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Thread: Manipulated NOT?

  1. #21

    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    Manipulated NOT?

    A photo not touched is boring and probably not going to yield anything useful.

    You are joking, correct?

    --A photo not touched is boring and probably not going to yield anything useful. If it were possible, Apple would produce the iRobot Photojournalist with the Ansel Adams plug-in (Minor White plug-in comes with optional Yoga chart), and we'd be out of business.

    Don't forget the "Decisive Moment Indicator". (I think it was David Vestal who came up with that decades ago.)

    One final thought I always leave on the table during a discussion about ethics, which is what this is: If ANYONE just happens to come across some sort of final universal TRUTH about ANYTHING please let me know.

    42

  2. #22

    Manipulated NOT?

    jj: The first quote you brought up is not a joke. You're going to do 'something' to get an image to your vision. Either what it takes in the exposure or what it takes in the processing. Isn't the Zone System nothing more than a method to manipulate film and chemistry beyond the recommended procedures? Aren't using color filters to correct color a manipulation? I'm merely pointing out that no one makes a straight exposure and then a straight print. Look at some of rationalizations above and I see were really only talking about degrees. It'll make your head hurt.

    I agree the '42' answer is as close as we can get to absolute truth, But when I worked on it I could only get 37 pictures.
    "I meant what I said, not what you heard"--Jflavell

  3. #23

    Join Date
    Apr 2004
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    832

    Manipulated NOT?

    John F, I don't consider myself one easily pleased, and I find many straight pictures to be far from boring. In fact, I rather dislike the Strum and Drag of many 'dramatic' photos. And I don't think I speak only for myself.

  4. #24

    Manipulated NOT?

    In my rather winded response I was trying to get comments on the need for a categorization captioning standard. I also hoped I made it clear that the photographic art is expressed in many ways, and photographers who choose to put all their talent in accurately rendering an original scene are artists in own right and should be respected as such. Their art is in the composition whether its capturing the subtle nuances of facial expressions or when they find an almost surreal original scene, like Stephen Willard’s example. Such work is definitely not boring. Photographers who work at manipulation using some technique after the shot are also artists. It would be ridiculous to hold one in higher esteem than the other, any more than say comparing paitings by realistic painters like Marvin Mattelson or Jeffery Gold (whose paintings cause a double take when learning they are not photos) or painters in the style of, say, Van Googh.

    The difference now is that some non-realistic photos can look very realistic with much less effort than used to be true. ----- So the viewer should be told when a photo is not the truth otherwise assumptions are made that can insult as happened to jj as in his origional post.

    John Flavell: I assume the lab botched the other 5 photos that would have led to the absolute truth?

  5. #25
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Manipulated NOT?

    I fail to see how any photograph is anything but a manipulation of reality if by nothing else simply the framing/selection process. B&W is by nature an abstraction. Saturated color films exagerate color.

    Unfiltered Panchromatic films alter normal tonal relationships, because they are not truly panchromatic. They manipulate normal tonal relationships. But by some peoples arguments, if I use a light yellow filter to more "realistically" portray grey tones, I am not manipulating, but if I use a red filter I am manipulating? It is all some form of manipulation. Some methods simply strive to hide the manipulation.

    Photography is an art form that always utilizes some manipulation. It is inherent in our materials. It is a continuum from a little to allot but always present.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

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