Digital Manipulation Philosophy

Charles, if someone asked me if I'd used a Leica for the image, and assuming I did, it'll be crazy of me to say I used a Nikon for the image. What for? Or I can keep quiet about my gear, which is still reasonable I guess.

 

As long as you don't lie about things you present, it's perfectly ok to shut up or give the truth. IMO, of course.

I think anyone can produce whatever they want in the world of art, whatever the medium. However, photography also has a documentary side to it, moreso than other artforms. More and more, I find that when I photograph a building I like, people are telling me that I should clone this or that out of the picture. It's like people are gradually losing not only the ability to distinguish between reality and idealised images, but the very desire to even make this distinction as well. If I photograph a building, I want to see it as it is, not as it should be in an idealized world. If I view someone else's photograph of something that exists in the real world, I want and expect to see it as it is, not as the photographer would like it to be. Similarly, if I watch a movie that I know has major components of the scene added in by digital imaging methods, I feel like I'm just watching a very sophisticated cartoon, even though the digitized elements may look very realistic. This is one reason why I think that, as production of everything visual moves more and more to digital methods, those that are done using traditional, analog methods will take on more importance and more value.

BTW, this is the same as a piece of fine furniture handmade with only traditional tools has more value and is more desirable than an otherwise identical piece made using machines.

I think the other thing you need to ask yourself is, why is it so important to know if an image is manipulated or not? What is stopping you from accepting it as it is presented.

 

There must be a reason why people ask. It is really up to the presented to choose his response to such queries. Nothing in an image is right or wrong or absolute.

the real art and life of it lies in the seeing....everything else is just extra baggage.....

You guys are cracking me up.

 

The very unique strength of photography is its descriptive visual power of the real physical world. You can focus on its limitations in portraying that reality, but by what other means can you better depict a given physical reality at a point in time?

 

People keep photographs of their loved ones. Police use mug shots. Evidence enough that photographs have a connection to reality.

Every photographer at some stage will have to answer this question and decide one way or another - its an age old dilemma. H.C.B. (to the best of my knowledge) did not manipulate his pictures at all or not very much. For W.E. Smith - one of the greatest photographer of all times - the picture was completed in the lab. He would LOVE photoshop if he was still alive.

Charles

 

Everything is acceptable art wise, for sure, but I think there is still a difference between photography that has (at least it used to have) a direct relation to the real world via the immutable laws of optics, and painting which can represent anything imagined or real. The difficulty of making nature conform to your whims was what always set photography apart as an art form in my opinion and actually to some degree what makes it interesting. But this is of course only my opinion. Of course there are plenty of good "photographs" that stand on their own merits and these are haevily manipulated. But the picture I commented on was quite clearly presented as a documentary shot in which it represented in some form the reality that was there: to manipulate the shot in the way you suggested seems to me gratuitous and uninteresting. As others have said there is the "pure art" approach and the "photography as some kind of documentary" approach. I am a follower of the latter sort as this is what interests me about it.

So where do you draw the line? I think for commercial/paid work

everything photoshop is fair game-It's their money, give them

what they want. I must say though, for personal work I'm very

impressed with everybody who can work without limitations. It

must be comforting to know you can adjust everything, on every

frame, at any time. But the very best time to get it right? That (for

myself, at least) would be when you click the shutter. With the

relative convenience of gross manipulation available to most

photographers today, has it made better photographers? I don't

think so. Arbitrariness is the pillow that smothers creativity, and

what's better do you think- improving a mediocre frame on the

computer at home, or picking up your camera and going back to

try and get it right? How can you internalize mistakes if you don't

make any? How can you grow if you don't make mistakes? By

the very use of a camera for creative output you are agreeing to

parameters, both physical and artistic. At the end of the day

whether you know what you're doing or not is going to show in

your work. Photoshop won't save you if you don't, and won't

hinder you if you do.

 

Tom

Gene Smith did manipulate, if you consider burning, dodging, and brightening highlights with potassium ferracyanide as "manipulation". I suppose it is, but nowhere near the level of adding or subtracting people from the picture, or replacing one background with another. Most of his work was done at a time when lenses and films were much slower than what we have today, and some of the graininess and contrast were artifacts of the tools and process available at the time. If you push process Tri-X 2 stops and want highlight detail AND shadow detail you'd better learn how to burn and dodge and brighten the highlight areas of the shadow parts of the photo.

 

This "manipulation" is simply to compensate for the shortcomings of the tools and process. It was an attempt to portray reality as closely as possible. Today we have films with much higher speed and longer tonal scale than was available in the 1950's.

HCB has admitted to "staging" events - is this any less an offense?

the real art and life of it lies in the seeing....everything else is just extra baggage.....

 

I'm going with Grant on this one.<div></div>

HCB has admitted to "staging" events - is this any less an offense?

 

Yes, because his events did actually happen.

Come on, lets be honest,who wants to sit in front of a computer screen all day adding one image to another. Boring or what! Seems a lot more fun , to me, to go out and find a decent photo in the first place. Okay, we manipulate the image to get the best out of it...but that's always been the story.

Robin, sounds like they happened twice to me. Once was "for real", the other was a 100 percent manipulation of the scene to emulate the first experience as best as could be remembered, OR - OR - as the photographer wanted to portray it.

 

To that point I add: The indispensable doll parts, usually a head only, or body missing a leg or arm, thrown to the mud by photographers in Vietnam during the 60's/70's war. The "pathos inducing doll shot" got to be cliche after a while. It NEARLY got to the point where you thought you were seeing the same doll over and over. Perhaps we were.

Charles

 

I think we both know that there are profound differences between the "Photoshop will make my picture good and interesting" and the "purist approach" for photos. The edges can be argued away as they can with all matters of taste and art. The first one is a valid "pure art" approach which is fine, but the second is the more typical approach favored by the majority of photographers, I suspect, amateur or professional - photography shows something direct about the world itself in a direct way. This seems to me to be the unique domain of photography and to me the interesting part of it. There is no point in arguing which is right or better - in the end one has to decide what is your own philosophy. Personally most of the time I don't much care for the first-mentioned approach.

I don't care to argue with someone about what level of

manipulation should be allowed in their photography. I will

argue with those who assert that their images show a more

truthful "reality" because they limit their manipulations to

dodging, burning, adjusting contrast (and other basic darkroom

techniques); selecting an angle of view thru lens choice and

cropping; selecting a perspective from which to shoot; selecting

the direction to point the camera; selecting the degree to which

items will be in or out of focus; determining the contrast, tonal

characteristics, size of grain (or dye clouds), and color palette

through choice of film and processing; selecting which small

fragment of time to record; and selecting which image to show.

Even images which don't make use of post-exposure

manipulation are about as faithful to "reality" as a made-for-TV

movie "based on true events."

Mike , so in your opinion, everything shot through a camera should be close to "untrue"?

 

No offense, but Im trying to understand your last statement.

No, not "should be untrue," but "is not neccessarily an accurate,

unbiased, or even representative version of reality." A

fundamental aspect of photography is that it represents a

viewpoint. Even if the photographer makes a good-faith effort to

fairly depict a scene, the photos will still reflect the biases of that

photographer. <P>

<i>A photograph </i>isn't<i> what was photographed. It's

something else. It's a new fact." --Garry Winogrand<P>

ok.

Mike

 

Despite what you say I doubt you really dispute what I have said. To say your photos bear no resemblance to any reality is absurd from what I have seen of most of your pics. Also since no brain and eye see the same anyway we are back where we started as who knows what each of us sees when we see the world? Anyway, I guess from Charles' question I take it that you would cheerfully digitally manipulate the hell out of your shots if you wanted to. That's fine: there is no arguing about taste, but it is not my philosophy of photography (not that you should care).

Well you can see what a mess manipulation can start when you are in the publishing industry. A magazine like Sports Illustrated may not be held to the same rigorous standards as the NY Times but they were very concerned that a single manipulated photo "erodes the credibility of the magazine at a time when public trust in journalism is at an all-time low."<P>

<a href="http://www.pdn-pix.com/news/#1">Photo Manipulation Highlights Internal Feud At �SI�</a><P>

I think that manipulations erode the credibility of photography and photographers in general.

<a href="http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=47867&sid=29">Suspended Photographer Focuses on Ethics</a><P>

there is no truth. there is only you, and what you make the truth.

</I>italics off.<P>