Digitally manipulated Large Format Picture

[Drew Wiley]

Uelsmann was completely transparent. Nobdody ever mistook anything he did for a real scene. It was pure whimsy from start
to finish. And the old timers dubbed in clouds with a separate neg because their blue-sensitive films had trouble taking it all
in with one shot. Later some of them used creosin red dye. Guess once in awhile I can tolerate artificial crab meat made from
polock, but not burgers made from tofu. There's a point at which making a photograph of something you never witnessed turns my stomach. Twice in my life I have actually witnessed a true apricot-violet dusk in the mnountains, once after Mt Pinatubo exploded, once after a similar eruption. I got one of those on LF chrome. If I ever bothered to print them, someone
old school would simply accuse me of using a colored grad, and anyone younger would tell me I should have tweaked it some
more in Fauxtoshop like they do all the time. The difference is I actually lived it, saw it, experienced it ... and it was pretty
incredible. Pity them.

[sanking]

And as far as I know, he still only works with film, and does the printing in the darkroom. Which is bloody amazing in this day and age! Personally, I work with film only, or hybrid ( scanned 4x5 or 8x10) to make digital negs for kallitypes or carbon transfer prints. The digital age has opened up way more possibilities for me.

There was an article on Uelsmann recently in the Smithsonian and it mentioned that he still only works with film.

But does it make any difference if he does it with film or digital? People were doing this kind of combination printing with film long before Uelsmann, he just came along at a time when it was accepted by the art world and it became his signature work. But it is art, not documentary evidence.

Sandy

[Drew Wiley]

It might not make any difference, though there was no choice at the time he began. What would make a difference is if all
these PS wannabees took a look at Uelsmann's actual prints and saw just how seamless they are. Carving wood with a
chainsaw might be a lot faster, but ...

[sanking]

It might not make any difference, though there was no choice at the time he began. What would make a difference is if all
these PS wannabees took a look at Uelsmann's actual prints and saw just how seamless they are. Carving wood with a
chainsaw might be a lot faster, but ...

Yes, the work is awfully well done. I have a close friend who owns one of the very large Uelsmann prints, one of his signature images in fact, and I have often admired his technique.

But we are talking about a master printer at what he did/does. I know some people who are masters of PS and can do incredible things, let's not compare hack work of wannabees with that of masters.

Sandy

[Kodachrome25]

But does it make any difference if he does it with film or digital?

It's going to make a difference to some and not to others. It makes a huge difference to me especially considering how ubiquitous "Compu-Art" has become. I don't even care to see it let alone make it.

Drew, I remember those crazy sunsets from the eruptions of Pinatubo, I made a bunch of wonderful Kodachromes while at sea off the coast of San Diego on an aircraft carrier. I think civil twilight started up to an hour earlier than usual due to how high in the atmosphere it was...truly incredible light.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes Sandy, I know a number of people doing superb things with PS... but they're using it as a tool, not as an excuse... and I
think they put every bit as much work into their prints this way as they did back in their darkroom days. And I realize the
importance of this and analogous technology to making high-quality separations or enlarged negs for the kind of work you do.
But I think you get my point .... it's pretty darn hard in this day and age not to open some "picture book" or walk into some
alleged landscape photographer's gallery and not run into work that just comes across as fake. It's a pimping out of nature,
as far as I'm concerned - turning it into a cheap whore slathered with tacky loud makeup. That's no way to treat a woman
who is naturally beautiful.

[Nathan Potter]

"It's a pimping out of nature, as far as I'm concerned - turning it into a cheap whore slathered with tacky loud makeup. That's no way to treat a woman
who is naturally beautiful".[/QUOTE]

Drew, well said, and also my view when I see nature and landscapes. But perhaps not always. In some cases the manipulations enhance what the artist is trying to convey, but it takes great skill to do it discretely and well.

But generally photographic art is a wide open medium for me. I tend to think almost anything goes including all the alternative processes in all their manifestations. Photo collage, which I've never seen here, I particularly like when done well. Stuff I used to do using intermediate Ektacolor 4109 color dupe film mixed with solarization then printed on Cibachrome was a complete corruption of reality but done for a purpose. It allowed me to inject far more emotion into the viewer than with the original straight versions. No PS involved with these.

There is a continuum between straight reality and complete abstraction in photographs. An image of reality allows you to communicate your idea directly and undistorted to a viewer while an abstract image requires the viewer to supply the idea from within themselves. IMO there is room for both in fine art.

I hope on this forum that anything goes as long as there is a piece of large format film involved somewhere in the process.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

Philosophically, I think there's a difference between deliberately doing something unrealisitic as some kind of conspicious
art form and doing it to deceive. I also think thinks this differs from minor controls of contrast etc to simply bring out what
we actually saw, making it more noticable to the viewer. Most digital fakery is pretty obvious. We expect it in the movies
nowadays, though even there it frequently becomes a substitute for intelligent lighting and camera work. By contrast, some
of the old timers like Vittoria Sella would dub figures into his landscapes from separate negs, and it was almost a century
before someone detected the subterfuge. A friend of mine was appalled when he found out that his documentary photographer here, Eugene Smith, had faked some of his most famous images. ... so I guess if someone is going to pull the
wool over your eyes, they should at least have the courtesy to do it with a bit of finesse!

[Lenny Eiger]

it's pretty darn hard in this day and age not to open some "picture book" or walk into some
alleged landscape photographer's gallery and not run into work that just comes across as fake.

I think we should have a very wide view of what is "valid" as fine art. Having said this, what you are referring to I also find objectionable. However, I see the cause for this as a lack of understanding. We have an extensive, interesting History of Photography and they know none of it. The don't understand the justification for clicking the shutter at a particular moment, the types of things people have done before and so they are destined to repeat it. They will start with images that have no meaning to them and spend 20 years or so trying to figure out what is wrong.

They could have read a book or two, or looked at one, educated themselves, and saved a lot of time. For photography to be interesting it has to be about something. All of those folks who are taking pretty pictures, or redoing what others have done, are at the very beginning of an aesthetic journey. Sometimes they hang out in that space for many years, if they don't consider others' work they will likely be there forever.

For the rest of us, its much more fun to look at someone who's journey has brought them to an aesthetic that is educated, serious, well developed, rich with layers of meaning.

At that point it doesn't matter about the technology used...


Lenny

[Drew Wiley]

There are going to be all kinds of artsy/craftsy things going on all the time, with their own respective trends; then there is
always a lot of artsy/fartsy "fine-art" pretentiousness with its own fads and cycles. At one time here in the Bay Area there
was almost a plague of "surrealist" Uelsmann wannabees, whose final prints looked like they were done with pinking shears
(equivalent Natl Enquirer comps). Now it's a plague of PS trash, damn near ubiquitous in the scenic genre. We're a junk food
society, even visually. People sit on their ass and make this stuff up, sometimes using shots they never even took themselves. I could care less how they did it. And I don't have a problem with hobbyists just having fun, regardless of format
or technique. Whoring is a different issue...