Elliot Erwitt said this last night

[frederick_muller]

Plot for a photographic sci-fi thriller - what if you found one of your dead heroes' images hiding in the pixels of a digital photograph you took ... what if you ran one of your shots through a noise filter and one of his was hiding underneath? brrrr

[jonathan_reynolds]

Given the astonishingly quick-witted perception Erwitt displays in his private work, I can't see that digital would have had much if any benefit. How many digital photographers will ever match his work?

 

Gibson's special skills are completely different.

[paulmoore]

ﾓCommercial work is always shot in colour, personal always in B&W. Colour is descriptive,

B&W is interpretive.ﾔ

 

http://www.elliotterwitt.com/entry.html

 

about half of his commercial work shown is B&W..

I think he should stick to shooting, he's very good at being visually flipant

and his personal work and book projects are excellent examples of his clever seeing,

as he refers to them as "snaps". He has been very "lucky" as he has some great shots.

He is opposed to digital manipulation I suppose because his work hinges on the "fact is

stranger than fiction" concept and with the wonders of photoshop you are not certain that

it is fact.. at least you can't say " look at this justaposition I see and I got it at the lucky

moment"..

 

I just hope when he is gone they fell those trees along that road in france..they have paid

some bills I'm sure.

[ellis_vener_photography]

1.) ﾓDigital manipulation kills photography, Itﾒs enemy number 1.ﾔ

 

he is speakign to the 'fix it in photoshop mentality. he's talkign about people losing or never learning the art of seeing purely with a camera. Erwitt knows the difference between photography as an art form and commercial photography.

 

2.) "ﾓStart rich..... The field is very crowded and you should be aware that itﾒs not likely you will succeed.ﾔ

 

truer words have not been spoken.

 

3.) ﾓDigital is so simple. An image without effort.ﾔ

 

The same was true when most of you just shot color film, took to the lab and them process and print it for you. Erwitt has also said: "It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby."

 

4.) ﾓTo get a good picture, you have to have lots of bad ones.ﾔ

 

Lots and lots of bad ones. If your real keeper ratio is betterthan 1: 100 you are pretty good. ("keeper" being defined as having real photographic value , not just emotional or sentimental attachment to the people or places or things depicted in the photograph.)

 

5.) ﾓLuck is the most important factor.ﾔ

 

As Tacitus wrote, "Luck favors the prepared mind."

 

6a.) ﾓCommercial work is always shot in colour, personal always in B&W..." & ﾓI shoot B&W because it looks better.ﾔ"

 

He is obviously speaking only of his own work.

 

6b.) "Colour is descriptive, B&W is interpretive.ﾔ

 

That is why it is a lot harder to make (in camera) a really great color photograph than it is a Black and White one.

 

7.) ﾓAssignments are easy, (compared to personal work), they follow a logical procedure with a known end requirementﾔ.

 

If you have a road map and a known destination the journey is always easier.

 

8.) ﾓI like photography that captures the human condition.ﾔ

 

Bingo! Why else make photographs?

[socke]

Tools like photoshop are of great help in prepress work.

 

If your work is inteded for anything not printed in a darkroom, it will be processed with photoshop, or something compareable, somewhere.

 

If your realy rich you still get tradtional lithography and screening somewhere but you have to search very long and it will be extremly expensive. For our studentpaper we did typesetting with an IBM typewriter, lithography and screening at the university up to the early 90s and had it offset printed on a Heidelberg Offset press from 1932!

 

Today they do it with Adobe Indesign and print on a Xerox Dokucolor laserprinter, cheaper, faster and in color :-)

[kbg32]

"Commercial work is always shot in colour, personal always in B&W. Colour is descriptive,

B&W is interpretive."

 

Bulldink. I hate statements like this. Reminds me of a photographer I once knew, who used to

say, "I shoot commercial work with my Nikons and my personal work with my Leicas".

[michael s.]

Erwitt is one of my favorites. I'm delighted he's still out there, both photographing and provoking discussions about photography.

 

And I find myself nodding at nearly all of Ellis' interpretive remarks and elaborations.

 

<<< ... I should have made it clear that (IMO) his reference to 'manipulating' was to change the substance of an image - adding a different head ... >>>

 

Clarification appreciated, Gary.

 

Arguing about whether Photoshop is a good or bad thing seems a bit ... well it's a bit late, almost like arguing about whether computers are good or bad. Better we should discuss what Photoshop does well and the tasks it most sensibly and appropriately tackles.

[charlie lemay]

Even the Golden Age heroes of photography were cutting edge technologists. Photography has always been about techniology as far as the tools and processes aree concerned. The retro notion of traditional purists is an invention of the 70's and a creation of academic photography. If Ansel Adams were alive today, he'd most likely be using Photoshop. I seem to remember him being roundly criticized for doing a book on Polaroid instant photography. Dylan went electric. Creativity needs boundries to push against to acheive it's ultimate form. we shouldn't confuse these with actual boundries in the world. There is a difference. When the boundries become permanent, creativity stops flowing. Adams set himself a rule to crop with the camera. If we all honor this as dogma it becomes tyrany. If we use it to push against when we need to, it can be a source of inspiration. You CAN have it both ways if you don't try to set these rules in stone.<div></div>

[35mmdelux]

one man's opinion.

 

I'm glad the great painters didn't simply paint in B&W.

[bobtodrick]

It's his personal opinion...so what. It seems he is a tad more 'famous' and well known than anyone on this here 'lil ole forum'...I'd say he has a right to feel whatever he wants. And Trevor, please re-read the original post and what Ralph Gibson says...Erwit is talking about 'digital manipulation'...not at all what Gibson is talking about. He specifically states in your quote how easy PhotoShop has made the post production aspect of photography...scanning, adding duotone (something done to any good photobook long before the introduction of 'digital'), halftone screening, etc...nothing to do with 'digital manipulation'...apples and oranges man.

[anthony_brookes5]

Of course Erwitt is right but so is Gibson. Without a shadow of doubt it is easier to take a good picture with a digital camera than with film and it is immeasurably easier to correct/manage/alter a print digitally than chemically. That is why so many digital cameras are being sold. However in terms of craftmanship by the photographer he must choose his tools. I do think Photoshop has destroyed most of the skill required to make a decent print. But then who fishes with a split cane rod or drives a Rolls 20 for his daily use ?

[jonathan_reynolds]

Paul, there are a whole range of other monochrome media (artists working with pen and ink, sepia wash, etchings, lithographs, etc.), but I understand your point.

 

The difference is that painters can arrange the colours to be just how they like them. In photographs of the real world (rather than the studio) you can't control everything by framing, and ill-placed colours can be a terrible distraction. B&W creates an abstraction from reality, allowing the photographer to emphasize the subject he's anxious to point out. I think that's all Erwitt is saying.

[uk]

Good mixed response here.

 

To clarify, he did not criticise digital capture or digital processing, it was specifically "digital manipulation".

 

 

He did not say that he does not use digital cameras in his commercial work. I suspect he does as he is an active commercial photographer (see quote No 2 below).

 

 

A couple of things to add:

 

"Confining yourself to one lens, say a 35mm is stupid."

 

"Computer manipulation is wrong, unless the client is paying for it."

 

"My best selling picture is the one of wife, daughter and cat on the bed. It paid to educate her and she's 56 now."

 

"First big picture sale was the small dog in the knitted coat. I don't know what happened to the dog, we didn't keep in touch." :-)

 

"Next book is out in the autumn and it's called Personal Best. It's a much bigger book than Snaps and includes a lot of recent personal work."

 

"The best pictures are when you don't have a camera with you."

 

"I always take my old Leica with me." (Only two references to cameras).

 

Of the picture of Nixon poking Kruschev, "they were talking bull..it, VP Nixon said 'We're richer than you and eat meat, Kruschev repied 'F... ..f"."

 

"Crufts, Birmingham, is a fabulous place for a photographer, 4 days and 40,000 dogs."

 

"Daughter of Yale's Oldest Living Graduate picture called and asked 'why do people find it funny'?"

 

"Nudists are funny."

 

"Only the brits put on their best Sunday suits, roll up their trousers and walk into the sea."

 

"Rio de Janiro is the best place i the world to photograph."

 

"It's nice that my early photographs fund my old age and my studio."

 

Of his Red Square pictures - "had to develop them in my hotel room and then carry them to Finland as the Russians used very heavy doses of X-Ray to ruin films."

 

"Greatest moment is whenever I return from an trip and the photo is in the bag."

 

"I go into museums a lot. Usually cameras are not allowed and I cough to cover up the shutter noise."

 

"For group portraits I use horn to attract attention."

 

"I bark at dogs to make them jump."

 

"I print my personal pictures with a friend in my lab. It is important that I do and they take a long time. ."

 

"I used a Rolleiflex until I discovered the Leica and I changed and never looked back."

 

"Similar images are there to found, but some never see them."

 

 

I've visited the exhibition twice now. I've respected his work for many years, but being more of an Ansell Adams supporter I was not a big fan of Elliot. What has quite amazed me is the effect that the size of his prints has on the viewer. Some are 4 feet wide and the humour is much more evident than when looking at images in a book. I laughed aloud many times.

 

Favourite print on show is the Russian bride glaring at the man smiling to himself.

 

Hope this is not too long for you.

[peter_evans4]

<p>"Too long"? No way. More, more. Gibson's just a name for me, but I love Erwitt's work.</p><p>There's only one thing that worries me:</p><p><em>"Next book is out in the autumn and it's called Personal Best. It's a much bigger book than Snaps and includes a lot of recent personal work."</em></p><p>If it's bigger format and uses the format intelligently, that's fine. But despite being a fan of Erwitt's work I'm not such a fan of <cite>Snaps</cite>. Perhaps feeling under threat from Taschen, Phaidon and so on seem to keen to bump up the page counts. All things being equal, that's fine; but (lacking some very odd and presumably expensive binding technique) I hate it when photos are split across pages and in one way or another I find that fat books like <cite>Snaps</cite> tend to be slightly less than the sum of their parts.</p>

[jonathan_reynolds]

Hear, hear, Peter. I hope the publisher reads this thread. I especially dislike the photos split across the binding.

[zapata_espinoza]

>Digital is just another way of doing what can be done with film. But it has made certain techniques more accessible.<

 

Never saw a possibility to sharpen a film pic, remove objects without traces or increase the DOF.

According to the raw files I saw digital even REQUIRES sharpening and colour correction.

[rustymadd]

>Not referring to Photoshop I don't think<

 

I don't think? Why on earth didn't you get clarification?

 

This whole thread is an argument about just how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

 

Thelonious is hitting wrong notes....ouch! What's wrong with Monk tonight? He's been hitting minor 2nds and we all know that's a no-no.

 

We don't even know what he meant to communicate, how he defined "manipulation".

 

Besides, who cares? Out with the old, in with the new.

 

C Painter

[bobtodrick]

Your wrong Zapata...with film it's called 'forethought'...focus properly (eliminates the need for sharpening), be aware of your surroundings (eliminates the need to remove objects) and know how your F-stops work and adjust your DOF while shooting. That's what most people IMO have against 'digital'...it makes many people sloppy at the picture taking phase because they can 'fix' it in PhotoShop.

[al_kaplan1]

Yup, just go out and shoot a couple thousand "free" frames, then pick, choose, color correct, crop, etc. during endless hours at the computer. We seem to forget that not everyone used to have a Life Magazine budget for film or the lab staff to process and contact 200+ rolls of film for every assignment. A Rolleiflex and a few rolls of twelve exposure 120 produced a lot of outstanding pictures.

[jonathan_reynolds]

Zapata, you are also wrong because unsharp masking was invented and practised with film long before digital imagery was even thought of. Not to mention chemical edge enhancement. No offence, just wanted to get the history right. Memories are so short.

[travis1]

sometimes i really need to colour correct digi files straight out from cam because they really suck straight out from cam. It's not my fault is it?

 

The labs correct your negative colours too. Then what?

 

 

about manipulation...Eugene Smith...but his was ok?

[travis1]

about Erwitt and Gibson, really, their work speaks for themselves. That to me, is all that matters.

[nels]

Has Erwitt officially reached the age of senility?

 

If those statements are indeed to be taken on their face value, I'm afraid I'd have to say so. But something tells me, a broader (and missing) context is necessary to interpret those statements, as is usually the case when someone of Erwitt's stature opens his mouth in public.

 

BTW, I like a lot of his work.

[Brad_]

<I>That's what most people IMO have against 'digital'...it makes many people sloppy at the

picture taking phase because they can 'fix' it in PhotoShop.</I><P>

 

Such nonsense. Lack of skill and caring <I>makes</I> people sloppy. Just look at some of

the film-based stuff that gets posted.

[bobtodrick]

'Fraid it's not just 'nonsense' Brad. You are correct in that sloppy people will be sloppy in any medium, the way digital is often marketed (which is a different thing' I'll grant you) people new to the medium are often under the impression that one of the greatest things about PhotoShop is it's ability to fix ones mistakes. I know to some degree of which I speak...on a daily basis I am involved with the marketing of photo products to pro's schools and insititutions. I've recently had a part time instructor at a local college quit teaching because, in his own words, he was 'fed up with the crap students were submitting with the attitude that they can fix whatever is wrong that I point out in PhotoShop'. Maybe your not sloppy Brad, and maybe you work in digital, and maybe there are a lot of sloppy film users...but digital takes this thinking to new realms.