Is post-processing trickery the norm?

Richard you are right about the spots. You have a very discerning eye. Mea culpa. Thanks for the catch. I should have caught it and cleaned the sensor. As far as Pollack goes when I saw it at the Rijks museum I thought it was just a sloppy effort at throwing paint out of a gallon can with some of it hitting a large canvas, At my age and level of experience I continue to become aware of my own fallibility when it comes to judging the tastes of others. It has become increasingly difficult for me to set myself out as some sort of authority on tastes of others. I am perfectly willing to accept criticism but I am not content to be judged against some arbitrary standards, as some advocate, to separate so-called real from manipulated photographs. I prefer my own judgment. I go way back in air shows and represented the FAA and the Air Force in several air shows including six years at Oshkosh. I know who Art Scholl was or is if he is still alive. Richard Sperry, I have no wish to argue with you. Your language appeared to indicate that you are strongly opinionated and maybe somewhat disdainful of the opinions of others. I have valued the words in my quote from Shakespeare since exposed to it in high school. My life, and I am now 78, has encompassed a somewhat flawed search for self honesty. I had to be quite self honest flying airplanes because airplanes don't understand desparate exhortations or reasoning. So I value the words not necessarily the context from which they come. Neither a borrower nor a lender be seems to be a good idea in today's financial difficulties.

<p>I think the discussion about Pollack, and curators, is interesting. Like a lot of people, I never responded much to Pollack's work but when I got into photography I began to study art as well, knowing it would only help.</p>

<p>Although I liked some abstract work, most of the Pollacks I had seen weren't too impressive I didn't think. I didn't dislike the work, but hadn't really seen anything, in person, that had been hit me strongly--I like images that were more the sort you looked into than at and his work is that sort to me. Then, in 1989 I was in NYC and went to the Met. I was on a business trip and that day I was flying out and had until mid afternoon to visit the museums. I went to the Met essentially just wanting to see the modern/contemporary art and of course the photography exhibit. I was only going to see those two and get over to the Whitney when it opened in about an hour. When I was finished with the photography--which as I remember was the work of the Becher's--I literally ran to the contemporary exhibit and as I turned the corner, I looked up and was stunned. There was a very large Pollack hanging on the entire wall in front of me and it was dancing! I had never seen anything like it and I finally understood. I don't find every Pollack as powerful as that but some have come close, but he was a true original and an important figure in American Art. (his painting before that was actually very good and over time matured--very derivative of his first mentor TH Benton early on, but like any artist of any note, found his own thing that moved him beyond the crowd)</p>

<p>As to getting it all in the camera, I think most photographers have that as their goal unless their thing is creating composites. Since it came up as "manipulation", that was exactly Adams goal with understanding light and how to develop his film to maximize the usable light on the negative.</p>

<p>The catch comes in the fact that no camera can see like we do. We can see a far greater range of light than the camera can (we soft develop film or bracket or compress in RAW processors), our eyes can immediately color correct various difference in light in different areas of the same scene (shoot a soft sunset with AWB set versus the WB set to daylight--which is the truth?) and our eyes are very selective as to what they see, they focus right onto it (dodging and burning used to contain an image or emphasize an individual part of the scene).</p>

<p>These are all "manipulations" that help us bring something in the real world back to something more closely related to what we saw at the time. The camera is completely objective (but biased as to how the scientists think things should look in general conditions), our eyes are not. But we don't just see things with our eyes, we feel things that enter our eyes and whether it was Adams pulling out contrasty paper and dodging or burning or someone in the digital darkroom blending exposures, bumping contrast or saturation or whatever, the purpose is to bring what was seen AND felt to life.</p>

<p>At times, even in darkroom work, that meant removing something from the scene that wasn't noticed or couldn't be at the time (no one seems to mind moving things out of the scene physically on site but many of those same people balk at digital removal). Often, this meant spotting it out or bleaching it out and spotting back in or maybe just depressing the tones in that area to minimize the distraction--and of course there were those masterful at working the negative or print so that the item disappeared in other ways.</p>

<p>Some of the other things we see coming from the digital darkroom, like the work of John Galyon that has been linked above, harkens back to the pictorialist era. Today, the debate between Adams's f64 and Mortenson seems silly, as most fully accept that early work, including the photo secessionists, as important work. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onjogMmwuqs&feature=related">Even Adams championed the pictorialist type work early on</a>)</p>

<p>Today, a lot more can be done and as I said above, I don't think it is an issue if it is done well. The problem most of us see is that when someone is learning, they don't see it isn't done well. A friend of mine, who has been a sophisticated visual professional for some time, recently decided to pursue photography. He sent me an image to look at and I had to laugh. I called him and asked if he didn't see that he had so softened the skin of his model that it looked like plastic--he saw it when I pointed it out. Sometimes the new thing just sort of looks cool and we show it only to later realize we were seduced by the new rather than the substantial--it's all part of the process.</p>

John A. Well said. As I said earlier some people see Pollack differently than I do. Who am I to judge. I think there is room for all of us.

BTW John A. TH Benton has been a favorite of mine since my youth when I first saw Perephone stretched out in the bowl of tree. Truly beautiful and sexy.

<p>Benton had a lyricism to his paintings that I always have felt was under-rated. The first one I saw in person was at the St Louis museum. When I saw it, I saw two men threshing and 3 or 4 women gathering--I walked up and the women were stacks of hay.</p>

<p>Much later, traveling through Missouri I stopped at the capitol and got to be in the room where he painted his mural by myself for a long time--I was truly in awe of the work there, it brought tears to my eyes, literally, and I don't do that!</p>

<p>Last night a friend of mine took me to a local photo club. They were having a photo contest. Some experience photographer rated two groups: color and B/W. I'd say about 1/3 to 1/2 the photos were Photoshopped to the point you could see that the image was far from the original image. Some had black background cloned in to make flowers stand out, others had filters applied to make them appear as paintings, one guy clones in an extra swan (missed by the judge), etc. The judge really did not look at these things but based his rating on print quality, lighting, compositions, interesting subject, action (in the case of some sports shots, color contrast etc.</p>

<p>While he discounted one because he felt it was "over-photoshopped", he wound up rating another one the highest although the background was obviously to him and everyone else overlay-ed with a streak of colors to bring out the soccer play action. He mentioned that and was not concerned.</p>

<p>So what does this all mean. In talking to him and others in the club I get the distinct impression that soon, there will not be too many people who will be concerned at all with the original scene. That photography is going to be treated as if it was a painting leaving it up to the artist photographer to do whatever he pleases to reach a final result. The only people left with maintaining the honesty of the content might be newspapers and other periodicals who have an interest in keeping it "real". I don't know whether this is good or bad. But it appears that's we're we are going.</p>

John A. Where I got introduced to Benton was in a book called Modern American Painting published somewhere around the end of WWII or just after. I just looked it up and it was published in 1940 when I was eight or nine. I think it was in our house then. The color rendition in that book was exceptional. Grant Wood's American Gothic was in that book as well. I literally wore that book out thumbng through it. I wanted to be an artist but trying to beat the draft in 1952 I joined the Air Force and became a pilot instead. I guess that's why I much later became interested in photography because of a long suppressed desire to be somewhat creative. However when I was called at the last minute to do a wedding that turned into a business after I retired from aviation. I think also in Persphone where the old man was peaking around the tree at her with this lecherous look that THB had a great and ribald sense of humor. He knew about us old men.

<p>Alan, I am the last person to ask regarding what goes on at most photo clubs. I went to a couple of meetings when I first started and decided to run for the hills!</p>

<p>I think you will always see work from the purists and now, with it so easy, stuff that pushes the limits of what photography is. There will also be a lot of things in between. The bottom line is that almost all of it will serve some purpose. I have seen the most awful portraits hanging on the walls of cafe's advertising the person's skills--they think it is good and apparently so did their client.</p>

<p>The most important thing is to have fun with your endeavors in photography and go in the direction you want to go--don't worry about the rest--and learn all you can about the path you choose.</p>

I just looked up a few of THBs paintings. I forgot how appealing they were. Many of them contain interesting distortions that trademark them as Benton's paintings. I particularly like what might be described as Kentucky mountaneers with the fiddler. His palette was also distinctive. I too think he is highly under rated. Thanks John for mentioning him. BTW the book Modern American Paintings must be a classic as it appears it is still available. Thinking about his work is quite a pleasurable reminiscence for me.

BTW I spelled "Persephone" wrong twice. The mythical Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. Benton's Persephone was much more down to earth, I think.