Must your image be technical perfect ?

[jnantz]

Well, this kind of forum is pretty much suited to discussion about specific technique. And knowing how and when to tailor certain aspects like microtonality can have a distinct impact on what a print itself says. There are images where I might want to diminish or understate that a little, and in others, enhance it, just like a painter selects from either flat or pointed brushes, or potentially even frayed ones. Same goes with grain structure: whether we want visible grain or not in the print, how grain growth affects visible edge effect itself, and so forth. It's not necessarily empty technical talk at all. Calling it bragging is pretty much playing Pope in order to condemn pontificating. But I guess that's inevitable when the title of this thread implies that there are set prescriptions to technical "perfection". The way I look at it is the advantage of having a rather full tool kit. One doesn't need to use every tool in it every time, but does need to know when to use a particular tool or technique to best advantage. But tools are only a means to an end.

please look at Michael R's post.

no, it is empty technical talk I'm sorry to say you are wrong Drew. A boring photograph that is technically perfect is still a boring photograph no matter how you have manipulated the grain or micro contrast, or bellows to suit your needs. It is still as interesting as watching paint dry. As mentioned Lartrigue's photograph is anything but perfection and it is one of the most perfect I have seen. ... and there must be something to it seeing there was going to be a workshop in Nevada with an old car going fast and a bunch of LF photographers trying to mimic the wheels ... 110 years later...

[Michael R]

please look at Michael R's post.

no, it is empty technical talk I'm sorry to say you are wrong Drew. A boring photograph that is technically perfect is still a boring photograph no matter how you have manipulated the grain or micro contrast, or bellows to suit your needs. It is still as interesting as watching paint dry. As mentioned Lartrigue's photograph is anything but perfection and it is one of the most perfect I have seen. ... and there must be something to it seeing there was going to be a workshop in Nevada with an old car going fast and a bunch of LF photographers trying to mimic the wheels ... 110 years later...

Don't get me in trouble with Drew!

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah... What counts is the "composition", even though someone can't even properly play a single chord on the piano. And what's the "proof"of the alleged epidemic of mere technique idolatry- web images ???? Get real. More of the same ole BORING arguments that mean zero in the real world, as if everyone of us needs to get pigeonholed into one of two camps : proficient and boring versus sloppy and creative. But how can anyone be wrong with a 100% record of statistical proof? - even though that statistical pool consists at this point of exactly one Lartrigue image. Yep, everyone try to copy that ... that's real creativity all right. Maybe there should be a convention in Vegas for flat tire enthusiasts instead of Elvis impersonators. ... Sorry, but I evaluate prints with my eyes, not according to some mutually exclusive ideological manifesto.

[jnantz]

Don't get me in trouble with Drew!

HA! I thought you were AI . I miss Jeeves!

Yeah... What counts is the "composition", even though someone can't even properly play a single chord on the piano. And what's the "proof"of the alleged epidemic of mere technique idolatry- web images ???? Get real. More of the same ole BORING arguments that mean zero in the real world, as if everyone of us needs to get pigeonholed into one of two camps : proficient and boring versus sloppy and creative. But how can anyone be wrong with a 100% record of statistical proof? - even though that statistical pool consists at this point of exactly one Lartrigue image. Yep, everyone try to copy that ... that's real creativity all right. Maybe there should be a convention in Vegas for flat tire enthusiasts instead of Elvis impersonators. ... Sorry, but I evaluate prints with my eyes, not according to some mutually exclusive ideological manifesto.

The Lartrigue image was just an example, there are millions of non technically perfect images made since photography was born that are more interesting than a kind of boring well composed, technically perfect image. If you need "big names" for me to refer to how about anything by DisFarmer, Eggelston, Hine, Bourke, White, Frank, Riis. Miroslav Tichy, Avedon, Fenton, NADAR or .... There's more to photography than bragging how perfect one's images are, how they too good for the internet and large format camera and modern-darkroom gymnastics. Have anymore insults to sling?

[Drew Wiley]

Then you've got masters of technique long before any of those (except Nadar) - Carleton Watkins, Muybridge, P.H. Emerson, Sella - I guess none of that counts? Steichen apparently never lived. And some of the persons you do mention paid a LOT of money for a level of darkroom skill they themselves didn't have. Nadar had work printed in Woodburytype - the Rolls Royce of techniques for that era. Eggleston had his images printed in dye transfer for gosh knows how many hundreds of dollars apiece, not at Photomat for fifteen cents apiece. And here you are trying to convince us that they didn't care all that much about technique. Interesting mythology.

[jnantz]

Then you've got masters of technique long before any of those (except Nadar) - Carleton Watkins, Muybridge, P.H. Emerson, Sella - I guess none of that counts? Steichen apparently never lived. And some of the persons you do mention paid a LOT of money for a level of darkroom skill they themselves didn't have. Nadar had work printed in Woodburytype - the Rolls Royce of techniques for that era. Eggleston had his images printed in dye transfer for gosh knows how many hundreds of dollars apiece, not at Photomat for fifteen cents apiece. And here you are trying to convince us that they didn't care all that much about technique. Interesting mythology.

They were just people off the top of my head, as I said millions of photographs. Please don’t put words in my mouth, I didn’t say they didn’t care about technique or darkroom work ( pre panchromatic photography was/is much harder than panchromatic photography to start with… so there's that) I said some of their images aren’t technically perfect, hold one’s interest, and are much more interesting than a boring well composed yet technically perfect print. Nothing to do with a mythology of any sort but photographers with something to say that's more than "look at this grain structure, micro contrast, how I cut the mat board &c". I’m sure if the internet existed they would not have said their work was too good to be published/ seen/presented to a modern “salon” online, or have a website. It’s interesting you slap around eggleston lol … he made perfectly-imperfect dye transfer prints and a show of his work at MOMA. I guess the curator didn’t really think he was a Fotomat-hack like you.

tastes change I guess but the war between technically perfect photography and creativity has been going on since the beginning..

[Michael R]

Don't forget Atget - the OG stand development guy

[bmikiten]

It's not an imperfection if it's intentional.

This may be the real definition. If the final image matches your preconceived vision then you have reached the goal. It also assumes that you have control of your craft.

[Sal Santamaura]

Don't get me in trouble with Drew!

What higher honor could John accord you?

[Drew Wiley]

Atget - he was meticulously irreverent about scratching dates in his negs, but a compositional fanatic. The best ever in my opinion. The oddities seem quite deliberate, even studious, hardly sloppy. I've seen a lot of original Atget prints in person, and own the full four-volume Hambourg MMA set on Atget. But a lot of the "flaws" which people sterotype about his prints are actually due to poor storage - mold stain and foxing etc.

Don't forget Steiglitz - obsessive about technique. Yeah, people will cite his little ladder tray development system his office closet and basic contact printing frame. But he went to great lengths to master gravure when it came to reproduction. I've seen what he considered as his master set of prints from that era, and anyone of his caliper who states, "There is only one best of anything" is pretty darn fussy.

Strand was apparently the influence behind the f/64 crowd and AA, now seemingly so despised by some.

Eggleston didn't print anything. But he was fussy about how they got printed. Going DT was not just for sake of better permanence in the eyes of collectors than chromogenic prints, but for sake of specific color repro. I believe some new editions of some of those old classics might get re-issued from the last commercial DT lab still standing, in Germany. Eggleston, despite the early "non-color" criticisms of him, actually had a rather sophisticated color eye. The intervening inkjet ones certainly lost all that earlier charm, and seem to me to be a capitulation to big for big's sake. I do know that Meyerowitz is having some of his early 35mm color street photography reissued in DT to specifically revive some of that early verve; his 8X10 work has an entirely different feel.

But gosh - now attacking matboard cutting technique? Just in the last month I heard someone complaining about how poorly squared overmats annoyingly distracted them at a particular AA museum venue. Any neighborhood frame shop would go out of business in a month if they didn't know how to properly use a matcutter. Might as well be trying to sell new cars having flat tires.