The business of modern day (color nature) photography

[QT Luong]

I am continuing a particular aspect of the discussion of Stephen Willard's thread http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=42075 ("The ethics of modern day photography") here, since there are so many other topics discussed there.

I'd to refrain from discussing the muddled terrain of ethics, but rather question whether color nature photographs that are perceived as unmanipulated do sell better, as Stephen affirms. Based on the statements of some successful photographers in this field that strenuously emphasize the lack of computer manipulation in their prints, there seems to be some support for this idea.

Amongst people who asked me questions, either through email or at my recent show, there were also quite a few who wanted to know the extent of manipulation. I don't know if it was out of curiosity or out of concern.

A tangent to the discussion here:

"There is one saving grace that LF digital photographers have over the digital camera guy, LFers can prove their prints are a real life experience by simply allowing the original negative or slide to be inspect by any customer. I intend to anounce on my website that I am willing to make all negatives available for inspection. "

Did anyone ever ask you to see the film ? Never happened in my experience.

However, several years ago, my wife and I were at Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop. It turned out that they had a (repro ?) 35mm slide to show to customers exactly for the purpose you mention. To both of our eyes, the saturation was clearly higher in the print than on the slide. Personally, I don't mind a bit of extra saturation, but it is a big turn-off for my wife, while I don't think she'd care that you removed a branch.

[vinny]

I agree that most of the questions regarding media type come from photographers. But, I have had people ask about my process and I enjoy sharing that info with them. I've been to a few shows where the photographer was asked those questions by folks who knew nothing about photography or the prints hanging in front of them.
Galen Rowel's work is "over done" in several aspects and I agree with QT there.
For the most part I think people who like what they see could care less about the details. That's good and bad because sometimes I want a buyer to know what they are getting and why it looks as good as it does. Hanging a calendar of someones images on your wall is nice but hanging real photographs of the same images is a different experience. I'm rambling now. Shoot more. Keep film and photo paper alive!

[QT Luong]

If the Mountain Light gallery has a slide ready to show to customers, it probably means that a certain amount of them is asking "are the colors real", right ?

The remark about how process should be irrelevant to art buyers does make sense. However, I notice that while technical information (even as basic as the type of camera) is almost absent from art world books, it is often present in books of nature photography (the subject discussed in this thread).

Regarding the presence of technical information on websites, there are many photographers that derive more income from teaching than selling prints. Under this circumstance, it makes sense to offer information of interest to other photographers. As far as I am concerned, so far I make money only from image buyers, however, I like to share some information with fellow photographers. If I didn't provide that information, I'd have to expend more time replying to emails.

[Paul Kierstead]

Galen Rowell sort of presented his work as part adventure, part photography. The adventure and the place were part and parcel of the work; although much of it stood alone on aesthetics, it was enhanced quite a bit by the story and the exotic setting. Not to diss his work, but it was almost travel photography. If his shots were manipulated, then the setting and the story would seem to be a lie. I think, in his case, there is value in lack of manipulation.

Lets take someone like Edward Weston. Would the pepper disappoint us deeply if we were to find it was manipulated?

Or for even more literal, would Aspens be that great of a disappointment if we discovered there was a fair chunk of manipulation? There is no story and no context to that shot; it is just a beautiful, enchanted and somewhat idealized view of a piece of forest.

[Bruce Watson]

There's an underlying cause of all this I think. Perhaps. At least in my view.

The public seems to have a few misconceptions about art and photography. You can sift it out from their questions and comments. My personal favorite I've been asked a several gallery openings is "Why should I pay that much for a photograph?" A close second is "Is that real?"

The first question seems to indicate that they think art photography is somehow cheap and easy. They think that all you have to do is show up and press a button. That there's no travel or equipment involved, no rent to pay, no family to support. To them it all comes down to the cost of the paper and the chemicals / inks. And clearly, clearly, there's no talent involved. Anyone can do it. After all, their experience says that all you have to do is push a button on their point-'n-shoot, import the digital capture into PE, and print the ones they want to keep. Or they take the film to WalMart and pick up their prints in an hour. How hard can it be?

The second question seems to indicated that they aren't readily able to distinguish between photo-journalism and art. They often seem to think that all photography is documentary.

These two big misconceptions, that it's somehow easy and that it's somehow documentary are why websites fill up with all kinds of explanations and technical details IMHO. Because what we have to do as art photographers is to educate the public. It's sad that this is the case but it is, very clearly, indeed, the case. Especially if you are not in a big city where there's been much more exposure of art photography to the public.

Like it or not, we have to justify our art to the public. That's what it really comes down to IMHO.

[Nathan Potter]

I have a weak hunch that unmanipulated landscape prints do sell slightly better than obviously manipulated prints. But this only among astute collectors of photographs and people with an intimate connection to the natural scene. This will be a small group and involve only those who sell and buy high end photographic prints. There are other mitigating factors at the high end of course and I think a big one is craftsmanship.

An example of craftsman ship in color printing is found in C. Burkitts work, a pre-eminent Ilfochrome worker. While I think his images are somewhat static the quality is what sells despite that there is some manipulation (masking) on occasion.

Manipulation of color nature images that is disconnected from the essence of the scene will inevitably turn off serious collectors IMHO.

In the case of the popular tourist market, at the low end, I doubt that there is enough expertise amongst buyers to care about serious manipulation of color or poor tonal balance in the case of B&W.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Drew Wiley]

As someone who has spent many years in the mountains, and was even raised in the high Sierra, I personally find the prosititution of its scenery to be something very distasteful. The images presented by Mountain Light are of course mainly 35mm snapshots souped-up often beyond recognition as anything realistic except to
the relatively naive tourist audience they are intended for. Many picture books are
essentially going the same direction. But this tendency has no influence on what I
personally do. People who buy my prints are a completely different crowd, and I
suspect that the majority of persons on this particular forum wouldn't even be
involved with large format unless they had a higher standard in mind to begin with.
But let's face it - if you want to make money fast, open a McDonald's franchise, not
a gourmet restaurant.

[Marko]

I am continuing a particular aspect of the discussion of Stephen Willard's thread http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=42075 ("The ethics of modern day photography") here, since there are so many other topics discussed there.

I'd to refrain from discussing the muddled terrain of ethics, but rather question whether color nature photographs that are perceived as unmanipulated do sell better, as Stephen affirms. Based on the statements of some successful photographers in this field that strenuously emphasize the lack of computer manipulation in their prints, there seems to be some support for this idea.

Amongst people who asked me questions, either through email or at my recent show, there were also quite a few who wanted to know the extent of manipulation. I don't know if it was out of curiosity or out of concern.

A tangent to the discussion here:

"There is one saving grace that LF digital photographers have over the digital camera guy, LFers can prove their prints are a real life experience by simply allowing the original negative or slide to be inspect by any customer. I intend to anounce on my website that I am willing to make all negatives available for inspection. "

Did anyone ever ask you to see the film ? Never happened in my experience.

However, several years ago, my wife and I were at Galen Rowell's Mountain Light Gallery in Bishop. It turned out that they had a (repro ?) 35mm slide to show to customers exactly for the purpose you mention. To both of our eyes, the saturation was clearly higher in the print than on the slide. Personally, I don't mind a bit of extra saturation, but it is a big turn-off for my wife, while I don't think she'd care that you removed a branch.

Manipulation is such a loaded, emotional word. As such, it is not well suited for rational discussion, at least until is more precisely defined. But in order to do that, another, more fundamental question in this context needs to be posed: are we talking about art or documentary photography here?

If it is documentary, than the ultra-saturated over-the-moon colors so liked by some of the practitioners, film or digital, are anything but unmanipulated and have nothing to do with the original scene. Showing the film won't do anything to ascertain factuality because the very choice of film IS a part of the manipulation itself, along with the use of filters at the time of exposure, as well as processing method. Colors as recorded on such films do not exist in nature and therefore such capture cannot be factual.

Showing a digital RAW file would do much more to show the original scene as it existed at the time of capture, as it could be processed in a manner controlled enough to reproduce the original colors of the scene. That, of course, only if the original colors are somehow known either by shooting a DC grid at the same time and place using the same camera, lens and exposure or by taking a series of colorimetric measurements.

If it is art that we are talking about, then the first question that pops to mind is: does it matter at all? The very purpose of art is communicating the artists vision. There is nothing factual about that, if there were, it wouldn't be art to begin with, would it? And if so, why does it matter if a stray piece of human detritus is removed post-capture to better maintain the representation of that vision? Doesn't such an intervention actually increase the factuality of the image because it becomes closer to what the artist saw in his mind's eye?

Finally, talking about manipulation again - where does processing end and manipulation begin? Do dodging and burning, unsharp masking, contrast adjustments or even masking represent processing or manipulation? How about soft focus or diffusion?

Why does technology used matter at all? If those methods are considered part of creative processing in the traditional lab why would they be viewed differently in Photoshop?

[QT Luong]

As far as business (the subject of this thread) is concerned, one could do worse than TK...

[Kirk Keyes]

An example of craftsman ship in color printing is found in C. Burkitts work, a pre-eminent Ilfochrome worker.

"Christopher Burkett"