Life is not perfect, so why should the photograph be?

<p>I thought I would start a new topic of discussion, merely seeking to engage in an area of documentary/street/people photography where so many of the images we see today are too nice. Now in order to prevent misunderstanding here let me elaborate: Nicely composed images, strikingly sharp, spring-cleaned tonalities and generally cleaned up warts and blemishes on images that, in reality, were perhaps aesthetically unpleasing at the time of capture. This is what I mean by: life is not perfect, so why should we make the image too presentable, have we been sub-conciously trained by the media at large, the photography tutorials and the gift of creating perfection in photoshop? by the way I love what photoshop can do, and I too have been sucked into the cleanliness teaching and the present day aurora of what has been deemed as an excellently presented image. Are blown out highlights always to be frowned upon? Does this show"un-professionalism"? And so as to eleviate miscontrued ideas here, I am not advocating thoughtless, happy-go-lucky image making. </p>

<p>Maybe this discussion might go somewhere edifying, </p>

<p>regards, Chris.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Does this show unprofessionalism? Dont know about that. I've seen too many images in newspapers, and magazines (even photography mags) that had images that to be quite frank: lousy.</p>

<p>I try my best to give a clean image, I think most of do. But you have an excellent point. Before the days of the computer and photo editing programs - we would see photos that today we would be embarrassed to have people see.</p>

<p>I think we have all (assuming we are talking about the digital image, wether from a digi camera or a scanned neg) cloned something out, or adjusted something or other. But at the same time, are we not doing via the computer that others did in the wet darkroom?</p>

<p>Maybe its because Im getting older but I'm kind of getting tired of seeing those 'perfect' images. I'd like to see the before photos!</p>

<p>Now that I'm getting into film again (black and white, and developing the negs at home), I think I'm being more conscience of what I am seeing in that veiwfinder. Cropping out in camera that distracting element.</p>

<p>Maybe people should just say no to photo editing programs for a while, get back to basics. Do their editing in camera.</p>

<p>"an area of documentary/street/people photography where so many of the images we see today are too nice."</p>

<p>How about some links to the kinds of images you are referring to?</p>

 

<p>In street/documentary one approach/philosophy would be to render "ugly" scenes with the best photographic technique possible as a means of generating contrast (not luminance contrast, but contrast between the subject and the rendering of it).</p>

<p>For many doing the Fashion magazine cover treatment is an irresistible Photoshop exercise that must be done. I myself often deepen the contrast to bring out more of the pores and imperfections to give an aged or ruddy complextion to faces. It's all a matter of what the photographer wants as an end result. There is no hard and fast rule that photos have to be exactly processed to match the human eyes vision in the natural world. In order for photo's to achieve the desired effect that the photographer had in mind, post processing is a need that should not be looked upon as a dishonest cheat.</p>

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<p>we would see photos that today we would be embarrassed to have people see.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Examples?</p>

 

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<p>so many of the images we see today are too nice</p>

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<p>Ditto Don E. Examples?</p>

 

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<p>Nicely composed images, strikingly sharp, spring-cleaned tonalities and generally cleaned up warts and blemishes on images that, in reality, were perhaps aesthetically unpleasing at the time of capture.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Composition, sharpness, tonality, and clean-up has always been a choice of the photographer or photo editor, if it's being published. However, based on what I see online, most people are able to take a pleasant scene and make it aesthetically unpleasing. Photographs should be aesthetically pleasing or informative. Aesthetics is a choice, though, and not universal.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Is the Mona Lisa too perfect? Doesn't it depend on your goal for a particular image? If original reality is an important part of your intent, then leave all the warts in place. If beauty or simplicity are primary, then some removal of distracting defects seems reasonable.</p>

<p>I fear that the emotional response to the photograph has taken a back seat to perfectionism. The "wow" factor of what can be achieved in post processing is so alluring that we tend to overlook why the image was taken in the first place. Maybe somewhere in the time between reacting and capturing the shot, and processing it on the computer, the emotional connection is lost. We then open the image and view it with an unbiased eye and treat it more as a document, fitting it to an acceptable technical standard. Many movies suffer this fate, throwing CGI at you left and right, and as beautiful as it may be, the story and the characters get left behind and the emotional impact of the movie suffers. Just a theory.........</p>

<p>I think it is safe to assume we will not get a link to a street or documentary photograph that is an example of "perfectionism" or even 'too niceness', which means this will likely turn into a bitch-session about "photoshopping".</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Perhaps it's about intention.</p>

<p>If a highlight is blown unintentionally and doesn't fit with the vision the photographer is conveying, it's just a mistake. If it is, on the other hand, intentional, and aids in the desired expression, great. Knowing what you're doing usually helps in any art and/or craft.</p>

<p>Haphazard photographs and lack of attention to technique seem often to be excuses by some who don't want to learn or do the hard work involved in conveying a vision. "Art" is a magical thing in the right hands and an excuse for sloppiness and laziness in others. The "art-is-anything-you-want-it-to-be" mentality generally leads to a degradation. Don't ask me to define art, because I can't. I can just talk about it for hours. But I know it's not just anything you want it to be. And learning a craft seems most often to accompany great art.</p>

<p>Photoshop doesn't make me want to clean anything up. It helps me create what I want. It usually helps me to get my prints or computer images to express what's in my mind's eye. Framing something with a camera is already "cleaning away" a lot, if that's how you want to see it. You get rid of all the distractions of the world outside the frame. Peripheral vision has influence but is not captured in the same way within the frame. Movement is frozen, time is stopped. Is that a cleaning up of reality? I don't know. It's a photograph. A new object. Something to be seen.</p>

<p>The perfectness of a photograph comes in its being (most of the time) a finished product, although viewings of it and perspectives on it may continue endlessly. I think "sterile" might be an important word here. Weston's pepper may be perfect but it is not sterile. His pepper isn't messy but it's ok with me. In photography and in art, there are many ways to skin a cat. Spontaneity can be messy and effective, but a good setup and staged scene or pose can be equally effective.</p>

<p>It's more about transcendence than anything else. Hurrell's Dietrichs have it, no warts to be found. Avedon's American Westerners have it, warts and all.</p>

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<p>I think it is safe to assume we will not get a link to a street or documentary photograph that is an example of "perfectionism"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Of course not, it was a strawman.</p><p>

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<p>Avedon's American Westerners have it, warts and all.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I went three times when the show was at Stanford last year (or was it the year before?) These prints are some of the most heavily processed I have ever seen, very much altered to fit what the photographer wanted to show. To a great extent, the "warts and all" are emphasized for effect. This is why I make the comment above about aesthetics being a choice - it's not something for which there is a universal standard.</p>

<p>"I thought I would start a new topic of discussion, merely seeking to engage in an area of documentary/street/people photography where so many of the images we see today are too nice."</p>

<p>I think mine are kinda nice. What would be too nice? How would I make them nicer so that they were too nice? It's like the girl on the left here... <a href="../photo/8377733 ">http://www.photo.net/photo/8377733 </a><br>

...I think it is really nice the way she's glancing admiringly at the man passing to her left. And probably the girl on her right is laughing about it. Well, this can all be seen better in the print, but it is surely a plenum of niceness.</p>

 

<p>"Now in order to prevent misunderstanding here let me elaborate: Nicely composed images, strikingly sharp, spring-cleaned tonalities and generally cleaned up warts and blemishes on images that, in reality, were perhaps aesthetically unpleasing at the time of capture."</p>

<p>I think you are not preventing misunderstanding by writing an incomplete sentence. In the preceeding sentence, then, the "too nice" does not refer back to "street etc", but is a forshadowing of the next snippet, where what you mean by "too nice" is elaborated.</p>

<p>"This is what I mean by: life is not perfect, so why should we make the image too presentable, have we been sub-conciously trained by the media at large, the photography tutorials and the gift of creating perfection in photoshop?"</p>

<p>I doubt many good photographers waste time attempting to 'clean up' bad exposures and by some alchemy turn them into "nicely composed images, strikingly sharp". Where did you get that idea? Why do you think they would do that to an exposure they found "aesthetically unpleasing"?</p>

<p>"And so as to eleviate miscontrued ideas here, I am not advocating thoughtless, happy-go-lucky image making."</p>

<p>Then what are you advocating?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Jeoff wrote:""Composition, sharpness, tonality, and clean-up has always been a choice of the photographer or photo editor, if it's being published"". <br>

And why do you think he does this? is it because todays cultural aesthetics demand it? (Ps, the tone of my voice is not inpolite here)</p>

<p>Tim wrote: ""I fear that the emotional response to the photograph has taken a back seat to perfectionism""</p>

<p>Tim is getting to close to how I feel in his post, <br>

Fred wrote: ""Haphazard photographs and lack of attention to technique seem often to be excuses by some who don't want to learn or do the hard work involved in conveying a vision"" So what do you think of Martin Parr? Even Kudolko? Even Egglestone has been widely accused of swinging a cat around on a piece of string and snapping away. </p>

<p>Jeoff commented:"" This is why I make the comment above about aesthetics being a choice - it's not something for which there is a universal standard""<br>

Not universal I agree. But there are most certainly cultural standards as evidenced in practically all the photography magazines at least in Europe. No messy photos there, I doubt whether martin parr would have been published. Aesthetics is a learned process and cultural standards dictate aesthetic values every day of our lives. </p>

<p>Kind regards to you all - Chris. Oh and Don, i like your images. Maybe a wee on the clean side for my tastes. <br>

<br /></p>

Photography is a language, like painting is, like writing literature and poetry are , did you know how many times a writer is working again and again to change and choose the right word to express what he want to express, in the most compatible form? How many drawings are made by a painter when he start preparing an idea for a painting on a new canvas?

 

PS is a way to help a serious photographer to express what he wants in the most "grammatical" way the language of photography afford , be it film or digital. To start with a bad photo in order to express significance, no PS will help. There are photos that are overexposed here and there, very dark here and there, no sky, etc, and the result is touching because it has the extra something that is defined as "art." When a photo or a painting or a book are uploaded or published, they are having their own life ,they will last or perish?, time will tell.

I think that development is to try and "polish" ones intention, and significance of what he/she wants to express.

Life are not perfect, right, we still try to make them better , so is creating.

<p>" Oh and Don, i like your images. Maybe a wee on the clean side for my tastes."<br>

What do you mean by "clean"? Do you suggest I take them to photoshop and mess them up a bit? You wrote above: " life is not perfect, so why should we make the image too presentable" What do you think I did to them that made them "too presentable"?<br>

Life isn't as messy and foul as you seem to think it is. That appears to be the lesson you have not yet been taught.</p>

 

<p>"So what do you think . . ."</p>

<p>I think swinging a cat randomly sometimes works and often doesn't.</p>

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<p>But there are most certainly cultural standards as evidenced in practically all the photography magazines at least in Europe.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The standard is set by European photography magazines? When did that happen? Did books, museums, galleries, the internet, all just become irrelevant without anyone telling me? Jeez, I should have been more vigilant in obtaining information.</p>

 

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<p>And why do you think he does this?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because of he (or she) doesn't do it, the photographs are random snapshots. Photography is about learning to use the tools and doing something useful with them, not ignoring them. Without these tools, a photography is nothing.</p>

<p>You confuse aesthetics, tools, cultural standards, and technology into one meaningless glob, which is why you are getting so many of the responses you are getting. Some critical thinking before posting, and maybe reading some critical and historical material on photography would go a long way.</p>

<p>Pnina wrote: ""Photography is a language, like painting is, like writing literature and poetry are.."" Yes but the painter and the writer are creating something ex nihilo, photographers can not do that, they are representing what is already in existence. So the comparison is a bit, shall we see, not suitable.<br>

Jeoff wrote: ""the standard is set by European photography magazines? When did that happen? Did books, museums, galleries, the internet, all just become irrelevant without anyone telling me? Jeez, I should have been more vigilant in obtaining information."" To use an analogy which could take several historical articles to describe, think about fashion in the last 400 years: or think about the bodily odour that today is unacceptable but in victorian times was perfectly acceptable; or think about the hair styles of yester-year or the ear-rings worn by men today, that were not worn 60 years ago yet 1000 years ago were worn by men. Who sets these standards of acceptance in dress and fashion and cultural appeal. what is appealing today for women was not appealing to them 100 years ago, the list is totally infinite, who dictates these culturally acceptable changes over time? So yes, the photography magazines, the use of the digital cameras, the media at large Do set definate trends, and you and I are brought up to believe that these values are the only correct values.</p>

<p>Jeoff also said: """"You confuse aesthetics, tools, cultural standards, and technology into one meaningless glob, """No I asked a question, and this question is intended to raise the issue of what has become acceptable in the photographic industry as the correct presentation of an image. Why oh Why was egglestone's image of a red ceiling so controversial? think about it, was it because it was an image of a ceiling? NO, i have seen images of ceilings that are very aesthetically constructed and are 'nice'? No, the response he got was because it fell outside of what people expected and believed was good photographic practise. This is what I am driving towards. What is good photographic practise is not dictated by what is good and professional and artistic, it is dictated by the cultural time in which we live. These are two very different modes of appreciation.<br>

Kudolko's work lacks many of the aesthetic qualities of our time, yet it is admired. Yet again it would not be admired by Any of the photographic magazines or shows of today, except for the fact that we have been told that Kudolko is to be admired, who tells us who is a good photographer? Who sets the standards? </p>

<p>Kind regards, chris.</p>

<p><br /></p>

<p><br /><br>

<br /></p>

<p>Chris--</p>

<p>"the painter and the writer are creating something ex nihilo"</p>

<p>No, they're not. A painter is choosing paint and canvas that already have certain properties. A writer uses words that have already been used and taken on meaning through historical usage. The painter often works with symbols and signifiers that have long been understood to mean something in particular, precisely in order to make a visual point that is NOT ex nihilo at all. The writer may do something similar with words. And, unless the painter is blind and the writer deaf, they are likely -- at least to some extent -- adapting what they've already seen or heard to their own imagination's vision.</p>

<p>"photographers can not do that, they are representing what is already in existence."</p>

<p>No, they're not necessarily doing that. Much photography is non-representational . . . especially if looked at with a certain kind of eye. Many photographers create.</p>

<p>"we have been told that Kudolko is to be admired"</p>

<p>You may have been. Who the heck's Kudolko?</p>

 

 

I guess not many others have been told, either.<br />

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<strong>Web</strong>

<p> Results <strong>1</strong> - <strong>1</strong> of <strong>1</strong> <strong>English</strong> pages for <strong>Kudolko</strong> . (<strong>0.34</strong> seconds) </p>

 

<p>Did you mean: <a href="http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=Kudelko&spell=1" ><strong><em>Kudelko</em> </strong> </a> <br /> <!-- a--></p>

<h2 >Search Results</h2>

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<h3 ><a onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','1','')" href="http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/03-Romania-02.htm" >Chapter 3</a></h3>

The steady and unshakable conduct of Offizier–Stellvertreters <em>Kudolko</em> was remarkably noteworthy. The artillery was relocated successfully. <strong>...</strong> <br /> <cite>net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/03-Romania-02.htm - 74k - </cite> <a onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','clnk','1','')" href="http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:kcL13xLF8zcJ:net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/03-Romania-02.htm+Kudolko&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&lr=lang_en">Cached</a> - <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=related:net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/03-Romania-02.htm">Similar pages</a>

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<p>"...strikingly sharp, spring-cleaned tonalities and generally cleaned up warts and blemishes on images that, in reality, were perhaps aesthetically unpleasing at the time of capture."</p>

<p>Chris, there are many websites (including this one) and galleries out there with plenty of photos to which that particular description doesn't apply. Here's one site, just as an example. (NOTE: includes nudity, if that's a problem for anyone...):</p>

<p><a href="http://www.completelynaked.co.uk/intimacy7.htm">http://www.completelynaked.co.uk/intimacy7.htm</a></p>

<p>I'm really not sure what your point is, TBH...</p>

<p>Chris<br>

Fred's answer saved me answering you, as his words are part of what my answer would have been, I will add only that many painters nowadays, but also after the camera was invented, used to look at photos or even using a camera to photo what they wanted to paint. So ex nihilo is a " limited guarantee"..... The history of art is full with examples of how painters and writers were influenced in their works by artists preceding them. No one starts from scratch, but photographer/artist needs a lot more than just looking at something, he needs vision, imagination, ideas thoughts, experiences, and a lot more to create! The camera is only a tool to quarry from within himself.</p>

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<p>you and I are brought up to believe that these values are the only correct values.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You know nothing about how I was brought up, so please don't pretend to. I grew up without television, which has had far more influence than European photography magazines, and without slick magazines. However, I don't believe that how one is brought up creates a value system that is maintained. The most popular photographer in Japan is Araki, and if how people are brought up there makes him the most popular, then one would have to assume that the Japanese are brought up on a steady diet of fetish magazines and foreign skin mags.</p>

<p>Also, please try spelling my name right, it's not very difficult, it appears to be a deliberate attempt to provoke given that you have done it multiple times across multiple posts.</p>

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<p>the photography magazines, the use of the digital cameras, the media at large Do set definate trends</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And really, provide any evidence that photography magazines, which are read by a very small and select audience, and digital cameras, which are merely a tool, set any "definate (sic) trends." Any data, any studies, or is this just another strawman?</p>