Discussion: Taking vs. making an image

[fivetonsflax]

A little better.<div></div>

[fivetonsflax]

To sum up, I think that as photographers, many people simply want to add beauty to the

world. If we have poor taste, then we will merely add tackiness. If we have good taste,

skill and vision, then we may succeed. We will not achieve good taste merely by arbitrarily

deciding, "I will use this technique, but that other technique is bad." That is itself "too

easy". The challenge is to live and work with eyes and heart open. There are no shortcuts.

[roger_hicks1]

Dear Al,

 

What the National Geographic photographers did to their Kodachromes with filtration was as nought compared with what the average origination house and printer does before they're published. The picture on the cover of my Focal Press book Travel Photography (co-written with Frances Schultz) has appeared in several places and has been been blue; grey; brown; gold... And they ALL had an original trannie -- Kodachrome as I recall -- as a reference...

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[roger_hicks1]

Dear Scott,

 

Absolutely! Incompetent and overly obvious dodging and burning in wet mono is every bit as repulsive as excessive saturation and sharpening in Photoshop -- and it is every bit as hard to explain to the perpetrators why.

 

(I initially typed 'perpetraitors' -- perhaps I should have left it.)

 

Cheers,

 

Roger

[Uhooru]

Have to agree w/Jeff throughout on this one. The quickest connections photo programs want a student to make is to see that the process of making an image includes all the elements from taking the photo to matting it, and to see how those elements interact with each other all the way through the process.

 

You would certainly say that what Ansel Adams, Weston, Minor White etc, etc, did in the darkroom was an important part of the image. True, a lot of great photographers didn't/don't do their own. That doesn't mean they feel less about the process. Most of those had printers they worked with and trust. Avedon didn't always do his own printing, but those who have seen his work prints from his printer and Avedon's notes to it, will see extensive and detailed involvement in the printing process. Can't speak about HCB, but I know modern photographers such as Bill Aron use printers they've worked with for years. When they get prints they proof them and send them back for what adjustments they want done. Its also true that poor darkroom work will produce prints as bad and poorly done as Photo Shop prints are over saturated, and badly worked. Believe me, I know on both accounts :) I think PS does make things a little more accessable and easier physically than having a darkroom. Also I think there's a really rich physical craft element to darkroom printing that's maybe not the same in PS. But using PS well, takes as much time and work as learning the darkroom if you want what I would consider "excellant" print quality.

[marbing]

I don't think your adjustment of the tones of the image made it untrue to the original...If you would have cloned in a gorilla climbing up the side of the building then that would have been different but to merely to adjust the tones of the image so that you compensate for the dynamic range of your film or the effects of whatever exposure settings you made at the time only serves to make visible elements that existed at the time of exposure. It brings the picture back to what it looked like when you took it.

 

Some people will try to argue that since a photograph is not IDENTICAL to the real object that it represents then it is NOT a TRUE representation of that object. Sure, your photograph of the building is 2-dimensional while the real bulding is 3 dimensional. Your photograph weighs only a small amount while the building weighs an incredible amount. Your photograph is in B&W while the building and the rest of the world are in color. None of this matters. The photograph is as real as the real light that reflected off of it's real surface which was focused by the real lens onto a real light sensitive emulsion and was process until you could hold a real object...a photograph...in your hand.

[Uhooru]

In response to Scott's post. I don't know how, overly burned/dodged b & w printing is considered good. My impression was that every photo/darkroom class teacher I've ever encountered would say that if someone looked at your photo and said, "wow, nice burn there", that the photo is no good. You should never be able to tell something was obviously burned or dodged (unless of course the photo is conceptual and burning and dodging is part of it.) We're talking about taste and skill. If someone paints your house and prepped a wall with spackle to fill in holeshere and there etc, you shouldn't see any evidence of that prep work on the final product, unless you want some sort of distressed look. Likewise, should you need to dodge/burn on a print, it should not be evident to the viewer.

[sprouty]

Patrick I hope this doesn't cause too many tears but here is quote from Jeff Ascough posted last week regarding his newly acquired Canon 1DMKII.

<P>

<I>"Digital gives me the advantage of instant playback so that I can get my flash exposure perfect. It also allows me to take risks that I couldn't afford to do under normal circumstances."</I>

<P>

I'm sure he didn't trash his beloved Leica but still...

<P>

As for me, well all I can say is that the last 6 weeks or so I've spent in a local community darkroom for a B&W developing and printing class has been an eye-opening experience. Post-processing is the vital link that has been missing for me. The act of handing a matted and framed piece of work to friend as a birthday present the other day and to have her brought to tears over something I had created left me nearly dumbfounded. It was immensely satisfying in a way I probably can't explain in words.

[bob soltis]

Patrick, all,

 

my thinking has been that when I just point the camera and trip the shutter, I'm taking a

picture.

 

My goal in photography has been to make pictures, taking whatever time is necessary to

make a picture that says something and is more than just a snapshot. To quote Bill Allard,

whose work I admire, "you don't take a snapshot at 1/4 of a second."

 

Since I shoot primarily slides, I'm stuck with whatever is onethe film; like Patrick, I

prefer faster lenses without flash. For me, its either spend time shooting or in the digital

darkroom, and choose to spend the time making photographs. That's not to say I don't

wind up with a lot of snapshots. ;)

 

Will post-processing and photoshopping take over photography? For those who want to

spend the time and want to change what they see in the film or no the screen, perhaps.

 

For me, the journey of making the image in the camera remains a big part of the reward.

 

regards

[root]

Ben, there is a difference between your processed image and the current POW. These discussions go round and round because we lack the vocabulary to distinguish one approach from the other.

[larry_kincaid1]

Reminds me of the guy who came up to Picasso at a party and asked him why he didn't paint reality the way it actually looks. Like a photograph, for example. Picasso asked him if he had any photographs of his wife. Yeah, take a look. Picasso looked and then said, "She sure is small, isn't she?" Just 2 inches tall. And probably black and white.

[doris_chan]

"with PS.....we will see an erosion of good taste"

 

There was no shortage of "bad taste" in the wet darkroom.

 

"It just gets too easy"

 

Other than not getting your hands wet it's no easier or harder than working in a traditional

darkroom.

 

"Maybe we should be admiring the National Geographic photographers.....nothing but

Kodachrome, at most adding some slight color correction filtering at the time of exposure"

 

Even leaving aside the notorious "moving pyramid" incident, this is wonderfully ironic. For

a long time the images in Nat Geo have been some of the most photoshopped in the

industry, the difference between an original transparency and what appears in the pages of

Nat Geo can be utterly startling. You could use Nat Geo as source material in a seminar on

"How Not To Oversharpen in Photoshop".

 

"1950's and 1960's....we learned to burn and dodge. If we wanted a printable image we

had little choice. It wasn't to be creative. It was to get the job done!"

 

Al, y'know what? It's exactly the same in 2005. If somebody shows you a jpeg straight

from their camera it's every bit as ugly and simplistic as an unbalanced traditional print.

Nothing's changed other than the recording medium.

[claudia__]

my husband just today got a 20D and it is very nice. but if i had one i really doubt i would take pix. kind of takes the fun out of it. no suspense..wysiwyg totally. but on the other hand if i want to "capture" something i want to blow up for a billboard and have a client breathing down my neck, digital is definitely the E ticket. personally, i am back somewhere at the beginning of the history of photography and working my way back. cave paintings are next (~_+)

[doris_chan]

"20D....wysiwyg totally"

 

Claudia, borrow his camera, work only in RAW and come back and tell us if it really is

wysiwyg.

[patricks]

the camera/lens is tool used to making the exposure, perhaps like a painter chosing a brush, ergo one picks a different tool/brush depending on what one wants to achieve.

 

needless to say, developing and processing is part of any image making, regardless of film or digital media is being used, however, my underlying question is if we have reach a point where post-processing skills are becoming more important that the skills needed for making the exposure? it seems to me like the first part of the process is taking a back seat to the latter as 'i'll just fix it in photoshop'-attitude takes overhand.

 

personally i do see post-processing as process, but I am mindful not to let technological capabilities take away from the focus on paying attention to the quality/direction/amount of light, the background, composition etc. making pressing the shutter.

 

it seems like a good many people are mostly interested in end result/the image, regardless of how it was created or generated.

[fivetonsflax]

Thing is, Meryl -- I darkened the sky in my image because I thought it looked better that

way. Was that how I saw it when I tripped the shutter? Umm ... I honestly don't

remember. So I can't claim I was just being true to the scene the way I saw it.

 

BTW, speaking of the 20D, that's the camera I used to make that image. So I agree with

the person who said that things don't have to be "WYSIWYG" with a digital camera, or with

the 20D in particular.

[claudia__]

no thanks Doris...too involved with

<p>   <a href="http://www.sfbaysailingpix.com/blog/">this</a> </p>

 

<p> and <a href="http://sfbaysailingpix.com/Blackie.htm">this</a>

</p>

 

<p> and <a href="http://allmycameras.blogspot.com/">this</a></p>

analog input, digital output. the fun, the suspense and the digital tinkering. some of us folks can't live without the anxiety of film input. kind of a woody allen thing. hard to explain but you know it if you feel it

[patricks]

btw, do anyone remeber when they loaded a roll of fuji reala 100 in the camera, shot it, and had 4x6 or one size up printed (not scanned and then printed) and the images actually looked good/pleasing to me without any post-processing effort or decision on my part? sure, for "fine art printing" yada, yada, aspects of the images could have been improved, but for making people smile and remeber, it was certainly good enough...

 

[note to self: put down the DSLR and pick up some fuji reala]

[Spearhead]

<i>it seems like a good many people are mostly interested in end result/the image, regardless of how it was created or generated.</i><p>

 

I have yet to get a show, get juried into a competition, sell a print or get published because I cared more about how it was created or generated than I did about the final image. The final image is what I have to show and publish, and occasionally to sell, not my process of making it.

[patricks]

Jeff, obviously you and i take images for completely different purposes. But tell me, when submitting a photograph for exhibition/what-have-you is ANY amount of post-processing fair game in order to get the result you want? Changing background? Add people and/or objects to the scene?

 

Hence, I make a distinction here for PJs who we expect to not edit images for subjective purposes, but in general.

 

I mean, I can make an image of my wife "look better". I can remove some wrinkles, take away that birthmark on the neck, dodge and burn selectively to make the images prettier, but where does it end? I guess it is an individual decision.

[claudia__]

jeff, that is your POV. i also show and sometimes sell and my funky cameras/techniques are often of interest and a selling point to those who follow my work. it just depends...there is no "one way." you can pull a tooth with a rusty plier or with a high tech shiney dental tool. it still is pulling teeth.

[al_kaplan1]

I guess that we could discuss this until the cows come home and still find no common ground. Everybody is going to do exactly what they feel they must to get the picture they envision, whether from a digital file or a B&W negative. Which medium to use, and where to stop, is something we each must decide for ourselves.

[EricM]

"C-B wasn't a printer but he also wasn't uncaring about how his photos were printed. You don't have to steer the ship yourself to be the captain."<br><br>

HCB also wasn't a photographer. A shooter shoots and doesn't print. A photographer uses the camera, the negative, and the print, to convey. <br><br>

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[Brad_]

<I>It seems like it is mostly/all about the end result "the image" and less and less about

the journey of taking that photography?</I><P>

 

Isn't that usually the case, whether it's a painting, sculpture, or a photograph? This is really

just a thinly disguised thread about the limits/ethics of digital "manipulation," of which

there have been dozens on photonet over the last few years. <P>

 

Why set limitations that are defined by a threshold or line? Do what you need to do to

realize the result, or image, you're going after. If you want to reduce photography to

getting the correct exposure, using manual cameras, with no cropping, that's fine. Just

don't expect others to adopt the same definition as to what photography is about.

[claudia__]

stick a camera in somebody's face and you get a picture of somebody with a camera stuck in their face. HCB didn't do that. i'm not exactly clear on Eric's point because there are so many pix and i am on dialup so i am using the first one as the base for my comment. looks confrontational in terms of photographer in person's face for no good reason. don't see the HCB reference at all. it is just bad, confrontational street to me. tell me if the additional images i could not load make a point i am missing.