...photography goes photoshop!

I think there are very interesting and creative jobs in photoshop's thrill

nowadays, however "straight" photography [i mean digital photography too] must

be practiced & considered yet - and for a long period of time - as the

fundamental approach to inspire old and new photographers so far!

Perhaps you could illustrate your forum posting by using <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/5419468"> one of your own images </a> as an example.<br><a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00KKiL"> This recent discussion </a> might be of interest to you.<br>There have been many other threads in the past, which dealt with the fact that some viewers see "too much Photoshop" in the photo.net Gallery. <br>Images which have <i>improved</i> aesthetics through the use of Photoshop can also inspire old and new photographers, imo.

I just retuned to photo.net this morning after some weeks away and noticed that most of the images featured on the main page are quite heavily manipulated. I'm tempted to be a defensive purist after forty years of doing "straight" photography. Yet I'm coming to see that the switch from "photography" (simply the writing of light on a photosensitive base)to digital enhancing of analog signals is improving images esthetically. At least we're still free to venture into both the old and new worlds for now.

Easy photo manipulation has liberated so-called straight photography: it has defined the

genre clearly. If you like it, do it.

 

Popular photographic practices have always been tightly coupled with emerging

technology. If one were to look at the time-line of patents from the beginning to 1955 and

compare the popular photographs of the time you would see clear changes in imaging

throughout.

 

Nothing has really changed except that now we have the 'net to observe opinions and

display photographs throughout the economically privileged world. P/N is the concensus,

for better or worse.

"however "straight" photography [i mean digital photography too] must be practiced & considered yet - and for a long period of time - as the fundamental approach to inspire old and new photographers so far!"

 

Don't worry: it will.

 

The very best Photoshop work is like the best camera techniques: It is always invisible.

Even without Photoshop, don't we always do some kind of manipulation to get the image we want? We tweak f/stop, shutter speed, focus, ISO, EV, WB, etc., all the time.

 

It seems to some that if the 'alterations' are in camera, that's okay but if they come from software, they aren't.

Maybe I'm a purist (old fogey?) but I think a good photographer is like a good baseball pitcher, once you let go of the ball (click the shutter) it's all over. Don't depend on the catcher (computer) to bail you out.

<i> once you let go of the ball (click the shutter) it's all over.</i><P>

So you never get any of your shots developed? Or printed?

Charles,

 

Do you process and print your own film or let a lab do it for you? If you use a lab, you are letting them be the "catcher" in your analogy.

Ellis, it's broader than that. His post excludes all darkroom work, none of it matters, simply snapping. I'll have to remember that.

And of course it's ok to set the shutter speed and aperture, compose the shot, use a

particular lens, perhaps wait for a shadow to pass, use a camera that's been invented since

the early 1900s, just not anything beyond that. If "purists/old fogeys" would consider the

posibility that a photograph is NOT reality, not even close, and recognize that EVERY photo is

a manipulation, they wouldn't concern themselves so much with trying to attain something

that by the very act of shooting through a lens they have already lost all chance of attaining.

Ellis, I mostly send out slides and the formula for developing is just as fixed as the formula for the original emulsion so there is no playing around to improve the results. You have to get it right the first time. (Probably more laziness than purity here.)

I appreciate Ellis Vener's words:

 

"The very best Photoshop work is like the best camera techniques: It is always invisible."

 

The masters in imaging have gone beyond mere technique. We know when we're seeing it. There's no end to some people trying to figure out how they might've used a set of technologies to accomplish it.

In fact I really respect all opinions above, therefore - in my point of view - things are getting heavier, very close to exaggeration and bad taste in PS fields...The clearest example are recent photos posted in PN's gallery photos [site's opening page] where we can't distinguish art from exaggerated hybrid cliche photoshop works! Let's put an order in this carnival, please. Should "fantasy-like" photo transfigurations overwhelm real photographic art?