The ethics of modern day photography

[domenico Foschi]

Stephen, without trying to sound unkind, if what another group of photographers is doing is bothering you so much is nobody else's problem but yours.

What does it matter what everybody else does?

I for one don't think that your criticism comes out of passion for the medium as much from a need to control.
I was against digital, I still don't like it much but I have come to the conclusion that if I was feeling threatened by it than that wasn't the right position from which to form a judgement.
I also realized that part of my resistance to the medium was the insewcurity I felt in my own work.
I couldn't see a defined path for my work, then I understood that nobody can see that path and gave up in trying to foresee the future and I resolved to keep working and focused only in my path and in the now.

[alec4444]

In all honesty I read the first 8 pages before posting this. Don't have all night.

To the OP's point, I shared an equal amount of frustration with the digital world....beginning with "spray & pray". Take enough photos of anything and there's bound to be something interesting in there. How is that fair? With a 12-something megapixel camera, Joe Schmo is going to capture some fantastic image with < 1 sec of thought put into it. He'll blow it up to 16x20 and people will oooh and ahhh and tell him what a great photographer he is. And here I am, the dumb schmuck, taking five plus minutes to setup my camera, another few to focus and play with movements. And then, a stupid mistake in the 20-step process leaves me with a $4.50 ruined negative and nothing to show. Yup, I was with you Stephen.

Then some time passed.

Now, my opinion has changed quite a bit. I discovered that what I like about film photography is the process. I also discovered that I like alt. processes, which often have flaws and "blurps" that make me happy rather than cringe. In the uber-megapixel world, you just won't see that - everything is made "pixel perfect". So my work finally is starting to stand out from the mainstream. People who are sick of perfect everything like it better. My images will probably last longer. My images are "handcrafted" and one-of-a-kind. I move at my pace, and in doing so, I see things that the hyperactive, onto-the-next-shot digital people miss. Did you see those wet-plate collodion shots Eddie took? See if a digital shooter can replicate that. Or the carbon prints on that Alt Process thread. I get to spend more time outside, and less time in the glow of the computer.

...And with all that and more having been digested, I'm able to smile at the digi-people and know that their work can never be compared side-by-side with what I do; it's just not the same type of photography. And thus, I'm at peace with all of this.

Cheers!
--A

[Stephen Willard]

Stephen, without trying to sound unkind, if what another group of photographers is doing is bothering you so much is nobody else's problem but yours.

What does it matter what everybody else does?

I for one don't think that your criticism comes out of passion for the medium as much from a need to control.
I was against digital, I still don't like it much but I have come to the conclusion that if I was feeling threatened by it than that wasn't the right position from which to form a judgement.
I also realized that part of my resistance to the medium was the insewcurity I felt in my own work.
I couldn't see a defined path for my work, then I understood that nobody can see that path and gave up in trying to foresee the future and I resolved to keep working and focused only in my path and in the now.

Domenico, I have found none of the comments on this thread rude or unkind, but rather just passionate.

You are right, I do feel threatened from the digital photographers, but not for the reasons you may think. My sales have far exceeded my expectations this year despite the economy. So the threat does not lie in the fact that a digital photographers can make a more sellable image than myself with their manipulations.

It is rooted in what many of my customers have to say about digital photography and the impact of those perceptions on the photographic market for landscape photography in my region. It is very hard to sell photography as an art where I live, and my real competition is not the digital photographer as you may think, but rather landscape painters. This is what my primitive market research keeps coming up with.

I get feedback from surveys and my surveys mention nothing about digital photography other then allowing a space at the bottom of the form to make additional comments. I get feedback from phone calls I get before my customers make a purchases online. I get feedback from customers who come to my studio to pick up their orders or to look at prints before they buy. From the responses I get from my customers, there are concerns about digital landscape photography not being real photography and they do not want to pay for a computer jock, but rather a gifted photographer. Almost all the phone calls I get ask the question is my work digital.

If you go to a gallery that is exhibiting photography and is printed using traditional means, then the sales people will quickly volunteer and exploit that information. If the work is digital, then there is silence. If you ask the question is it digital, then they will quickly note the artist goes to great lengths not to deviate from the original scene (which I no longer believe). If you look at most digital photographers websites, many do not mention digital at all. All of Mangelson newest work is done optically, and I suspect his customers are saying the same thing my customers are saying.

So my real concern lies in that digital landscape photography is creating a perception that modern day landscape photography is no longer real photography, and the patron will conclude she (90&#37; of my customers are women) is better off buy landscape paintings. And that is how I feel threatened by digital photography.

How do hope to counter this. Well I intend to make a big deal about my ethics and very clearly define my printing process (and yes I will talk about colors) and where I draw the line in the sand on my website. I intend to put as much distance as I can between my methods and digital photography as possible and have explicit pages dedicated to this discussions. Am I happy about doing such things? Nope!

It is my belief that digital photographers could be on the verge of pioneering a new form of photography, but it can only happen if they are more informative and forthright about what they are doing so as to educate the patron rather then mislead the patron. If they fail to be more informative then I think the patron will come to view digital landscapes photography as fakes of a real life experiences.

[kev curry]

Stephen,

So your real concern lies with how you think digital photography is changing peoples perceptions of the medium of photography generally, and as a consequence there relationship to it, resulting from the growing awareness in the opportunities and 'ease' with which digital files can be changed and manipulated beyond whats was present at the time of capture.

So before digital technology arrived, what I'm getting, is that photography could more quietly and comfortably rely on the misconceptions prevalent in the public mind that the photograph carried some inherent integrity and was representative of reality with the ''camera never lies'' idea. We all understand that that has never necessarily been true to begin with.

Maybe as a consequence its that that's rightly being challenged?

Looking at it this way I can only see good coming of it. Maybe the worst that can happen is a more evolved and discerning public mind towards photographic Art .

As for the manipulation of photographs, I think that all is fair in love and Art as long as the Artist honors personal integrity in the same way that it applies in all areas of life!

We should always defend the freedom of thought and never allow ourselves to be creatively constrained whether philosophically or technologically.

As for photoshop my 8+ year old PC couldn't even run it and I wouldn't know where to begin anyway. I love the darkroom, infact I've just placed an order with Lynn Radeka for one of his Pin Registration Carrier System and Masking Kits to hopefully satisfy my creative addictions for print making!

Let Art Rip!

kev

[Patrik Roseen]

In all honesty I read the first 8 pages before posting this. Don't have all night.

To the OP's point, I shared an equal amount of frustration with the digital world....beginning with "spray & pray". Take enough photos of anything and there's bound to be something interesting in there. How is that fair? With a 12-something megapixel camera, Joe Schmo is going to capture some fantastic image with < 1 sec of thought put into it. He'll blow it up to 16x20 and people will oooh and ahhh and tell him what a great photographer he is. And here I am, the dumb schmuck, taking five plus minutes to setup my camera, another few to focus and play with movements. And then, a stupid mistake in the 20-step process leaves me with a $4.50 ruined negative and nothing to show. Yup, I was with you Stephen.

Then some time passed.

Now, my opinion has changed quite a bit. I discovered that what I like about film photography is the process. I also discovered that I like alt. processes, which often have flaws and "blurps" that make me happy rather than cringe. In the uber-megapixel world, you just won't see that - everything is made "pixel perfect". So my work finally is starting to stand out from the mainstream. People who are sick of perfect everything like it better. My images will probably last longer. My images are "handcrafted" and one-of-a-kind. I move at my pace, and in doing so, I see things that the hyperactive, onto-the-next-shot digital people miss. Did you see those wet-plate collodion shots Eddie took? See if a digital shooter can replicate that. Or the carbon prints on that Alt Process thread. I get to spend more time outside, and less time in the glow of the computer.

...And with all that and more having been digested, I'm able to smile at the digi-people and know that their work can never be compared side-by-side with what I do; it's just not the same type of photography. And thus, I'm at peace with all of this.

Cheers!
--A

I totally agree with this post! I have the same experience as alec...
Another thought about ethics and manipulation.
I remember when 'playback' was introduced on stage, and the reaction when people realized the singing was not real. Then singback was introduced, leading to a bunch of teenagers entering the stage on the merits of their good looks and ability to dance.
At the same time music was suddenly created by putting together lots of retakes, cutting out mistakes, adding synthetic sounds and doing all sorts of alterations. The thing of the matter was that the possibilities of manipulations lead to music not possible to recreate consistently on stage. Play back/singback solved this and there was no stop to it.

Now is this bad? Do we not like the music produced?
Well, I still admire those who can produce the music in one take or live on stage ...but the world has changed with the times. A reaction was the 'unplugged' concerts, where 'older' musicians/artisits showed what they could do without all electronics and alterations.

Models in magazines are retouched in every way we can imagine.Young girls will starve themselves or undergo surgery to get the same look of their 'star'. Boys will take steroids in an attempt to get the same pumped up muscles as the model in the magazine. Is manipulation unethical...well it does not end with the image it starts there.

Manipulation and retouching etc was there already in the analog era. Digital has brought out so much more powerful tools to perform it even better.
Will we add to this by using the same manipulations in our workflow? I guess this is the same question magazine editors and musicians have asked themselves for decades now. For commercial reasons many have decided to go the same way.

As stated, I am with Alec, If I wanted to do this I would buy a digital system, the latest PS version etc and get to it. I have decided not to go there since I do not see the thrill in building images this way.
Instead, I am going back/staying with the 'unplugged' method and trying to develop my own style.

[domenico Foschi]

Why don't people, when they have the urge to be critical toward digital or analog or whatever instead of being negative, do an act of love and confirm their position by going to shoot or getting in the darkroom, or even CLEAN the darkroom, or maybe do some PS tricks and so on.

YEs we all know that darkroom work is a craft and blah blah blah stop talking about it and do some work.

There is nothing better than seeing one of your own prints and being moved by it, right?
Does anything else matter?
Even the fact that damned Obama will get president pales when I am in the "Zone".
I was one of those persons who critiqued digital and I can't believe how stiff and boring I sounded.

[Marko]

Why don't people, when they have the urge to be critical toward digital or analog or whatever instead of being negative, do an act of love and confirm their position by going to shoot or getting in the darkroom, or even CLEAN the darkroom, or maybe do some PS tricks and so on.

YEs we all know that darkroom work is a craft and blah blah blah stop talking about it and do some work.

There is nothing better than seeing one of your own prints and being moved by it, right?
Does anything else matter?
Even the fact that damned Obama will get president pales when I am in the "Zone".
I was one of those persons who critiqued digital and I can't believe how stiff and boring I sounded.

Hey Domenico,

Cheers to all of that! As a matter of fact, I spent the previous weekend with a long time friend in another friend's top-of-the-line custom darkroom over in Santa Barbara. It was the first time in over 20 years that I did that! It was a blast from the past in the real sense of the word and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Until this point, the traditional darkroom work - other than developing film - was a nostalgic thing from my youth that I always wanted to restart but either did not have the time, the resources or the space. This made me realize why exactly I prefer digital workflow, at least when it comes to print-processing phase. It allows so much more precision and efficiency that it is like comparing a horse buggy with a car for commuting.

Except that I don't do photography for commuting, so to speak, so I will keep going back, hopefully at least once a month, but I will keep Photoshop as my primary darkroom method, since I tend to shoot both film and digital and spend half of my work time in Photoshop anyway. I may even cobble together a primitive makeshift mini-darkroom of my own some day, although I am really reluctant to waste expensive LA space for that, at least at my skill level.

And I will keep being exasperated by the dinosaurs and their whining and ridiculous claims about digital. After this session, I will also keep smiling/laughing at them for all the control and potential they are missing out of sheer close-mindedness and fear of trying something new.

Cheers,

Marko

[Patrik Roseen]

Hey Dominico,
why so gloomy all of a sudden. Now it's other peoples turn to sound stiff and boring.

Anyway, I am lugging my 4x5 Technika around as often as I can and regularly go into my bathroom darkroom when time allows. And I love every minute of it, working out my own style.


There is a brilliant swedish photography book called Centennium, which describes the photographic history in Sweden from year 1900 to today. It includes the exact statements made at the time. The commercial photographers were the ones who really made fools of themselves by trying to stop competition from newcomers with more modern tools. One example was the introduction of multiple portrait photos on the same glassplate. They claimed people would start to accept lower quality, they tried to influence legislation to stop 'non-traditional photographers' from entering the trade, they agreed not to rehire any assistant who 'went over to the other side' etc.
What they did not realize was that the use of small portraits started to be used as business cards or something one exchanged with ones friends and peers (take a look in any old photoalbum and you will see all these small photos of your ancestors' friends.)

[Marko]

To the OP's point, I shared an equal amount of frustration with the digital world....beginning with "spray & pray". Take enough photos of anything and there's bound to be something interesting in there. How is that fair? With a 12-something megapixel camera, Joe Schmo is going to capture some fantastic image with < 1 sec of thought put into it. He'll blow it up to 16x20 and people will oooh and ahhh and tell him what a great photographer he is. And here I am, the dumb schmuck, taking five plus minutes to setup my camera, another few to focus and play with movements. And then, a stupid mistake in the 20-step process leaves me with a $4.50 ruined negative and nothing to show.

Hi Alec,

As I write this, I am looking at my 8 MP Canon Digital Rebel sitting next to my film Canon 1N RS and wonder how would you apply your "spray & pray" theory to them? The first gets mere 2-3 fps and the latter is faster than any DSLR ever made (or at least equal to one I know of) at 10 fps.

Which one is your Joe Schmoe going to use for his fantastic blowouts?

As for the dumb schmuck, it takes only a little-heavier-than usual finger, a digit if you will , to burn $4.50 worth of film on that RS too. The upside is that it takes only 2.5 to 3.5 sec to do it, depending on what you loaded.

So, in the end, I can't but wonder what makes a bigger schmuck - blowing $4.50 of film in 15 minutes or in 3.5 sec? And how high is either of those two schmucks going to blow those negatives up?

P.S.

Back to my two Canons, since they use the exact same lenses and are operated by the same schmuck, which one, IYHO is going to yield more fantastic 16x20 blowouts?

Normally, I would tend to think they would both be the same, but since you guys seem to be insisting that it is indeed the camera that makes good or bad pictures, no matter how good or bad the photographer, I thought I should ask the expert...

[Scott Davis]

Hi Alec,

As I write this, I am looking at my 8 MP Canon Digital Rebel sitting next to my film Canon 1N RS and wonder how would you apply your "spray & pray" theory to them? The first gets mere 2-3 fps and the latter is faster than any DSLR ever made (or at least equal to one I know of) at 10 fps.

Which one is your Joe Schmoe going to use for his fantastic blowouts?

As for the dumb schmuck, it takes only a little-heavier-than usual finger, a digit if you will , to burn $4.50 worth of film on that RS too. The upside is that it takes only 2.5 to 3.5 sec to do it, depending on what you loaded.

So, in the end, I can't but wonder what makes a bigger schmuck - blowing $4.50 of film in 15 minutes or in 3.5 sec? And how high is either of those two schmucks going to blow those negatives up?

P.S.

Back to my two Canons, since they use the exact same lenses and are operated by the same schmuck, which one, IYHO is going to yield more fantastic 16x20 blowouts?

Normally, I would tend to think they would both be the same, but since you guys seem to be insisting that it is indeed the camera that makes good or bad pictures, no matter how good or bad the photographer, I thought I should ask the expert...

Marko-

The point about "spray-n-pray" with digital has more to do with memory card capacity than it does with motor drive speed. I often hear digital shooters talking about the literally hundreds or even thousands of images they shot in a single outing on a single day. I've had digital shooters come up to me while shooting my 8x10 and brag, "but I can shoot 600 images without having to reload!". I don't know that being able to shoot three, four, five or more hundred images is something to be proud of, especially when claiming that kind of volume for a type of photography that lends itself to slow contemplation.

When shooting sports or some other kind of action, the 3,5, or 10 FPS motor drive is obviously a requirement, regardless of film or digital. You set the camera, aim, and shoot instinctively, because you know somewhere in there is going to be the winning shot, and trying to time it on your own will more often than not result in missing the shot. Taking this approach to landscape, or architecture, or travel documentary is what people are objecting to. If it takes you a hundred shots of the fruit on display at a vendor's stall in the wet market in Bangkok to get one keeper, then you're not a photographer, you're a spray-n-pray-er, regardless of the medium.