image manipulation in photograpy

[John_4185]

Steve made this good point: You seem to want to single out digital manipulations as if they're so hugely different than what photographers have been doing for at least 100 years.

There is usually a subtext running through the manipulation issue, and in our case I believe some people lament, resent, or do not respect the ease of making manipulations today.

Ease obviates certain intentionality that HP Robinson, Ulsman, et al. imposed. Ease also relates tangentially to an issue I call simply vividness which we can discuss in a separate thread.

[Ted Harris]

I am not sure I understand the relationship between ease and vividness. I am also nut sure I understand to what is wrong with ease.

I have an 11x14 hanging on the wall here from one of my most successful shoots with my favorite model of some 30 years ago. She was posing in a curly white sheepskin coat and I wanted accentuate the contrasts between her dark hair and eyes, skin and the coat. I did so by transforming the original negative into a stark two tone print by making many generations of kodalith negatives to reduce the image to pure black and white. Many many hours of painstaking darkroom work. Now I can do the same thing far more comfortably, with more control, sometimes in less time, sitting down in the light using Photoshop ..... that is EASE. Is there something worng with that?

[John_4185]

Ted, I never said there was a problem with ease, and I have no problem with it. Others do, and it is interesting how they mask their arguments.

[paulr]

" I like the advantages a traditional painter has, he can add what he wants, and remove flaws in landscapes. If it is okay for him, its okay for me to remove hydro lines in photos, or add a tree here or there if it will improve the composition."

this only causes problems when other qualities of the work give your viewers the message that the work is unmanipulated (according to the vague conventions of straight photography) and therefore build a certain kind of trust ... which the work for no immediately justifiable reason breaks. which isn't "wrong," but it has the effect of alienating or confusing viewers, in ways are not likely what you're after.

if your work, through its context and visual cues introduces itself as a part of the pictorialist tradition, or as montage, collage, or composited digital work, then no trust or understanding is violated. the viewer can more easily be drawn into the world of your work without interruption.

[Steve J Murray]

"Steve made this good point: You seem to want to single out digital manipulations as if they're so hugely different than what photographers have been doing for at least 100 years. "

Arrrrhhhhgggg!!!!!!!!!

This was most definitely not my purpose to single out digital manipulation. I simply used Brandt as my example because his photograph triggered my response, and he makes it abundantly clear he uses digital methods (Wacom tablet, no less). I could have as easily choosen a purely non-digital photographer as well if I had been looking at a different image.

This is not about digital! Drop this assumption immediately! That's a different issue.

This is about distorting photographs to increase impact; subtle vs extreme and how much is too much. Get it?

[tim atherton]

"This is about distorting photographs to increase impact; subtle vs extreme
and how much is too much. "

Bear in mind that increasing the Impact (which seems to imply a certain wow or in your face factor) may not be the primary goal of "distorting" (or "manipulating") the image. It may much more simply be about expanding the meaning of the photograph. Now that may have a greater impact - but in a more subtle sense than the wow factor, to my mind.

Simply put, by means of such manipulation, the photographer may be seeking to say more

[Dan_5988]

if you are very interested in this, and very brave,

check out some photography books by Jeff Wall, Thomas Struth, Thomas Demand, James Casabere, Joan Fontcuberta-

This is stuff that is probably hated in this forum, but its stuff ive come to love once I put the effort into trying to understand it (and that took me 2 years to get to the point im at with it)...its all 'photographic art' that deals with the notions of what is true, what constitutes a photograph, and a lot of impenitrable art-speak.

Also check out Books like "crisis of the real", "the contest of meaning" "See"

many careers have been built on something you just scratched the surface by asking-

[Doug Keyes]

Let's face it, it's always been photographic art. The minute you press the shutter, you've made a subjective decision altering "reality". Not to mention all the other subjective decisions to get to that point. (film, subject, light, cropping, etc, etc) People assigned truth to it because it looked accurate to reality. What's reality? That's a whole other discussion. The fact that anyone with a computer can change that "reality" with relative ease is what makes contemporary photographs exciting these days. (I think people believe that video tells the truth more than photographs these days, anyway) Dan mentions some of the heavy hitters in the field that have been dealing with this issue for awhile now. For the photographer documenting what is going on in the world of news media, this is another discussion. One that is more meaningful than a wildlife photographer manipulating their image. What is more disturbing? Adding dead bodies to a war scene or not showing any bodies at all? (see Iraq coverage, etc.) Either way it's propoganda. The difference now, is that it's harder to tell what is propaganda based on the time we take to discern it more than the quality of the propoganda. I think if more people looked at ALL images with a critical eye like Steve Murray, this would be more than a small discussion on this website.

Back to Steves original question "how many of you guys reading this forum use the power of photoshop to alter reality to the degree that Brandt is in these images". I use less in photoshop (color editing, occasional power line deletion, etc) and most in camera (multiple exposure). So, in a way, I'm more truthful with my image by adding time to the equation. Of course, it looks abstract and more like "art".

[Dan_5988]

I think there is at least a slight shift...

Back in the day, a dicerning eye or expert could refute or athunticate photos that were thought to have been manipulated, now thats not the case. Unless the person doing the manipulating says they are doing so, photoshop and such is at the point where it can be impossible to tell...especially with digital images.

[Steve J Murray]

Thank you Tim, Dan, Doug, paulr. This was the kind of discussion I was after.

I just realized that you could maybe seperate image manipulation into two broad catagories: 1) for the purpose of making the photograph "more realistic" in terms of capturing the full tonal range using the zone system, dodging, burning, masks and any other means to overcome the limitations of film/paper (or pixels). This might also include removing power lines, birds, and trash for some people, others not. Moderate image enhancement like dramatically darkening skys I think would still be in this catagory.

2) the second catagory is to go beyond "realism" and add or subtract to the image in such a way that it is not trying to capture the actual scene, but enhancing it or distorting it for artistic reasons. I guess I was impacted by Brandt because I started out thinking he was like most photographers using catagory 1, and upon closer inspection seemed to be in the second camp. That got me wondering how others here in this forum viewed this phenomenon and did they practice it themselves.

As paulr mentioned a couple of times maybe if one is expecting typical realistic type of manipulation and finds out its more liberal than expected " it has the effect of alienating or confusing viewers, . . ." and I think that was my reaction.