Give me your Opinion

[vandergus]

It is true that photography is (or at least can be) an art form, giving it a wide range of interpretations. What I think distinguishes it from other visual artforms is that it is an artform that is grounded in the natural world. In other words, nearly all photography begins with an image of something from the world, not from someone's imagination, or something derived from a mathematical algorithm. And I think it is this connection to the natural world that makes photography so powerful. It's history as opposed to fiction. It's "based on true events" instead of "original screenplay". And it's the combination of truth and beauty that makes great photography. When there is too much manipulation of the original image, the photograph loses believability. Not all photographs need believability to be great, but those probably wouldn't be my favorite photographs.

I also agree with the statement that digital photography didn't introduce manipulation of the image. It went way passed dodging and burning with film. Just look at some of Man Ray's self portraits.

http://www.noreascon.org/retroart/im...20Portrait.jpg

There is definitely some abstractness there. Many people think these photographs are great art but I don't really like them.

I want to point out that everything said above assumes that the photographer is an artist. There is also the view of photography as a craft, where the photographer is just trying to create something decorative or useful (think documentary) instead of trying to convey an idea. This is generally the way I approach my personal photography. In this context, too many photographic tricks can be seen as a crutch. The photographer can't figure out how to make a subject interesting so they use some HDR techniques to make it "pop". A lot of it comes down to personal taste so feel free to disagree with any of my points.

I would encourage people to visit the blog, The Online Photographer. A few months ago there were several posts dealing with these sorts of issues. Browse through the November 2007 archives and you should find it. It is very intelligently written and it helped me think through a lot of these things.

[rlarsen]

jiminy,

Does this paragraph refer to an actual photograph in the book?


There are no photos from page 17-64.
Page 26 starts out with "Our belief in Anders' earthrise image..."

[lonelyjew]

Originally Posted by Nicole

My opinion: It's not caused by digital photography People were creating "photographs that never were" long before digital came along.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Greek Classical art is no different with statues being presented in an ideal manner rather than a truly realistic way. Michaelangelo's David is, similarly, proportioned incorrectly for aesthetic reasons(I can't say I mind). Paintings are often no different. People have always strived to capture beauty and often the real is just not as beautiful as we'd like.

I do also see what the author was saying, it's ingrained in people to take photographs very literally, as the exact truth. I suppose it's easier for me to not do so because I'm young and grew up in the digital age but I can imagine how disenchanted an older person could be(my dad actually when he found out about how everything is shopped nowadays).

I guess the way I see it is that photography, like everything else, is an art. There aren't any rules to it. Yes there are basic guidelines but even these, like in other arts, can be broken and often doing so, when done well, can make for an even more powerful and moving picture. Who is any one person to say how art should and shouldn't be conducted? More power to those who love realistic photography, without the aid of post processing, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with using photoshop or any other tool to bring out ones own vision. The only place that I am strongly against post processing is photo journalism but that's a whole nother issue.

I suppose that, like with so many things nowadays, we just have to take photgraphy with a grain of salt.

[jiminyClickit]

The paragraph makes more sense when coupled with the photo it references:



The original was rotated clockwise to suit Earth's horizon-oriented viewpoint.

The question of editting is moot. Those who do it, see the value; those who don't, condemn it in varying degrees.

[richb14]

Hhmmmm .... interesting discussion. Is photography a form of art requiring an accurate capture of a moment in time? I'm sure this can only be answered by first identifying what the objective of taking the photo is?

Manipulation of photo's has been occurring since the first photo was taken, so there has never really been an 'old' school. If you can get a beautiful 'out of the camera' shot, perfectly composed (which I imagine also means no cropping), perfectly exposed, and your subject is happy with the embarrassing pimple on their chin being captured for eternity, then I guess no manipulation is required and you can get rid of the laptop .

But I don't think it can be generalised that post processing or changing a photo to 'improve' it is cheating or cutting corners, in many cases there is nothing easy about doing work on a photo after the fact and it may be that the objective is to create something that can't be captured straight' out of the camera'.

However, where I do agree is if the photo is manipulated to 'hoodwink' the audience into believing something that is not true - like many a fashion magazine - this is a different issue, this is more akin to fraud.

I would imagine Andy Warhol (like his work or not) would take some exception to being called a cheat when he manipulated the photo of Marilyn Munro to create a pop art classic.

Again a very interesting discussion, for me, manipulate away if the resulting image is pleasing to the eye and portrays what you want it to, but don't get lazy with the camera hoping to fix it later, the better the shot up front 'out of the camera' the happier you will be no matter what, and there is always a level of satisfaction if you can catpure what you want by good photographic technique and knowing how to use the expensive camera equipment you have. I'm still yet to have much luck with that myself!

Just my 10 cents worth.

Rich

PS: I do like this section of the forum, there have been some great discussion and perspective provided.

[southernbelle]

Originally Posted by Major_Small

I agree with the old-school comments. Take a look at some of Jerry Uelsmann's work. He's one of my favorite photographers, and his work isn't done digitally at all:



I think people that claim to be "old-school" and resist all the things you can do in the "digital darkroom" were just never skilled enough or had the foresight to try some of the more interesting things you can do with paper and chemicals.

Wow...his work is remarkable!!

[TarheelRambler]

I guess part of the "controversy" around post-processing or manipulation is exactly what one means by "manipulation" when trying to talk about an old-school approach.

I shoot exclusively in digital and my photographs are almost always saved in RAW format. When I go into the "digital darkroom" to process my images, I am working with information saved as part of the image file. I make tweaks to exposure, saturation, vibrancy, highlights, shadows, etc., in the processing software. I would liken this to making adjustments to developing chemicals in film processing. Is this "manipulating" the image? I would say no, because I am working with what the camera captured, and not adding anything.

The same question goes to cropping an image in the processing work flow. Am I somehow "cheating" if I crop a portion of the image that I decide doesn't fit in the image as I want to present it? If so, then Ansel Adams did a lot of cheating, I'm afraid.

[vandergus]

I would imagine Andy Warhol (like his work or not) would take some exception to being called a cheat when he manipulated the photo of Marilyn Munro to create a pop art classic.

This is an interesting and appropriate example of manipulation. There is no doubt that Warhol created a compelling piece of art by manipulating a photograph, but I would not call it photography. And I imagine if you presented that piece to 10 people, not 2 would call it a photograph. It's something else, graphic art, pop art, but not photography.

Trying to say just how much manipulation is allowed before a photograph becomes graphic art (or any other name you want to use) or some other form is impossible and pointless to identify. And becoming graphic art doesn't make it part a lesser art form. My point is that just because a piece of art starts out as a photograph, doesn't mean it will always be a photograph. I'm guessing Warhol wasn't playing with colors just to salvage a mediocre portrait of Marilyn Monroe. He was conciously moving away from photography because he wanted the piece to convey different feelings than what was available from a photograph.

P.S. This is a great discussion so please keep it going.

[Paul841]

I think it depends on the photographer if he wants to "manipulate" the picture or not. It depends what his goal was in first place.

[richb14]

Originally Posted by vandergus

There is no doubt that Warhol created a compelling piece of art by manipulating a photograph, but I would not call it photography. And I imagine if you presented that piece to 10 people, not 2 would call it a photograph. It's something else, graphic art, pop art, but not photography.

Trying to say just how much manipulation is allowed before a photograph becomes graphic art (or any other name you want to use) or some other form is impossible and pointless to identify.

Although I'm not sure I fully agree that understanding the point where a photo transforms to not being a photo and becomes something else is unimportant, at least for this discussion. I'm sure the reverse logic would create another whole discussion where a photo cannot be or become pop art unless it's manipulated?

I don't believe Warhol actually took the photo of Marilyn Munro, so this may not have been the best example but I understand the perspective for the discussion.

So following the thought, what would/should we make of the many landscape photographers that clearly have manipulated beautiful scenes of mountains, rivers etc etc, but also clearly have over saturated (or even changed) the colours to create a 'picture' that is striking to the eye, hangable on the wall but certainly not real? I'm sure we've all seen the calendars etc.

Are they no longer photographers and become artists or is this within the limits of manipulation to still remain photography? I think this goes back to the original post.

My last question, in the 'old school', if I put a IR filter on my enlarger lens when processing my photo and obviously changed the image that is developed on paper, is this also 'cheating' in the context of this discussion? More so what about putting a softening filter on the camera lens prior to the shot, why should this be considered old school and acceptable against softening the image digitally being cheating? 400 years ago old school was sailing around in wooden ships and hoping you get somewhere without sinking, is flying in a 747 cheating?