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Donald Miller
15-Nov-2007, 21:56
Before I begin let me clearly state that I shoot both film and digital. I can make good prints with each method so I don't have any axe to grind here.

One of the things that I keep observing as being brought up in discussions...mostly by what I like to call the "film fanatics" is that digital folks are really not true photographers since they photoshop their images and that just ain't cool because when they do that PS crap their images are no longer pure.

Now I can understand that some of those film types would say that and I accept that they have that opinion but I wonder why those "real photographers" are such elitists to believe that to be artistically viable that "real photographers" can not practice full artistic license...in other words it appears from their viewpoint that "real photographers" aren't permitted to create something that they envision in their mind if they can't see it with their eyes.

Hmmm...yet when I consider painters, they most often paint some interpertation of something they envision in their mind...they often bring into existence something that does not necessarily exist in objective reality...even musical composers don't go around copying some other musicians work because to copy someone else's work and then to pass it off as their original creative output would not be considered to be creatively cool. Even writers seem to follow what musical and painter types do...copying and claiming it as our own would normally being considered to be plagiaristic under those conditions.

Why are these photographic purists not ashamed to make photographs of trees, rocks, waterfalls, buildings, and people ad nauseum and continue to pass these "generalized copies" off as their latest "artistic creation"? Yet when it comes to producing a print that comes about by truly being creative, in other words by bringing into existence something that really does not already exist in objective reality, that to do so would be considered by these selfsame "photographic purists" to not be really pure enough?

Wow!!!!, that is something that I wondered about while I contemplated my belly button for about five minutes a while ago. I would really like to understand why this disparity exists between other artists and "photographic artists"? Did God make photographers somehow more unique than the rest of those creative types? What makes these "real photographers" nothing more than less than automated copying machines?

Vaughn
15-Nov-2007, 22:53
Before I begin let me clearly state that I shoot both film and digital. I can make good prints with each method so I don't have any axe to grind here.

Whoa! No, you don't have an ax to grind, it is already sharp and you're ready to go to town with it! LOL! ;)

I think your "real photographers", as you put it, are a statistically insignificant portion of the population. Often very vocal, but there is not enough of them to worry about.

I would say that "most" landscape painters, and probably portrait painters, work from photographs -- yes they can add or subtract things, but it is surprising to see so many paintings done from a photographic perspective. I think it would be safe to say that 90 to 99% of the paintings do not come from "something they envision in their mind", but from something they have seen outside of their mind...something remembered. I really do not see this as anything to terribly different than what photographers do.

I'm afraid you are sounding a bit like one of those "real artists"...elitists who believe that unless one holds the same concept of art as they do, one's artistic license should be folded, stapled and mutilated.

"...bringing into existence something that really does not already exist in objective reality..." Point out something to me that exists in objective reality. You can not. By the time you try to point it out to me, it is already in the past -- it no longer exists.

I allow a controlled chemical reaction to happen on a sheet of film by selectively exposing it to light reflected off the landscape. Where is the objective reality in that? LOL!

Time for me to coat some paper with some expensive platinum and palladium salts!

vaughn

janepaints
16-Nov-2007, 00:46
I would say that "most" landscape painters, and probably portrait painters, work from photographs -- yes they can add or subtract things, but it is surprising to see so many paintings done from a photographic perspective. I think it would be safe to say that 90 to 99% of the paintings do not come from "something they envision in their mind", but from something they have seen outside of their mind...something remembered. I really do not see this as anything to terribly different than what photographers do.


Hi Vaughn

Respectfully: most painters, especially those educated within the classical western fine art tradition, do not work from photographs. There are many exceptions but, in general, classically-educated painters tend to avoid photographically referencing their work.

There are many reasons for this. Here's two:

-The brightness range capable of being captured by lens/film is a fraction of what the human eye/brain detects. One critical result of this discrepancy is how it affects color. Tho I love tons of color photography, most of it pales compared to what paint can achieve with color.

-The lens is monocular while human vision is binocular, which affects perspective and spatial relationships.

There are many contemporary publications which push the use of photos as a basis and reference for painters. Almost all of these publications are aimed at the hobbyist/amateur/semi-pro/enthusiast market. On the other hand, I'm aware of no current publications aimed at serious professional painters--the readership base would simply be too small and 'how to' articles concerning the craft of painting would be impossible.

This is not to say that painters don't or can't make use of photographs, nor is it to say that there haven't been fine painters who based their work upon photographs.

Recently I saw the photos of the painter Pierre Bonnard for the first time. They were great. They bore very little similarity to his paintings, except for subject matter. (lots of women, family, interiors) How Bonnard dealt with his subject matter in his paintings versus his photos was like 'night and day.' I was surprised by how intuitively Bonnard worked 'photographically' with a camera. He didn't try for painterly effects or painterly composition. It seems he 'got' what a camera can do and went with the flow. He was a natural 'straight' photographer even tho he was a quite painterly painter. A Janus.

What usually results from photo-based paintings are paintings of photos. This is such an obvious thing, yet so commonly overlooked! What the eye sees and what the lens sees are so dissimilar. The paint-from-photos situation is an odd mirror-image of the early-20th century where many photographers (White, Steiglitz, etc.) strove to make their photos 'painterly.'

Photographers have as much artistic license as workers in any other medium. No medium is superior to any other. Apples and oranges. Each medium has its own nature, limits, beauties, possibilities, disciplines.

A few decades ago Photorealism was a big trend in painting. Not so much now. Photorealist paintings tended towards HUGE scale, immediate and sensational impact. Lots of 'wow' factor. The trend ran out of gas pretty fast.

Sometimes I think the aims of the classical painting education can be narrowed down to this: 'Learn to see what you're seeing and NOT what you THINK you're seeing.' Drawing is a key tool used to achieve this. Painting students are required to draw from life every day for at least an hour, for 4 or or 5 years. What is accomplished is a sharpening, refinement and command of the human eye-hand mechanism. I become the brush or pencil=Eye become the brush or pencil.
This is why 'how to' painter-publications like 'American Artist' can't really provide much education for serious painters. 'Putting In The Time' means few shortcuts.

Translating this to the camera realm, IMO, the equivalent of life drawing for photographers to have the light-lens-film-eye interactive mechanism become 'second nature'--so that what they see is in close-accord with what their lens sees and so that what they think, imagine and envision can be effectively achieved by their chosen camera, lens & output medium. As in painting, 'Putting In The Time' means few shortcuts, whether traditional darkroom or PhotoShop.

Do you know the work of Joel-Peter Witkin? If not, see what you think of how he's dealt with limits on Artistic License within the camera realm. I've never been able to quite figure out if I like or dislike his work (which problably means I like it). I can't tell if he's a photographer who wants to be a painter or a painter who happens to be a photographer or simply a Shaman Idiot Savant. But I do know that whenever I see his work I tend to look at it for a long, long time--usually completely mystified!
Maybe Witkin tore up his Artistic License a long time ago and applied for the even-more-difficult-to-get Total Mojo Voodoo License! :) But I'm pretty sure of this: this guy is WAY into seeing. SEE. He might even be a seer :

http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin.htm

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 00:50
But Eric, it is ALL nonsense...the point is to have fun, and perhaps even learn something! I hope Donald does not take me too seriously!:p

vaughn

walter23
16-Nov-2007, 01:11
Donald makes some good points, but as pointed out they're based on generalizing just one group of photographers (or critics) as representative of the whole.

As a bit of a side branch from this, I've found it interesting to observe the sorts of dogmas that float around photographic forums. Often you can predict almost down to the exact wording what a response to a particular photograph is going to be. There's an amusing parody of this, based around famous photographs, out there somewhere but I can't find it right now.

It's also interesting to look at the different camps or schools that are emerging among different internet forums or groups. Go post your latest APUG-esque lith print scan on fredmiranda.com, or take your heavy-saturation cartoon-coloured high-dynamic-range image and post it on APUG... it's really amusing. I don't know much about the real art world outside of internet forums so you'll have to forgive me for just talking about internet sharing.

On the original topic though: I'm striving for more interpretive forms of photography myself. There are so many interesting print processes out there (and not just in the digital world) and I'm sort of flopping around between them trying to find something that fits how I want to represent the things I see. It's a really enjoyable process and I'll be perfectly content even if I never "succeed". I've messed with digital manipulations but right now I'm mainly interested in the alt. processes - bromoil is next up on the list.

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 01:16
Hey there Jane,

Right you are. But I think the way we are flooded with photographic images (including moving pictures) has heavily influenced all of society -- including the non-"American Artist" artists. It affects the way we see (and while we do see in stereo, it is only for the first 60 feet or so -- after that it is 2D.) Whether they use photos directly, as a point of departure, or subconsciencely, the way most painters see is influenced by photography. I wonder what the percentage of "classically trained" painters is of the total number of painters.

"Translating this to the camera realm, IMO, the equivalent of life drawing for photographers to have the light-lens-film-eye interactive mechanism become 'second nature'--so that what they see is in close-accord with what their lens sees and so that what they think, imagine and envision can be effectively achieved by their chosen camera, lens & output medium."

This is why I was never in a hurry to get more than one lens for my camera...and never a zoom. After 25 years of photographing I felt I was finally ready to gather a collection of focal lengths (159mm, 210mm, 300mm, 19" and my latest, 600mm) for my 8x10. Learning to see has always been my driving force.

"Do you know the work of Joel-Peter Witkin?" Yes, good example!

Vaughn

janepaints
16-Nov-2007, 02:09
Hey there Jane,

Right you are. But I think the way we are flooded with photographic images (including moving pictures) has heavily influenced all of society -- including the non-"American Artist" artists. It affects the way we see (and while we do see in stereo, it is only for the first 60 feet or so -- after that it is 2D.) Whether they use photos directly, as a point of departure, or subconsciencely, the way most painters see is influenced by photography. I wonder what the percentage of "classically trained" painters is of the total number of painters.

"Translating this to the camera realm, IMO, the equivalent of life drawing for photographers to have the light-lens-film-eye interactive mechanism become 'second nature'--so that what they see is in close-accord with what their lens sees and so that what they think, imagine and envision can be effectively achieved by their chosen camera, lens & output medium."

This is why I was never in a hurry to get more than one lens for my camera...and never a zoom. After 25 years of photographing I felt I was finally ready to gather a collection of focal lengths (159mm, 210mm, 300mm, 19" and my latest, 600mm) for my 8x10. Learning to see has always been my driving force.

"Do you know the work of Joel-Peter Witkin?" Yes, good example!

Vaughn

Hi Vaughn

Sometimes it amazes me that any one image or imagemaker can gain widespread--or even narrowspread! :)-- recognition in a world that is so SO image-saturated. It's kinda bizarre and crazy that it can happen. It's like suddenly we all agree that one grain of sand is WAY more fab than most other grains of sand, ever.

"influenced by photography"--Yes, I totally agree with you when phrased like that. The lens knocked the brush for a loop and then some.

I'm a professional painter and have been for almost 20 years. I attended a traditional art school. I live & work in an longtime 'artist's colony' area. Many galleries and serious working painters hereabouts.

I'm only speaking empirically, but the % of local pro painters who work from paintings seems no more than 20%. (I almost never do) The % of local amateur/hobbyist/semi-pro painters who work from photos seems about 70%.

Berenice Abbott wrote a photography how-to book. My memory is suspect but I think it was titled 'An Approach To Photography". I once owned a copy and hope to find another. I loved it! She was all for simplicity. She urged photo students to master one camera-one lens-one film before expanding their toolbox. Avoid the too-easy-to-fall-into trip of endlessly buying the latest gadget or lens in pursuit of Instant E-Z Genius Results. She thought TLR's & press cameras were good choices for students--lots of integral options & high-quality but still simple & basic. She stressed looking-looking-looking over worship of technique, formulas or methodologies. She was a big fan of 'Sunny 16 Rule.' Keep it simple.

Anything decent I've ever done tends to've been in-harmony with Ms. Abbot's advice, most of my crappy stuff tends to've not been!

Yeah, Witkin's a trip. It's like he's figured out how to photograph dreams or myths. Yet his stuff is so totally photographic in nature. It's obvious he adores daguerrotypes, tintypes, cabinet photos, photobooth imagery etc. Even his manipulations are photographic in nature. He seems a singularity, a realized individual & vision. What kind of 'ism', genre or category could his work possibly be shoe-horned into by the critics, pedants and reactionary academic hot-air afterburners? Good for him! I suspect his camera gear is pretty simple.

I didn't know about binocular vision's effect lessening with distance. Thanks for the info! Something new to think about. That's a kinda fascinating fact.

Walter Calahan
16-Nov-2007, 05:17
Your initial question is simply wrong.

The only limits within a medium is imposed by the artist themselves.

If you believe that you have less of an artist license then you do, but no one is imposing those limits other than yourself.

Enough said.

Gary Tarbert
16-Nov-2007, 05:45
Funny but 3 years ago i sold to a painter an image,who loved it and wanted too paint it and was prepared too pay my unframed price.
I visited this person about a year ago she still had my photographic image now framed on her wall.
I asked if she had painted it the answer was yes and sold it already! plus another slight variation.cheers Gary

Greg Lockrey
16-Nov-2007, 05:49
Why do photographers have less artistic license?

Most photographers are frustrated artists to begin with, they put this limit on themselves. An artist doesn't give a hoot what his medium is or what the observer has to think about it unless it's commercial in purpose. If it is to sell, then the piece has to satisfy the buyer and not necessarily the seller. If it is art, then it has to satify the artist.

j.e.simmons
16-Nov-2007, 06:31
Isn't this the modern version of the fuss that's gone on for 150 years? The "salon pictorialists" vs the f/64 crowd? Mortensen vs. Adams? Weston moving from fuzzy studio prints to sharp prints outdoors?

I'm a member of a local "art photography" group where almost everyone shoots digital and considers the art to be not in image capture - they admit mediocrity in that - but in "messing with" the image in Photoshop or now, Painter. Some of their stuff is interesting, but it would be much better if they gave as much thought to their initial image as they do to trying to fix it in post.

As for painters not using photography, jane you must see different paintings than I do. I see lots and lots of landscape paintings by folks who are professionals in that they make their living from their art. These paintings clearly have converging verticals - making me rather sure that they have projected a photograph onto the canvas and traced their painting. There's no other reason I can imagine that a painting would have converging verticals (keystoning).
juan

cowanw
16-Nov-2007, 06:35
If you colorize a black and white photograph, it would probably still be a photograph. If you painted it over, it would be a painting.
At some point a photoshopped image may become graphic art, at which point it is no longer a photograph. Not better or worse, just a different category.
Regards
Bill

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 06:37
Hi Vaughn
I didn't know about binocular vision's effect lessening with distance. Thanks for the info! Something new to think about. That's a kinda fascinating fact.

It has to do with how far apart our eyes are -- if our eyes were on stalks extending a foot or so to each side of our head, our depth perception would be extraordinary. I have seen some very exaggerated stereo photographs using two cameras placed 15 or more feet from each other...can't remember the name of the (contemporary) photographer.

"Most photographers are frustrated artists to begin with..." Dang, Greg, I thought that as a photographer I was an artist! Since I can't draw worth a damn, I guess I got to turn my license in...;)

But I just developed my last platinum/palladium print of the evening (well, 5am actually -- started at about 8pm). So I have been up for almost 24 hours and I start work here at the university in a few hours. Artist or not, I'm pretty excited about the prints I got washing and drying. We'll see how they dry-down. My brain is a bit fried so I think I'll shut up!

Vaughn

Greg Lockrey
16-Nov-2007, 06:44
"Most photographers are frustrated artists to begin with..." Dang, Greg, I thought that as a photographer I was an artist! Since I can't draw worth a damn, I guess I got to turn my license in...;)




Not necessarily, you may be a great craftsman with a camera, you may also be an artist, but the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. ;) Take musicians for example, who in this case is the artist, the guy who plays an instrument very well, or the guy who writes original score? How about the architect and the carpenter designing and building the same structure? In other words, there is nothing wrong with being a craftsman, but let's not confuse it with being an artist. Most people can tell if a craftsman is good or not, but it's more ambigious about the artist.

Bill_1856
16-Nov-2007, 07:01
IMO, most of the people who are so fanatic about "film," don't do their own darkroom work, anyhow!

riooso
16-Nov-2007, 07:19
I think Jane is on to something about "seeing". I have many friends that are artists of different media. Some really good with water colors, oils, metal, ect..... What I have found is that they have an almost intangible perspective that is unique to each. On a personal level I take what I consider to be a good image and go though the normal composition, light shadow steps and the reaction that I get from people is one of puzzlement. They openly make a remark about my strange "eye". On this forum, not to leave anybody out, but for instance Frank and Jorge both post images just fooling around and they are, to me, amazing.

Just a thought,
Richard Adams

Ole Tjugen
16-Nov-2007, 07:24
...
...even musical composers don't go around copying some other musicians work because to copy someone else's work and then to pass it off as their original creative output would not be considered to be creatively cool. Even writers seem to follow what musical and painter types do...copying and claiming it as our own would normally being considered to be plagiaristic under those conditions.


I think you're wrong - completely and utterly wrong.

All composers I know (or know of) "copy" the works of others to some extent. Every single one of them is painfully aware of just how much you can copy before it's plagiarism, and consciously strives to avoid getting close to that limit. Earlier composers (the baroque period especially) copied unashamedly - from their own works and those of others. Whole movements were reused in other works, not rarely by other composers.

"Even writers" copy shamelessly, and many seem to be experts at jumping on the latest bandwagon - how many "holy grail / knights templar / vatican conspiracy" books do you see in the "bestseller" shelf in your local bookstore now? How many of those would have been written if it wasn't for the good sales of "The Da Vinci Code"?

These are not wholesale copies, but anyone who denies being influenced by other works is a liar.

And just for the record - I paint, I have composed a few small pieces, I'm a performing musician, and I normally read a few hundred book per year. And I make photographs, and prefer that to painting.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 07:41
I think you're wrong - completely and utterly wrong.

All composers I know (or know of) "copy" the works of others to some extent. Every single one of them is painfully aware of just how much you can copy before it's plagiarism, and consciously strives to avoid getting close to that limit. Earlier composers (the baroque period especially) copied unashamedly - from their own works and those of others. Whole movements were reused in other works, not rarely by other composers.

"Even writers" copy shamelessly, and many seem to be experts at jumping on the latest bandwagon - how many "holy grail / knights templar / vatican conspiracy" books do you see in the "bestseller" shelf in your local bookstore now? How many of those would have been written if it wasn't for the good sales of "The Da Vinci Code"?

These are not wholesale copies, but anyone who denies being influenced by other works is a liar.

And just for the record - I paint, I have composed a few small pieces, I'm a performing musician, and I normally read a few hundred book per year. And I make photographs, and prefer that to painting.

Ole, you have failed to address the point that I was addressing. My question still remains why does the creation and presentation of an image that does not exist in objective reality make it somehow impure and by consequence not photographic art to those elitists that I call "film fanatics"?

And to be absolutely clear here, I bring into this discussion a film based photographer that makes images of this type. Jerry Uelesmann (sp?) is a fellow that does this with his images. His images are rife with symbolism, they certainly don't portray objective reality. Yet to a "film fanatic" his images, while largely beyond their comprehension, are somehow better than someone who would do the same type of really artistic creation via digital means. Why is that true? Does the immense amount of work that goes into one of Uelesmann's images somehow make it more pure simply on the basis of effort rather than content?

Furthermore, why does a finely crafted photograph of a rock or a tree or a human face make it more artistic than an Uelesmann photograph where questions are posed and true objective reality is abandoned in favor of creative endeavor?

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 07:51
I think Jane is on to something about "seeing". I have many friends that are artists of different media. Some really good with water colors, oils, metal, ect..... What I have found is that they have an almost intangible perspective that is unique to each. On a personal level I take what I consider to be a good image and go though the normal composition, light shadow steps and the reaction that I get from people is one of puzzlement. They openly make a remark about my strange "eye". On this forum, not to leave anybody out, but for instance Frank and Jorge both post images just fooling around and they are, to me, amazing.

Just a thought,
Richard Adams

Richard,

I would like to interject something else here, if I may. The film purists in photography are prone to speak of "seeing". There is nothing wrong with this aspect. They seem to speak of seeing with their eyes. They seemingly are oblivious to the aspect or the possibility of seeing with one's mind. In other words to consider "what could be" rather than "what already is". Yet in all the creative pursuits of the other artistic disciplines, the pursuits are heavily invested in "what could be".

I strongly believe that until we embrace the concept of seeing with one's mind, to bring onboard our imagination or our intuitive ability, that we will remain less than truly creative. Depiction of objective reality, no matter how finely crafted, is nothing more than copying what already exists or has existed at one time. There is nothing in this "pure photography" that allows for creation of something that does not already exist or may never exist without the creative impulse of a true artist.

It is with this thought in mind that I question the position that seems to embrace that to do so (to depart from this objective depiction) is not really photographic art.

Ole Tjugen
16-Nov-2007, 07:53
Note that I only quoted a small part of your post, and addressed only that small part.

All my photographs depict my subjective reality, there is nothing objective there at all. They may be straight depictions of the scene I that happened to be in front of the camera when I was there, but the moment I decide that it might be worth taking a picture of it is the moment where sujbectivity begins and objectivity ends.


why does a finely crafted photograph of a rock or a tree or a human face make it more artistic than an Uelesmann photograph where questions are posed and true objective reality is abandoned in favor of creative endeavor?
Is it? I can't see that one is more artistic than the other?

The only thing I'm certain of is that Jerry Uelsmann's way of doing it is a lot more work - at least some of the time.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 07:59
Not necessarily, you may be a great craftsman with a camera, you may also be an artist, but the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. ;) Take musicians for example, who in this case is the artist, the guy who plays an instrument very well, or the guy who writes original score? How about the architect and the carpenter designing and building the same structure? In other words, there is nothing wrong with being a craftsman, but let's not confuse it with being an artist. Most people can tell if a craftsman is good or not, but it's more ambigious about the artist.

Very well and accurately stated.

Walter Calahan
16-Nov-2007, 08:03
Gary, did the artist who used your image to paint a picture to make money pay you a usage fee for your copyright?

Commercial usage demands compensation.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 08:04
Note that I only quoted a small part of your post, and addressed only that small part.

All my photographs depict my subjective reality, there is nothing objective there at all. They may be straight depictions of the scene I that happened to be in front of the camera when I was there, but the moment I decide that it might be worth taking a picture of it is the moment where sujbectivity begins and objectivity ends.

What does your subjectivity indicate? What does it tell you about yourself?


Is it? I can't see that one is more artistic than the other?

To the truely fanatical on film it seems to be the case. Why does the means of capture or presentation separate one as better than the other?

The only thing I'm certain of is that Jerry Uelsmann's way of doing it is a lot more work - at least some of the time.

Do any of Uelsmann's images have any meaning to you? If so which do and what is the meaning they have?

Ole Tjugen
16-Nov-2007, 09:28
This isn't easy to explain - if I thought it was I would be a writer, not a photographer!

My "subjectivity" simply shows that I'm human. The diffcult bit in photography in not seeing with the mind's eye, but really seeing with the eyes! Or the same in a different was - learning to see what is really there, instead of what you know is there.

Take a close look at a bunch of snaps by a non-photographer, and you will probably notice that they only see the main subject, and not the surroundings which in many cases makes up 90% of the image area. "Isn't this a great picture of aunt Hilda?" and you think "thanks for telling me - there's a lump in a flowery dress in the shadow under a tree there, I would never have guessed it was aunt Hilda if you hadn't told me"... But of course you are too polite to say so, and just make a non-committal grunt which the proud snapper takes as encouragement to show you the next 500 snaps from the summer holiday...

These pictures obviously have a meaning to the "photographer", but they do not convey that effectively or efficiently. So in a way they are more "subjective" than mine - but in another way they are less subjective, since they show more of the setting, and are not carefully composed, framed, staged or whatever.

The means of capture and presentation have no other meaning than insofar as they influence the finished work. I happen to prefer doing things the "hard way" with LF cameras and wet darkroom, possibly since I'm too lazy to bother to learn digital techniques. Or maybe it's more like a musician who continues to play a violin, even after synthesizers were invented?

As to the "meaning of Uelsmann's images" - I can no more explain that in words than I can explain the meaning of Brahms' "Ein deutsches Requiem". I could analyse either to bits, drawing on metaphors, art history, mythology and whatever, but only the work itself conveys the "meaning". Sometimes it may not be what the originator intended, but that only shows that both creation and interpretation are subjective.

paulr
16-Nov-2007, 09:39
There are axes getting ground on both sides.

1: If it's not straight photography, it's crap.

2: If it's straight photography, nothing creative is being done, so it's crap.

Both kinds of axe grinders are taking away creative license, imo.

For what it's worth, I too get bored by people making monotonous, cookie cutter images of the same rocks and trees in the same styles. But I think these picutures are the result of lack of vision, not straight photography. There's equally unimaginative work being done in the world of manipulatied photography and painting, for that matter.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 10:10
This isn't easy to explain - if I thought it was I would be a writer, not a photographer!

My "subjectivity" simply shows that I'm human. The diffcult bit in photography in not seeing with the mind's eye, but really seeing with the eyes! Or the same in a different was - learning to see what is really there, instead of what you know is there.

Take a close look at a bunch of snaps by a non-photographer, and you will probably notice that they only see the main subject, and not the surroundings which in many cases makes up 90% of the image area. "Isn't this a great picture of aunt Hilda?" and you think "thanks for telling me - there's a lump in a flowery dress in the shadow under a tree there, I would never have guessed it was aunt Hilda if you hadn't told me"... But of course you are too polite to say so, and just make a non-committal grunt which the proud snapper takes as encouragement to show you the next 500 snaps from the summer holiday...

These pictures obviously have a meaning to the "photographer", but they do not convey that effectively or efficiently. So in a way they are more "subjective" than mine - but in another way they are less subjective, since they show more of the setting, and are not carefully composed, framed, staged or whatever.

The means of capture and presentation have no other meaning than insofar as they influence the finished work. I happen to prefer doing things the "hard way" with LF cameras and wet darkroom, possibly since I'm too lazy to bother to learn digital techniques. Or maybe it's more like a musician who continues to play a violin, even after synthesizers were invented?

As to the "meaning of Uelsmann's images" - I can no more explain that in words than I can explain the meaning of Brahms' "Ein deutsches Requiem". I could analyse either to bits, drawing on metaphors, art history, mythology and whatever, but only the work itself conveys the "meaning". Sometimes it may not be what the originator intended, but that only shows that both creation and interpretation are subjective.

Ole, perhaps you and I are not that far apart in what we think. However you keep bringing some things into the discussion that I have not addressed...one of those is the matter of creation and interpertation. I wonder where interpertation enters into this matter since creation is an individual thing and interpertation seems to be including a "collective" of others. By the way, I have no difficulty expressing verbally what a given image means to me. Maybe that is because we have different knowledge of ourselves and our emotional responses...what they are and what they mean to us.

Let me see how I may approach this matter so that I can communicate what I am saying in a different way. Let's say that my brother and I are both photographers. Since you seem to indicate that the means of expression (digital or film) make no difference and I agree with you on this...much to the consternation of some in the film camp...it is not important what my brother or I, in this example use...

Let's say that I am a straight documentary type of photographer...suffice it to say that if I can't see it with my two eyes it is not "real photography" My brother, on the other hand is a more intuitive type of person and he is a deep thinker having lived a lot more life than I have...he is energized by the ideas of what might "be made and thereby become".

My brother and I go out and photograph one day and some weeks later we show what we have photographed on that day. I made a photograph of rock texture...it is abstract in all the glory of a Brett Weston print...my print is technically perfect and glows with all the light that a photographic print can engender. This image exists in objective reality now and at the time I exposed the sheet of film...in fact I can go back at some point in the future and redo this exposure if I so choose.

My brother, on the other hand, has arrived at a composite image in which a room is depicted having an open doorway at one end...coming through the streaming light emanating through the doorway comes a beautiful and nubile young lady with her right arm and hand extended. In her hand rests a bright red apple...There is nothing about this image that exists in objective reality now or at any time prior or subsequent. The viewer is left to experience and/or interpert that image from their own frame of reference dependent on their life's experiences and/or education.

Which of us, my brother or I, is being truly creative in our endeavors? I propose to you that it is my brother since "to create" presupposes that something new and previously non existent is brought into being. Now if one views this simply from the standpoint of a technically proficient and unique print than one could say that this photograph has not been made before...in fact it may not be made subsequently...but it is far less creative than my brother's image since I simply depicted what already existed while my brother brought into being far more than an image of an already existent reality...He brought into being through his imagery a thought, a question, a consideration that first and foremost existed within him at the level of his psyche.

I hope that we can agree that since we both used cameras in their production that both images are photographs.

This is what I am saying...for straight fanatical film based photographers to insist that if it is not "straight" then it can not be true or real photography seems to be quite silly to me.

Greg Lockrey
16-Nov-2007, 10:35
Very well and accurately stated.

Thank you, finally someone understands my meaning. BTW for the frustrated artists types: just because someone can draw, paint or mould clay doesn't make him an artist either.;)

Eric_Scott
16-Nov-2007, 10:35
Which of us, my brother or I, is being truly creative in our endeavors?


Answer: your brother.

Why? I believe Kirk Gittings started a thread about creativity. My concept of creativity is this: to bring into existence a *new* combination that previously did not exist. This is why I say your brother is being truly creative. He did just what one must do to be creative. You photographed an *existing* combination. There's no creativity in that, although you might have had a need to be quite resourceful in your manner of photographing that rock texture. Resourcefulness is quite often confused with creativity. Note that my comments have nothing to do with Art.

Vaughn, I shall point out something that exists in objective reality: the world. The world exists in both time AND space. You mentioned time, but forgot about space. True, the only thing that exists in time is the present. However, space lay outside of time. Time has it's origin in space: change in space is the concept of time. Without the concept of time I can still perceive the world in space. How's that for nonsense?

janepaints
16-Nov-2007, 10:52
There are axes getting ground on both sides.

1: If it's not straight photography, it's crap.

2: If it's straight photography, nothing creative is being done, so it's crap.

Both kinds of axe grinders are taking away creative license, imo.

For what it's worth, I too get bored by people making monotonous, cookie cutter images of the same rocks and trees in the same styles. But I think these picutures are the result of lack of vision, not straight photography. There's equally unimaginative work being done in the world of manipulatied photography and painting, for that matter.

Paul, your thoughts bring to mind a maxim learned from a friend who grew up in the eastern bloc, 1940s & '50s:

Under capitalism man exploits his fellow man, but under communism it's the other way around

Perhaps it's all crap--any method, any approach, but so what? Go on out and have a crap shoot anyhow, as long as it gives you the chill bumps.

Replace 'crap' in the above sentence with 'art' or 'sacred' and all is still OK.

There's a chair for everyone at the feast table. Many paths to the promised land. No universal answer. Just get to the feast on time. And bring a camera.

Whatever we think, it's more than that

Wonderful images straight, wonderful images altered, wonderful images lens'd, wonderful images brushed, or written or video'd.

As long as the images are wonderful, right? Ain't that the point entire?

A fave maxim from the Art World, (whatever the heck that is):

good artists copy,
better artists are influenced
but great artists steal

Quote that will drive ya nuts trying to untangle what it means:

I don't know much about art that I don't like.

Don't know who said that. It came from the liner notes of a CD without clear attribution.

Sometimes when all excited about making a photo I think painting is a lot of crap.
Sometimes when all gung-ho while painting I think photos are a lot of crap.
But that's when I'm grouchy. Usually I just think everything is amazing and wanna do it all and to heck with too much thinking about it.

sanking
16-Nov-2007, 11:18
Donald,

I though about a serious reply to your question but have decided instead to take a drive in the mountains with my large 7X17 film camera. The fall leaves are quite lovely now, and although there may not be much creativity in making photographs of fall leaves in B&W I anticipate that the drive will be quite enjoyable. Though perhaps not as intellectually stimulating were I to stay here by the computer.

So bye for now.

Sandy

Marko
16-Nov-2007, 11:37
Paul, your thoughts bring to mind a maxim learned from a friend who grew up in the eastern bloc, 1940s & '50s:

Under capitalism man exploits his fellow man, but under communism it's the other way around

And this reminds me of the following comparison between the two:

Both Communism and Capitalism were right half of the time - the half in which they were describing the other.

;)

jnantz
16-Nov-2007, 11:53
donald

i think the reason is because film fanatics think
digital image makers / digital photographers/ artists
are taking a short cut and not "sweating it out" ...

john

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 11:56
Not necessarily, you may be a great craftsman with a camera, you may also be an artist, but the two don't necessarily go hand in hand. ;) Take musicians for example, who in this case is the artist, the guy who plays an instrument very well, or the guy who writes original score? How about the architect and the carpenter designing and building the same structure? In other words, there is nothing wrong with being a craftsman, but let's not confuse it with being an artist. Most people can tell if a craftsman is good or not, but it's more ambigious about the artist.

Actually, this is so basic, I have always taken it as a given in any discussion about art and artists.

Not being a musician, I may be wrong, but I thought the interpretation of the score was the creative part and the actual mechanics of playing the technical part of music. The creator of the score is engaging in a different form of art than that of the player of the instrument. So comparing the art of the player to the art of the composer is like apple and oranges.

I've gotten an hour and a half of sleep, but no guarentee my brain is functioning!

vaughn

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 12:06
donald

i think the reason is because film fanatics think
digital image makers / digital photographers/ artists
are taking a short cut and not "sweating it out" ...

john

I think it is more due to first impressions -- a lot of the first digital work to be seen was made by computer geeks playing around with a new toy. The stranger the better. I think we are getting past that point now and are seeing work done by people with vision (aka artists), though there still is a lot of playing around that one must wade through.

Vaughn

Eric_Scott
16-Nov-2007, 12:27
I think it is more due to first impressions -- a lot of the first digital work to be seen was made by computer geeks playing around with a new toy. The stranger the better. I think we are getting past that point now and are seeing work done by people with vision (aka artists), though there still is a lot of playing around that one must wade through.

Vaughn

This goes to the heart of Donalds question. Where is the "vision" in photographing an existing combination? To use Donalds example, his brother had a "vision" of a *new* combination and realized it in the print. You equated vision with artists. I don't agree with this. Donalds brother certainly had vision, but I don't think that makes him an Artist. Why? Because I subscribe to Schopenhauers philosophy of Art. The Artist comprehends reality in a pure state of contemplation without the influence of will. The Artist sees the world exactly as it is without the influence of desire, wishes, hope, fear, etc. The non-Artist comprehends individual things under the influence of will. The Artist comprehends the universal in those individual things without the influence of will. It's the only way one can see the world exactly as it is. That ability is rare in humans. So although Donald had no creativity (vision) in his example, if he contemplated that *existing* combination without the influence of will, saw the universal in it and realized it in the print, he in fact was the Artist, not his brother although his brother was more creative (visionary). How's that for even more nonsense?

Vaughn
16-Nov-2007, 14:27
Sorry, too heavy for me at this time, Eric...it makes my head hurt:eek:

But you seem to be saying only the artistic equivilent of an enlightened Zen Buddhist can be a true artist. Which I can't really disagree with...it is the head space I try to achieve when photographing...tho I suppose I am more zoned-out rather than tuned-in...but I try...or more accurately I try to not-try.

Vaughn

C. D. Keth
16-Nov-2007, 21:17
Most people use photography as a purely straightforward imaging device, not as an artform. For that reason, those same representational expecations are imposed onto all photographs.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 22:35
Most people use photography as a purely straightforward imaging device, not as an artform. For that reason, those same representational expecations are imposed onto all photographs.

I agree with what you have stated but my question remains. Does this entitle those who do not use photography as an true artform (even though they maintain that their images are artistic) the priviledge to attempt to diminish or demean those who attempt to take photography to a another level of artistic expression regardless of the methodology or the photographic tools that they use?

That my friend is what is at issue here.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 22:41
donald

i think the reason is because film fanatics think
digital image makers / digital photographers/ artists
are taking a short cut and not "sweating it out" ...

john

Thanks John...I suspected as much...so that means that if we drive an automobile we are diminished beneath those who believe that we should walk everywhere.

Donald Miller
16-Nov-2007, 22:46
There are axes getting ground on both sides.

1: If it's not straight photography, it's crap.

2: If it's straight photography, nothing creative is being done, so it's crap.

Both kinds of axe grinders are taking away creative license, imo.

For what it's worth, I too get bored by people making monotonous, cookie cutter images of the same rocks and trees in the same styles. But I think these picutures are the result of lack of vision, not straight photography. There's equally unimaginative work being done in the world of manipulatied photography and painting, for that matter.

The only axe I have to grind is when one group or the other tries to diminish the other...that happens more often with one group than it does with the other...I honestly believe that there is merit in both camps and the world is large enough for both.

Greg Lockrey
16-Nov-2007, 23:31
Actually, this is so basic, I have always taken it as a given in any discussion about art and artists.

Not being a musician, I may be wrong, but I thought the interpretation of the score was the creative part and the actual mechanics of playing the technical part of music. The creator of the score is engaging in a different form of art than that of the player of the instrument. So comparing the art of the player to the art of the composer is like apple and oranges.

I've gotten an hour and a half of sleep, but no guarentee my brain is functioning!

vaughn

Let me put it in another way: some baseball players can swing a bat and hit the ball better than most other players. This player is said to be an "artist with a bat". Not every swing he does is art, just the ones that connect for a home run. Among home run hitters like him, it has to go out of the park to be considered. It's all relative to the audience. Most photographs look like millions of others like it. To be called art, it has to be very unique. It has to be better than others like it. This is difficult to do considering the technology of today. Much of art isn't considered so until much time has passed from when the piece was first made. Wait long enough, it to becomes common place. It depends on the sophistication of the audience when a piece is to be called art. The dilema for photographers is how do you "create" something when you are "looking" at it? All manipulations is just craftsmanship.

r.e.
16-Nov-2007, 23:52
One of the things that I keep observing as being brought up in discussions...mostly by what I like to call the "film fanatics" is that digital folks are really not true photographers since they photoshop their images and that just ain't cool because when they do that PS crap their images are no longer pure.

It's interesting that a statement like that can generate several pages of discussion without anybody suggesting that the whole discussion is based on a straw man :)

jnantz
17-Nov-2007, 00:15
Thanks John...I suspected as much...so that means that if we drive an automobile we are diminished beneath those who believe that we should walk everywhere.

exactly donald ...

i like using a flintstone-mobile myself - foot power and inertia ...

poco
17-Nov-2007, 01:47
"Which of us, my brother or I, is being truly creative in our endeavors? I propose to you that it is my brother since "to create" presupposes that something new and previously non existent is brought into being. Now if one views this simply from the standpoint of a technically proficient and unique print than one could say that this photograph has not been made before...in fact it may not be made subsequently...but it is far less creative than my brother's image since I simply depicted what already existed while my brother brought into being far more than an image of an already existent reality...He brought into being through his imagery a thought, a question, a consideration that first and foremost existed within him at the level of his psyche."

Donald, I think you've come close to answering your own question with this quote.

While other arts start with nothing -- the blank page, canvas, etc.. -- and work towards the creation of an internally conceived reality, the photographer must work backwards, starting with the objective reality in front of the camera and finding some way of projecting his creativity upon it. The difficulty of this projection strikes me as intrinsic to photography and while moving beyond projection to complete invention (by digital means or other) may result in something worth while, it only overcomes the central challenge of the medium by ignoring it.

A painter, frustrated by the lack of tactility of his works, may decide to incorporate cigarette butts, and layered collage elements or whatever, into it, but at some point it becomes more a sculpture than painting. And that's fine, but there's also nothing wrong with others observing, "that's no longer a painting."

sanking
17-Nov-2007, 08:14
While other arts start with nothing -- the blank page, canvas, etc.. -- and work towards the creation of an internally conceived reality, the photographer must work backwards, starting with the objective reality in front of the camera and finding some way of projecting his creativity upon it. The difficulty of this projection strikes me as intrinsic to photography and while moving beyond projection to complete invention (by digital means or other) may result in something worth while, it only overcomes the central challenge of the medium by ignoring it.



This is an excellent point. What sets photography apart from other visual arts is that it begins with something that exists in reality. The something may have been found/seen/discovered, or it may have been created by the photographer based on something in his mind, but at some point it had to exist in reality in order to be photographed.

The modernists held that photography has certain inherent qualities and that resorting to non-photographic techniques that imitate painting subverts its nature. Many today appear to believe, as Poco suggests above, that when digital means are used to invent rather than just record, the intrinsic nature of photography is subverted.

Sandy King

Marko
17-Nov-2007, 08:44
Many today appear to believe, as Poco suggests above, that when digital means are used to invent rather than just record, the intrinsic nature of photography is subverted.

That notion certainly has merit, but the fallacy in the entire statement is the implication that the possibility of manipulation, be it addition or removal, is intrinsic, even unavoidable, to digital processing while being impossible or at least not done in traditional processing.

Like someone already noted, skys and clouds were being added and people removed from tradiltional photographs many decades before the invention of digital processing.

The consternation for addition/invention seems to be much greater than for removal because photography is an art of removing rather than inventing, as noted.

Digital processing simply makes the capability available to more people and by extension more hacks with no compunction about it. But it is therefore a matter of ethics, not a particular process.

riooso
17-Nov-2007, 08:54
Donald,

This topic is near and dear to me and something that I have struggled with for over 30 years.

I used the word "seeing" to mean in the minds eye. The two or more camps that you speak of each have their own merit and should stand on their own. It has been my observation that when the shutter is snapped a good image will stand on its own and no amount of PSing or special scanning can make the image radically more pleasing. I am in the privileged position of not having to care about what the client thinks or for that matter anyone else thinks, if I choose.

Those that choose to shoot film in nature are at a disadvantage in that we are at the mercy of the light gods and no matter what the mind's eye sees it will not happen. We can help it out but ultimately it can not be forced which, to me, makes it the truly magical part of a really good image. My mother was a painter and I always envied her ability to put what she wanted where she wanted on the canvas and she was a pretty good artist. One day she confided in me that she envied my ability to make what already there so "right". Go figure!

I suppose that all this seems silly to most but for me it is the journey that is my goal not the end and I am having the time of my life!

Just a thought,
Richard

John Kasaian
17-Nov-2007, 09:30
Heres what Chesterton said, and I agree. I couldn't put it in any better words:
"Art is the signiture of man"

"Art is born when the temporary touches the eternal; the shock of beauty is when the irresistible force hits the immovable post"

"Art is limitation, the essence of every picture is the frame."

"Any beautiful picture is deep;in the sense that anything beautiful always means more than it says."

"A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. A man canot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it."

"A small artist is contentwoth art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything."

"You never work so well for art's sake as when you are working for the sake of something else."

"m,any modern critics have passed from the proposition that a masterpiece may be unpoplualr to the other proposition that unless it is unpopular it cannot be a masterpiece."

"The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to blasphemy. There is only one thing that...requires courage to say, and that is a truism."

Donald Miller
17-Nov-2007, 09:35
I keep returning to an acknowledge photographer that I respect and whose work I admire...that being Jerry Uelsmann. His work is certainly photographic in that the individual componants of his creations have all been done with traditional capture onto film (his choice over digital).

Yet, what I keep observing from those who take every opportunity to deride digital capture and/or digital printing is that to materially alter the objective reality before the camera lens is somehow not "pure enough". To paraphase someone here "it cheapens it". The art collectors who seek and collect Uelsmanns work would argue that his work is truly photographic and certainly creative and artistic. I think that we can agree that the final determiner of what work has merit is the public that purchases it and that the market place determines not only price but makes their decision on value as well.

So that leaves me with this question. Why does the art community have no problem with creations where there is heavy manipulation of the photographic image and they do so while acknowledging that this imagery is truly photographic while certain photographers don't accept it at all? Not only do they not accept it, they make every attempt to rail against it...most notably if it is done digitally.

I think that it is not a matter of technology alone. However technology certainly gets the brunt of the verbal diminishment.

My honest deep conviction on this matter is that a lot of photographers are inherently lazy. They find it far easier to copy what someone else has done than to do the work and determine what they feel about life, the meaning of life, and the struggles and/or triumphs contained in the act of living. They are reluctant to put themselves into their photographs. By this I mean they keep themselves hidden from the rest of us by making safe and redundantly boring images. What does a photograph of fall foliage tell you about me? What does it tell you about my struggles as I grow older and how my body fails to respond as it once did? What does it tell you about my losses in life...my loves, and my passions?

Hell, lets face it pictures of rocks, trees, waterfalls, architecture, and pictures of other faces reveal very little about the actual total life experience. I hope that we can agree that artistic expression must at the very core be about living life...if not that, then what?

sanking
17-Nov-2007, 10:01
That notion certainly has merit, but the fallacy in the entire statement is the implication that the possibility of manipulation, be it addition or removal, is intrinsic, even unavoidable, to digital processing while being impossible or at least not done in traditional processing.




The point you appear to miss is that most photographers have always rejected manipulation. They rejected the combination printing of Robinson in the 19th century and the painterly techniques of the pictorialists in the early 20th , and are entirely consistent in rejecting digital manipulation.

It is true that many people are ignorant of the extent to which manipulation was used at other periods in the history of photography and their lack of knowledge leads them to blame digital for the manipulation we currently see. But as we know, digital capture can be used to make pure or straight photography just as easily as film.

Sandy King

Kirk Gittings
17-Nov-2007, 10:48
The point you appear to miss is that most photographers have always rejected manipulation. They rejected the combination printing of Robinson in the 19th century and the painterly techniques of the pictorialists in the early 20th , and are entirely consistent in rejecting digital manipulation.

That is one way to look at it, another is to see it more of a pendulum swing of aesthetic tastes. There are times, perhaps because of technological developments that manipulation becomes easier or more believable, and manipulation becomes more popular. This ultimately leads to a merging of photography into mainstream art, but also denies the inherent unique relationship that photography as an art form has to reality and leads to a reverse pendulum swing, a "return to the roots of the medium".

To me a question that is harder to get a handle on and personally more interesting is How much manipulation is Manipulation? Since today we have the easy choice of color or B&W at our disposal. A B&W aesthetic choice is a pretty profound manipulation from the get go.

tim atherton
17-Nov-2007, 11:01
The point you appear to miss is that most photographers have always rejected manipulation. They rejected the combination printing of Robinson in the 19th century and the painterly techniques of the pictorialists in the early 20th , and are entirely consistent in rejecting digital manipulation.

Sandy King

That seem like a fairly narrow dismissal of pictorialism. I think the pictorialists held the centre ground for a significant amount of time - 30 years or so really - and their influence was both strong at the time and long lasting.

The work was very popular (and also often sold for significant amounts of money at the time...) more so than a lot of the photography that followed.

Not to say that that is the most important measure, but it is to say that pictorialism wasn't an easily or quickly dismissed side line.

In fact I'm not sure it really was dismissed (it never really went away), merely superceeded by the much broader rise of modernism in all the arts and beyond (along with the tectonic shift of WWI)

Marko
17-Nov-2007, 11:01
The point you appear to miss is that most photographers have always rejected manipulation. They rejected the combination printing of Robinson in the 19th century and the painterly techniques of the pictorialists in the early 20th , and are entirely consistent in rejecting digital manipulation.

It is true that many people are ignorant of the extent to which manipulation was used at other periods in the history of photography and their lack of knowledge leads them to blame digital for the manipulation we currently see. But as we know, digital capture can be used to make pure or straight photography just as easily as film.

But what's preventing the photographers today from rejecting manipulation?

The fact that digital processing makes it available certainly does not mean they have to do it. As you note, digital, both capture and processing can be and indeed are used for creating "straight" photographs.

It is therefore entirely dependent on photographers how they are going to use each technology.

janepaints
17-Nov-2007, 11:20
Yet, what I keep observing from those who take every opportunity to deride digital capture and/or digital printing is that to materially alter the objective reality before the camera lens is somehow not "pure enough". To paraphase someone here "it cheapens it".

So that leaves me with this question. Why does the art community have no problem with creations where there is heavy manipulation of the photographic image and they do so while acknowledging that this imagery is truly photographic while certain photographers don't accept it at all? Not only do they not accept it, they make every attempt to rail against it...most notably if it is done digitally

My honest deep conviction on this matter is that a lot of photographers are inherently lazy. They find it far easier to copy what someone else has done than to do the work and determine what they feel about life, the meaning of life, and the struggles and/or triumphs contained in the act of living. They are reluctant to put themselves into their photographs. By this I mean they keep themselves hidden from the rest of us by making safe and redundantly boring images. What does a photograph of fall foliage tell you about me? What does it tell you about my struggles as I grow older and how my body fails to respond as it once did? What does it tell you about my losses in life...my loves, and my passions?

Hell, lets face it pictures of rocks, trees, waterfalls, architecture, and pictures of other faces reveal very little about the actual total life experience. I hope that we can agree that artistic expression must at the very core be about living life...if not that, then what?

Thought-provoking statements & questions, Donald.........

No matter what combination of lens/recording media is used, the resultant image has little to do with three-dimensional visual reality from the git-go. Filters are manipulative. F-stops are manipulative. Zone System is manipulative. Everything about image-making, regardless of medium is manipulative..

Purity? Purity is Polaroid One-Step. See image in viewfinder and press button. Whirrrr. There it is. What you saw is what you got. Kinda. Purity is digital snapshoot. Ooh lookee there! Press button, image appears on little TV screen on camera's back. Oooh lookee there!

There's a lot of Romance in creative photography, just like any other form of 'art'. Romance is appealing. Fortunes can be made. Legends & Reputations borned. Cowboy movies, swashbucklers, bodice-rippers, crime dramas, the Tides Of History, Gunga Din, Gone With The Wind, Heroes, Great Men Doing Noble Things.

Ditto for Melodrama and Nostalgia.

Don't single-out photographers for laziness. Humans are lazy, period. Western Society is fabricated upon Exploitation of Human Laziness. Tired of all the labor & drudgery which Yahweh's Providential Covenant demands of you? Relax--with our new miracle product MoneyLeisuretimeStuffDividends all your daily chores can be taken care of before breakfast yesterday, and by somebody else!--leaving you free to be LAZY!!

Perhaps many photographers tend towards (or are motivated by) shyness or introversion rather than laziness. Staring is transgressive. It's less transgressive if we stare via a screen or viewfinder. We have permission because, after all, we aren't staring--we're photographing! If we're staring at boulders, tumbleweeds, old churches, logs etc. the likelihood of our being punched in the nose by an irate Subject Of Stare is greatly diminished. Things are much safer.

It is also transgressive to document reality. It's also more difficult--not technically but emotionally. The 'what is' rarely has the patina, nostalgia or romance factors of 'what used to be' or 'what I wish was.'

So we photograph old vehicles, old fences, old deserts, old cities etc.

Why not get ahead of the curve and photograph Tomorrow's Masterpiece today?

Go photograph brand-new vehicles, new Security Barriers, soon-to-be-deserts and farmlands being bulldozed (or about to be bulldozed) to make way for Gleaming New Cities?

There's a photographer here in NJ who's doing just that--especially the 'farmlands being bulldozed' business. Clem Fiori. Lovely traditional B & W images. LF cameras. Excellent 'traditional' print values. He devised a hydraulic lift platform for his pickup truck so he can shoot from 15' elevations, get over the hedgerows that line rural jersey roads. Talk about transgressive! I guess Clem got over that little fear.

Honey, there's a man on a crane with a gigantic camera hovering in the air above our fence, taking pictures of our soybean patch! Is your shotgun handy?

At first glance it's classic LF romantic work about old cars, old fences, old trees, old churches, old fields, dramatic skies via The Purity Filtration Purist Method etc. Clem writes swell text to accompany his images. He's, yes, documenting the beauties of his native area, but he's also documenting how quickly & throroughly those beauties are changing via consumption, sprawl and Progress. It's subtle and IMO wonderful.

A book of his work: The Vanishing New Jersey Landscape, Rutgers University Press. I don't own a copy but the town library does. At first borrow, I didn't 'get' all that Clem was doing. I thought 'OK, Ansel-wannabe from Jersey'. Then I glanced some more, read the text, then glanced and read some more. Pretty soon I was thinking DANG!!! Yes, the library owns a copy but that copy tends to be in my house as often as they'll let me borrow it. :)

One image by Mr. Fiori below. "The Great Road" (that's the literal name of the road--'Great Road'--not some symbolic Artist's Statement, or is it? You decide) This size doesn't do it or the body of Clem's work any justice. God is in the details and so is the Devil.

http://www.montgomery.nj.us/about/farm.jpg

sanking
17-Nov-2007, 12:22
That seem like a fairly narrow dismissal of pictorialism. I think the pictorialists held the centre ground for a significant amount of time - 30 years or so really - and their influence was both strong at the time and long lasting.

The work was very popular (and also often sold for significant amounts of money at the time...) more so than a lot of the photography that followed.

Not to say that that is the most important measure, but it is to say that pictorialism wasn't an easily or quickly dismissed side line.

In fact I'm not sure it really was dismissed (it never really went away), merely superceeded by the much broader rise of modernism in all the arts and beyond (along with the tectonic shift of WWI)


I am not aware that I made any dismissal of Pictorialism, narrow or otherwise. And having authored three books on pictorialism and pictorial photographers in Spain I am fairly knowledgeable about the role it played in the history of art photography. But the fact remains that Pictorialism was ultimately rejected by the photographic art establishment and many important pictorial photographers don't even make it to the major histories of photography.

Kirk is right in that there is something akin to the movement of a pendulum in photographic style and we are now in a period where manipulation is more commonly accepted than in the past.

One of the ironies to me is that many people involved in teaching photography in colleges and universities who once treated Pictorialism with complete derision quickly adopted the same strategies used by the pictorialists when they could do it with digital.

Sandy King

sanking
17-Nov-2007, 12:58
So that leaves me with this question. Why does the art community have no problem with creations where there is heavy manipulation of the photographic image and they do so while acknowledging that this imagery is truly photographic while certain photographers don't accept it at all? Not only do they not accept it, they make every attempt to rail against it...most notably if it is done digitally.



Regardless of what the art community may believe I do not find photographic work tht is highly manipulated truly photographic and I choose not to work that way.

However, last I checked there was no Academy of Photography in the US that dictates what is or is not truly photographic. That leaves you and me free to work however we chose to work, to say whatever we like, and to decide for ourselves what is and is not truly photographic.

I personally see myself as a photographer who makes photographs, not as an artist who uses photography to make art. And I am fairly involved in digital, though more in scanning and printing than in image capture.

Sandy King

Kirk Gittings
17-Nov-2007, 13:09
I personally see myself as a photographer who makes photographs, not as an artist who uses photography to make art.

That is the point of demarcation. Consider Chris Jordan. Prior to his new cloned work, his website was entitlrd "Chris Jordan Photography". After, he changed it to "Chris Jordan Photographic Arts".

By the way according to his website he is going to be on the Rachel Ray show. Is this a new high! Or a new low?

tim atherton
17-Nov-2007, 17:26
"I am not aware that I made any dismissal of Pictorialism, narrow or otherwise."

well, I guess it depends on whether you consider yourself one of the "most photographers" or not:


The point you appear to miss is that most photographers have always rejected manipulation. They rejected the combination printing of Robinson in the 19th century and the painterly techniques of the pictorialists in the early 20th , and are entirely consistent in rejecting digital manipulation.

I'm still not convinced that saying Pictorialism was rejected outright is the best way to understand it.


But the fact remains that Pictorialism was ultimately rejected by the photographic art establishment .

I still feel it was much more that it was superseded. Certainly there were a group of photographers in whose interest it was to dismiss pictorialism as vocally as possible, but even in the US - and certainly in Britain where it was arguably more deeply rooted - it's influence lingered and it's value was seen by many who wouldn't consider themselves pictorialists. Even some of the New Topographers were influenced by it, of all people. And it's influence is still seen today (ironically vis a vis this conversation, mostly in unmanipulated photography).

I don't think most photographers look back on Pictorialism as some kind of failed wrong direction photography took which is to be rejected as a result, but rather it was an essential part of the overall development of photography itself.


One of the ironies to me is that many people involved in teaching photography in colleges and universities who once treated Pictorialism with complete derision quickly adopted the same strategies used by the pictorialists when they could do it with digital.

I must say that not an attitude I have ever come across in any of the art/photography history courses I have known nor in any of the art and photography professors I know either. Quite the opposite. Pictorialsm is rather given its rightful place as an important and influential part of history's development (after all, it held sway for over one third of the life of photography up until that point.

tim atherton
17-Nov-2007, 17:44
I should add of course that the Pictorialists are pretty much the bees knees for the current art establishment with skyrocketing auction prices and international travelling exhibitions like the current Steichen one.

janepaints
18-Nov-2007, 03:40
I should add of course that the Pictorialists are pretty much the bees knees for the current art establishment with skyrocketing auction prices and international travelling exhibitions like the current Steichen one.

Regarding Tim's statement and this entire discussion....

For years Vermeer's paintings hung in 'minor league' provincial museums. Craftsmanlike work, nothing special. Until a noted art critic happened upon them and looked close and then closer.

The range of notes possible on a trumpet was well-established in Classical Music. Even the greatest trumpet virtuosos could play so many notes and no more. Then a self-taught youngster named Louis Armstrong, who couldn't read music, appeared and extended the known/playable range of the trumpet by almost two octaves.

When the painters we call The Impressionists first exhibited, many considered their work crude & barbarous. Fingerpainting! The end of all refined values and taste. Now impressionism is considered classic, conservative, tasteful, refined. What happened?

Minstrel shows will never die. Ragtime will never die. Dixieland will never die. Swing will never die. Big bands will never die. Be-bop will never die. Rockabilly will never die. Heavy Metal will never die. Rap will never die...yadda yadda yadda.

Yes sir, everybody wants to play mandolin. Yes sir, everybody wants to play tenor banjo. Yes sir, everybody wants to play ukelele. Yes sir, everybody wants to play wah-wah trumpet. Yes sir, everybody wants to play accordion. Yes sir, everybody wants to play electric guitar. Yes sir, everybody wants to play Synthesizer....Yes sir, everybody wants to rap...etc.

With the arrival of the new glass plate negative process, photography has reached a zenith of completion & technical perfection which shall surely be unsurpassed for centuries.

Son, invest in Dirigibles--they're the ticket in the Aviation Game!

Many years ago fortunes were routinely paid for Rosa Bonheur's paintings. Then pittances. Then, after awhile, fortunes once more. Then pittance time returned, then after some more water under the bridge, more fortunes. How come? What gives? (Rosa was a swell painter, just one of many, many examples thus).

"Don't Look Back"--Bob Dylan, Orpheus, Lot and assorted Jeremiahs, prophets and advisors who spake from behumbled experience.

Early performances of Debussy's music caused riots. Madness! Noise! Garbage!
Debussy's music sounds soothing, calm, stately, lovely to contemporary ears. What happened?

A friend gave me an odd little print she'd made. It's been hanging on my wall for years--to keep me sane. Reminds me just how seriously to take things. It shows a victorian-looking well-to-do fellow, palette & brushes in hand, striding vigorously toward an easel. Underneath him is this text:
Learn The Art Game: Fame! Fortune! Banana Oil!

I once worked for a printing & graphics firm. One day I noticed a large lens sitting on a shelf in the owner's office. I asked him about it. (with schemes of somehow checking out the lens on my camera aswirl in my head, natch) When young, my boss was a salesman for a new manufacturer who used such lenses on their product. The firm was struggling to establish itself. Sales were slow. They offered my boss shares in the firm in lieu of a higher commission rate. He turned them down, being nobody's fool, and found another job with a more-established firm. Show me the money!! The lens was marked 'Rockland Colloid'. Rockland Colloid eventually became known as Xerox, Inc. DOH!

Please forgive my frequent use of non-photo references/analogies. I painted & played music for many years before falling in love with photography, and so was well-versed in those other fields. But the tidal motions of taste, fashion & aesthetics are similar in all fields. Because I'd studied other media, when I began to photograph I deliberately/consciously kept a distance from photography's Hallowed Eternal Truths According To Whoever Claimed To Be In Charge. I loved studying the technique, history, lore & literature of photography, but had had quite enough of all the 'isms', punditry, academization, tastemaking, speculating etc which follow raptor-like & ever-fickle around all creative mediums. I wanted to make up my own mind about photography; what it is, what it means, what it can & cannot do.

sanking
18-Nov-2007, 08:41
[I]
Pictorialsm is rather given its rightful place as an important and influential part of history's development (after all, it held sway for over one third of the life of photography up until that point.

Pictorialism was essentially ignored by the photographic art establishment from about 1915 to about 1980. That includes the authors of important histories of photography. I assume you are familiar with photographers such as Arnold Genthe, Gertrude Kasebier, Robert Demacy, Baron A. DeMeyer, F. Holland Day and William Mortensen? In their day these pictorialists were very well known and their work was hung in exhibits and published in magazines. Yet the most important history of photography that was widely used in colleges and universities in the 60s and 70s, that of Helmet Gernsheim, does not even note their names. And Pictorialism itself is given only a few pages of recognition, and condescending at that, with the mention that it was very short lived. And that attitude is seen in most other photo historians of the period.

Since the early 1980s there has been a revisionist view toward Pictorialism by photo historians, and increasing interest in the use of pictorial printmaking strategies, beginning with the use of pinhole cameras and the use of alternative printing processes, and culminating in today's digitally manipulated imagery. And contemporary histories of photography, Rosenblum and Frizot for example, do give a more sympathetic treatment of Pictorialism than earlier historians.

Sandy King

cowanw
18-Nov-2007, 09:36
[QUOTE=sanking;292613]Pictorialism was essentially ignored by the photographic art establishment from about 1915 to about 1980. That includes the authors of important histories of photography.
Your use of the word establishment brings to mind a nagging thought I have had since first reading the various histories of photography available. And that is that there may be a connective line of approved history that trails down from the approved Steiglitz parenthood.
For example When Clarence White's photography was no longer in favour with the establishments time line the references to his further contributions were largely dropped. Nevertheless his school of photography and his sense of photographic pictorialism had a considerable impact educationally ( looking at his student lists) and on photography for industry and magazines (as a result of his student productivity) and on support for pictorialism in camera clubs across the continent.
My point is that the writers of history are necessarily biased and must be given due regard with a due grain of salt.
It is true that the battles of the first half of the 20th century resulted in the apparent tactical victory of straight phoptography over pictorialism.
I suspect that pictorialism, far from being rejected, both morphed into industrial photography and rested securely in the bosom of camera clubs through the 20th century waiting for the reawakening that has come recently.
As wars go, the battle of straight vs. pictorialism will likely never end; the front lines will merely sway back and forth.
Kindest Regards
Bill

sanking
18-Nov-2007, 10:22
[QUOTE=sanking;292613]
It is true that the battles of the first half of the 20th century resulted in the apparent tactical victory of straight phoptography over pictorialism.
I suspect that pictorialism, far from being rejected, both morphed into industrial photography and rested securely in the bosom of camera clubs through the 20th century waiting for the reawakening that has come recently.
As wars go, the battle of straight vs. pictorialism will likely never end; the front lines will merely sway back and forth.
Kindest Regards
Bill

You are absolutely right. Pictorialism never disappeared, but those who worked in this style were generally not taken seriously by most members of the photographic art establishment. Most of us are familiar with Paul Strand, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, etc. But how many are familiar with the work of the Aubrey Bodine, very popular in camera clubs of the PSA where pictorialism was very popular as late as the 1970s.

Pictorialism certainly did not just die completely in 1915 but it found itself under increasing attack by the purists, first by Paul Strand in the 1920s, culminating in a series of debates between Ansel Adams and William Mortensen in Camera Arts in the 1930s. In most intellectual wars there are winners and losers, and to the victors go the spoils, in this case the approbation of future photo historians.

As for the on-going battle, see the article by James Borcoman, "Purism versus pictorialism: the 135 years war," in Artscanda, 31(December 1974).

Sandy King

tim atherton
18-Nov-2007, 11:01
[QUOTE=sanking;292613]
My point is that the writers of history are necessarily biased and must be given due regard with a due grain of salt.
It is true that the battles of the first half of the 20th century resulted in the apparent tactical victory of straight phoptography over pictorialism.
I suspect that pictorialism, far from being rejected, both morphed into industrial photography and rested securely in the bosom of camera clubs through the 20th century waiting for the reawakening that has come recently.
As wars go, the battle of straight vs. pictorialism will likely never end; the front lines will merely sway back and forth.
Kindest Regards
Bill

I think we also need to take into account photographers such as Bill Brandt. He was (and still is) a huge influence on two or three generations of photographers not only in Britain, but also in the US and Germany.

His mottos were "photography isn't a sport - there are not rules" and "I believe there are no rules in photography. A photographer is allowed to do anything, anything, in order to improve his picture." He was essentially a pictorialist at heart with many of his (best known) photographs being staged, manipulated or composites.

He agreed he looked as much to Henry Peach Robinson as to the documentary style of Picture Post or Life.

Something that Scharf, for example, highlighted in his academic art history writings

tim atherton
18-Nov-2007, 11:21
I should add that maybe I was just lucky in my schooling... We were taught about Henry Peach Robinson, Frank Meadow Sutcliffe and others in art class at grammar school (And our economics teacher used Fenton's manipulated Valley of the Shadow of Death photographs as illustrations in class).

RDKirk
18-Nov-2007, 12:53
There's no other reason I can imagine that a painting would have converging verticals (keystoning).

Accurate "seeing" and painting what one really sees would produce converging verticals in a painting. A white horse illuminated only by skylight really is blue.

RDKirk
18-Nov-2007, 13:01
I don't think most photographers look back on Pictorialism as some kind of failed wrong direction photography took which is to be rejected as a result, but rather it was an essential part of the overall development of photography itself.

Or the same concepts appeared in another form under a different name. The uniquely photographic portrait styles of Hollywood photographers in the first half of the 20th century were genuinely "pictorial."

clay harmon
18-Nov-2007, 15:57
I have just spent the last two days at the Paris Photo exhibition, and it was an interesting experience. If one assumes that what is being shown at this agglomeration of dealers represents what is currently being consumed by the art-buying world, then I think the clear winner is Epson.

In short, if what was being shown is avant garde (and the organizers of the event clearly want to portray the event in that way), then the prevailing wisdom is:

'Print it big, print it in color, and mount it behind plexi'.

I did a surreptitious informal survey of the work that seemed to attract the more concentrated glots of people excitedly speaking french and using hand motions as a visual aid. And these concentrations occurred mostly around very large color prints that were as big as a wall in a small apartment.

Black and white silver gelatin photography seemed to be selling so long as the prints were vintage prints made by photographers long dead. More modern black and white silver gelatin work created by artists still able to breathe on their own seemed to create a noticeable void around them, as if someone had just released a noxious fume next to the photos.

Alt process prints such as platinum, cyanotype and photogravure were represented by a few measly installations, and most of these were prints made by professional printers for already well-known photographers. There were three gum-bichromate pictures that I saw.

This was a big exhibit, occupying the underground area under the southwest quarter of the Louvre, so I think it was a reasonable world-wide sample of what the art dealers regard as hip enough to sell. The dealers were from every continent and most of the countries with enough disposable income to spend on a flat piece of paper to tack to a living room wall.

And it appears to me that if one regards salability as the key figure of merit (a premise to which I don't subscribe, but hey), the classic F/64ish large-format black and white photographer should not expect to get a whole lotta respect in the current environment.

It appears to me that if you want some attention, and still keep the camera you have, then buy some color film and shoot urban shots from a high vantage point in the 'Where's Waldo' vein, or alternatively, shoot cringe-making photos of small girls and base yourself in a country without an extradition treaty and a very liberal attitude toward this subject matter. Another groovy subject is war ruins. Print any of these at say, four by six feet, and voila!.

Now to keep from sounding too cynical, I sort of get the whole impersonal landscape, 'Gee look, we live like ants' thing. Sure. Seems a little sophomorically PC, but okay. Same goes for the war zone pictures. Subtle criticism of the destructive power and senselessness of war and all that. That is a profound artistic-critical notion that had never occurred to me before, but you know, after seeing the pictures, I sort of am against the whole war thing myself. The kid pics just make me queasy. Sorry. Just don't get it, and I don't want to get it.

So that is the story from the front lines of current photo world, or at least the one that is being displayed here in the City of Lights. Straight or pictorial, digital or traditional? Those concepts were not on view here. It seems that pretty much whatever goes is okay, so long as it is big, in color and has an interesting hook or back story.

So there. Get busy. You now know what is needed. Good luck.

And just as an aside, I was going through the Italian artists wing of the Louvre, and I was astounded to find this evidence that Ansel Adams was a fully grown man in the 16th century, and just needed to wait around long enough for photography to be invented. Clearly he was the model used in this painting.

Ted Harris
18-Nov-2007, 18:58
It's all been said before on other threads but not here. Manipulation of the image is as old as photography. There is little, probably nothing. that I can do with computer manipulation of the image that I can't also do in a traditional wet darkroom. The image I ma attaching was produced traditionally, going through 30 some generations of kodalith to dropout all the intermediate gray tones and give me pure black and white. The final negative and master print were made in 1974, nearly 35 years ago. I could do the same thing today in PS and I really don't see that one process is "better" or more "valid" than the other. Using PS is sure a hell of a lot faster and easier. More importantly, I originally went through the exercise because it expressed the vision that was in my mind's eye when I tripped the shutter.

For those that care the original negative was shot with a Linhof Kardan Color S and the lens was probably a 210 Convertible Symmar. In the studio with some 5000 wats of hot lights. I have no record on the film but it was likely either Pan X or Plus X.

janepaints
18-Nov-2007, 19:12
And just as an aside, I was going through the Italian artists wing of the Louvre, and I was astounded to find this evidence that Ansel Adams was a fully grown man in the 16th century, and just needed to wait around long enough for photography to be invented. Clearly he was the model used in this painting.

Aw, come on. Everybody knows that's a Cindy Sherman photo. She 'plays all the parts', got herself one of those multi-exposure prism gizmos from Porter's. It's one image from her new Italian Pre-Nuevo Original Sinema series.

BTW: Isn't that Senator John Kerry--peering from under the white hoodie--to Mary's left?

David_Senesac
18-Nov-2007, 22:05
Donald, I've been participating in threads about your manipulation subject and its variants way back since the early days of Usenet. It always dismays me to hear the issue polarized in the way you have presented it. What you relate would have been more true years ago but not today. The issues have long been beat to death on alot of forums. I first began using Photoshop in the mid 90s after having stacks of 35mm Kodachromes scanned onto Kodak Pro PhotoCDs. About then when the Cymbolic Sciences Lightjet 5000 and Durst Lambda printers came on the scene there began an immediate migration away from traditional optical processes especially with high end photographers because the results combining drum scanning, Photoshop processing, and Lightjet printing produced a far superior print. Including prints that were considerable more faithful to the original scene experience although one also now had the artistic power to post process and manipulate far easier and more so than ever before. Thus pros embracing such tools no longer saw the division you are relating. It did take another few years or so before the photography masses awoken by the dawn of digital cameras really started talking about these issues. In any case these issues still pop up regularly especially from young photographers new on the scene with their D-SLRs that are just discovering what its all about.

There are quite a number of general categories of work in photography such that one cannot talk about the subject without being more specific. For instance news photography requires a high degree of graphic integrity while those making portraits, still lifes, or fashion photography always manipulate their raw images. When this subject usually rises, it is usually more appropriately directed towards color nature and landscape photography. Instead without limitations these discussions immediately fracture with several people talking about the issues from their own perspectives that ends up counterproductive. Despite the fact black and white photography by its nature is unnatural, without limiting the discussion at least to just color film and color digital cameras, one will always catch someone claiming how Ansel did this and Ansel did that like that is supposed to be some guide to holy golden rules.

Now what I personally dislike is the current status quo of photographers that either scan color film or camera capture digititally, then creatively and manipulatively post process those files into something considerably removed from the actual visual experiences, yet fail to in any way explain to their audience what they have done. In other words they are not up front and honest with their audience. Most simply say nothing about what they have done, just presenting images quietly. Some cornered with questions will answer their customers honestly while quite a few will not. All too many are aware the public tends not to like hearing images were not captured and printed accurately simply because they have that naive expectation of what photographs historically have been. It is an attitude within our photography community that predates all the digital stuff as it rather goes back to the division created with the advent of Fuji Velvia and other unnatural high saturation films versus traditional more color neutral favorite Kodachrome about 1990. What is bad about the situation is that the public given the explosion of cheap high capability digital cameras is aware what post processing images can unnaturally do thus has lost trust in what we produce. So it is the loss of trust between photographers and their public audience that these digital days have brought what I see as the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Thus on many web photography boards today one sees an obvious status quo of overly saturated contrasty images that bear little fidelity to reality. Images rendering naturally subdued subjects with glowing high saturation color are routinely praised by the majority with oohs and ahhs and high ratings. In our photo magazines are endless cover pics with dazzlingly oversaturated scenery that are figments of some magazine marketing person hoping for better sales than the competition. Worse there is all manner of magazine, book, and web instruction about how to perform such enhancements as though that is what novices are expected to do. There is rarely any discussion or interest in producing images that faithfully reproduce what was visually experienced as once was the case. So one issue is it has all skewed towards manipulation and the unnatural while the public audience has lost trust because many of them still value color photographic accuracy.

Now I'll clearly state here there is nothing wrong with unnatural manipulated images as long as photographers are up front and honest about what they are doing. So if someone uses Velvia film or a digital camera, captures a subject, post processes the result for strong saturated pinks, reds, and purples that were never in the sky and then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work. Still I personally would value someone elses work that presents images reasonably accurately simply because that is what I prefer to do with my own work. And I can personally state that a reasonably naturally rendered image has more intrinsic value by filling that public expectation of what photography is than one that was merely Photoshop'd. ...David

Donald Miller
18-Nov-2007, 23:26
Donald, I've been participating in threads about your manipulation subject and its variants way back since the early days of Usenet. It always dismays me to hear the issue polarized in the way you have presented it. What you relate would have been more true years ago but not today. The issues have long been beat to death on alot of forums. I first began using Photoshop in the mid 90s after having stacks of 35mm Kodachromes scanned onto Kodak Pro PhotoCDs. About then when the Cymbolic Sciences Lightjet 5000 and Durst Lambda printers came on the scene there began an immediate migration away from traditional optical processes especially with high end photographers because the results combining drum scanning, Photoshop processing, and Lightjet printing produced a far superior print. Including prints that were considerable more faithful to the original scene experience although one also now had the artistic power to post process and manipulate far easier and more so than ever before. Thus pros embracing such tools no longer saw the division you are relating. It did take another few years or so before the photography masses awoken by the dawn of digital cameras really started talking about these issues. In any case these issues still pop up regularly especially from young photographers new on the scene with their D-SLRs that are just discovering what its all about.

There are quite a number of general categories of work in photography such that one cannot talk about the subject without being more specific. For instance news photography requires a high degree of graphic integrity while those making portraits, still lifes, or fashion photography always manipulate their raw images. When this subject usually rises, it is usually more appropriately directed towards color nature and landscape photography. Instead without limitations these discussions immediately fracture with several people talking about the issues from their own perspectives that ends up counterproductive. Despite the fact black and white photography by its nature is unnatural, without limiting the discussion at least to just color film and color digital cameras, one will always catch someone claiming how Ansel did this and Ansel did that like that is supposed to be some guide to holy golden rules.

Now what I personally dislike is the current status quo of photographers that either scan color film or camera capture digititally, then creatively and manipulatively post process those files into something considerably removed from the actual visual experiences, yet fail to in any way explain to their audience what they have done. In other words they are not up front and honest with their audience. Most simply say nothing about what they have done, just presenting images quietly. Some cornered with questions will answer their customers honestly while quite a few will not. All too many are aware the public tends not to like hearing images were not captured and printed accurately simply because they have that naive expectation of what photographs historically have been. It is an attitude within our photography community that predates all the digital stuff as it rather goes back to the division created with the advent of Fuji Velvia and other unnatural high saturation films versus traditional more color neutral favorite Kodachrome about 1990. What is bad about the situation is that the public given the explosion of cheap high capability digital cameras is aware what post processing images can unnaturally do thus has lost trust in what we produce. So it is the loss of trust between photographers and their public audience that these digital days have brought what I see as the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Thus on many web photography boards today one sees an obvious status quo of overly saturated contrasty images that bear little fidelity to reality. Images rendering naturally subdued subjects with glowing high saturation color are routinely praised by the majority with oohs and ahhs and high ratings. In our photo magazines are endless cover pics with dazzlingly oversaturated scenery that are figments of some magazine marketing person hoping for better sales than the competition. Worse there is all manner of magazine, book, and web instruction about how to perform such enhancements as though that is what novices are expected to do. There is rarely any discussion or interest in producing images that faithfully reproduce what was visually experienced as once was the case. So one issue is it has all skewed towards manipulation and the unnatural while the public audience has lost trust because many of them still value color photographic accuracy.

Now I'll clearly state here there is nothing wrong with unnatural manipulated images as long as photographers are up front and honest about what they are doing. So if someone uses Velvia film or a digital camera, captures a subject, post processes the result for strong saturated pinks, reds, and purples that were never in the sky and then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work. Still I personally would value someone elses work that presents images reasonably accurately simply because that is what I prefer to do with my own work. And I can personally state that a reasonably naturally rendered image has more intrinsic value by filling that public expectation of what photography is than one that was merely Photoshop'd. ...David


...

Donald Miller
18-Nov-2007, 23:43
Donald, I've been participating in threads about your manipulation subject and its variants way back since the early days of Usenet. It always dismays me to hear the issue polarized in the way you have presented it. What you relate would have been more true years ago but not today. The issues have long been beat to death on alot of forums. I first began using Photoshop in the mid 90s after having stacks of 35mm Kodachromes scanned onto Kodak Pro PhotoCDs. About then when the Cymbolic Sciences Lightjet 5000 and Durst Lambda printers came on the scene there began an immediate migration away from traditional optical processes especially with high end photographers because the results combining drum scanning, Photoshop processing, and Lightjet printing produced a far superior print. Including prints that were considerable more faithful to the original scene experience although one also now had the artistic power to post process and manipulate far easier and more so than ever before. Thus pros embracing such tools no longer saw the division you are relating. It did take another few years or so before the photography masses awoken by the dawn of digital cameras really started talking about these issues. In any case these issues still pop up regularly especially from young photographers new on the scene with their D-SLRs that are just discovering what its all about.

There are quite a number of general categories of work in photography such that one cannot talk about the subject without being more specific. For instance news photography requires a high degree of graphic integrity while those making portraits, still lifes, or fashion photography always manipulate their raw images. When this subject usually rises, it is usually more appropriately directed towards color nature and landscape photography. Instead without limitations these discussions immediately fracture with several people talking about the issues from their own perspectives that ends up counterproductive. Despite the fact black and white photography by its nature is unnatural, without limiting the discussion at least to just color film and color digital cameras, one will always catch someone claiming how Ansel did this and Ansel did that like that is supposed to be some guide to holy golden rules.

Now what I personally dislike is the current status quo of photographers that either scan color film or camera capture digititally, then creatively and manipulatively post process those files into something considerably removed from the actual visual experiences, yet fail to in any way explain to their audience what they have done. In other words they are not up front and honest with their audience. Most simply say nothing about what they have done, just presenting images quietly. Some cornered with questions will answer their customers honestly while quite a few will not. All too many are aware the public tends not to like hearing images were not captured and printed accurately simply because they have that naive expectation of what photographs historically have been. It is an attitude within our photography community that predates all the digital stuff as it rather goes back to the division created with the advent of Fuji Velvia and other unnatural high saturation films versus traditional more color neutral favorite Kodachrome about 1990. What is bad about the situation is that the public given the explosion of cheap high capability digital cameras is aware what post processing images can unnaturally do thus has lost trust in what we produce. So it is the loss of trust between photographers and their public audience that these digital days have brought what I see as the real problem that needs to be addressed.

Thus on many web photography boards today one sees an obvious status quo of overly saturated contrasty images that bear little fidelity to reality. Images rendering naturally subdued subjects with glowing high saturation color are routinely praised by the majority with oohs and ahhs and high ratings. In our photo magazines are endless cover pics with dazzlingly oversaturated scenery that are figments of some magazine marketing person hoping for better sales than the competition. Worse there is all manner of magazine, book, and web instruction about how to perform such enhancements as though that is what novices are expected to do. There is rarely any discussion or interest in producing images that faithfully reproduce what was visually experienced as once was the case. So one issue is it has all skewed towards manipulation and the unnatural while the public audience has lost trust because many of them still value color photographic accuracy.

Now I'll clearly state here there is nothing wrong with unnatural manipulated images as long as photographers are up front and honest about what they are doing. So if someone uses Velvia film or a digital camera, captures a subject, post processes the result for strong saturated pinks, reds, and purples that were never in the sky and then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work. Still I personally would value someone elses work that presents images reasonably accurately simply because that is what I prefer to do with my own work. And I can personally state that a reasonably naturally rendered image has more intrinsic value by filling that public expectation of what photography is than one that was merely Photoshop'd. ...David


David, What you say is undoubtedly true but I ask you this, if the buying public buys a super saturated color print no matter if it is shot with film or digitally, do they not not have complicity in the transaction.

In your view, does all photography have to be totally realistic and where does creative input exist in that environment? Now I will give you this, that there are places within photography where absolute reality would be desireable...yet there is also photographic art where accurate depiction is unnecessary and undesireable.

By the way, if you think that the attacks upon digital by some in the film photography community has ended years ago, I suggest that you spend a little time on Apug...you may be surprised at the atmosphere that exists today.

Ole Tjugen
19-Nov-2007, 01:57
By the way, if you think that the attacks upon digital by some in the film photography community has ended years ago, I suggest that you spend a little time on Apug...you may be surprised at the atmosphere that exists today.

APUG exists for the purpose of discussing, advancing and protecting film-based photography and "wet darkroom" processes; not to attack digital photography.

If you spent more than a little time on APUG, you would be surprised at how few and far between the anti-digital rants are - and how quickly they get deleted by the moderators. :)

Marko
19-Nov-2007, 07:21
APUG exists for the purpose of discussing, advancing and protecting film-based photography and "wet darkroom" processes; not to attack digital photography.

If you spent more than a little time on APUG, you would be surprised at how few and far between the anti-digital rants are - and how quickly they get deleted by the moderators. :)

I don't know about that - every time I try to go there, someone is ranting about digital somewhere. It's so bad that I get tired of all the nonsense and give up trying to find some useful information before I even find it.

There is a very recent thread about UK B&W magazine featuring Kate Moss, I believe, shot with LF with film and guess what, the thread originator uses that fact to launch another anti-digital snipe in the opening post.

What the Hell? I thought I could read something meaningful about contemporary black and white in the section about books and magazines with a subtitle that says "A forum to review traditional photographic publications, as well as galleries and shows."

The place leaves a distinct feel of being established with the express purpose of creating an outlet for the computer illiterates to rant and rage against the evil new technology, starting with the very name.

I find it a pity, because there is a real potential for the wealth of information about traditional photography and processes which gets lost in all the racket.

David_Senesac
19-Nov-2007, 10:59
David, What you say is undoubtedly true but I ask you this, (1) if the buying public buys a super saturated color print no matter if it is shot with film or digitally, do they not not have complicity in the transaction.

(2) In your view, does all photography have to be totally realistic and where does creative input exist in that environment? Now I will give you this, that there are places within photography where absolute reality would be desireable...yet there is also photographic art where accurate depiction is unnecessary and undesireable.

(3) By the way, if you think that the attacks upon digital by some in the film photography community has ended years ago, I suggest that you spend a little time on Apug...you may be surprised at the atmosphere that exists today.

Let me reitterate what I related above, I have no problem with those that take artistic licence in being creative with photography beyond straight camera capture. As long as they are honest with their audience. So as to your first question, a fair amount of the public well understands what photographers have always produced bears little semblence to reality and that is even more the case today for reasons I mention. So I wouldn't pose your question as one of complicity in doing something wrong but rather as an observation on what the situation is and always has been. Just as valid as an art customer that buys a painting created from their vision. Some of the public main prefer realism to creative images while others could care less as long as they enjoy an image. There isn't anything wrong with either as it is perfectly normal to have preferences and opinions.

Again your second question narrowly injects something I personally have never suggested and that I further consider counterproductive within our community. That is to try and force all we photographers to some narrow ethic for whatever reason. Especially if that grates against evolving photographic technology and creative art processes. Thus it ought to be quite acceptable to engage in the broad spectrum from both realistic to slightly adjusted to all levels of creative photography. However the graphics art pro that puts together pieces of many images Frankenstein-style adding and removing all manner of elements from a base captured image ought not portray such to his audience without reasonable comment in order for trust in how the public views other styles of photography not to suffer. There was a time when photographers really did not need to be so up front about what they do because most did not have much control beyond mere capture unless they had access to considerable darkroom equipment. However those days are history thus today we ought to be stepping up to the plate and taking charge to regain the public's trust.

As to your third comment about how APUG in particular is a hotbed of such opinions, yes I'd expect there are places where those who voice such opinions still do. People with similar philosophies about all manner of controversies tend to quietly concentrate where like minded people stroke their ideas. Especially when the rest of the world has already passed them by. The Internet of today is vast. However that is not the status quo today over most of the Internet. ...David

Scott Davis
19-Nov-2007, 13:40
I find it rather amusing that some people here seem to feel the need to vent bile about other web forums, in some kind of strange tribal us-versus-them mentality. I don't see anyone over on APUG going on about how evil Largeformatphotography.info is just because it allows discussions about non-film imagemaking.

billschwab
19-Nov-2007, 14:10
I have just spent the last two days at the Paris Photo exhibition... And it appears to me that if one regards salability as the key figure of merit (a premise to which I don't subscribe, but hey), the classic F/64ish large-format black and white photographer should not expect to get a whole lotta respect in the current environment.So true.... Excellent post from the front lines Mr. Harmon. Sounds as if it is business as usual in the PAP world. The past several AIPAD's have been very similar as to bigger and more colorful is better school of thought. And the dead people have been all the rage for a couple years now with many contemporary photographers, including the bigger names of the past several years, unable to get arrested. A very fickle business. In these testy economic times it seems people are more inclined to put their money into "sure things". It will be interesting to hear the fallout from the dealers afterward as I don't think all is as it seems.

Thanks again Clay!

Bill

roteague
19-Nov-2007, 14:32
As to your third comment about how APUG in particular is a hotbed of such opinions, yes I'd expect there are places where those who voice such opinions still do. People with similar philosophies about all manner of controversies tend to quietly concentrate where like minded people stroke their ideas. Especially when the rest of the world has already passed them by. The Internet of today is vast. However that is not the status quo today over most of the Internet. ...David

I think it is just the one remaining place on the Internet where you can talk about traditional processes without someone suggesting a digital equivalent of whatever it is your are trying to accomplish, and people are very keen to protect that environment.

clay harmon
19-Nov-2007, 14:53
I guess the only purpose to the post was to point out that the 'tension' being discussed here in this thread appears to a total non-issue in the gallery world at the moment.
And this is pretty much totally off-topic, but once again today as I was wandering around the Louvre, I was shocked to find this blatant 16th century ripoff of Sugimoto's theatre series. In color, no less. I am scandalized by the behavior of this Pannetti dude.




So true.... Excellent post from the front lines Mr. Harmon. Sounds as if it is business as usual in the PAP world. The past several AIPAD's have been very similar as to bigger and more colorful is better school of thought. And the dead people have been all the rage for a couple years now with many contemporary photographers, including the bigger names of the past several years, unable to get arrested. A very fickle business. In these testy economic times it seems people are more inclined to put their money into "sure things". It will be interesting to hear the fallout from the dealers afterward as I don't think all is as it seems.

Thanks again Clay!

Bill

Annie M.
19-Nov-2007, 15:21
LOL... Clay you should do a thread on your tour of the Louvre... it reminds me of those fake websites about the discovery of Picasso's lost photography.

billschwab
19-Nov-2007, 15:32
I am scandalized by the behavior of this Pannetti dude.!!!! :D !!!!

RDKirk
19-Nov-2007, 16:31
Now I'll clearly state here there is nothing wrong with unnatural manipulated images as long as photographers are up front and honest about what they are doing. So if someone uses Velvia film or a digital camera, captures a subject, post processes the result for strong saturated pinks, reds, and purples that were never in the sky and then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work.

Wait, now, are you saying that every showing or publication of the work must be accompanied by a written treatise of how it was created?

Hmm. Should Dali or Magritte have accompanied their work with explanations that they weren't naturally occuring scenes? Then you do insist that photographers have "less artistic license" if you insist that a photograph either be "natural" or fully explain itself. What if we just make it simple--require "unnatural" photographic artists to stamp a big red "A" on their work so that it's clearly identified.

IMO, if the work is being presented as art--not as reportage or documentary--then no explanation is required.

David_Senesac
19-Nov-2007, 17:14
Wait, now, are you saying that every showing or publication of the work must be accompanied by a written treatise of how it was created?
Hmm. Should Dali or Magritte have accompanied their work with explanations that they weren't naturally occuring scenes? Then you do insist that photographers have "less artistic license" if you insist that a photograph either be "natural" or fully explain itself. What if we just make it simple--require "unnatural" photographic artists to stamp a big red "A" on their work so that it's clearly identified.
IMO, if the work is being presented as art--not as reportage or documentary--then no explanation is required.

Your expansion of my statement is something that is often offered as an objection however what I am actually suggesting is much less as per my example. This is what I wrote:

"then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work."

For instance lets say a photographer has an exhibit at a gallery or is hanging images at an art fair. If they had a technical description of what they did on a description label below each print, that might of course be annoyingly distracting. However most serious artists always provide an artist statement sheet for their public audience in view that visitors readily may peruse and some will combine or add a brief bio or philosophical piece. It is on such statements that they might provide that relatively vague general information to the public. Likewise someone with a commercial website can put that information on a general similar biographical page or whatever indicating they post process what they capture on film to a vision in their mind's eye. Or maybe with film users that they regularly use such and such and such color films or color filters, etc. And websites are practically more appropriate locations for someone to more explicitly indicate what they have done on specific images than at shows as such may be done in a way that doesn't distract while being available for those that would like to know more. So on a website for an image where a photographer did something special like cloned out a bunch of people in front of some icon scenic point, they might have that in a footnote to an image. Whatever is appropriate.

At shows when a customer asks about specific prints the photographer might provide specifics or just mention viewing their hanging artist statement or that such specifics are on their website. That way the audience doesn't immediately start down the path of mistrust without a clue and knows the presenter is open. That is much the way Galen Rowel's work was always presented. He always provided information about the film he used on his images and whether or not polarizers, graduated neutral density, etc filters were added. And of course he readily indicated the prints were more often from that inner vision. ...David

tim atherton
19-Nov-2007, 17:37
Your expansion of my statement is something that is often offered as an objection however what I am actually suggesting is much less as per my example. This is what I wrote:

"then publicly presents such with a description of how they work processing images "to a vision in their mind's eye", or specifically state they use Velvia etc, then I have absolutely no issue with their work."

For instance lets say a photographer has an exhibit at a gallery or is hanging images at an art fair. If they had a technical description of what they did on a description label below each print, that might of course be annoyingly distracting. However most serious artists always provide an artist statement sheet for their public audience in view that visitors readily may peruse and some will combine or add a brief bio or philosophical piece. It is on such statements that they might provide that relatively vague general information to the public. Likewise someone with a commercial website can put that information on a general similar biographical page or whatever indicating they post process what they capture on film to a vision in their mind's eye. Or maybe with film users that they regularly use such and such and such color films or color filters, etc. And websites are practically more appropriate locations for someone to more explicitly indicate what they have done on specific images than at shows as such may be done in a way that doesn't distract while being available for those that would like to know more. So on a website for an image where a photographer did something special like cloned out a bunch of people in front of some icon scenic point, they might have that in a footnote to an image. Whatever is appropriate.

At shows when a customer asks about specific prints the photographer might provide specifics or just mention viewing their hanging artist statement or that such specifics are on their website. That way the audience doesn't immediately start down the path of mistrust without a clue and knows the presenter is open. That is much the way Galen Rowel's work was always presented. He always provided information about the film he used on his images and whether or not polarizers, graduated neutral density, etc filters were added. And of course he readily indicated the prints were more often from that inner vision. ...David

But why?

it's a good thing people have finally become less believing of photograph's (re)presenting reality, rather than being simplistically naive about it (even though if they thought about it, most people know they have always been surrounded by such photographs).

(For one thing, it seems that in many cases people actually chose to look at photographs more closely and intelligently now)

Unless a person is photographing to a set of accepted ethics - say scientific or evidence photography, or some forms of photojournalism, then any such statements is ridiculously redundant and unnecessary.

janepaints
19-Nov-2007, 17:44
Wait, now, are you saying that every showing or publication of the work must be accompanied by a written treatise of how it was created?

Hmm. Should Dali or Magritte have accompanied their work with explanations that they weren't naturally occuring scenes? Then you do insist that photographers have "less artistic license" if you insist that a photograph either be "natural" or fully explain itself. What if we just make it simple--require "unnatural" photographic artists to stamp a big red "A" on their work so that it's clearly identified.

IMO, if the work is being presented as art--not as reportage or documentary--then no explanation is required.

Tho loving good accompanying text & context-info in photoland, I equally love the Mystery Stuff (Joel-Peter Witkin & Cindy Sherman come to mind) where part of the fun is bafflement at how such images were--or could be--made. More than one gate provides entrance into the Promised City.

Eric_Scott
19-Nov-2007, 17:58
But why?

it's a good thing people have finally become less believing of photograph's (re)presenting reality, rather than being simplistically naive about it (even though if they thought about it, most people know they have always been surrounded by such photographs).

(For one thing, it seems that in many cases people actually chose to look at photographs more closely and intelligently now)

Unless a person is photographing to a set of accepted ethics - say scientific or evidence photography, or some forms of photojournalism, then any such statements is ridiculously redundant and unnecessary.

I've alway's wanted to ask David the same question: WHY?

David_Senesac
19-Nov-2007, 19:11
Tim, indeed it is good that more people are becoming more aware of the nature of photographic work regarding the range of naturalness and accuracy of images and the history of how vatrious more creative processes have always been part of what photography is. However your conclusion tersely dismisses points I voiced that much of the public has lost trust in what we produce. In the case of those who embrace manipulation in all its forms and wish to present their work unqualified in the same wide sea the rest of us are floating in, my opinion is that philosophy in some narrow areas of styles is counterproductive to the public trust in our community. As an extreme example, those that have advanced honed Photoshop graphic arts skills that can readily perform all manner of manipulations from the minor to Frankenstein transformations where whole boring skies are replaced with fantastic wispy clouds or with cutesy animals placed ideally here and there. Nothing wrong with that again as long as the audience has some understanding of what the photographer has been doing. Graphic arts pros do it all the time for advertising work and the public is aware of that when they see such. However that may not be the case when people are wandering through exhibited photography especially those showcasing expensive large fine art prints. If such photographers feel comfortable about what they are doing and its validity as a style of art then they ought to be comfortable portraying it up front honestly for what it is. Some would then chime in, where ought we be drawing the line with disclosures to what we are doing? Of course that is a slippery slope I would leave to the individual to decide since there will never be a way to enforce such beyond exerting some peer pressures.

There will always be some in the public that will put more value in images they can trust as being reasonably accurate depictions of actual moments in time. That is at the essense of one style of photography that has always appealed to many people. That does not mean such a style of natural work is ethically correct and other less natural styles ethically inferior just as it doesn't mean paintings with vision are so. But unlike the paintings these more creative styles in photography are not readily differentiated from those that are. And that bothers this person and some of our audience and I submit always will. ...David

tim atherton
19-Nov-2007, 20:04
Tim, indeed it is good that more people are becoming more aware of the nature of photographic work regarding the range of naturalness and accuracy of images and the history of how vatrious more creative processes have always been part of what photography is. However your conclusion tersely dismisses points I voiced that much of the public has lost trust in what we produce. In the case of those who embrace manipulation in all its forms and wish to present their work unqualified in the same wide sea the rest of us are floating in, my opinion is that philosophy in some narrow areas of styles is counterproductive to the public trust in our community.

But I'm really not sure I understand what this "trust" is that the public is supposed to have in what - for want of a better phrase - you could call the photographic community?

In addition, I'm not at all convinced hat the public ever really had the sort of trust you speak of invested in photography as a whole.

People know (and knew) full well almost right from the start , photography has been used for manipulating, propaganda, advertising and more. Fashion photographs from the fifties or the thirties were no less untruthful than they are today - and people knew that. The same for photography advertising all manner of foods and other things such as in the pornography, which has always been one of photography's most popular staples since its beginning.. People frequently even recognized their own family albums were often far from truthful

I think that in fact not only are people more cogniscent today that photographs are not inherently truthful, but a good portion of the public has always been sceptical of the claim that the photograph never lies.

I don't believe photography actually has such a trust to lose and that any such trust there was has more often than not been misplaced (even if encouraged).

Bill Brandt made no bones about the fact that he believed anything went as far as photography was concerned, that he posed, staged, manipulated and composited, even if he was photographing for the popular news magazines of the day. That has been an equally clear strand in photography as the one which asserts that photography is a "reasonably accurate depictions of actual moments in time". A position which I think is fairly widely held, but not in or by itself actually correct


But unlike the paintings these more creative styles in photography are not readily differentiated from those that are. And that bothers this person and some of our audience and I submit always will.

which I would contend is one of the main strengths of photography. Such inherent ambiguity is essential for what photography does.

clay harmon
20-Nov-2007, 01:10
I'm not sure I buy the whole trust thing. Most images trade hands because they have some visual appeal to the recipient. The notion that some sort of reliance on the image's integrity is then created is a stretch, if you ask me. Sure, evidentiary photos and photojournalism have a high standard to meet, just as verbal testimony and written reportage have high (and legal) standards to meet. The reason is that fakery in these cases can produce actual harm to an individual or institution.

But outside those two areas, I think that anyone who buys or trades a photo that they truly like, and then finds out later that it may not completely represent some Platonically truthful representation of the world is just being tedious. Who has been harmed here? The only aspect I can think of is the wounded pride of someone who believed in their ability to always spot manipulation, but alas, finds out they were wrong.

In my opinion, this is nowhere better illustrated than in so-called 'straight 'black and white photographs. I see the world in color, but here is this flat, two dimensional piece of paper that has somehow squeezed all of the colors from the real world into gray-scale, and furthermore, used a lens to reduce this same three dimensional world to two dimensions. What relationship to reality does that have? By this high standard, I should reject all photographs because they do not provide a truthful representation of the world.

Gordon Moat
20-Nov-2007, 01:13
Well for once I agree with Tim Atherton on this, though perhaps somewhat different reasoning. If I present a painting at an exhibition (since I do oil paintings), then I have no interest in stating anything beyond oil on canvas. Definitely no reason to tell anyone I use Windsor&Newton paints, or that I carefully prepare the canvas and paint in such a way that the work will last centuries. To me, mention of process or materials smacks of marketing, and I see no other reason for photographers to claim some higher moral ground . . . other than they are marketing how they do things to the public.

It was great to see Cindy Sherman mentioned. One of the things she stated about photography was that photographs always lie. I just cannot see where a matter of trust would ever come into a discussion about photography, except in the matter of legal evidence, or some smattering of integrity in photojournalism . . . certainly not in more creative nor commercial photography.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

Eric_Scott
20-Nov-2007, 09:02
Trust comes into the picture because folks like David believe that the public expects color nature/landscape photography to be reasonably accurate respresentations of reality. If you do otherwise, and don't reveal it, you've violated their trust. Visit Galen's site where he goes as far as to call it "sacred trust". Remember the Art Wolfe scandal? The public felt "violated". If the public really does make such assumptions about color nature/landscape photography, they should realize that nothing should be assumed in photography, just like everything else in life.

Eric_Scott
20-Nov-2007, 11:07
I'm probably going to get hammered on this, but I'll take my chances. Some folks say the issue is trust. If you dig down deep beneath all the talk, the real issue is competition, although that word isn't used. Let's say you are a color nature/landscape photographer who works in the "honest style". You wait days, weeks, months, maybe years to get the right lighting, clouds, color, flower bloom, etc. You expend considerable time and money traveling to the same location over and over again to capture the right conditions. How can you compete with someone who can create the same thing *at will* on the computer? You can't. Furthermore, you know there are some buyers who value the "honest style", but how do you distinguish your work from those who "manufacture" their color nature/landscape photo's? Now here's where I don't agree with David. David suggests those who "manufacture" their work label it as such. This makes you reliant on others to comply and these others aren't the folks with the issue. I'm not aware of anyone who "manufactures" their photo's complaining about those who work in the "honest style". Instead, those who work in the "honest style" should be the folks to label their photos, if anyone. They are the folks with the issue. That sector of the public who values the "honest style" can ask questions when no such label exists with a given work.

RDKirk
20-Nov-2007, 14:08
Instead, those who work in the "honest style" should be the folks to label their photos, if anyone.

That, then goes to Gordon's concept of marketing.

If the photographer working in the "honest style" believes he has created the superior work, then he can point that out in the same way the photographer who has used archival methods would point out the superiority (as far as he's concerned) of his methods.

It's like a food company advertising their products as "organic." Everyone knows modern food preparation involves synthetic something on the path from soil to supermarket. "Synthetic" is normalcy in modern food preparation; the company that claims the different product that must point out its difference.

And exactly the opposite occurs with motor oil...with the same reasoning.

But this is a matter of marketing, not a moral issue of "truth." The audience looks at a photograph and already knows it's not looking through a window at a real, live scene--it already knows it's looking at a synthesized intepretation of reality. "Synthetic" is normalcy in photography; the photographer who claims the different product must point out the difference.

This is what happens, by the way, with photography presented as evidence in court. It's not accepted as "truth" simply because it's a photograph; the photographer must actually swear it as such, and will be held legally accountable by his word, not by the photograph.

Donald Miller
20-Nov-2007, 14:28
APUG exists for the purpose of discussing, advancing and protecting film-based photography and "wet darkroom" processes; not to attack digital photography.

If you spent more than a little time on APUG, you would be surprised at how few and far between the anti-digital rants are - and how quickly they get deleted by the moderators. :)


Ole, with all due respect, I spent a lot of tiime on Apug until I voluntarily took the steps to remove myself from that forum for the reasons that I mentioned. I imagine that I have as valid an experience as anyone could have there.

Donald Miller
20-Nov-2007, 14:36
Wait, now, are you saying that every showing or publication of the work must be accompanied by a written treatise of how it was created?

Hmm. Should Dali or Magritte have accompanied their work with explanations that they weren't naturally occuring scenes? Then you do insist that photographers have "less artistic license" if you insist that a photograph either be "natural" or fully explain itself. What if we just make it simple--require "unnatural" photographic artists to stamp a big red "A" on their work so that it's clearly identified.

IMO, if the work is being presented as art--not as reportage or documentary--then no explanation is required.

I seem to have come away with the same interpertation that you did on this matter. Perhaps we both (mis)understood. I totally agree that a photograph presented as a work of artistic art needs no explanation. In my opinion, reportage or documentaryphotography should reside in a place apart from artistic photography...not that one is inherently superior or inferior to the other.

Donald Miller
20-Nov-2007, 14:40
I'm not sure I buy the whole trust thing. Most images trade hands because they have some visual appeal to the recipient. The notion that some sort of reliance on the image's integrity is then created is a stretch, if you ask me. Sure, evidentiary photos and photojournalism have a high standard to meet, just as verbal testimony and written reportage have high (and legal) standards to meet. The reason is that fakery in these cases can produce actual harm to an individual or institution.

But outside those two areas, I think that anyone who buys or trades a photo that they truly like, and then finds out later that it may not completely represent some Platonically truthful representation of the world is just being tedious. Who has been harmed here? The only aspect I can think of is the wounded pride of someone who believed in their ability to always spot manipulation, but alas, finds out they were wrong.

In my opinion, this is nowhere better illustrated than in so-called 'straight 'black and white photographs. I see the world in color, but here is this flat, two dimensional piece of paper that has somehow squeezed all of the colors from the real world into gray-scale, and furthermore, used a lens to reduce this same three dimensional world to two dimensions. What relationship to reality does that have? By this high standard, I should reject all photographs because they do not provide a truthful representation of the world.

Clay, Very well stated. I concur.

Eric_Scott
20-Nov-2007, 14:44
If the photographer working in the "honest style" believes he has created the superior work, then he can point that out in the same way the photographer who has used archival methods would point out the superiority (as far as he's concerned) of his methods.


I don't think those like David working in the "honest style" claim their work is superior, just different. It's making clear that difference that concerns them. I agree with your point, it's all about marketing. It's up to those who wish to make that difference clear to market it as such.

Jim Galli
20-Nov-2007, 15:05
Donald, you and Ansel have one thing in common. You both spend a lot of time thinking about whether your work is "artistically viable". Ansel spent his life writing letters with that concern always at the forefront. He made those trips to mecca and bowed down before the Great Stieglitz. And likewise yourself, almost every post here is something to do with photography as art. Particularly your version of it being "artistically viable". Nothing wrong with that!

I particularly enjoyed Clay Harmon's thoughts while he's in the heart of the photographic art center of the universe. If what he says is true, and I'm sure it is more than, you sir, are a million miles closer to artistically viable photographic art than I am with my antiques and contact prints. Very well. I fear that for me to be artistically viable, I would also be a whore.

chris_4622
20-Nov-2007, 16:25
Remember the Art Wolfe scandal? The public felt "violated".

What was this scandal?

Eric_Scott
20-Nov-2007, 16:40
What was this scandal?

Art Wolfe, the former painter turned celebrated professional nature photog. He was an early digital adopter. His book "Migrations" featured patterns in nature that included animals. Well, some animals wouldn't cooperate. They were facing the wrong direction or not in the right position. So he "fixed" that via the computer. He said nothing in the book about it. Somebody analyzed the photos and discovered what he had done. All hell broke loose. Remember, this was in the early days, before everybdy had a copy of Photoshop Elements installed on their PC. Art's response was something to the effect of: This isn't a biology book, it's an art book based on nature. He eventually caved in to the pressure. His books now have a small "delta" symbol indicating digital manipulation where it applies. Is this what the public does? Analyze photo's to the n'th degree? I suspect not. Most likely it was one of Wolfe's competitors. This goes to my point about the issue not being "trust" but about competition. Imagine if you worked in the "honest style". How long would you have to wait for those friggin animals to get in the right position? Meanwhile your competitor is publishing his book!

RDKirk
20-Nov-2007, 17:27
All hell broke loose. Remember, this was in the early days, before everybdy had a copy of Photoshop Elements installed on their PC.....Is this what the public does? Analyze photos to the n'th degree? I suspect not.

It doesn't seem to have affected the general public very much. It didn't even follow him to his Wikipedia entry. I suspect the range of people who felt their "trust" had been "violated" was very narrow.

Donald Miller
21-Nov-2007, 02:28
Donald, you and Ansel have one thing in common. You both spend a lot of time thinking about whether your work is "artistically viable". Ansel spent his life writing letters with that concern always at the forefront. He made those trips to mecca and bowed down before the Great Stieglitz. And likewise yourself, almost every post here is something to do with photography as art. Particularly your version of it being "artistically viable". Nothing wrong with that!

I particularly enjoyed Clay Harmon's thoughts while he's in the heart of the photographic art center of the universe. If what he says is true, and I'm sure it is more than, you sir, are a million miles closer to artistically viable photographic art than I am with my antiques and contact prints. Very well. I fear that for me to be artistically viable, I would also be a whore.

Jim, That sort of reminds me of the fellow that encountered a comely young lady and when asked if she would sleep with him for one million dollars, the lady said that she might well be open to that suggestion. Whereupon the fellow responded and asked "would you sleep with me for $20.00. At which point the young lady erupted and shouted at him "what do you think I am, a prostitute?" The fellow responded with "we have already established that...now we are working on the price".

My point being for those of us who work with the acceptance of our photographic production by someone outside ourselves in mind already are what you mentioned in your post.

Good luck to you or perhaps I should say Happy Hooking.

Greg Lockrey
21-Nov-2007, 02:36
This acceptance for photography as art is really all about selling it for money isn't it? It's all about the prostitution for the bottom line. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't really matter anyway.

harrykauf
21-Nov-2007, 07:07
This acceptance for photography as art is really all about selling it for money isn't it? It's all about the prostitution for the bottom line. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't really matter anyway.

I think that is basically what it comes down to and that took others 11 pages.
For example I cant see how Davids problems, in his specific market segment
that he chooses to serve, have anything to do with art.
He is discussing techniques, materials and tools. If that is the main concern in
ones work then I dont think its art.

Marko
21-Nov-2007, 07:35
It doesn't seem to have affected the general public very much. It didn't even follow him to his Wikipedia entry. I suspect the range of people who felt their "trust" had been "violated" was very narrow.

Indeed. I would venture to say that what the great majority of the public is looking for in a photograph is truthiness, not truth.

Just take a portrait of most any woman who has an idea of what Photoshop is and what can be done with it and then show her the pure version of the portrait you just took. I would be very surprised if at least 90% of them wouldn't notice a wrong shadow here, an exaggerated wrinkle there, perhaps some blemish that shouldn't have happened that day, etc, and then request more or less directly that you "take care" of it... Purity, veracity, your superior technique and the like be damned.

With that in mind, it is so much easier to be a non-selling amateur, not to mention more honest.

sanking
21-Nov-2007, 08:56
I was quite interested to read Clay's report on the Paris show and of the interest there in very large color prints. If we were go back a hundred years or more and read the art reviews of the day we would find a similar interest in the large gum prints (some of them in color) being shown in important exhibitions in London, Paris and Viena. It has been said that the explosion in technology in the 1880s that made photography accessible to hack amateurs set the stage for the development of Pictorialism. Prior to that time the practice of photography was fairly limited because it involved a rather high level of technical expertise. Abigail Godeau wrote: "Art photography has always defined itself, indeed, was compelled to define itself, in opposition to the normative and boundless ubiquity of all other photography."

Where does art photography go from here? I am no seer, but I agree with Abigail Godeau's statement above, so IMO if a photographer can produce a good body of work that defines itself in opposition to the normative and ubiquitous use of other photography that person immediately sets himself/herself apart from the crowd.

The explosion today in photographic technology, with the appearance of digital imaging systems and inkjet printers that allow the production of endless numbers of technically perfect prints in virtually any size desired, parallels to some extent the explosion of technology in the 1880s that opened up photography to large numbers of people who up to that time lacked the technical skill to make photographs. The first explosion sparked something of a revolution in photography as art photographers rejected the facility of the new technology and instead searched for artistic expression using other less technically perfect printing methods, pinhole photography and gum printing for example that set their work apart from that of the masses.

Sandy King

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 09:14
This acceptance for photography as art is really all about selling it for money isn't it? It's all about the prostitution for the bottom line. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't really matter anyway.

Ah jeeezzz..... I am always surprised when people make this kind of statements which imply that an artist should not be allowed to make a living doing something that he (generic he) loves and that if he does he is not doing it for the "purity" and love of the arts but instead prostituing the "art."

I stayed away from this thread because I beleive Donald's original premise is wrong. Those artists who use photography as a medium could not care less about artistic license and are never brought to task for it. If anything those who consider photography as art I beleive expect it not to be factual or "truthful."

About 20 years ago when Dan Burkholders was working on his book about digital negatives I was visiting him and he was showing me some of the results he got from the digital negatives. One of the prints was a weird kind of surreal landscape with vines shaped in geometric patterns. WHen I asked him about the acceptance of the use of digital to create such weird photographs, his response was "Look, we are doing black and white, we have departed from reality by choosing this medium, what difference does it make if I make a photograph that "looks" real or one where I use what I saw in my minds eye?"

Most sucessful photographers who sell their work as art in fact depart from reality to an extreme. Traiditional or digital we burn, dodge, make masks etc, etc, all to represent the final photograph vastly different from what it was in reality. The things is that those who are good at it make look seamless and easy, perhaps giving the viewer the mistaken comfort that it is a factual reproduction when it is not at all.

The trick and IMO the artistry of it is to make the ordinary subject look extraordinary, this takes years of practice, talent and dedication which brings me back to my original peeve. A doctor, lawyer, or just about any profession where the person spends years honning his skills and talent expects to be rewarded for it, if an artists has the same expectations he is "prostituting" the art..... go figure.. :rolleyes:

harrykauf
21-Nov-2007, 09:59
The trick and IMO the artistry of it is to make the ordinary subject look extraordinary, this takes years of practice, talent and dedication which brings me back to my original peeve. A doctor, lawyer, or just about any profession where the person spends years honning his skills and talent expects to be rewarded for it, if an artists has the same expectations he is "prostituting" the art..... go figure.. :rolleyes:

And I thought the whole point of this debate was that art is not a profession
like any other. If it is then the results are products like any other and their
value only depends on how much the market pays for it.
Davids arguments actually lead into this direction a little bit, he wants proper
labeling of "products" so the "consumer" can decide who works acording to their
expectations and fullfills them best.
Also honing your skills in the arts can lead to absolutely nothing and I dont
see why it should or why anyone should expect otherwise.

Marko
21-Nov-2007, 10:38
And I thought the whole point of this debate was that art is not a profession like any other. If it is then the results are products like any other and their value only depends on how much the market pays for it.

The market determines the price, it has nothing to do with value. The business side of art as a profession deals with price, the artistic side of art as a calling determines the value. It is this dichotomy that makes art unique, and without it, it is either only a profession or only a calling.


Davids arguments actually lead into this direction a little bit, he wants proper labeling of "products" so the "consumer" can decide who works acording to their expectations and fullfills them best.

The way I understand David's arguments, it is about the balance between these two aspects. Any tilt toward one comes at the expense of the other. In the ideal world, art would not need concern, much less pollute itself with commerce, but in reality, it is the only way of sustaining itself.

It is now conveniently forgotten that virtually all the great masters of the past, painters and sculptors alike, created their masterpieces for hire, as a blatantly commercial endeavor. And they did pay very much attention to their customers' desires, since assignments in those days easily took months if not years. Between the veracity of representation and the generosity of the client, veracity hardly figured at all.

Bottom line is: they are considered masters today not because of truthfully expressing their own views, but because they were successful at executing their benefactors' vision.

Donald Miller
21-Nov-2007, 10:39
If I may, I would like to interject something further here. Photography as a creative expression (the generalized aspect I call art) should have no limitations...so far as means of capture, printing, composition, compilation, subject matter, or any other limitation whatsoever.

Whenever we assign limitations, we limit the creative impulse and expression. Sure this leads to kicking out some well butressed walls. But maybe it is time for them to fall. If the next chapter in photographic art is highly modified images that have been captured on something other than film and printed on the latest offset press so be it.

While artists were supported by patrons of the arts in times past, that simply is not the reality for the majority of us today.

If I get honest about this, I must at that point (the next phase) decide where I fit into the scheme of things and whether I am expressing myself for my own sake or I am seeking further ego gratification from the hoped for rave reviews of others. It is at that point that I determine whether the fire in my gut is real or not. One thing is sure...that if we hold to the past we may well miss the future

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 11:14
And I thought the whole point of this debate was that art is not a profession like any other.

WHy not? The market has stablished that already. People pay for art, so it follows it has "value." just like a doctor's knowledge has "value" since people pay for it as well. I beleive many here confuse value with utility. Yes, if you have cancer, a doctor's knowledge is far more valuable to you than the greatest painting, sculpture or photograph so the value increases with the utility of that knowledge.


Also honing your skills in the arts can lead to absolutely nothing and I dont
see why it should or why anyone should expect otherwise.


This about as an specious argument as the "I only photograph for myself, I don't care what people think!"

I find that people who make the kind of stements as you did above tipycally have never tried to promote their work, have never shown it to people other than family and firends and have very strong opinons about what should be the role of an artist but are not either a photographer or an artist. Let me guess, I bet you make your living in some other field and photography is just a hobby for you. Here is where the problem lies.

Donald Miller
21-Nov-2007, 11:29
Jorge,

It sure makes a difference that I have an oil royalty income and at near $100 a barrel I can do as I pretty much please with photography.

Just one additional thing value is a matter of perception while price is an arbitrary thing largely determined by what the market will bear. Value only has a connection to price so far as human perception allows. You could show me some incredibly technically executed images and if they do not resonate with me at an emotional level they could sell for a nickle and I would not pay that for them. (well maybe one or two)

Maybe my work will amount to nothing more than a fart in a whirlwind when all is said and done...who gives a damn? I think that financial independence allows me a lot of latitude so far as what I photograph and what I do with it...BTW I have shown and sold my work numerous times.

Greg Lockrey
21-Nov-2007, 12:01
Ah jeeezzz..... I am always surprised when people make this kind of statements which imply that an artist should not be allowed to make a living doing something that he (generic he) loves and that if he does he is not doing it for the "purity" and love of the arts but instead prostituing the "art."

:rolleyes:

You don't know the four stages of becoming an artist.

1st step: when you make art for yourself, you are a doodlier.

2nd step: when your art is good enough to be recognized by someone else but not good enough for them to part with any money, you become a student.

3rd step: when your art is good enough for another person to pay you for it, you become a craftsman.

4th step: when someone takes the risk of going to prison by stealing your art, then you can be called an artist.;)

Jorge, I do have an "Al Weber" philosophy about art btw.

RDKirk
21-Nov-2007, 12:13
Just take a portrait of most any woman who has an idea of what Photoshop is and what can be done with it and then show her the pure version of the portrait you just took. I would be very surprised if at least 90% of them wouldn't notice a wrong shadow here, an exaggerated wrinkle there, perhaps some blemish that shouldn't have happened that day, etc, and then request more or less directly that you "take care" of it... Purity, veracity, your superior technique and the like be damned.

With the exception of 18-year-olds and their breasts, I've not yet met a woman who really wanted to see anything on her portrait that had appeared within the immediately previous five years.


While artists were supported by patrons of the arts in times past, that simply is not the reality for the majority of us today.

Who among photographers is destined to produce a "William Tell Overture?" By that, I mean a work that becomes a cultural cliche--that insinuates itself into the cultural fabric to the extent that everyone knows it, even if they don't know the author. Who among photographers will produce a "Bolero" or "Die Planets" that inspires replications and copies for generations?

I can think of a couple, and they aren't usually categorized as "photographic artists" among the academic photo-intelligencia. One would be George Hurrell...who successfully produced totally patron-supported work.

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 12:24
You don't know the four stages of becoming an artist.

1st step: when you make art for yourself, you are a doodlier.

2nd step: when your art is good enough to be recognized by someone else but not good enough for them to part with any money, you become a student.

3rd step: when your art is good enough for another person to pay you for it, you become a craftsman.

4th step: when someone takes the risk of going to prison by stealing your art, then you can be called an artist.;)

Jorge, I do have an "Al Weber" philosophy about art btw.

I don't know, if I was to beleive your stages nobody is an artist...... I think you better go back and work on your stages again. ;)

Eric_Scott
21-Nov-2007, 12:54
Has anyone read Paul Strand's article "The Art Motive in Photography"? What did you think of it?

sanking
21-Nov-2007, 13:12
Has anyone read Paul Strand's article "The Art Motive in Photography"? What did you think of it?


I have read it. A brillant piece that makes a strong case for the fact that photography has certain inherent qualities that must be observed. Strand holds that the use of pigment texture (as in gum and bromoil) and the use of manipulation are the worst enemies of the photographer.

Strand was the first to adopt and give voice to a kind of sharp focus photography that later came to be know as the f/64 style.

Sandy King

Eric_Scott
21-Nov-2007, 13:29
I have read it. A brillant piece that makes a strong case for the fact that photography has certain inherent qualities that must be observed. Strand holds that the use of pigment texture (as in gum and bromoil) and the use of manipulation are the worst enemies of the photographer.

Strand was the first to adopt and give voice to a kind of sharp focus photography that later came to be know as the f/64 style.

Sandy King

I thought it was brilliant as well. I reread it every so often. He also writes about his dislike of those who focus on trying to be artists with their photography. He mentions painters in Germany who saw Stieglitz's photo's saying: "Of course, this is not Art, but we would like to paint the way you photograph". Stieglitz's reply was: "I don't know anything about Art, but for some reason or other I have never wanted to photograph the way you paint". Strand remarks: "There you have a complete statement of the difference between the attitide of Stieglitz towards photography, and practically every other photographer". He mentiones Stieglitz's "recent exhibition" where Stieglitz set aside the question of whether photography is or isn't art as of no importance to him. "Exactly, because nobody knows what art is, or God or all the other abstractions, particularly those who make claims to such knowledge". He says a lot more. Must read article, as it's very thought provoking.

paulr
21-Nov-2007, 13:30
By the way according to his website he is going to be on the Rachel Ray show. Is this a new high! Or a new low?

Maybe he's going to take photographs on the set ... in preparation for a hundred-foot mural about "the number of completely insipid, partially home-made meals prepared every day in the U.S."

RDKirk
21-Nov-2007, 14:01
Is a perfect sculpture--with no addition or interpretation of "eggness" by the sculptor--of an egg art? Necessarily art? Or is it craftsmanship? Necessarily craftsmanship?

If that accurate representations of reality via a tactile medium not art, then why would a straight photograph of any real scene be art? Or more significantly, why would a straight photograph of a real scene be considered the epitomy of art for that medium?

Is the output of a security camera art? If a straight photograph of a scene is considered art--or rather, the epitomy of photographic art--then how can the output of a security camera not be art? Why can I not submit "A day in the Life of a 7-11 Clerk" as a work of art?

Eric_Scott
21-Nov-2007, 14:18
Is a perfect sculpture--with no addition or interpretation of "eggness" by the sculptor--of an egg art? Necessarily art? Or is it craftsmanship? Necessarily craftsmanship?

If that accurate representations of reality via a tactile medium not art, then why would a straight photograph of any real scene be art? Or more significantly, why would a straight photograph of a real scene be considered the epitomy of art for that medium?

Is the output of a security camera art? If a straight photograph of a scene is considered art--or rather, the epitomy of photographic art--then how can the output of a security camera not be art? Why can I not submit "A day in the Life of a 7-11 Clerk" as a work of art?

Well, if you believe Strand, you won't concern yourself with that question. "...learn to photograph first, learn your craft, and in the doing of that you will find a way, if you have anything to say, of saying it. The old masters were craftsmen first, some of them artists, afterwards."

David_Senesac
21-Nov-2007, 14:44
Having to catch up a bit all the way back from page 8/9. One problem with entering into a discussion like this on a web forum is that one ought not post a too lengthy, well supported argument simply because readers will yawn and skip one's input.

Tim A p.8>>>"...In addition, I'm not at all convinced that the public ever really had the sort of trust you speak of invested in photography as a whole.

clayy h p.8 >>>"...I'm not sure I buy the whole trust thing. Most images trade hands because they have some visual appeal to the recipient. The notion that some sort of reliance on the image's integrity is then created is a stretch, if you ask me."
------------
As I mentioned on my opening post on p.8, about the only area of photography where I think the "trust issue" rises to a level of being valid is with color nature, landscape, news, documentary, product, and sports photography. With documentary and news photography, the graphic content of images requires a high ethic enforced by more than mere peer pressure because as a commercially intensive field, client organizations have dictated such. Unlike nature and landscape, black and white is perfectly acceptable for many documentary purposes as long as the graphic content is correct while color and saturation issues are of little interest. However one can easily argue that the many other areas of photography do not require any documentary level capture or restraint on manipulative techniques more or less. That is why whenever I enter into a debate on a board about the manipulation issues, I bother to make that clear distinction. Of course others predictably want to bring up the other areas of photography just as has been done here where they can make an effective argument. So I am used to beating them back to a more narrow argument. Thus the only photography areas where the trust issue is a reasonably valid issue at times is with nature and landscapes and even within those areas there are many situations where it does not apply. Of course outdoor nature and landscape is a favorite subject area of interest to not only we more experienced camera folk but also to the general public.

For instance with nature photography, there is hardly anything natural about use of flash with small closeup subjects yet that is a unquestionably acceptable technique that the public audience quite understands without explanation. And when one sees a landscape image taken at very slow shutter speeds in order to cause water subjects to blend blurring in smoothly, that is something that again does not represent our actual visual experiences but for which the public has no issue with trust because they obviously without explanation know what they are looking at and why. There are many more such exceptions I'm sure many here could chime in with. However as I've already mentioned in my previous posts, there are types of images where some of the public does tend to request trust. As where Eric p.10 mentioned about the Art Wolfe zebra images. Back when that happened pre-digi camera days, it was a huge emotional topic on the old Compuserve photography board.

Art was in a way blind sided by a newly rising gray issue that had not been openly discussed in the larger photography community. Heck there were not many of us that had Photoshop skills. Afterward a status quo for a clear need of disclosure on such published work was the overwhelming dominant opinion. The funny thing is that if that same thing happened today given all the new photographers working in digital as they are without much awareness of the past, that would hardly stir much discussion at all and one would expect many would say more power to him. How times have changed! Recently on one board I frequent, a photographer posted an image where he openly explained that he'd doctored the sky in order to make the form of clouds more aesthetically appealling. Telling was the responses of numbers of others that jumped right in saying such was all fine and gee he didn't need to come out and explain such (like we all are doing it...aren't we?). Obvious motives on posters were that they felt a bit guilty now hearing one of their own talk about such a taboo subject so openly. Just a year or two before they had graduated from doctoring images for telephone lines, jet contrails, etc as everyone seemed to be saying that was ok though back then there were still a lot of touchy individuals whining.

I could go on at length but again one musn't make these web posts too long. For those needing a primer on manipulation on a site that has been around a long time, go to the following link. By the way, few of my images fully conform to their requirements though I generally agree with much and applaud their attempt to raise trust: http://trustimage.org/

...David

Eric_Scott
21-Nov-2007, 14:50
But David, what about my suggestion that *you* be the one to label your images, not folks who are doing the "manipulations"? TrustImage requires exactly that.

David_Senesac
21-Nov-2007, 15:36
Hi Eric, having to break up my responses a chunk at a time. As to your post on p.9 about competition, your astute observation is rather valid and indeed an important motive regarding some of the commercial aspects, however the need for trust is a broader issue. I won't expand on that at the moment but rather comment on the fairness issue.

One sometimes reads heated posts by those jumping into the discussion relating those manufacturing images on a computer are "cheating" and not playing on a fair level playing field for the sake of web stroking and the almighty buck. Pre digi-camera days, those nature photographers that speciallized in wild animals out in the field vehemently protested when those eager to make a quick buck started taking pictures at game ranches. Real soon images of mountain lions, bears, etc were a dime a dozen. Few could make much money from those subjects in short order. Suggestions that such images might at least be labeled as such were overwhelming celebrated by those capturing images of wild animals the old fashion way but roundly ignored by those submitting images to usual clients who never turn down a cheaper way to satisfy their own product needs. Cheating again? The almighty buck in a marketplace without restraints is guaranteed to level playing fields, with fairness and integrity out the door.

Your other input suggesting it is we in the obviously wee minority that post reasonably natural images that have the burden of explaining our situation to the general public audience. Of course that has been and is the status quo. Magazines, media, and commercial manipulation product marketing pound that status quo that manipulation is king, into us relentlessly. An anything goes, more power to you if you got it situation most photographers especially those new to the game would say is fine. Well bye now, got to web download this new song from www pirates.com onto my MP3 player before I go out for a shoot at the snow leopard ranch. ...David

clay harmon
21-Nov-2007, 15:58
Okay, here is a funny thing in regard to Strand. Last summer, I had the chance to see first hand some gravure plates that Strand himself had done. In one of the images, he had very cleverly added a manhole cover to an image by altering the original negative in order to make the image more strong compositionally. And this image was made after he wrote the essay you mention. I find this a little humorous, and Strand is definitely one of my favorites, so I am not throwing stones at someone I don't respect. It is just a fact that manipulation in the service of artistic vision has been around for a long time, and it ain't going away.

BTW, in another of my complete non-sequiturs, I found another instance of a European painter blatantly ripping off an American photographer. In this instance Ferdinand Hodler had the sheer audacity in the 1920's to copy this well known 1962 photo of Diane Arbus. You can see this delight in the Musee D'Orsay at the moment.



I thought it was brilliant as well. I reread it every so often. He also writes about his dislike of those who focus on trying to be artists with their photography. He mentions painters in Germany who saw Stieglitz's photo's saying: "Of course, this is not Art, but we would like to paint the way you photograph". Stieglitz's reply was: "I don't know anything about Art, but for some reason or other I have never wanted to photograph the way you paint". Strand remarks: "There you have a complete statement of the difference between the attitide of Stieglitz towards photography, and practically every other photographer". He mentiones Stieglitz's "recent exhibition" where Stieglitz set aside the question of whether photography is or isn't art as of no importance to him. "Exactly, because nobody knows what art is, or God or all the other abstractions, particularly those who make claims to such knowledge". He says a lot more. Must read article, as it's very thought provoking.

Greg Lockrey
21-Nov-2007, 16:03
I don't know, if I was to beleive your stages nobody is an artist...... I think you better go back and work on your stages again. ;)


There is a lot of stolen art! Yes, there are a lot who should never have been called an artist in the first place. But think about the concept that a person willing to buy your art with his time to earn the money and another willing to go to jail (give up his time) for your time to make it.

tim atherton
21-Nov-2007, 16:03
Okay, here is a funny thing in regard to Strand. Last summer, I had the chance to see first hand some gravure plates that Strand himself had done. In one of the images, he had very cleverly added a manhole cover to an image by altering the original negative in order to make the image more strong compositionally.

he also removed people and did other similar things to improve the composition of photographs

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 16:12
There is a lot of stolen art! Yes, there are a lot who should never have been called an artist in the first place. But think about the concept that a person willing to buy your art with his time to earn the money and another willing to go to jail (give up his time) for your time to make it.

YOu better get back on topic, who cares if there is a lot of stolen art.

Greg Lockrey
21-Nov-2007, 16:27
YOu better get back on topic, who cares if there is a lot of stolen art.

I'm just merely setting the standard between "craft" and "art". All this other nonsense about photos that can't be manipulated to be called art is just that, nonsense.

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 16:38
I'm just merely setting the standard between "craft" and "art". All this other nonsense about photos that can't be manipulated to be called art is just that, nonsense.

whatever... :rolleyes:

Greg Lockrey
21-Nov-2007, 16:46
whatever... :rolleyes:

You call a piece that you sell "art", what do you call a piece that doesn't?

Eric_Scott
21-Nov-2007, 16:49
Okay, here is a funny thing in regard to Strand. Last summer, I had the chance to see first hand some gravure plates that Strand himself had done. In one of the images, he had very cleverly added a manhole cover to an image by altering the original negative in order to make the image more strong compositionally. And this image was made after he wrote the essay you mention. I find this a little humorous, and Strand is definitely one of my favorites, so I am not throwing stones at someone I don't respect. It is just a fact that manipulation in the service of artistic vision has been around for a long time, and it ain't going away.


You have to read the entire article. It wasn't manipulation itself that was his complaint. It was the kind of manipulation engaged in by the Pictorialists. What he called "a meaningless mixture between paint and photography". Photographers introducing what he called "a paint feeling" into their photographs. If I understand him correctly, he wouldn't have a problem with manipulation using *purely* photographic means. Why? Because the result is *clearly* a photograph. It was the oiling and gumming that he didn't like. That's the difference. So I would say his article is entirely consistent with his practices.

I brought up Strand not so much about his comments regarding manipulation and the Pictorialists, but his coments with respect to photographers worrying about being considered Artists.

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 17:24
You call a piece that you sell "art", what do you call a piece that doesn't?

Back to the ignore list... :rolleyes:

RDKirk
21-Nov-2007, 17:28
If I understand him correctly, he wouldn't have a problem with manipulation using *purely* photographic means. Why? Because the result is *clearly* a photograph. It was the oiling and gumming that he didn't like. That's the difference. So I would say his article is entirely consistent with his practices.

I could probably buy this. I heavily retouch my portraits, but I don't like the use of Corel Paint and such to make them look as though they were painted. I prefer the work--though retouched--to be clearly a photograph. Whereas a painting might be totally the result of the artist's imagination, that which is still clearly a photograph gives the viewer an impression that this had, indeed, been a living person.

But this has nothing to do with "is it art" or "is it photography" or "this is what photography has to be."

harrykauf
21-Nov-2007, 18:08
Jorge: there is nothing wrong with selling. But I think there is a difference between
creating work purely as some form of personal expression and then trying to find a market
for it, or first look at a certain market and then create work for it.
The first type will be the hardest in most cases but has the least restrictions or "rules"
to follow. Thats why I think one should not apply rules from one segment of the
market onto another that doesnt even try to compete in the same area.

Jorge Gasteazoro
21-Nov-2007, 20:47
Jorge: there is nothing wrong with selling. But I think there is a difference between
creating work purely as some form of personal expression and then trying to find a market
for it, or first look at a certain market and then create work for it.
The first type will be the hardest in most cases but has the least restrictions or "rules"
to follow. Thats why I think one should not apply rules from one segment of the
market onto another that doesnt even try to compete in the same area.

So, in other words you beleive starving is good for the artist. Are you a photographer? Do you sell prints, take commercial jobs, do you make your livelihood as a photographer in any area? I am betting you do not.

Of course there is nothing wrong with selling, but nowhere is there a rule where it says you have to hate the job you do to make money and that which you do for "personal expression" is excluded and more "pure". This is a load of BS which I have no idea where it came from but some people sure have bought into it.

Greg Lockrey
22-Nov-2007, 04:33
Back to the ignore list... :rolleyes:

Oh come on Jorge, does this mean I'm supposed to take you off my Buddy list? :( The answer is Practice. :D

harrykauf
22-Nov-2007, 05:24
So, in other words you beleive starving is good for the artist.

No.

harrykauf
22-Nov-2007, 05:28
Of course there is nothing wrong with selling, but nowhere is there a rule where it says you have to hate the job you do to make money and that which you do for "personal expression" is excluded and more "pure". This is a load of BS which I have no idea where it came from but some people sure have bought into it.

You just wrote it, thats where it came from.

billschwab
22-Nov-2007, 08:15
If you dig down deep beneath all the talk, the real issue is competition, although that word isn't used.... How can you compete with someone who can create the same thing *at will* on the computer?... This goes to my point about the issue not being "trust" but about competition. Imagine if you worked in the "honest style". How long would you have to wait for those friggin animals to get in the right position? Meanwhile your competitor is publishing his book!Funny... I've never thought of art OR photography as a competition.

Bill

Greg Lockrey
22-Nov-2007, 08:52
Funny... I've never thought of art OR photography as a competition.

Bill

It all depends on your motives, Bill.;)

sanking
22-Nov-2007, 09:13
Funny... I've never thought of art OR photography as a competition.

Bill


I am with Bill on this. Photography for me is not a competition, and I have no desire to seek a competitive advantage over anyone by labeling my prints. I usually include on the back such information as process, chemistry, exposure time, when and where the original negative was made, when printed, and what type of negative it was (digital, in-camera, etc.). This is in part for my own information in the future should I want to make a re-print.

For exhibitions photographers are often asked to provide an artist statement. I am happy to do so if asked because I believe it is important for others to understand the aesthetic principles that guide a photographer in his/her work. If not asked to do so I am hopeful that viewers are able to see for themselves that my photography is based on discovery (seeing/finding) at the moment the image is captured, and on subsequent craftsmanship in printing.

I consider myself a straight photographer and deliberately avoid manipulation that would IMO alter the representational reality of the scene. Yes, I am well aware of the fact that a monochrome photograph does not show the true, objective reality of a scene in nature. But in the end what is true reality? If you know the answer to that put it in a bottle and market it. TV evangelists do it all the time.

I have absolutely nothing agsinst highly manipulated photographic art. In fact, I have done a lot of that over the years, and also made prints with some of the pictorial processes that modernists like Strand so despised. If that is the kind of work you like, do it and be proud of your work.

Sandy King

Eric_Scott
22-Nov-2007, 09:41
Funny... I've never thought of art OR photography as a competition.

Bill

You probably aren't in the business of color nature/landscape photography. These are the folks with the trust issue, for the most part professional color nature photographers, who want the manufacturer's of images to label them as such. Most folks in business have a competitor. My comments don't refer to any other type of photography. They certainly have nothing to do with art. The labeling has nothing to do with process, chemistry, etc. To put it bluntly, the folks I refer to above want those who "cheat" in color nature/landscape photography to say so. Oh. If these folks I refer to above aren't competing with one another, then it makes absolutely no sense for them to accuse one another of "cheating".

CG
22-Nov-2007, 10:25
..... being brought up in discussions ... mostly by what I like to call the "film fanatics" is that digital folks are really not true photographers since they Photoshop their images and that just ain't cool because when they do that PS crap their images are no longer pure.....

I feel a rant coming on ....

I keep being disappointed by the too frequently limited critical vision I see on the various BBs. While personally waayy more in love with film than digital, and while I despise the onset of destruction of film by digital, I just don't see the credibility of the "digital is fake photography" concept. Like all such maxims, it's bull.

Rant continues ... There's too much reliance upon faux aesthetic critical junk like the "rule of thirds", "Full range of tones from pure white to pure black" etc. Such guidelines are meaningless and misleading.

In the end, it's all about developing a personal vision and finding out what tools get you there. I really don't care if someone uses a bit of Tri-x or a computer chip or a brush or a sponge or their elbow. What I want is an engaging visual experience. Sure, for some folks, a craft based, highly technically controlled process yields worthwhile results, but for a huge crowd, the craft is like the lamppost for the drunk, support, but not illumination.

Lots of digital stuff is overdone without a vision that makes the manipulation work. Much traditional film based photography is insufferably timid, and relies upon an aesthetic that is utterly conventional. and lacks any surprise or spice whatsoever. Much of both silver and digital work seem to have lots of craft and too little art. Boring but acceptable? No. Just boring. I'll gladly sacrifice a bit of the craft if someone will give me work I want to steal and put on my wall.

I don't mind at all if someone learns enough to know when to walk away. Hmm, maybe that's the best? But I think it all starts from some sort of vision.


...Maybe Witkin tore up his Artistic License a long time ago and applied for the even-more-difficult-to-get Total Mojo Voodoo License! :) But I'm pretty sure of this: this guy is WAY into seeing. SEE. He might even be a seer :
http://www.edelmangallery.com/witkin.htm

I'm not sure I like Wikin any more, I used to, but the Total Mojo Voodoo Licenses need to be more sought after and lots of the craft licenses need to be revoked. Way too many people know the exact sensitometric characteristics of their favorite materials etc., but haven't a clue what to make from them.

OK. I'm over it.

C

sanking
22-Nov-2007, 14:18
Donald Miller started the thread with this comment:

"One of the things that I keep observing as being brought up in discussions...mostly by what I like to call the "film fanatics" is that digital folks are really not true photographers since they photoshop their images and that just ain't cool because when they do that PS crap their images are no longer pure."

In 144 responses prior to this one there was not a single "film fanatic", as Donald so graciously put it, who made any claim that Photoshop images or manipulated photography are crap. Yet there have quite a number of messages, including several by Donald himself, who claim that their method of working is more "artistic" than so-called "straight" photography. So who are the real dogmatists?

I hope the irony was not missed by everyone else.

Sandy King

Donald Miller
22-Nov-2007, 22:45
Donald Miller started the thread with this comment:

"One of the things that I keep observing as being brought up in discussions...mostly by what I like to call the "film fanatics" is that digital folks are really not true photographers since they photoshop their images and that just ain't cool because when they do that PS crap their images are no longer pure."

In 144 responses prior to this one there was not a single "film fanatic", as Donald so graciously put it, who made any claim that Photoshop images or manipulated photography are crap. Yet there have quite a number of messages, including several by Donald himself, who claim that their method of working is more "artistic" than so-called "straight" photography. So who are the real dogmatists?

I hope the irony was not missed by everyone else.

Sandy King

Sandy, To respond, I must say that I was really very surprised and gratefully so, I might add, at the level of discourse in this discussion. I attribute this to a better reasoned crowd than another forum that I frequented prior to this.

Now that you have taken me to task, I do believe that there were several here that indicated a personal disdain for digital capture and process...if not in this thread, than it may have been in the one that Jim Galli started or the one on Brooks Jensen's question...to be honest I don't want to prove a point by rereading all of those in order to do that...it just isn't that important to me. Furthermore, it is within the right of each person to choose their method of expression.

I do stand by my assessment that technical proficiency does not creative or artistic output make. Furthermore, I will go on to say that I believe that there can be no limitations on creative process.

Until recently I engaged only in straight photography. I still do a fair amount of that. I have not done any heavy manipulation of any images because I am in the infancy of my use of Photoshop.

RDKirk
23-Nov-2007, 09:06
In 144 responses prior to this one there was not a single "film fanatic", as Donald so graciously put it, who made any claim that Photoshop images or manipulated photography are crap. Yet there have quite a number of messages, including several by Donald himself, who claim that their method of working is more "artistic" than so-called "straight" photography. So who are the real dogmatists?

I did not note that at all (but I'm not going to go through all the posts to prove it one way or another). If any particular ones caught your attention, you could quote them.

But here are a couple of quotes just yesterday from another forum:


For a photographer, controlling light to create great pictures is more interesting and rewarding than miniplating the image in post processing. I think most of us started photography with the desire to spend more time behind the lens shooting than behind the screen editing.

Last but not least, its important that photographers do not trick people. Present people with a photo and they will react to it as "real". Present them with a painting and they will treat it as "fiction". So, the last thing I would want to do as a photographer is to trick people into thinking "fiction" is "fact", and man, extreme editing is one sure way to do that.



To treat photographs as a unique representer of fact, and to treat other expressive media as fiction is meaningless. Would you argue that, before things could be represented photographically, that all representative art forms (busts, portraits in oil, etc) were "fiction?" I'm sure most history scholars would disagree. Yet that's exactly where your characterization of the media leads us; to a fundamentally absurd conclusion.

Now, a painting or sculpture, of course, leaves a great deal more room for artistic discretion (choice of paint, choice of brush-strokes, emphasis, etc.). You would have us place limits on the expressive discretion of photographers such that what they capture is close to being "factual," and hence distinguish our work from that of an oil painter who, despite his best efforts to be accurate, represents a person in a portrait as "fiction." I don't see why we should do that, particularly when the factual nature of what we capture may be of almost no importance. What is the value of "fact" in a photograph that is designed to make a client look the best he or she can? That's not reportage photography, and hence, should not be prisoner to that medium's professional constraints.

billschwab
23-Nov-2007, 10:49
I attribute this to a better reasoned crowd than another forum that I frequented prior to this.Donald, with all due respect, I am inclined to believe that your OP came more from a chip on your shoulder for "another forum" than anything else. I don't see where the discussion you bring needs the backstory of persecution from "film fanatics". The story of digital vs analog is an old and tired one and in my experience as of late is told more from the side of new digital converts than anyone else.


I do stand by my assessment that technical proficiency does not creative or artistic output make.On this I could not agree more.

Bill

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 11:45
I do stand by my assessment that technical proficiency does not creative or artistic output make.

I agree with you. If I didn't misunderstand what you wrote above, it can be stated this way: technical proficiency is not a sufficient condition for creative or artistic output.

Now I have a question: Is technical proficiency a necessary condition for creative or artistic output?

There's a difference between the two.

I must confess, Sandy's observation escaped me.

Donald Miller
23-Nov-2007, 12:17
Donald, with all due respect, I am inclined to believe that your OP came more from a chip on your shoulder for "another forum" than anything else. I don't see where the discussion you bring needs the backstory of persecution from "film fanatics". The story of digital vs analog is an old and tired one and in my experience as of late is told more from the side of new digital converts than anyone else.

On this I could not agree more.

Bill

Bill,

I believe that you are entitled to your perception and consequent interpertation. I will say that you are accurate that my original post was based in my prior experience. That experience was valid and factual. I had not entered into either digital bashing or digital defense on that forum...I chose not to enter into the conflict. However I came to a point where I got tired of listening to the ongoing disparaging remarks and elitism and I chose to leave for that reason among others.

I will say that I was guilty of transferring my prior experience to this site and for that I was wrong. I am sorry that this occurred.

Donald Miller
23-Nov-2007, 12:31
I agree with you. If I didn't misunderstand what you wrote above, it can be stated this way: technical proficiency is not a sufficient condition for creative or artistic output.

Now I have a question: Is technical proficiency a necessary condition for creative or artistic output?

There's a difference between the two.

I must confess, Sandy's observation escaped me.

Eric, What I am about to say are my honest thoughts on the matter. I am sure that others may not think about this in the same way...

In my opinion technical proficiency is an absolute non starter when it comes to creativity. What is a requirement is the ability to consider alternatives or possiblilies...some would consider this to be their ability to intuit.

Also in my opinion technical proficiency is among the lower one half of the requirements to express oneself artistically. Certainly one must have some means of expression...but that is not the matter of primary importance. More importantly is personal knowledge of oneself, one's struggles, one's triumphs, and one's losses...having lived enough life to know oneself and their relationship of the world that they inhabit and to know this well enough to express a part of themselves arising from this living experience that is in common with their fellow man. I think that art may be beautiful but not necessarily so...it more effectively poses questions or recognizes conditions common to all man. You will note that I nowhere stated that I felt that it was necessary for photographers to have a firm knowledge of the Zone System or the latest and greatest...you fill in the blank.

I hope that this answers your questions. These are my honest thoughts on the matter.

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 12:44
I hope that this answers your questions. These are my honest thoughts on the matter.

Stating that technical proficiency is a necessary condition for creative or artistic output does not include any claim that it is more or less important than other necessary conditions that must be met. However, you did go beyond my question and state that you believe it is less important than other necessary conditions. I want to be clear for anyone reading this post that this was not my question. Donald's answer to the question I did ask is yes.

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 12:52
I think I just found a funny example of this kind of "cheating".


Good Grief. You missed the point entirely. Your example has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of cheating that David referred to in his post. Now if you had shown an image of a squirrel kissing a bear in Yosemite that was in fact manipulated, that would be a funny example of what David is talking about.

harrykauf
23-Nov-2007, 13:01
Good Grief. You missed the point entirely. Your example has absolutely nothing to do with the kind of cheating that David referred to in his post. Now if you had shown an image of a squirrel kissing a bear in Yosemite that was in fact manipulated, that would be a funny example of what David is talking about.

so it only ever applies to nature photos?

tim atherton
23-Nov-2007, 13:07
so it only ever applies to nature photos?

As referred to in the course of this thread, yes - and a certain type of nature photo at that. And also possibly a fairly narrow field of landscape photography.

Even so called documentary photography doesn't really count - as it's pretty much a fictitious category anyway

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 13:13
Thank you Tim, you saved me the trouble. The key phrase is: "as referred to in the course of this thread".

billschwab
23-Nov-2007, 14:24
That experience was valid and factual. ...ongoing disparaging remarks and elitism and I chose to leave for that reason among others.As you say Donald, it is all a matter of perception and interpretation.


I chose not to enter into the conflict.Which is why I am confused as to why you are bringing it here. It seems many of the same people populate this community.

Bill

Marko
23-Nov-2007, 14:39
As you say Donald, it is all a matter of perception and interpretation.

Which is why I am confused as to why you are bringing it here. It seems many of the same people populate this community.

Bill

The purpose of this board is very different from that other one, and yet some of those people seem to be trying to force that philosophy on the rest of this board. They are certainly entitled to their opinions, but so are the rest of us and being constantly faced with a barrage of disparaging comments which often have little or no bearing to the true topic discussed gets tiring real fast.

The obvious reaction on that other board is to leave, since that kind of venting is essentially its mission statement and questioning the underlying premisses can get one thrown out. When that starts happening in other places, as some of those people obviously see it as their mission to spread the word, it is only natural that those of us who find it irritating start arguing the point.

billschwab
23-Nov-2007, 15:09
The purpose of this board is very different from that other one, and yet some of those people seem to be trying to force that philosophy on the rest of this board.I have found it refreshing here in that I have not seen this kind of behavior. As you can see by my number of posts however, I am relatively new here. Maybe I am just not looking hard enough?

What I have seen is a lot of bashing of that "other site" on this board (passive or otherwise) when I can't say I've seen the same of this board there. Why, if that other place is so awful, do people here continue to bring it up? I just don't understand the hostility and the need to vent here about there.

Bill

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 15:25
I will say that I was guilty of transferring my prior experience to this site and for that I was wrong. I am sorry that this occurred.

He said he was sorry. What else do you want from him?

Marko
23-Nov-2007, 16:13
I have found it refreshing here in that I have not seen this kind of behavior. As you can see by my number of posts however, I am relatively new here. Maybe I am just not looking hard enough?

Quite possibly. Or perhaps you don't find that particular kind of comments offensive. Or maybe you just have different sensibilities or even different perspective.

We're all different, that's good and that's why this is called discussion board - a place to discuss our different takes on life.

sanking
23-Nov-2007, 19:43
The obvious reaction on that other board is to leave, since that kind of venting is essentially its mission statement and questioning the underlying premisses can get one thrown out.

Marko,

So far as I know you have never participated on APUG and your premise that someone who questions the underlying premises of the forum will be thrown out has no basis in fact. Some people have been banned from the forum, but not because they questioned the "underlying premises of the forum." Unless you can show that you original assertion is correct I think you should apologize for your comments.

People on this forum who are also familiar with APUG know for fact certain that I have many times questioned the basic philosophy of the forum, on the site. In spite of that Sean has never threatened to "throw me out." To the contrary, he created an analogue/digital hybrid sub-forum on APUG, which is now an independent and separate forum. See http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/


Sandy King

Ted Harris
23-Nov-2007, 20:48
I find this entire thread puzzling. While I do understand the OP's original point, I still don't understand the supposed dichotomy between traditional and digital processing. Maybe i said it too politely earlier in the thread so I'll repeat it. Those of us who have been involved with all aspects of photography for many years, especially in commercial activities, particularly advertising related, have long been accustomed to heavily manipulated final images. Thus, even the original premise is a strawman. Any photographer (or photo editor or art director, etc.) who wanted to cheat has been able to do so for many decades. 40 years ago advertising agencies were doing all the same manipulation they do today and clearly not doing it digitally. So, who is to say that even some nature photographers didn't do the same? If it was well done it would take a forensic expert to detect.

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 21:25
I find this entire thread puzzling. While I do understand the OP's original point, I still don't understand the supposed dichotomy between traditional and digital processing.

I don't think the "cheating" aspect of color nature/landscape photography was introduced in this thread (which happened quite some time after the thread was started) as a digital vs. analog argument.



Any photographer (or photo editor or art director, etc.) who wanted to cheat has been able to do so for many decades. 40 years ago advertising agencies were doing all the same manipulation they do today and clearly not doing it digitally. So, who is to say that even some nature photographers didn't do the same? If it was well done it would take a forensic expert to detect.

The digital aspect was brought up because prior to the ubiquity of Photoshop Elements on everybody's PC, the "public" didn't realize that what you describe has been common for some time in the pre-digital days. Now the "public" understands what's possible, and that awareness arose with their increasing awareness of digital technology. At least this is what I understood David to say. Of course the result of this is that digital is wrongly associated with "cheating" by the public. At a minimum they are now suspicious, whereas prior to their awareness of digital imaging they had no reason to be suspicious because they didn't have the required analog facilities at home, hence they didn't know what was possible back then.

Yes, that was a runon sentence.

Remember, the "cheating" aspect was not brought up by Donald at all in his OP. It was brought up much later.

Ted Harris
23-Nov-2007, 21:44
Agree that the "cheating" aspect came much later. Back to what I said earlier on this thread and on other threads. I really think that most of the public doesn't care. Some photographers care, some gallery owners care.

Eric_Scott
23-Nov-2007, 21:53
Agree that the "cheating" aspect came much later. Back to what I said earlier on this thread and on other threads. I really think that most of the public doesn't care. Some photographers care, some gallery owners care.

David's last post on the subject essentially said exactly that with respect to color nature/landscape photographers. I do note that via another thread, QT stated that nature photographers have an implicit contract with the public that they will not depict something that does not exist. I don't know what most nature photographers think, but I am of the opinion that most of the public still cares. Maybe another thread should be started on that topic?

Marko
24-Nov-2007, 01:56
Sandy,

Actually, I did participate on APUG in a few threads but you may not be aware of it because it was under a pseudonym. It wasn't much, though, only a few discussions, and none of them controversial. I did not feel like questioning the basic philosophy because I believe it is the right of the board's owner to determine what is it going to be and my right is to decide whether I want to participate under such premises or not.

In the end I decided not to, so while I still try to read something here and there, I do not participate in the discussions nor do I log in any more. The reason is NOT because they are dedicated to film, but because of all the senseless anti-digital diatribes even in topics that have absolutely nothing to do with it.

While I personally never got banned, there were other people I know or who I know of that got banned precisely because they brought up the verboten topic.

I did not say anything that is patently untrue and therefore I do not feel the need to apologize for my comments - they simply reflect my opinion of the overall environment there.

As the side note, the reason why I chose to comment on it here is again not APUG itself, but the fact that several of the participants seem to be increasingly trying to transplant the same confrontational behaviour to this board. Apparently, I am not the only one noticing this trend. This board was very different from the other one when I decided to join and I would prefer it to stay that way.




Marko,

So far as I know you have never participated on APUG and your premise that someone who questions the underlying premises of the forum will be thrown out has no basis in fact. Some people have been banned from the forum, but not because they questioned the "underlying premises of the forum." Unless you can show that you original assertion is correct I think you should apologize for your comments.

People on this forum who are also familiar with APUG know for fact certain that I have many times questioned the basic philosophy of the forum, on the site. In spite of that Sean has never threatened to "throw me out." To the contrary, he created an analogue/digital hybrid sub-forum on APUG, which is now an independent and separate forum. See http://www.hybridphoto.com/forums/


Sandy King

sanking
24-Nov-2007, 08:22
Marko,

I find it ridiculous that you would attempt to blame APUG, or former members of APUG, for controversies that are taking place here on the LF forum. What happens on this forum is subject to the LF moderators. If you are not happy with the way things are going you should take it up with QT or the moderators. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas should be the principle.

My take on the level of discourse of APUG and the LF forum is completely different from yours. APUG has a very pro-active way of ending discussions that get out of hand, in contrast to more hands off policy of moderators of the LF forum. I participate on both forums and my take on the subject is that there have been a lot more flame wars here than on APUG.

But mainly I just find it very bad form to blame APUG for discussions on the LF forum.

Sandy King

RDKirk
24-Nov-2007, 09:40
I don't know what most nature photographers think, but I am of the opinion that most of the public still cares.

I'm of the opinion that most of the public does not care.

If we can find a circumstance where a nature photographer or a nature photography publication was discovered to have fudged an image and consequently lost significant income from general public appreciation of his work, then I'll have been proven wrong. I pointed out one circumstance above in which such a revelation made no such difference.

Marko
24-Nov-2007, 10:53
Marko,

I find it ridiculous that you would attempt to blame APUG, or former members of APUG, for controversies that are taking place here on the LF forum. What happens on this forum is subject to the LF moderators. If you are not happy with the way things are going you should take it up with QT or the moderators. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas should be the principle.

Sandy,

What I am trying to make clear is that I definitely do not blame APUG as such for what is happening here. Like I said, the direction and the philosophy of that board is entirely the prerogative of the board's owner and I respect that. That does not mean I have to like it or agree with it, quite to the contrary, so after a brief participation, I decided it was not the place I would feel comfortable at and I left.

I am, however, blaming a few of their current or former number for some confrontations that are happening as of lately here, and increasingly so. The reason I have mentioned APUG is precisely because they are bringing the same diatribes that I find commonplace there, some of them almost verbatim. In my opinion, they are trying to transplant the negative and confrontational part of the APUG's spirit as I see it here.

Please note that I say "a few of the current and former members" - that definitely does not mean "everybody" on the board, nor its owner and moderators. In fact, I have nothing but very high respect for a couple of their moderators who are regular participants here and whom I have never heard saying anything even remotely similar to the behaviour in question. What I find sad, and I stated that before too, is that the board has a real potential to be a treasure trove for traditional processes but it gets drowned out because it was set up as a reaction and an antithesis to digital rather than as just traditional photography interest group.

But in the end, it is precisely as you say - what happens in Vegas should stay in Vegas. The question is: which Vegas?


My take on the level of discourse of APUG and the LF forum is completely different from yours. APUG has a very pro-active way of ending discussions that get out of hand, in contrast to more hands off policy of moderators of the LF forum. I participate on both forums and my take on the subject is that there have been a lot more flame wars here than on APUG.

Well, yes, just as we carry a very different personal "weight", both here and there. I think someone of your standing is much less likely to have the "attitude" directed at them in the first place, which is only normal. Secondly, we necessarily do have different preferences and perspectives and that certainly influences the way we perceive some of the discussions. And finally, we each have different temperaments and therefore prefer different policies.


But mainly I just find it very bad form to blame APUG for discussions on the LF forum.

In the end, yes, you are right - it is bad form, even in the light of everything I just said. My mistake was that I tried to reason with the unreasonable and got baited in the process. Those few are now safely tucked away on my ignore list, which is what I should've done from the very beginning.

Marko

Eric_Scott
24-Nov-2007, 11:01
I'm of the opinion that most of the public does not care.

If we can find a circumstance where a nature photographer or a nature photography publication was discovered to have fudged an image and consequently lost significant income from general public appreciation of his work, then I'll have been proven wrong. I pointed out one circumstance above in which such a revelation made no such difference.

Are you referring to Art Wolfe? I do know for a fact that he now indicates in his books which images have been digitially manipulated. Why does he do this if the public doesn't give a hoot? He began doing this after the incident I mentioned. I don't know if sales of his "Migrations" book was impacted or not. If it wasn't, perhaps it's because he labels his images as David suggests.

Also I take it that the implicit contract that QT, Galen and others speak of is no contract at all but an old wives tale?

In the end I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. :-)

tim atherton
24-Nov-2007, 11:03
add in the apug members who signed up on here purely to come across and try and throw their weight around like a bunch of little brownshirt thugs, just because they didn't like what was being said here

David_Senesac
24-Nov-2007, 11:35
I'm of the opinion that most of the public does not care.

If we can find a circumstance where a nature photographer or a nature photography publication was discovered to have fudged an image and consequently lost significant income from general public appreciation of his work, then I'll have been proven wrong. ...

I don't think that is a reasonable standard to base that opinion on. I'll grant some such situations would indeed exist however lets not put the bar there. We all walk past most art that is displayed in any venue and choose only a few pieces to look at more closely for a wide variety of reasons. And some of those reasons vary from time to time. A person looking for a really striking highly saturated sunset photograph wandering through a number of booths at an art fair might walk right past almost every image on display. Then seeing something really striking zoom right in regardless of whether it looks natural or not and then consider a purchase. After that customer leaves how do any artists within that art fair evaluate that they lost that customer?

In like manner a person looking for something natural in sunset landscapes might view a number of booths with obvious unnatural contrast and saturation before seeing a more believable print that fits the style they personally prefers. After buying the print they might offer that photographer a compliment about the image while it is highly unlikely they would bother to visit all the other like category images in the fair just to personally criticize photographers in those booths. In fact most folks are likely to avoid direct criticism like that with any artists they don't know simply because it is distasteful and especially so in public.

On the other hand your opinion that a majority of the public does not care may well be true. There are certainly many that know full and well what they are looking at and simply don't give a rat's a one way or another as long as it appeals visually to them. And many of course have rather primitive philosophies about any types of art, thus see something they fancy and want it. Then there are those that might care, especially those that spend their lives mostly in urban areas, that simply tend to be rather ignorant of what is and what isn't an image of natural phenomenon. Likewise despite the considerable awakening of their awareness of how digital manipulation occurs now, many in the public are still rather ignorant about processes used by professional photographers and what they can do. So even if they didn't want an unnatural image, they wouldn't be able to tell. I certainly haven't come close to mentioning all the perspectives of public audiences.

In any case it is true that a still significant number of people will care more or less to different degrees. So despite the fact a majority might not care, enough do that the issue does bear on the photographic community to consider being more honest and up front. Not really much to ask unless someone has something to hide. One need look no further than public web forums of all sorts that post images to see it is occassionally a subject of intense discourse. ...David