Is our craft dumbing down? If so, why?

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste]

"So, Anne, here's one shot with a Lens Baby, which is worth 200% less than your lens ; -)"

 

Marc, lensbabies here in the UK cost almost double a 50mm 1.8, I'll agree with you if you're talking about worth.... :-P

 

I didn't realise that the problem you are describing was so very bad, I really didn't as you can see from my last posts. If you can't visualise in the viewfinder then how can you visualise in PS? Nothing you can do in PS will make a photo taken 2 feet from a brides nose with a 12mm lens look good, nothing.

 

I can't count the hours that I've spent looking at other photographers work (I used to see a lot when I was in the lab), searching websites, seeing what works and most importantly why, and what doesn't, or wouldn't for my clientele. Looking back over my own work and seeing what I like and can use again, and the ones that seemed a good idea at the time but are better left unsaid.

 

I have a bunch of 'pose' lists in my bag. Although I don't need them it does help when I need to work very fast. There is set of poses for a B&G (extensive), for a Bar Mitzva boy/teenage boy, a Bat Mitzva girl/teenage girl, etc, etc. Each list was made up by researching poses to work out what makes them good, shooting hundreds of frames and working out which were the best of the best that can be used in almost any setting.

 

I just can't see how anyone can fix a bad or uncomfortable pose in PS.

 

It's late, I've just finished working out, I'm tired and I'm ranting in general without it going anywhere so please ignore the above...

[picturesque]

Wow--I know I'm a latecomer but here's my take. I don't think the craft is generally dumbing down. There's always been either new or bad photographers who let trees grown out of people's heads, and didn't have a clue about light and exposure or how to direct people to look good. They either survived or didn't based on whether they learned or got by on their charisma or business smarts. Being able to fix things in PS just makes it easier to survive a little longer, perhaps, and it's trendy to use PS to "enhance", but trends come and they go.

[cjogo]

MARC --a very good example with your 2 images...one which maybe determined to be a little flat. Yet, a viewer may have a different profile, to judge the wonderful image with. Who's responsiblity is this? You, as a professional, have done your part.

 

When I turn over the film to my B&G --I only hope the lab, they take their image to for enlargements, can recreate the quality (color/density) of the proof I have included. Now the litmus test; of my digital images I have delivered :: the B&G may be at the mercy of their monitor/printer profile. If they are preferring to print @ home, to save cost, and can not achieve the full potential quality..then they have to return to our studio, with a budget to reorder, from the files. Professional photographic quality > must be respected, but paid for. I bring the 25+ years < of my quality of the craft > to every event. If the client reciprocates, with a budget for post/pre quality --they will be rewarded with best we can produce. There are no hidden clauses ::: the client selects good/better/best...just like any consumer has with a product.<div></div>

[anner]

Marc, I hope you didn't think I was taking a dig at you.. rather I was just trying to embelish

the point which you firmly believe and have communicated so many times- that

equipment doesn't make an image. Similar results can be achieved regardless of the

material between the eye of the photographer and the reflection of light- it's the technical

knowledge and artistic eye that matter most (though, I'm not claiming to have either!)

 

Since you seem to be on a little bend for stirring things up, I'll play along... I find it ironic

that you advocate "doing it right the first time" and yet in this very thread you've

demostrated an example where you've gone back to an image and made PS adjustments to

make it look less flat. ;-)

 

I think that perhaps the larger crime is being committed by the general public who employ

photographers despite their lack of training, personal investment, or quality work. I know

that I have witnessed a few people who simply raved about their photographer's work and

when I saw it I was truly disappointed and believed that they could have received so much

more for their money. However, that photographer remains employed because people are

still paying and must not care about the things which bother me. Perhaps there is

something amazing which I cannot see? Who am I to judge? Fewer people (clients) are

taking the time to educate themselves about what's good or bad, and instead, are relying

on advertising to sort things out for them. If we had a truly discerning and educated

public, this epidemic of careless shooting and rescuing bad technique might be a mute

point.

[anner]

PS. I hope you know this is all in good fun, especially since you wanted to stir things up a

bit... I find it very funny that you say equipment doesn't matter and yet you have some of

the latest and most expensive equipment money can buy! Now what kind of example are

you setting for all those poor folks who admire you? ;-) (Like me!)

[diver down]

Marc,

In you orginal question you state that "people are Photoshopping them to the point they are hardly photographs anymore." The reality is that you, me, and everyone else, deal in an illusory medium.

 

Take your Lens Baby photo for example, Does this represent reality? Did the people who were present at that moment see nothing but the front 2 inches of her face? Whether it's a wide aperture, a crappy bellows, or Gaussian blur, none of these photos in truth represent reality.

 

The argument of what tool was used to achieve the means, is purely rhetoric.

 

As to the craft "dumbing" down, there has been, and there always will be "shi**y" photographers, but with the advent of the digital age there are just more of them. But the argument of the medium creating laziness in oneself is obviously, if you look at unbiased, unequivocally false.

 

"YOU" - are ultimately in control of whether or not you'd like to seperate yourself, or accept mediocrity in this medium.

 

Just as the story I stated earlier in this thread, about the people who are in the process of suing Mcdonalds because their food made them fat; no one shoveled MC'fries or Mc'shakes down their throat, they made a conscious decision for themselves.

 

And concerning the critiqueing of other peoples work in this industry, which as a "resonably" honest man I must admit we "all" do, there was a learned man who once said "IN THE INFINITE LINE OF SOULS, THERE ARE ALWAYS, THOSE AHEAD OF US AND THOSE BEHIND US," who are we to judge where someone is at, in their infinite journey for Photographic knowledge.

 

Even Ansel was able to admit,in the late hours of his life, "I am always learning.".......

[gregory_c]

In some cases photoshop is ok, for the most part, there is a loss of photography skill here. Clearing up acne is fine. I once saw a outdoor pic of a foggy stream with a bridge over it, and someone in a small boat on the stream. The article explained how the "photographer" added the fog and the small boat to the picture. What happened to the photograher ariving to the stream before the sun comes up and waiting patiently for the fog to form, sun at the correct brightness, the people in the boat to be in the perfect position. I guess he is a click and drag, cut and paste "photographer"

or should I say picture taker,,

[diver down]

What you state about the foggy photo pic, is the extreme example of what we "all" do, to 1 degree or 180.

 

Photographers have been using "magik" since the advent of photography. Blue graduated fliters, ND filters, Bellows, small apertured lenses, softars, super saturated films, polarised lenses, sandwiched negatives, vasaline smeared newtons, on and on and on....

 

While the cutting and pasting of objects "into the photo" is something I believe most photographers would disgust in, haven't we all, before the influence of "modern" technology, used methods to "bend the Light," into a sharply focused laser of our own personal device?....

[StuartMoxham]

We have had a lot of progress that has made cameras far easier to use and far easier to get good results from and this has probably led to some of the dumbing down of the craft. As and example if you purchased a Nikon FM back in the 70s it never took pictures by itself assuming a person could manage to load the film correctly (something that many seemed to struggle with) you would still have to set the exposure and focus the image before you could even hope to get anything good from the camera add a manual flash into the picture and as you can guess many people gave up with them before they really mastered how to use them. We all have relatives that have abandoned manual SLRs sitting in closets because they never learned how to use them properly. The amount of bad results people got meant that very few had the crazy idea of shooting wedding or anything else for that matter. Now if you purchase today an Nikon F50 you drop the film in switch it on once you learn the focus recompose your off, roll after roll of family snaps come out just fine because the results are so good you use the camera you take it to family weddings your not ashamed to show the pictures to other people and then the relatives start asking about photographing their weddings of course you've never had bad results so you accept. Now you can all see the problem straight away where is the photographic knowlegde, at this point you don't know an F stop from a bus stop now assuming that you purchase backup bodies and all the equipment keeps working you may get away with this for a long time you may even be producing very good work from an asethics point of view, I am sure that some will get away with this their whole lifes but it could and does often come back to bite you. Without knowing what is going on you can't predict when things may go wrong. Now some will at some point try to take the time to learn more about what they are really doing so it is not all bad and nobody ever said that the only way to shoot is with manual equipment all the time.

[fotografz]

Well, this thread has ranged all over the place. Yet, in the end, if it made a few of us stop

for a minute and think about our art and craft, then it is all for the good.

 

No specific judgment of any individual was meant, but to go forward without employing

SOME sense of discrimination as it applies to art is to enter free-fall where all opinions are

valid even if they are bad or misleading opinions ... and undisciplined chaos reigns

supreme.

 

So, the "who am I to judge" argument is a copout IMO. There are some basic principles

which have guided and governed art for all of history. The intelligent avoidance of time

tested artistic principles is one thing, blindly missing them out of ignorance is another.

When Picasso was asked what he thought of a Kindergartner's finger painting he replied:

"When I was their age I could draw like Raphael. It has taken me a lifetime to learn to draw

like them".

 

In the end, all things are possible if one masters the beginnings, and resists leaping

forward to the end ... where in the case of photography, one forever flounders in ignorant

reliance on automation that was established based on averages ... and not surprisingly

yields average results IF all average conditions are present.

 

Concerning PhotoShop: it isn't by accident that many, if not most, of the tools in PS are

based on wet darkroom techniques or camera/lens effects. Changing the contrast of an

image like I did above due to web upload isn't the same as manipulating a poorly shot

image in an attempt to cover up dull observation and mindless use of a tool that one has

no mastery of.

 

As to the gear discussions: Photography is reliant on some form of engineered tool. Be it a

shoe box with a hole punched in it (Camera Obscura ), to todays most advanced

technological wonder camera. If you can come to understand the principles of the shoe

box, then the wonder camera is less of a mystery and easier to be the master of, rather

than the opposite.

 

My first "shoe box" was a Leica M4. A meterless, totally mechanical camera that at first I

hated because it did none of my thinking for me. It was as dumb as a doorknob. It's very

dumbness is what taught me the basics. Now every camera I pick up I simply see as a shoe

box with embellishments.

 

Today, some of us can afford the finest "shoe Box" available, and the best pin-hole may

now cost $2,500. But without mastery of your craft, your art will suffer regardless of

what's in your hand as a tool ... and you'd be better off returning to an Oatmeal box with a

pin-hole in it.

 

 

P.S.: I most certainly am NOT above goofing around with PhotoShop manipulations. I was a

painter before a photographer, and like experimenting with PS. But it isn't done to mask a

body of ill conceived, poorly composed images, featuring the wrong lens draw, and no

sense of lighting ... at least not as a rule : -)<div></div>

[blueform]

Marc,

 

i think you should write a book on Photography, i`m sure it would become a best seller.

 

In the meantime for all those who are not familiar with the rudiments

and want to avoid ps for the right reasons, get a copy of Andreas Fenninger, the Complete Coulor Photograper.

 

I read this book 25 years ago,I think it covers pretty much of what is being discussed here and a great deal more.

 

James.