A Photographer or a Graphic Artist?

[Kirk Gittings]

"Photoshop it in, just like everybody else." refering to the desire for deep blue skies from the SHOOTING ARCHITECTURE QUESTION thread.

I truely believe that it is always better to solve a visual problem in the field if it can be solved rather than in Photoshop. The results have the sense of authority of something that happened in the real world rather than the virtual world. That sense of authorty is true even when we artificially light a subject, use filters or highly manipulate the tones of a print. It is that authority that gives photography a unique place in the visual arts and separates a photographer from a graphic artist. An illusion? Maybe. But it is an illusion I choose to hold on to.

[Edward (Halifax,NS)]

Then how am I supposed to get Scarlet Johannson naked and into my pictures. ;)

Actually I stick to what is in the transparency. I might need to massage a little shadow detail out but that is about it.

[Mark_3632]

Amen brother Gittings! Too much is being solved in photoshop and making for some sloppy photography, in my mind at least.

[Tony_5130]

I guess we won't need the camera at all if Photoshop have their way.
As for thinking about lighting, composition, location, yada yada yada, that all seems like very much hard work.
I know I am bordering on the digital vs film debate but, IMHO, "it just don't feel creative".

[David F. Stein]

In any art form, I believe it is essential (i.e. the truest universal statement actually results from) to move from the specific to the general or universal. This is the traditional link or path to TRUTH in art that Photoshop filters, stock photography, clip art, etc. are destroying. Sadly, in such an imperfect (i.e. REAL) world, there is a tremendous psychological compunction for perfection-a cloud can't be out of place, no one hair can be uncombed, every sunset must be perfect, we can't tolerate a telephone pole or parked car in the wrong place. And, yes, I know that the greatest painters worked to an ideal or patron presciption but they started with real people, real models, real drapery, whatever and that is why in the work of someone like Titian (just to pick one of a thousand or so examples) even the theme or commissioned art work transcends the BIG PICTURE MESSAGE and becomes a document of human character, human fears, human aspirations, the human soul. That's my story. THANKS KIRK.

[Frank Petronio]

Bullshit. It really doesn't matter whether it's digital or traditional, as photographers have manipulated "truth" since the get go in 1839.

FWIW, the best Photoshop artists almost always have to be good photographers too, in order to do convincing work.

[Kirk Gittings]

Frank,

I have a few images that have a very surreal aspect to them. Viewers often ask if I found it that way or did I put it together in Photoshop. Now, the tones of the image may be highly manipulated for dramatic effect or the juxtapositioning may be exagerated by lens distortion etc., but the key elements of the image where there in place in the real world. That is what the viewers are asking about, and when the answer is no "I put them together in Photoshop" there is a sense of dismay, because there is that sense that a photograph should come from some actual physical event in the real world. That is the strength of photography as a medium that separates it from all others. I'm not saying it is a better medium than painting or anything like that. It's all art. But to me its that unique aspect of photography that drives me.

[Bruce Wehman]

I agree with Kirk 100%. The photograph stands apart in the world of visual communication. The photographic process captures visual information in a more unbiased fashion than any other medium. And as Kirk says, that is the power of photography. When Adlai Stevenson went to the U.N. with evidence of missiles in Cuba, he didn’t bring paintings, he brought photographs. Susan Sontag put in well in saying that although many artist renderings of William Shakespeare exist, a single photograph of him would be priceless.

On one end of the spectrum you have the photograph and on the other….I don’t know, maybe Surrealism. And the challenge is to determine where, in the gray area in between, photography leaves off and rendering begins…IMHO.

[Frank Petronio]

But when Michael Terchekov (an 80's photo-celeb - groan) put a mouse in foreground, and a globe in the background, of a 12 mm Nikkor, and made the mouse look like he was about to devour the world, he is doing the same thing with traditional tools.

I'd dare say the problem is with the cheezy Photoshop work and dumb concepts. I don't like digital artist/photographer/guru John Paul Capanigro's work either, but you can't tell me that it doesn't have realistic photo elements that gives it that sense of "reality" that you so much desire.

People have been making this same argument with each new generation of technology.

[Paul Butzi]

"...but the key elements of the image where there in place in the real world. That is what the viewers are asking about, and when the answer is no "I put them together in Photoshop" there is a sense of dismay, because there is that sense that a photograph should come from some actual physical event in the real world."

(sssh! don't tell Jerry Uelsmann.)

Maybe, for the photographs you make. On the other hand, I 've seen some pretty nice pinhole false color IR landscape work, and some weird but artistically exciting street photography done on cross-processed color fim. It didn't have a whole heck of a lot of that 'this corresponds to some actual physical event in the real world' look, but I would be hard pressed to say that it wasn't well done art.

If you want to argue about whether it's photography or not, I'd say that we've strayed well into the 'how many angels fit on the head of a pin" territory.

By and large, the artists I admire seem to go ahead and make the art they want/need/feel compelled to make, and they leave it to others to sort out how those benign parasites of the art world we call art critics will categorize it.

In the end, it's just not a very important question.

[Richard Fenner]

Paul

I think the difference in the sort of work you're talking about, is that upon being told 'you know this isn't real, don't you? This scene didn't really exist like that!' nobody would be disappointed. That disappointment is what I think people are getting at - the feeling that people were 'deceived' (it's a loaded word, but in my limited experience, it sums up how people felt). There's still plenty of scope for the 'less real' end of photography, which doesn't leave people feeling cheated, than 'straight-ish' photography with major manipulation.

[Kirk Gittings]

I happen to greatly admire both Uelseman's and JP Caponigo's works as art. I even own some of it. I like their work primarily because it is well done but also because they don't try and fool anyone about the nature of their source material. I think Richard F is right on there.

I one time (Mid 1990's) did a survey of all my new (art/photo) students over a couple of years asking them which photographic images over the history of photography were the most important to them personally. These were students at the University of New Mexico and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Everyone of them (over 100 students) without exception picked examples that were traditional straight images. The style, subject matter, formats, nationalities and mediums were all over the map but every image picked was essentially a straight image. For example no one picked Uelsman. That was very telling about what makes strong and important photographs. The question is not what is art, but what is essential about the medium of photography as an art form.

[John Kasaian]

Interesting discussion. Maybe off topic but my Bride and I had supper the other night with a computer animator who had gotten his start making animated films for enviromental litigation lawyers, putting simplified visual conceptions before bewieldered jurors. The idea was to present visual information in cases where the professional vocabulary was meaningless to those outside the profession.

I found it troubleing that a complicated visual concept would be admissible in court since contrived visual information should be no less suspect than oral testimony. I wonder when those cameras at intersections will be photoshopped into yielding a 'correct' image?

Rightly or wrongly, photography has been long considered the sacred cow of historic documentation though we know "trick" photography has existed as long as the medium. What Photoshop does is places a burden of proof on the Photographer that very few I suspect will be willing to shoulder. In all areas of the photography business Photoshop and whatever else follows is or will be considered the "norm." Straight contact prints on the otherhand will be the rarity. Whether the art buying public will consider this to be of more value than the 'tweaked' stuff has yet to be seen, but if so I think it will give LF a boost in popularity at least as much as when that sea turtle went flying around the church or the escalators came up from under the sea(or any other memorable digitally remastered image you can think of)

The problem that remains is---who will be around to give us a factual visual record of our world that our progeny can trust(or that you can take to court?)

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

I use whatever it takes to make you feel what I want you to feel when viewing a print. My personal preference is to do it with a straight print. That said ther're just some things you can't do in the darkroom. I am not moved enough by Capanigros' work to by it but, I did buy his book as he is one of the masters of the medium. I know what I want to get and he can provide the nuts and bolts to help me accomplish it. I agree that photoshop will help shoddy images to some extent . The're are still a lot of film burners out there that say the lab can fix it. As Ansel said though" There is nothing worse than a technically perfect fuzzy concept".

[Paul Butzi]

I'm just reminded that, in the early 1900's, people felt that ragtime was, from a 'music as art' point of view, complete and utter crud. That's not what 'real' music sounded like.

Likewise Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'. Likewise that first big exhibit of impressionist paintings.

If, at the point those forms were just beginning to be explored, you had asked 100 art students to pick which examples of music, or painting, were "were the most important to them personally", the odds are low that Maple Leaf Rag, or Elite Syncopations might have been in the list. Likewise, jazz. In fact, at each shift in forms of jazz, people have complained that big band, or bebop, or cool, or fusion - it's just 'not what jazz is'.

But that's beside my point. My point is that about all we can do is make the art we feel moved to make, and let the chips fall where they fall. If you're making your art with an eye to how history will view it, I think you're doing the wrong thing.

It hasn't happened yet, but I can imagine that, at some point, I'm going to think "Gee, if I took THIS part of THIS image and put it here, and took THAT part of THAT image and put it there I'd have exactly what I want. When that happens, I don't think the idea that somehow it's not 'pure' is going to stop me from making that image.

I'm a landscape photographer. I know, from experience, that I can make that little puddle look big, by getting up close, using a shorter focal length, getting down low, and throwing in some back tilt to enlarge the foreground. I can do similar things digitally, cropping off the foreground, and distorting the image to enlarge the foreground. If I were doing conventional printing, I could tip the easel to enlarge the foreground if I didn't have back tilt available when I made the exposure. Analog, digital - the distortion is the same.

I've bleached birds out of open sky, just as I've cloned them out digitally. A friend of mine once spotted a person in the middle distance of a print into a large boulder. I've burned blank skies down into a gradient for longer than I can remember.

So the problem I see is that it's not so much a sharp boundary, with straight (analog) photography on one side, and deceptive digital photography on the other. It's more a blurred distinction.

For some people, and I'm thinking particularly of Christopher Burkett here, the sort of descriptive "this is actually what it was like" versimilitude is literally of religious importance. But even Burkett uses masking to control the color balance, saturation, and tonal rendition of his prints.

Remember the story about someone commissioning Picasso to do a portrait of his wife. Picasso painted a nice cubist portrait, and the client objected because the painting didn't "look like her".
Picasso asked "So, what does your wife look like, then?" The client took a photo out of his wallet and handed it over. Picasso looked at it, turned it over, looked at it, and commented "She's rather small and flat, isn't she?"

All art has distortion. All art merely suggests. Mary and Jesus were not made of marble, but we can still look at Micheangelo's Pieta and be stunned into mute, reverent awe.

I'd be very surprised if Kirk's students didn't list Moonrise over Hernandez as one of the most important photos. It's certainly one of the best known of Adam's images. Yet the prints we think of when we think of that image, complete with black sky, etc. bear little resemblance to the actual scene. Does that make it a lie? Does it make Adam's work less believable?

[Kirk Gittings]

"In the end, it's just not a very important question." Are you sure Paul? I think you have contributed more words and thought to this discussion than anyone else. I agree it is not traditional photography vs. digital. A "straight" photography aesthetic could easily be accomplished with digital capture. But.............................................

Of course "Moonrise" was an expressive print ( it is almost Wagnerian!), but it is also an icon of the "straight photography" movement championed by Ansel Adams' f64 group in opposition to the contrivance of the pictorialists. Contrived subject matter and artiface was their issue. This is not my opinion but accepted history.

I grew up in photograhy in the classroom of Beaumont Newhall. For better or worse it is his definitions that shaped my thinking. If I could find my copy of his history of photography I would directly quote it but I can't find it. As I remember it he said something like "Ansel Adams in his photography and his writing, and his teaching brilliantly demonstrated the capabilities of straight photography AS A MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION" (emphasis mine). I remember it because I quoted it in my thesis a few lifetimes ago.

The straight photography aesthetic of the f64 photographers was not a technical straightjacket but an understanding and belief in the immense strength of a medium rooted in images of the real world. F64 formed in opposition to the work of the "pictorialists who with prevalent manipulation strove to force photography to emulate the pictures made by other media[painting]" (again a paraphrase of something BN said). In my humble opinion the "Photoshop it in, just like everybody else" people are on the slippery slope to chasing "the pictures made by other media" i.e. painting etc. They are becoming the virtual pictorialists. Their images are unquestionably art, but are they artist who just use photographic techniques or are they photographers? I for one have never pretended to a throne higher than that of a photographer.

[Henry Ambrose]

I agree with Kirk.

Although I have to say that I think the comment that he quotes, "Photoshop it in, just like everybody else." was made in ignorance. To photoshop a scene and have it appear to be real is very tough at times and its not something you can rely on to save your picture. Truth be told you really can't just push-button in a sky any time you want. And it may not be the-easy-way-out that absolves you from having and using real photographic skill. It can be a crutch -- it can be a useful tool. To be dead sure of the first thing is plain silly.

Here I speak about literal images- most clients (art director, architect, mother-in-law) typically want the thing photographed to be the very best version of that thing I can make - and why not? That might happen through careful lighting, camera position and film exposure but it can also happen from layering multiple captures together or airbrusing or color manipulation in Photoshop to make the thing appear to be that "most perfect version of itself". Where I live I do not often have a sky that can be made to look anything like what happens in New Mexico or Arizona. Sometimes I'm lucky to get even a pale blue! And I can make a wonderful and more real than real looking sky using a computer - the very best version of a sky.

I do sometimes get the feeling that for some a dark deep blue sky is the only kind of sky they want in the photo of their building. Or maybe they're not wanting to see that the grass is bad and there is no way to fix it with camera position - like a teenage girl wants the pimples airbrushed from her portrait. Photoshop to the rescue - and a world made perfect!!

What if you're an artist and you made it all up anyway? You dreamed it last night nd now you're making the picture of your dream. Is it OK to manipulate reality so strongly? What reality? Moving one step further, what if you're blending art and reality for the sake of commerce? Where is the line? Beyond the client's pocketbook I'd say there may not be one.

But personally, and on a very deep level, the picture is for me, a report that I'm bringing back to share with someone about something interesting, amazing or maybe even wonderful that I saw. I'm saying, "Look what I found" - like a young child bringing a leaf or a bug back to show his mother. To me a straight photograph seems a good way to do that. And anything else -can- become a lie. I cannot shake my belief that the literal interpretation of that kind of photograph must be congruent with "Look what I found". But what are you going to do if Mom does not recognize your picture as anything remarkable?

If you visualized your picture with a super-deep-blue-sky-going-almost-black-at-the-top and threw on a filter or two, then doctored it in Photoshop or the darkroom and it makes you happy, then go for it. Just don't get too worked up if someone cries "fake"! If you didn't make them believe what you showed them -- you failed with that viewer.

Last, who are you making your pictures for and why? Yourself? Others? Posterity? Money? Fame? All of the above? If you pick the first, do you really care about what you saw? If you are really sure that its just not good enough without heavy filters and Photoshop, know that for sure in your heart, and stick with it even when they're pulling your fingernails out with rusty old pliers then I'm with you all the way and I'll loan you some more filters. At that level I'll probably accept your trickery. If I see through your picture and techinques as less than sincere I ain't buying it.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I always thought photography was about "seeing" and having a special or peculiar way too see everyday subjects. Whether this peculiar "vision" is best acheived by someone using PS or an in camera negative it is up to the artist. I find the work by David J. Osborn and David Fokos exceptional and beautiful, but in both cases I beleive they try to acheive the best possible negative to work with in the digital form.
OTOH there is the problem that it seems people just cannot stop fiddling with PS effects. In the late 80s I commented to Dan Burkholder that one of the things I disliked about digital images was what I call the "flying" cow syndrome. His response was that PS was like a butterfly in it's pupae state, a novelty that had so much potential to become a "butterfly" but that at the moment was experiencing growing pains and the irresistible desire to use every single filter on it. Things have not changed, and if anything have become worse. While a few use PS to improve on an already excellent negative or slide, many use it as a crutch and have adopted the attitude of "I will fix it later in PS". The former are doing beuatiful work, the latter are putting out the crap many object to.
IMO art has always been this way, some are talented, some try and search for the shortcuts. The good photographer will make a good print regardless of the "process." OTOH those of you teaching workshops should be thankful to the ones always wanting the "food" processed and chewed, you would not make a nickel without them.

[Kirk Gittings]

"I always thought photography was about "seeing" and having a special or peculiar way too see everyday subjects."

This could easily describe the "POP" art paintings of Warhol or the overscaled scuplture of Oldenberg.

All art is about seeing. Even if you just make chainsaw bears. The question I think is.... what is unique in the arts about seeing photographically? What is seeing photographically rooted in if not the "straight image"? Or all all mediums one endless quiver of techniques with no real unique character, distinctions or edges.

I never had any particular interest as a child in painting or sculpture or chainsaw bears. To me photography was and is the most powerful artistic medium available. Why? Would the Zapruder film be more effective as animation?

Bruce I think had a great quote: "Susan Sontag put in well in saying that although many artist renderings of William Shakespeare exist, a single photograph of him would be priceless."

[Tony_5130]

Please, please, please keep buying film, don't let my lifes pastime die like this.

[tim atherton]

"Pixelography automatically creates the presumption that the picture is a lie"

on the contrary, pixolography has finally demolished the presumption that photographs tell the truth.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I never had any particular interest as a child in painting or sculpture or chainsaw bears. To me photography was and is the most powerful artistic medium available. Why? Would the Zapruder film be more effective as animation?



You may never have had the interest, but someone who had might be able to produce a striking picture. IOW, have you ever stopped and seen a picture and say to yourself: "gosh, I wish I had taken that!" A perfect example more than Weston's pepper is his lettuce (cabbage?) leaf shot. A perfectly ordinary subject seen and photographed in an exquisite way. This talent will express itself with an in camera negative or a PS manipulated image, the "process" does not matter. What I think bothers you and I agree with you is the "sloppiness" approach some take with PS and the "I will fix it later" way to approach photography. While I agree that this could be detrimental to the "art" of photography I think this is nothing new. Look at the thousands of people looking for the "magic bullet" developer or the magic bullet printing workshop, or perhaps this newfangled expensive camera will produce the magic that will make master pieces of my work.



Every time I see a post on developers I rarely see anybody saying "stick with it until you know it back and forth" most of the time is "yes, that developer is no good you should try.....(fill in your favorite developer)"....Why should we berate those who say I will fix it later in PS when our own approach has been one of finding the one developer/paper/workshop/guru that will allow us to make masterpieces with the minimal of effort?



Photoshop is only the symptom of what has not been said or is rarely said and that is that photography will take commitment to excellence, endurance, patience, practice, practice, practice to refine your talent and find your own "style." Wether this is done in PS or an in camera negative it is still true.



I prefer the in camera approach and as such I welcome the work done by those doing crappy PS work, it only makes my work look better. OTOH I look forward to see the new work from those who choose to use PS as just another tool to create stunning work. They are few and far between, but they are out there.

[Graeme Hird]

I agree with Frank on this one - I've very rarely seen any photographs that one could say "This is exactly how it was", and those that I have seen were were boring reproduction work (copy work).

Do you really believe that any B&W film captures exactly what was there? Surely, by taking out colour, you've already manipulated the image (and the viewer) from the very first instant the image was captured?

By selecting a lens which does not match the human field of view, you've once again manipulated the scene recorded.

Artistic pursuit implies the artist has put something of himself or herself into the piece. Artistic photos are rarely meant to look exactly as found (those that do are record shots - copy work if you like).

Photography, by its very nature, is a deceptive art form. Personally, I don't add that blue sky in PS, or remove the telephone pole in PS. But I don't feel deceived by PS work any more than I would when I look at an AA print of a clearing storm over Yosemite NP.



Digitally manipulated or darkroom manipulated: neither image is exactly how the scene looked - it's art!

Cheers,

[Duane Polcou]

The public's impressions of imagery has evolved from a place of truth and certainty ("picture's don't lie) to a gray area of falsehood and suspicion. Brett Weston was my all time favorite photographer, but I found it irksome that he felt it unnecessary to title his photographs. He thought the image should speak for itself. Perhaps. Who am I to argue with a Weston. But for many laypeople, their enjoyment and eventual appreciation of a medium is contingent upon their understanding of details that we as photographers may consider unnecessary. Location. Subject Matter. Date. Manipulation. I think now, perhaps more than ever, visual works should be prefaced with explanations as to how they were created. I would like to let the viewer then decide what is and what isn't truthful, and let their appreciations and/or dismissals fall where they may. Kirk - Chaco Body is on my top ten list!!

[Tony_5130]

I take it from the above comments you are all purists in as much that the only thing of any importance is the final image.
If you are not careful this forum will cease to be of any use to anyone, and, the inevitable migration of interest will move to Adobe's online help facility where the most likely topic for conversation will be "which button do I press to remove red eye?".
The very title of this website; Largeformatphotography.com infers sectarianism yet people feel they can condone the use of methods and techniques which are, and should remain, alien to the fundamentals of photography.
Digital imagery may be an art form but should not be confused with traditional photography.

Note to self:

"Make website entitled, Largeformatdigitalredeyeremoval.com

[Graeme Hird]

Tony,

I love my LF camera and don't own a digital camera.

I choose to print digitally because it is probably the most efficient way to print colour photos.

The people who buy my prints every day aren't confused about digital or traditional photography: they simply want beautiful photographs to hang on their walls.

Cheers,

[Graeme Hird]

Oh, and to go back to the original question regarding "photographer or graphic design artist": I see far to many "photographers" who would benefit enormously from studying graphic design and applying it to their own work!

[Frank Petronio]

I think Kirk may be upset because he spent a lot of money on Center Filters and Polarizers when he could have "just Photoshopped it in" and saved alot of time and money... ;-)

[Kirk Gittings]

Frank, Upset is not the word perhaps dismayed is better. Actually I have never owned a center filter, but I could have bought quite a few with the money I have invested in digital darkroom equipment.

Jorge, I appreciate the philosophical discussion. Explain to me though the aesthtics of the Contact Print Guild? Sorry I may have the name wrong. I actually think these discussions are important and I don't get enough. It helps me sort out my own aesthetic. I spend too much of my time with editors, writers, architects and chefs, but that is another story.

Duane, Thanks for the kind words about Chaco Body. That has always been a hard act to follow. If for some odd reason you are in New Mexico in September thru November, it will be rehung in its entirety at the Albuquerque Museum as part of a 30 year retrospective show and book entitled "Shelter from the Storm: The Photography of Kirk Gittings". And yes it will be a mix of traditional silver and inkjet prints, the "tradigital" approach to "straight" photography.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Jorge, I appreciate the philosophical discussion. Explain to me though the aesthtics of the Contact Print Guild? Sorry I may have the name wrong. I actually think these discussions are important and I don't get enough. It helps me sort out my own aesthetic. I spend too much of my time with editors, writers, architects and chefs, but that is another story.



While I dont belong to the guild anymore, the idea is to sell prints that were contact printed and hand crafted. But many of the members use digital negatives to make the prints. Nothing wrong with that. I have one of the members visiting right now who uses digital negatives and his prints are absolutely beautiful, but of course, he beleives that the best approach is to have a good in camera negative to beguin with.

[Carl Bowser]

I would find the thread of the interminable “real photo” vs Photoshop and what is art amusing were it not for the intensity of opinions on both sides of this issue. The debate reminds me much of those who spend endless hours arguing whether the PC or the Macintosh is the better computer (when generally neither “side” is familiar enough of the other’s computer to be able to offer a balanced opinion). Could it be that there is merit to both sides? If one is concerned with the look of the final image and not how one gets there, perhaps we’d all be better off. Think of the time we would save. We could focus on getting the best image from whatever gear or approach we use, and not get involved in discussions that do little to change opinions, but instead allow us to claim that only we know best.

I find it interesting to speculate about what life for a “digital” landscape photographer would have been in the days before jet contrails, telephone poles, cell-phone towers and the likes were present. Would their images be any different from the film based ones? Jerry Uelsmann would admit that the images he produces in the darkroom could also be produced by a talented Photoshop artist, and that some effects could only be produced in Photoshop. Does it matter? Surely the final image does, and the likes of Uelsmann, Caponigo, and Burkholder have helped show us why.

Historically, photography has been a marvel of evolving technology and it still is. The images the medium captures were every bit as interesting then as they are now, some good, some bad, some interesting, some not. I find the diversity of images and their interpretation far more interesting than worrying about who is using what technique.