Scathing Photoshop Editorial

Recently there was printed in CameraArts magazine a rather scathing

editorial about the NAPP and a lot of the Photoshop industry in general.

On my photography blog, today and tomorrow, I am posting a rebuttal of

sorts. I thought that people might be interested in having a look at my

response as well as the original editorial.

 

If interested it can be found as my post for today entitled Photoshop And

The Creative Process, Part I at http://www.howardgrill.blogspot.com

 

Howard

Photoshop is most significant as an "art" tool. Why? Because "art" is the refuge of wannabe-artists.

 

By modern definition. "Art" specifically means contrived, tacky, or scam. By ancient definition it implied magic and human performance.

 

Respecting "photography," I agree with those of our ancestors who struggled to separate if from "art." Steiglitz and f64 struggled in that direction, knowingly or unknowingly, and the struggle was revived again in the 60s.

 

Reducing photography to "an art" reduces it to kitsch.

 

Picasso's work was above and beyond "art," the way I understand the word, just as Avedon's and Salgado's.

 

Like carpentry, printmaking is an honorable activity in itself, and Photoshop can be a credible printmaking convenience if the user, such as photographer or carpenter, has struggled enough with it to transcend "geek" and use it fluently.

 

For me Photoshop's a handy tool. Not much more. I'm making better prints from negatives via scanner, CS2 and inkjet than I did with big Beseler and Durst. But "better" doesn't make Photoshop nearly as significant as, say, the beautiful inkjet papers at our disposal.

 

Photoshop warrents occasional editorial comment, but it's not central to photography. And photography is far more important than "art" as it captures time.

 

IMO.

As a person who makes much of my living using PS to the extreme, I can't say that I disagree wth most of the article. A simple browse through the questions on this forum proves it. "how can I get this effect" "how did he do this" "what lens should I use", etc.

 

Far too many have jumped from non-photographer to digital expert without the grounding or understanding of basics in art, form, composition, light, etc. They want to push a button to get "the technique" without knowing how it is achived or why.

 

The 'gurus' are simply fufilling a need. It's the need that is wrong, not the snake-oil salesmen. Very few 'add-ons' for sale do anything more than an astute artist can achive with PS alone. We've gone from dozens to 1 plug-in in recent years, while the number of offerings have skyrocketted. People don't want to take the time to learn the program well enough.

 

My personal dislaike on PS is from the cash cow that Adobe has become. We are being milked. The 'must have' upgrade contains one or two semi-useful tools and a bunch of junk. Hardly worthy of an upgrade. Many of us now skip every other version (or more) for this very reason.

 

Doug

BTW, here's the Dewolfe article:

 

 

http://www.cameraarts.com/2007_web_extras/CA56-DeWolfeMedicineShow.pdf

Thanks for the heads up on both your blog and the original article. I tend to agree with him. :)

There are "gurus" and there are real artist/teachers. I pay attention to only a handful of

Photoshop expert users who fall into the latter category. <P>

 

Specifically those who I think are not "snake oil peddlers" as Mr. DeWolfe bluntly puts it,

are: John Paul Caponigro, the late Bruce Fraser, Andrew Rodney, Bill Atkinson, Joseph

Holmes, Jeff Schewe, and Katrin Eismann. Sean McCormack and Martin Evening are great

for Lightroom guides. Peter Krogh I pay attention to for meta-data advice, and Seth

Resnick for workflow advice. Interestingly enough, all of the above are very active working

photographers who like George Lucas, use or design tools to get the job at hand

done.<P>

 

DeWolfe writes:<P><I> "

 

The force behind any great idea and masterpiece

in art starts with the human eye and the visual

apparatus that processes the information in our

brains. Painters have known this for hundreds of

years. But in photography (the image from the

camera) and in Photoshop we do not have an

image that represents what the eye actually sees.

This statement might seem startling to many

photographers who believe that the camera image is

?real.? Painters make the design and composition by drawing and then adjust this image to

what they see in front of them to their eye. In the camera we are presented with an image

already composed and designed and we take it to be something that does not need

altering. So basically photographers are missing an extremely important step in the

process of art?making it human?making it match what the eye sees."</I><P>

 

I've never been a painter or artist in other visual media but I've known several , a couple of

them quite intimately, over the past 30 years. I have had the privilege of watching them

create and their creations evolve over hours or days. When DeWolfe says "Painters make

the design and composition by drawing and then adjust this image to what they see in

front of them to their eye." He must be including in what their eye sees is what is on

their canvas or sketchpad. <P>We have that opportunity with digital image making too,

and that is one of the great and revolutionary innovations computers have wrought; the

other being the ability to distribute, to broadcast, our photographs widely and nearly

instantly at very little cost. As artists we don't have to settle for what a machine records on

a medium manufactured by someone else to some set of tolerances and processed by an

uninterested third party (the lab). Most people of course won't ever or don't ever have any

intention or interest in this aspect of photography except as consumers. <P>Thanks for

sharing Howard!

Doug Axford has said it best so far and I agree wholeheartedly.

 

Additionally, like photography, you have tech heads with no artistic talent. Same thing

here. "Gurus" fill a need for the industry AND create art or use PS as a tool to create or

refine or whathaveyou the art.

 

I've been a professional users of Photoshop for nearly 10 years now and have never

purchased a plug-in, nor read a book on it.

Sorry Howard. I've got to agree with George DeWolfe 100%. I capture images to film, scan them, and print digitally. I use Photoshop for every image in my portfolio. I couldn't do my art without it, or a similar program.

 

The key for me has been simply "less is more." I use Photoshop as a tool to help me make prints that invoke in the viewer a least a little of what I felt. I use it almost exactly as DeWolfe explains it -- to give the print "presence" and make it look the way I visualized it at capture time.

 

I think most of what DeWolfe is complaining about is the quest for the "magic bullet" that will make people's photographs "great" like (name your favorite master photographer here). I see it all the time -- the equipment geeks looking for that special camera, the LF guys trying to find that perfect lens from the 1920s, the Photoshop guys trying to find that perfect action to make things just... whatever.

 

The point is, it's easier to chase the magic bullet than it is to chase your artistic vision. He's definitely correct about that.

In your article you ask: "I mean how many Photoshop ?how to? books, tutorials, and podcasts are really necessary?"

 

Necessary for what? Photography? The answer is "none". For that matter the answer to is PS necessary for photography is "no".

The ultmate anti-guru ('cause no one else can really do what he does) is Elliot Erwitt whose

insight and wit are always good for hammering these kinds of nails:<P><I>

It's just seeing - at least the photography I care about. You either see or you don't see.

The rest is academic. Anyone can learn how to develop. It's how you organize what you

see into a picture.<P>Quality doesn't mean deep blacks and whatever tonal range. That's

not quality, that's a kind of quality. The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as

being sloppy--the tone range isn't right and things like that--but they're far superior to

the pictures of Ansel Adams with regard to quality, because the quality of Ansel Adams, if

I may say so, is essentially the quality of a postcard. But the quality of Robert Frank is a

quality that has something to do with what he's doing, what his mind is. It's not balancing

out the sky to the sand and so forth. It's got to do with intention.<P>Making pictures is a

very simple act. There is no great secret in photography...schools are a bunch of crap. You

just need practice and application of what you've learned. My absolute conviction is that if

you are working reasonably well the only important thing is to keep shooting...it doesn't

matter whether you are making money or not. Keep working, because as you go through

the process of working things begin to happen. <P>[Photographer needs:] creativity, style,

elegance, wit and craft. [A photojournalist also needs that and] courage, stamina, cunning

and luck.<P>After following the crowd for a while, I'd then go 180 degrees in the exact

opposite direction. It always worked for me, but then again, I'm very lucky.<P>It's about

time we started to take

photography seriously and treat it as a hobby. </I><P>And now back to my appointed

rounds of cleaning up the office and studio and being a family guy!

Well, I gotta say comparing Frank and Adams photographs on the issue of

"quality" is about the stupidest thing I've read in awhile.

 

Does Mr Erwitt have opinions on painters? I'd be interested to read his comparison on "quality" between the paintings of Dali and Tintoretto. Or, maybe playwriting? "Compare and Contrast the plays of Corneille and Plautus, Which One Has More Quality?"

 

bleah

He's using "quality" in a metaphysical and subjective sense. He's not making an objective statement about which is "better". You are taking the words too literally. There are many types of "quality".

Dear Don,

 

Sorry to read about your gored ox. Hope it recovers soon.

It would not occur to me to wonder if Frank or Adams is "better", nor can I imagine a metaphysical "quality", subjective or not.

 

I don't have a gored ox, but I do have one laughing its ass off.

"The point is, it's easier to chase the magic bullet than it is to chase your artistic vision. He's definitely correct about that."

 

If you're a photographer rather than wannabe "artist," the point is to take risks that may or may not result in images that ring peoples' bells, it's not to fiddle with "captures" eternally in post processing

any more than it is to copy Ansel Adams.

 

"Your artistic vision" seems a degrading notion for a photographer, considering what we know about the meaning of "art" (it's "sofa-sized" , involves sunsets, Elvis or nudes, and costs $19.95).

I get the impression that Bob and Ellis think I'm miffed because Erwitt opines there's "quality" in Frank and not Adams. For the record, I am not interested in either photographer (Life is short).

 

 

"The pictures of Robert Frank might strike someone as being sloppy..."

 

Perhaps. Perhaps some are struck by the slovenliness of Erwitt's writing and have said so to him. Perhaps that's the subjective affinity he has for the "metaphysical" "quality" of Frank's work. Perhaps the precision of Adam's work is a constant goring for him. Don't know. Don't care.

Eeek. For a moment I was afraid I'd accidentally stumbled in to the philosophy forum again. Phew.

 

I can't define (A. Quality B. Pornography C. Art D. Philosophy E. All of the above ) but I know it when I see it.

Craig:

"I can't define (A. Quality B. Pornography C. Art D. Philosophy E. All of the above ) but I know

it when I see it."

 

Can I quote you? I love it.

As someone coming from the "downtown portrait studio" background and after recently resubscribing to THE PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER magazine I'm completely amazed at how the portraits have gone into the toilet. Everyone featured in the magazine seems to have "gone digital" and been swept away into the nether world of photoshop.

 

Most look like they've been dipped into a tank of gaussian blur for a few hours, yanked out and dragged into the eye and teeth whitening room where they are "enhanced" to look like they glow in the dark. Next on to plastic surgery where every pore is removed and a mannequin face is glued on until they're ready for prime time.

 

The photojournalism type weddings are equally "enhanced" so they look out of focus on purpose.

 

Sadly one of the pioneers in the portrait field, Monte Zucker, is terminally ill and some of his latest work is shown. My God, I took a workshop with him 25 years ago and his work was stunning. Today it's photoshopped to death. If a person like Monte Zucker can be sucked into the photoshop rat race, what chance does the average joe have.

 

 

Michael

I believe that too many people consider PS to be photography. In the 'good olde days' when taking pictures was with film, we did our best to make as near certain as possible that the end result was going to be up to our expectations BEFORE we pressed the shutter button. Certain changes could be made if we did our own B & W developing and printing but most of us had to accept that our colour enprints (when was the last time I used that word?!) were really 'end prints' with no manipulation possible. Today, digital cameras are practically as usual as mobile phones and everyone's taking digital pictures (this is not to be considered as a negative judgement); those who are slightly more interested in the final pictures then have the chance of changing them with PS or other cheaper but broadly speaking similar programmes. To my mind the majority of the producers of these pictures are not showing their ability and skill as a photographer but as a computer user. And we are being conned into thinking that a picture that hasn't been PSed but retains its 'flaws' is no longer a decent picture. A 'photographer' friend of mine was asked by a mother to take photos of her 16-year old daughter. This he did and then proceded, among other things, to erase all the spots from her face and even a small mole on her neck, leaving pictures of the girl which could have been on almost any magazine cover. The mother was furious because she wanted pictures of her daughter as she was and not as the 'photographer' thought she should look. As Bob A says, there are many types of 'quality'. Perhaps just as packets of cigarettes have health warnings on them, photos should indicate if they have been PSed: at least that way we would more or less know if we're looking at an approximation of reality or admiring something that has been cleverly changed with the help of a computer.

I'm sorry to hear about Mr. Zucker. Truly sad.

 

I think the photoshoppedto hell (And not back) look is a trend that will pass.

 

Atleast I hopeand pray it will. For me, the best use of Photoshop in a portrait is where you

can't see where it was used.

 

Evidently the March issue of Professional Photographer has raised a lot of hackles. The month

before was pretty strong.

I'm writing a scathing editorial on the abuse of keyboards. My pencil is being sharpened.

"Most look like they've been dipped into a tank of gaussian blur for a few hours, yanked out and dragged into the eye and teeth whitening room where they are "enhanced" to look like they glow in the dark.

 

Well, you see, the eyes are the main focus of a portrait, right? And we're suppposed to lead the viewer through the frame to the main subject, right? And we want to "connect" to the viewer, right?

I agree on the plug in opinions. PS will do most everything.

 

I did get PtLens as I had Elements 2 and there was no lens distortion control.

 

When I got CS2, I copied it there as it runs automatically and I do not need straight lines I can visually correct with the grid. This does make a difference even in photos with no straight lines. They somehow look different.

<i>dragged into the eye and teeth whitening room where they are "enhanced" to look like they glow in the dark. </i><p>

 

I guess you've never seen the original prints for Avedon's <i>In the American West</i> or any of Luis Gonzalez Palma's prints. Funny thing, nobody complained when they were doing it. But if they were inspiration, then there should be respect for the sources.