Is the real not good enough?

<p>I would like to free my polemical and inquiring mind. I was just responding to a comment on <a href="../photo/12017211">one of my photos</a> when the following questions popped up in my mind. I will paste the exact words I used, with just a few adds between [], for practical purposes:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I see a lot of visually strong images that are "muscled up" by heavy digital editing as to create a reality that is better than the original. A good and easy example is the contemporary production of landscape photography (but also other fields), that shows the most incredibly beautiful, sharp and super-saturated panoramas that do not correspond to the real at all and are mostly realized with thousands-of-dollars-worth gear. Reality is not like that! And what's the point in showing a reality that is not real? Why do we have to improve what is real? Is the real so visually weak to our eyes? [Why do we always have to overwhelm nature with technology?] Is nature not good enough for us that we must [look at] it it "improved" and sharper on a HD screen? The real is already so beautiful and spectacular, we just have to find the best way to capture <strong>IT</strong> on film. Nowadays, we never have enough of special effects...</p>

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<p>I would like to add something. Many painters used the real and transformed it according to their artistic vision (Van Gogh's corn fields or starry sky) but we are not talking about painting or visual art here. We are talking about photography, that is very different. Visual art and photography are not the same; visual art is art and photography is something else (I don't really know what...). If a photograph looses its nature of being a photograph (representing the real, even if interpreted), it becomes something else. So, why do we need to "muscle up" and often ruin the essence of what could have been much more pure and powerful in its original state with not much editing?</p>

<p>What do you feel about it?</p>

<p>Please do not feel offended by my words, I am here to get answer to my questions and find out if I'm missing something. Thank you.</p>

 

<p>The answer to the "WHY" in you post is because .. we can. Now more the ever, on a wide scale with digital cameras and post processing. People are looking for the "fantasy" scene ... not as it was, but as they imagine it to be. Surreal HDR, over sharp, over saturated colors ... removal of everyday objects that dont "fit" into the scene has they see it in their mind's eye.<br>

We've got millions of people taking pictures, and editing them to their version of perfection. But still no that many "photographs." Some of the best images have been made with manual film cameras, and a minimum of manipulation in printing. A lost art and concept.</p>

<p>Photography isn't a visual art? News to me. There has always been a lot of interpretation in photography and some didn't like the colors of Velvia, for instance--and how real is black and white? I am not saying that just because we can, we should or that just because we can, it is good, but then why not and sometimes it is.</p>

<p>Everyone has a preference and nothing in the history of photography could ever lead one to believe that a photograph is real or that is somehow the criteria for a photograph........</p>

<p>.......not a visual art?</p>

<p>I agree. Photography IS a visual art. Several people can photograph the exact same exact and come up with different photographs that have different moods and elicit different feelings....</p>

<p>A photograph is not a replication of the real even though a small sample (about 10 to the minus 25 kilograms) of the subject matter is needed to make the process happen. The relationship of photograph to subject is <strong>indexical</strong>. This means that a photograph is an absolute certificate for the existence of a particular subject but it is also only a very selective describer of that subject matter.</p>

<p>A good example of indexicality is a footprint in a soft surface. The footprint assures us that someone walked by but it does not tell us how tall the person was or whether they wore glasses. Moreover footprints in sand look different from those in mud but both are still indexical.</p>

<p>Pictures manufactured in a digital environment don't need an indexical relationship to any particular subject. All that is needed is a displayable file and such files can be conjoured out of thin air in whole or in part. Modern digital picture making is a mechanisation of the old arts of painting and drawing and as such is ultimately hostage only to the imagination and not the real world.</p>

<p>Both kinds of picture making, photography and digital, can generate beautiful images or lurid ones that can be enjoyed or reviled on their own merits.<br>

As for reality itself, well we can get a pretty reliable taste of it by just looking out the window.</p>

<p>Your opinion that photography is not visual art is .... yours.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Maris, indexicality is a whole other topic and the loss of such in photography, at least in part, may be the OP's point. The fact is that digital manipulation, which is much older than most even understand, has weakened the argument of indexicality, as might be evidenced in the work of folks like Demand and Gursky--and even Wall, for that matter.</p>

<p><strong>Kim</strong></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Some of the best images have been made with manual film cameras, and a minimum of manipulation in printing. A lost art and concept.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Not a lost art and concept, it still exist and many great photographers still use it. They are trying to convince us that we need "surreal HDR, over sharp, over saturated colors ... removal of everyday objects that dont "fit" into the scene has they see it in their mind's eye" but we really don't. They just throw this model on our faces every day thousands of times and we start to believe that that's better than the real.<br>

<strong>John A</strong> and <strong>Kim</strong><br>

The art in photography does not lay in the technical and visual aspect, but in the mental and emotional process the photographer does when he visualizes and takes a shot. That's why it is not "visual" art, because it is "emotional" and "mental" art of the photographer itself capturing a real scene that should be the same for everybody but it is not. <br>

<strong>Maris</strong></p>

<blockquote>

<p>The relationship of photograph to subject is <strong>indexical</strong>. This means that a photograph is an absolute certificate for the existence of a particular subject but it is also only a very selective describer of that subject matter.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Agree with part of it (should check out <a href="00Xis6">my other forum post</a>). A bit too pragmatic for me, you should read Roland Barthes' "Camera Lucida".</p>

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<p>As for reality itself, well we can get a pretty reliable taste of it by just looking out the window.</p>

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<p>Are you positive about that?<br>

<strong>Robert</strong><br>

Very often we resolve situations by saying... oh well, this is my opinion and you have yours... That's called relativism.</p>

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<p>Some of the best images have been made with manual film cameras, and a minimum of manipulation in printing. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>Many of the "best" images ever made were made with manual film cameras and a huge amount of manipulation in printing.<br>

<br />So what? Photographs are what the photographer wants them to be, not reality. Only the most trivial shots approach reality.</p>

<p>Jeff ... my point was that in every forum, every photography community online, those new to photography are looking for the best gadgets, sharpest lens, and newest advances in technology thinking that THOSE things will make them take fantabulous photos. They won't. They key is the photographer.<br>

Unclench.</p>

<p>The question struck me as being about "reality," not equipment. The mention of equipment in the original post was very brief and not the point of the post, from what I read. </p>

<p>Antonio, so is painting, print making and sculpture also not visual arts? Certainly I know a few who work in these mediums that would feel pretty denigrated if they were told their art was only technical and visual(odd that photography isn't!?) and not also emotional or mental--and let's not forget concept. It seems like twisting things around to one's own purposes. These are all visual arts, you can coin your own verbiage and definitions, but they are not so different really.</p>

<p>We also have to remember... what is "reality". Our eyes see things differently than a dogs eyes. Our ears hear different things, as well as our sense of smell is very different. I'm sure that reality to a dog is very different than our reality.</p>

<p>Also I believe that 2 people do not see the same way. I would imagine we perceive colors ever so slightly different, and obviously our perspectives are very different.</p>

<p>Just my thoughts.</p>

<p>I sympathize with Antonio. I lean much more to the realistic school of photography, trying to get an image as much like what I directly perceive as possible.<br>

Yet I don't always want to just record. Photography is so much more than indexical - sometimes I want to produce an image of what I wanted to see.</p>

<p><strong>Jeff</strong><br>

Even if done in a darkroom, any manipulation is excessive IMO. Bresson didn't need to have his images edited over the simple contrast control, masking and dodging and cleaning off scratches or imperfections. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Photographs are what the photographer wants them to be, not reality. Only the most trivial shots approach reality.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's like saying "I play Mozart the way I want" and this is the mistake many musicians do today, swimming in this cultural relativism that well fits our times; in playing classical music there are freedoms and there are obligations to follow due to political, philosophical and social influences on the single authors. Saying "that's the way I like to play it" is too easy.<br>

Capturing the real does not mean that you want to represent the real; it's easy to create dreamy and spectacular "new" digital alterations; what's hard is to make people dream and think with just capturing what already IS by nature beautiful or emotionally and intellectually deep, without adding heavy editing to it. Avedon didn't need to do much with <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CKzN7TT8hV0/SC9M-rLVD3I/AAAAAAAAArQ/YA33vOfxEVk/s1600-h/RichardAvedon.jpg">this photo</a> besides understanding and processing the emotional and intellectual contend this man produces. This is when photography becomes art, not when it is visually charged and muscled up.</p>

<p><strong>John A</strong><br>

It's not that photography isn't related to "visual", I'm saying that the art in photography should not come from how great the subject looks but how it is captured. Photography and painting are not quite the same as photography is a bit "freaky" since it represents a scene that is gone from existence in the very moment the shutter is released. There is more involved with photography than just cool colors and amazing lighting effects. </p>

<p>Bresson? Yep, his black and white photographs perfectly match the reality of the scene photographed.</p>

<p><strong>Jeff</strong><br>

I think I didn't make myself clear. I am not talking about the fact that photography should represent the real. I am saying that great photography is for me the one that represents what the photographer wants to represent but through an image that is not manipulated and is exactly showing on paper as it showed through the viewfinder. It's the concept behind that counts.</p>

<p><strong>Allen</strong><br /> I's not about technical once again. I am a black and white guy and I see in black and white when I shoot. What I mean is that I don't want to muscle up the clouds or create fake lighting effects to make my shot more interesting, or even move objects from one side of the frame to the other. If I want to say something I need to capture something that speaks, not something dull and make it interesting through digital effects. I don't care about technical. <br /> <a href="../photo/11904290">here</a></p>

<p>Okay, lets continue with the that, "exactly showing on paper as it showed through the viewfinder." Again, the world is not black and white, so we should not shoot B&W. Long exposures are out. The eye sees at the equivalent of about 1/60 of a second. So shorter exposures are out--sorry, no more wings frozen in flight, no soccer player frozen in mid kick, no more long exposures of the sea, no more silky waterfalls....</p>

<p>What about color saturated films? Sorry, Velvia is out, only NC films from now on. This was actually an issue when it first came out. </p>

<p>No more zoom effects (okay, I can live without those.) </p>

<p>Lets take it a step further, should we no longer shoot macro, micro, long lenses, etc. Why are we limiting the discussion to how it looks in the viewfinder. Shouldn't we limit it to how things look to the naked eye? Wait, didn't they have that discussion in 1880? </p>

<p>You keep stating that you don't care about the technical. The way a film records the image is "technical." A long exposure is "technical." Isn't the choice of a certain lens "technical." Using a yellow or red filter is "technical." </p>

<p>What it all boils down to is you don't like some of the techniques people are using now. Fine. I don't like some of them either. But don't try to confine the rest of us just because you choose to use a different technique and somehow consider your technique genuine</p>

 

<p><strong>Allen</strong><br /> I posted a link to an image to better explain my point but I guess I will have to post the image and explain. Click to open in a new window if you want to see a bigger size.<br /> <a href="../photo/11904290" target="_blank"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/11904290-sm.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /> Here it was my intention of capturing and rendering the idea of tension at the moment players look at their cards. I captured the image on b&w film but that's not the point. The point is that the image looks on paper exactly how it looked through my viewfinder. If I shot in color it would have been in color but that's not the point. The point is that I didn't want to add any special effects to increase the communicative power of the shot; instead, I tried to shoot a scene that already had that, and this for me was the artistic experience, to see the scene and process it.</p>

<p>I ask myself what's the point of having a great HDR image made out of many different shot that holds perfect shadows, details and all but is emotionally and intellectually dull. I much rather look at an image that is minimally edited but has tremendous communicative power, such as the shot by Avedon I linked above. By the way, I forgot to mention the title of that shot, that is very important to fully understand the power of the message: "William Casby, born a slave, 1963"</p>

<p>John Kelly, where are you? Come in my help! ;-)</p>

<p>>>Avedon didn't need to do much with <a rel="nofollow" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CKzN7TT8hV0/SC9M-rLVD3I/AAAAAAAAArQ/YA33vOfxEVk/s1600-h/RichardAvedon.jpg" target="_blank">this photo</a><br /> <br />Avedon's photos are more heavily manipulated than most of his contemporaries, and as much as what's being done now. If you've seen his prints, or his markups to his darkroom person, you will know that.</p>

<p>>>I am saying that great photography is for me the one that represents what the photographer wants to represent but through an image that is not manipulated and is exactly showing on paper as it showed through the viewfinder.</p>

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<p>First of all, you can't show what is seen through the viewfinder. The process changes all sorts of things. Nothing seen through a rangefinder and shot wide open looks blurred like the background. Colors can't be rendered "as seen" for all colors except through very heavy manipulation. There is nothing about the photographic process other than the relative placement of the elements that will necessarily be represented the same way. Sorry, the idea is nonsensical.<br /> <br />Second, you cant talk about what photography you like, and what you think is great, but you can't define "great photography" for the rest of us. I don't submit to that kind of thing. However, it's worth studying Avedon, who you brought up, as a good example, as most of his work was incredibly heavily manipulated.<br>

The photo you posted doesn't look anything like what you saw through the viewfinder unless you are completely color blind. Nothing like "reality" however you want to define it.</p>

<p><strong>Robert</strong><br /> <em>Very often we resolve situations by saying... oh well, this is my opinion and you have yours... That's called relativism.</em><br>

I was trying to be polite and say that your way is not the only way to think. It is not relativism because I disagree with your position unless you believe in absolutism (which it appears you do).<br>

I actually agree with your premise that a lot of images are overdone but your premise that the image can only be made at the time of capture is one you can hold dear to your heart but you have to justify it with words to everyone else. I do encourage you to be happy with your concept.<br>

Your idea of photography is like having to explain a joke. If you have to explain it, it's just not working.</p>