Give me your Opinion

[embrodak]

Technological advancements are always met with derision and distrust in the beginning. The fact of the matter is that the art of photography has been expanded greatly once it has become digitized. Not only is storing, replicating, and taking photographs much easier, but it has an additional dimension of art to it, with digital manipulation. Who can honestly say that a photographer who spends hours post-processing a photograph in order to make it really shine, or in order to bring out what (s)he really wanted to show is being lazy, is cheating or is detracting from photography?

There are natural limits to everything--images that are over-processed look terrible. Sometimes it's near impossible to capture the original beauty of some sight without post-processing. Rather than reject those who edit their images, learn to appreciate their special talents as well.

[vandergus]

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 guess I'd have to go back to the original quote since Rowell says it better than I could.

The tremendous public response to this photograph is inextricably tied to the belief that it truthfully represents a “real” event witnessed by another human being.

I think it's important not to get caught up in what techniques are used but how those techniques effect the final product. If the viewer stops believing that what they're looking at represents reality, then you've lost one of the major aspects of photography. You may have gained something else (see Andy Warhol again) but you've lost some of the connection to reality. If I'm looking at a landscape where every leaf is saturated to the perfect green hue, it starts to look less like earth and more like a fairy tale. Of course it's hard to know when the viewer starts to lose their belief since everyone approaches it a little differently.

[Doc Holliday]

Is this photograph "authentic"? It presents, more or less what one would see if they went to the Con mine in Butte, Montana. At the same time, it doesn't.



This image started out as a RAW file in my camera. I took it out and did some serious editing, (removing the three trestles behind the headrace and editing out the foreground), and converted it to a "drawing" using "pen sketch" filters in PhotoShop. Then edited some more. I did not do this to deceive the viewer, I did it to get my interpretation of the headrace in front of them.

My goal was to include enough "real" information in the finished product to make it recognizable for what it was. At the same time, I wanted the image to convey what my interpretation of the subject was - stark, industrial, crude. This makes it art. Art I couldn't have done in a real darkroom. The image is fundamentally changed, although I don't think it makes it any less authentic.

Since my medium was an image captured by a camera, I think - no matter how modified the image was - in the end, it is still a photograph.

As far as poeple "believing" that an image is an exact conveyance of what the photographer saw, I don't think that is, necessarily, true. Look at "picture postcards." I've seen hundreds and in almost every case, standing and looking at what they portrayed, tried to figure out how they got that image. "Picture postcards" are, allegedly, representational. They are representational of what the photographer saw when he took the picture.

[rlarsen]

This has been fun and I liked all the responses to Galen Rowell's writing. I feel I must include the rest of Rowell's comments on this subject. Rowell's last paragraph on page 28 reads, "...All nature photographers share that special responsibility to humanity to bring back images of the truths they witness, or to disclose how they altered images in pursuit of less-enduring agendas that could betray that assumption of truth. In the final analysis, our belief in Anders' earthrise image--and all other meaningful photographs of the natural world --implies a sacred trust between photographer and audience that, like an endangered species, is highly threatened but very much alive."

I like all your comments and hope you all have a happy time learning and photographing all the wonderful things of the world.
Thanks
rlarsen

[Nicole]

Originally Posted by rlarsen

"In the final analysis, our belief in Anders' earthrise image--and all other meaningful photographs of the natural world --implies a sacred trust between photographer and audience that, like an endangered species, is highly threatened but very much alive."

Can't help but roll my eyes at that one . A sacred trust in a picture? A picture is only what the photographer wants you to see. It may have some truth to it, but every choice made by the photographer is going to alter the scene enough that sacred trust seems a little over the top to me Ah well, that's their opinion

[digirebelva]

Being artistic with a photo is then out of the question (i.e. HDR, Infrared etc)
So wouldnt that same theory hold with paintings then..I mean VanGoh would have been S.O.L. in todays world huh...
Gotta love some people...

[vandergus]

Some more thoughts. After all, the point of a discussion/argument is not simply to convince someone else of your ideas but to also convince yourself

Basically, every part of the photographic process, digital or film, is a form of manipulation. The lens bends the light focussing it on a plane. The pixels respond to the level of light and translate it to 0's and 1's, etc. It's all part of the process of taking a 3-dimensional world and transforming it into a 2-dimensional image. But dispite all of the manipulation, a photograph still bares a striking resemblance to the real world when compared to other art forms. And, at the risk of sounding redundant, that is where the power of a photograph comes from. I'm not boycotting photoshop or HDR. HDR can actually be used to make a photograph look more natural since it brings the dynamic range of the image closer to what our eyes actually see (our eyes have a much higher dynamic range than digital sensors or film). But the reason I like photographs is that I can look at a photograph and imagine myself there. I can recognize it as part of my world. It's hard to look at Van Gogh's Sunflowers and imagine they're sitting in front of you. It's just a different medium. It's dangerous to just say "It's all art, you can do whatever you want" because you belittle the strengths of all of the different mediums. Painting is not like sculpture is not like photography is not like music.

I'm basically trying to say that it is important to know the strengths of the medium you're working in so that you can take advantage of them instead sacrificing them for the next new trick.

(By the way, I really am a total noob and I'm just trying to sort all this out to see where I fit in. All the above is simply what I've been able to figure out so far. I could easily be swayed by a well stated argument in one direction or another.)

[Eugene]

in my humble opinion, photography is supposed to be fun! capturing the exact moment which reminds you the happiness or the loneliness you felt that time. in an artist view like me, i think photography doesn't need to be perfect because there will never be the perfect or greatest photographer in the world, there is only skilled photographer, because every photographer have different views like the saying goes, "...it's in the eye behind the camera." each one must have their different style that makes each one different & happy. most of the "new-breed" or "hardcore" photographer tend to study or learn the "rules" in photography just to break them & surprisingly, they deliver nice shots! it's only the "rules" that kept us inside the "box" and kept us all the same. no offense guys!

one more thing, i think there must be another category for manipulated images? "The most important control is, of course, the creative photographer's vision. He or she chooses the vantage point and the exact moment of exposure. The photographer perceives the essential qualities of the subject and interprets it according to his or her judgment, taste, and involvement. An effective photograph can disseminate information about humanity and nature, record the visible world, and extend human knowledge and understanding." <- that is photography.