The camera position and the light will never be the same.

Thinking we are documenting is nice in a purist sense, but all we are doing is crudely sampling with very rough methods and for sure using equipment to capture what no person can go back and find!

So while I love perfect and honest photographs, "perfect" is still subjective, and the idea that we are ever being honest to nature is delusional and a matter of relativity. We can say we did not clone out objects. We can say we try to give the best impression, but we are actually representing what we see and each photograph sees differently.

I do think that one can get closest to nature by using a lens with the angle of view of the human eye and checking each color with a colorimeter and printing to those specifications. Then one can claim some sense of "realness". I think that that would be really wonderful. However, many landscapes would look drab and lack the photographer's stlye.

I think it might be truer to say that there is an unwrtiten contract between the photographer and viewer not to be deceived or sold short. After all, every method of representing nature clothes her in a different fashion and style.

Asher

[Ben R]

If we were strictly documentary:

B&W would by definition be false, far more so if you use filtration.

All landscape would be shot with Astia and the appropriate colour filtration to ensure a perfect match. Only photos which show exactly the same amount of DR that the eye saw at the time would be acceptable.

Only 'normal' lenses would be allowed as anything else distorts perspective from how the eye sees it.

Only 3D photography represented by a true 3D image (not just a stereo representation) would be acceptable.

It would be a very very boring world! We see a scene and interpret that scene in accordance to our emotional response to it. That makes it art rather than documentary photography. Of course the term documentary for photography is in itself inherently false, there can not be anywhere enough context shown within a photograph for it to be purely documentary in the way that a photographic representation of a peice of art is for example.

The moment you add a caption to a photo or shoot only one part of a scene and not another the photograph can no longer claim to be purely documentary. So why not add a filter while you are at it? As long as you don't claim that it's pure then why should you have to pretend that it is?

[roteague]

All landscape would be shot with Astia and the appropriate colour filtration to ensure a perfect match. Only photos which show exactly the same amount of DR that the eye saw at the time would be acceptable.

That is actually not true. Astia doesn't match colors the way I see them. Seeing is subjective.

[Ben R]

It was just an example, substitute whatever you find to be most accurate! :D

[naturephoto1]

If we were strictly documentary:

All landscape would be shot with Astia and the appropriate colour filtration to ensure a perfect match. Only photos which show exactly the same amount of DR that the eye saw at the time would be acceptable.



Ben,

Astia isn't a perfect match for color either and trying use the appropriate filtration to get a perfect match would be impossible. Astia is more neutral than Provia or any of the Velvia films. It is designed more for studio work and under flash. It will great sharpness, fine grain, and detail when there is much likelihood that either Velvia or Provia may block up.

Rich

[ljb0904]

One could claim that one is not documenting nature, but rather documenting one's own feelings at the time a photograph is taken.

[Asher Kelman]

One could claim that one is not documenting nature, but rather documenting one's own feelings at the time a photograph is taken.

That, Laurent, is way closer to the truth.

One needs to add a little more, as sense of an exchange over time between the image in the mind and the latent form of the film. The selective choices during development and printing all engrave the photographer’s feelings into the final print. The carefully made photographic print is thus an iterative bargain between the evolving print and the photographer's mind. I don't believe that most photographers can fully imagine the final print as so many chance things appear on the way and one responds with different artistic choices. All in all, if I may extend your words, Laurent,

One is aesthetically bargaining with the latent image to document one's feelings.

Only a technician with a colorimeter could document a forrest. That is not the photography we would want.

Asher

[Gordon Moat]

The camera points both ways.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Randy H]

Who was it that stated that dodging and burning are man's way of correcting God's mistakes in tonal relationships?

In one of the courses I took, we did "landscapes" with long dof, and using sabbatier-technique,(kinda) made some very interesting shots. They were still depictive and recognizable of the place taken, just "different"
Odd that colour "perception" comes up again. I have just recently (45 days) lost perception of skin/eye/hair colours. All other colours are as vivid as ever. I just lost the ability to "perceive" the majority of melanin-based colour. In my eyes, I only see two "colours" of people. White and ruddy-brown. Two colours of eyes. Light ginger and blue-grey. People in movies and on tv look like they are made of plastic. Literally. (try making a colour portrait with that criteria. And then tell someone that that is exactly the way they look :eek: )
How would a photographer "accurately" (in one's opinion of accurate) depict a scene? Perhaps the over-saturated colours are what he was indeed "seeing" at the moment he took the picture. Whether in reality. or in his own mind's eye.

[Kirk Gittings]

I think there is a big difference between how we see color and how we remember color when looking at a transparency on a light table or in our minds eye.

[janepaints]

I think there is a big difference between how we see color and how we remember color when looking at a transparency on a light table or in our minds eye.

Having to deal with industry-standard notions of 'accurate color' drove me NUTS when deaing with photos--whether mine or by others--destined for process printing and publications.

I ended up trusting the accepted charts/readouts/data etc. and saying 'hush' to my own sense of color. Mainly to keep myself sane. Plenty of the clients seemed nuts also. "How come the apple doesn't look appley enough?" etc.

It was all light tables, loupes, lab-scans, pin registration and hope-the-damn-pressman-ain't-drunk-today back then. Wish today's technology had been available. I'd have swept the parameters until the client said "THERE--that's what I want!" and been done with it.

Mixing personal sensory perceptions with commerce was one big hassle for me. Psychically painful.

The color of an apple at 4:15 pm is quite different than the color of that same apple at 5 pm. Light is relentless in its prismatic sculpting. Not a hassle when I've only myself to please.