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  1. #1

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    are photographs still photographs...

    ...or, more specifically, do today's photographs look like photographs to you? I just got the latest Hasselblad Photographer newsletter in email today. I notice that all the potential "Hasselblad Masters" are represented by images that look... well.... more or less the same stylistically. Upon closer observation, perhaps it is not the style, but the fact that, to my eyes, all that digital medium format stuff looks more like high end illustration than photography. Please believe that I am not, by any means, trying to resurrect that age old debate that will remain nameless here, but it dawned on me that many, perhaps most, of today's high profile photography looks a lot like it was done by a master with an airbrush, rather than a photographer with a camera. This is not a criticism, rather and observation. Whether work can be done with MF digital is not the point here.

    I also noticed that the new H3DII-31 is available for about 13k....

    We live in interesting times.

  2. #2

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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    Today's photographs (whatever exactly that means) look like photographs to me.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  3. #3
    Claudio Santambrogio
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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    There are interesting "masters" (whatever that means), and less interesting ones. That's always been like that. Also, most are not interesting - that's also always been like that, it's just that time has thrown away those that don't need to be remembered, and now we get them all… No worries, they'll be forgotten again

  4. #4

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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    I have been thinking the same thing. Photo-Illustration is what I call it. Some of this highly stylized "high-end" pro work has really become 80% photoshop and 20% camera. It's just so easy to push images beyond, not just reality, but what the average person sees as an acceptable photographic version of reality; after you cross that point we are forced to try and find a medium that this new version of super modified photography most closely resembles and that usually ends up being some form of illustration(digital or hand crafted). I see work that is considered photography that could also be easily pasted off as very good digital illustration.

    I assume that you would not consider a pencil drawing that started as a simple tracing from a photograph still a photograph. When does a digitally manipulated photograph become digital illustration based on photograph? Is there a line? Is there even a need for a distinction?

    I don't even think it really matters, ultimately it is about the art. If you like someones super processed photo-illustration medium format digital work, hire them or hang it in your house or collect it.
    Will Wilson
    www.willwilson.com

  5. #5
    Claudio Santambrogio
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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    Quote Originally Posted by willwilson View Post
    Some of this highly stylized "high-end" pro work has really become 80% photoshop and 20% camera
    How would you set the percentage for the relationship darkroom/camera?

  6. #6

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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    Quote Originally Posted by csant View Post
    How would you set the percentage for the relationship darkroom/camera?
    I often wish I could go further in the darkroom, but this usually relates to damage correction (dust, scratches, the occasional content removal, etc).

    In general, it depends on the negative. I would say on average for me personally: 30% Darkroom - 70% Camera. But with the darkroom there is a lower ceiling, with digital the ceiling is almost limitless.
    Will Wilson
    www.willwilson.com

  7. #7

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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    The old-timers said it best: - "Photo Illustration." When they would create heavily contrived or staged scenes followed by airbrushing and other altering techniques, they would proudly call the results, "Photo Illustration." It would be hard to find the definitive point in the continuum from untouched negative to heavily altered digital image, but at some point the result becomes a Photo Illustration, best understood by "feel" than by external metric.

  8. #8
    Claudio Santambrogio
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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    Quote Originally Posted by willwilson View Post
    I would say on average for me personally: 30% Darkroom - 70% Camera. But with the darkroom there is a lower ceiling, with digital the ceiling is almost limitless.
    I see what you mean - personally, I prefer work done in camera, rather than in darkroom. But truth is that in the darkroom you can go at least as far as Photoshop - and photographers have done so. Photoshop is just the digital version of a darkroom. It's "easier" to use; as in - anybody can click those buttons…

  9. #9

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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    I noticed this phenomenon as early as 5 years ago when friends who had sold out to the all digital path were beginning to get to their ultimate distination and were triumphantly showing me photographs that looked more like a Pixar animation than a photograph. Whether apparent at the time I have realized in the mean time that this phenomenon is precisely why I've gone down the 8X10 and larger soft focus path.

    Please note that I haven't said any "look" is either good or bad, only that I've chosen a road less traveled. Also noteworthy, theirs sells, mine does not. Not this month any way. Look down the road 25 years. Will we get to a day where someone picks up one of my photographs (I'll be dead of course) and gasps, this is real, look at the dirt in the corners. This was done in a wet darkroom. OK, probably not.

  10. #10
    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    Re: are photographs still photographs...

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Galli View Post
    Will we get to a day where someone picks up one of my photographs (I'll be dead of course) and gasps, this is real, look at the dirt in the corners. This was done in a wet darkroom. OK, probably not.
    More likely, we'll get to the day when there's a pull-down menu on Photoshop CS9 where you can select whether the image from a 20-gig cell-phone cam should look like it was taken with an Artar, a Dagor, a Petzval, a Verito, a Struss, and Imagon, a Pinkham & Smith...

    For better or worse, we're getting there...
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

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