Does it matter ho a photograph was achievedit is the final results that matter

[Allen Herbert]

This is a constant chant by the media,sent to the unthinking to sell products.Yes it does matter.The Afgan girl with the green eyes is a dream photograph Why because it is real.No filters.no digital manipulation.Those who like manipulation would be better with a paint brush and canvas,not a quick fix,they would get more satisfaction and learn more.And that speaks true of photography equally.To listen to music is enjoyable,to be able to play it will give you a lot more.

[bobtodrick]

Allen - you have a big problem. You may not realize it but you

don't speak for the great unwashed masses. You like straight

photography. Great. I'm pleased for you. You don't like

batteries. Great I'm pleased for you. But don't presume to tell

others what is right, or what they should like. You have a right to

your opinion, but you don't know it all.

[raymond_tai]

I have learned to use a particular lens, film, developer, paper,

dodging and burning, multi-contrast printing, toning, etc., just to

get that particular look. Maybe I'll go as far as putting nose

grease on the enlarging lens for the inflight magazine look. But

others may think that is too much manipulation. Some people

react with horror that I don't print full frame. Where do you draw

the line?

[ben_hughes]

Allen:

I definitely agree with your position. Digital may have its place

and I even use it to some extent for business. As for my

photography hobby, it's Leica all the way, Tri-X, wet darkroom

and fun.

I think the world and the media have gotten so fast-paced that

only digital will do and the true photojournalist craftsman of the

past is going extinct. I can say this because my livelyhood does

not depend on it. Opinions will vary.

[edward_deangelis]

Spoke earlier with an executive of one of the largest retail outlets

in the USA this morning. Asked him the impact of digital. They

outsell film cameras 3 to 1. Looks like we film, and non automated

people better quit bitching and learn to co-exist.

[doug herr]

I find it very amusing that the use of b&w film especially with

filters is not considered manipulation. Is the original subject

b&w? What is so holy about chemical manipulation that converting to

b&w at the time of the exposure is considered pure photography but

converting to b&w with Photoshop is considered manipulation? I'm

baffled.

[Robin Smith]

Allen is eccentric, but there is something in what he says, most of us

realize this. He is a radical purist, not something I am, but there is

a germ of truth in all this. Basically, like many I suspect, I feel a

sense of discomfort that soon everything will be reduced to a machine

in which creativity or the constraints of a natural process are

removed. I particularly find the idea that photography, letter

writing, email, work, play, film and TV and music are simply becoming

branches of computer science performed on some kind of digital

platform usually produced on software manufactured by one or two

companies. Then we are told that this is much "better" and

advantageous for us all. O yes and it makes fat profits for these

companies. There is more to life than the digital realm is there not?

If there is not then it is a depressing thought.

[michael_darnton1]

The only true pure photograph is one taken without the intervention

of the manipulative mind of the photographer. Don't BS yourseves in

to thinking there's some point at which you're wholesome, beyond

which you're corrupt.

[nesrani]

Digital is just a tool.

 

<p>

 

Say tomorrow the VHP starts trouble in Ayodhya and I get a flight

Sunday to Bombay to photograph the riots. Well, unless I'm a top

snapper people are prepared to wait around for, it had better be in

digital (either capture or scan) because if it doesn't get into a

magazine by the end of the week after, nobody's going to be

interested anymore.

 

<p>

 

It's all very well being pure, but if you want to use pictures to say

something about the world you have to be equipped. For me, it's

leicas and a scanner, but as soon as it becomes viable for me, I'll

be going digital.

 

<p>

 

As for the Afghan girl snap, do you really believe it makes any

difference whether it was taken with a digital camera or a film

camera, in manual or auto mode? For God's sake.

 

<p>

 

Show us some of your great pictures, Allen - I'm not saying you don't

have them - and explain how they have extra soul beecause they were

taken with a 1950's camera.

 

<p>

 

The only thing - the only thing, got it? - that counts is the

photographer's ability to see and make the picture. If digital

capture streamlines the process, then so much the better. People who

buy cameras to take pictures don't spend all day drooling over the

sound of the 15th second escapement mechanism whirring.

[Allen Herbert]

Manipulation is manipulation,even in black and white it is that

simple.Great photos do not need to be manipulated they speak for

themselves.Time spent manipulating could be best spent looking fot

that great image.The unwashed masses might follow the ad man,but they

know enought not to make a manipulated image great.My opinions are

not ment to hurt or anger,they are my opinons only.Take them or leave

them as you see fit.They offer another view other than media hype.

[Allen Herbert]

i agee for the, got to get it first it is excellent.First in gets the

biscuit.They are also looking for truth ,manipulatiun is not a issue.

[wgpinc]

I couldn't help thinking of all the hours Eugene Smith spent in his

darkroom manipulating (dodging and burning) his prints so he could

get the print he wanted. Get a life Allen. Cheers!

[Allen Herbert]

Cutting,burning,digital manipulation how far does this go before it

beares little resembelence to the original photograph.Are we not then

moving then into the world of the artist.Maybe a certain amount of

enhancement ia acceptable,but i have to begger the question...at what

point does it end,and is the term photograph really the right

terminolgy.Or should it be creative artwork,using a original

photographic image.

[mike dixon]

<i>Cutting,burning,digital manipulation how far does this go before it

beares little resembelence to the original photograph.Are we not then

moving then into the world of the artist.</i><P>

We are then moving into the world of the practicing photographer who

is concerned with getting the images in his head onto paper (and

moving away from the world of the armchair pseudophilosopher who is

overly concerned with how everyone else is supposed to practice their

craft).

[doug herr]

<I>at what point does it end,and is the term photograph really the

right terminolgy. Or should it be creative artwork,using a original

photographic image</I><P>

Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image has

begun. Manipulation includes choice of field of view, depth of

field, recording media properties, framing. These can all be used to

tell lies as easily as truth and the distinction is the

responsibility of the photographer, not the tools. The fine line

between straight and manipulated images if it exists at all isn't in

the tools. Go take some pictures.

[bobtodrick]

Right on Mike and Doug!!

[Spearhead]

<i>We are then moving into the world of the practicing photographer

who is concerned with getting the images in his head onto paper (and

moving away from the world of the armchair pseudophilosopher who is

overly concerned with how everyone else is supposed to practice

their craft). </i><p>

 

Exactly. You said it before I could.<p>

 

The people who seem to hold the religious extremist view on this

topic never seem to produce much in the way of photography.<p>

 

I regard even my "straightest" photos as gross manipulation. I am

very careful to make them into what I want right from the start.

That even includes creating a fiction while street shooting.

[xavier_dalfort]

That girl is now 30 and got 2 kids. She did not receive a Rupiah from

that photo.

 

<p>

 

However, the photographer (he speaks french BTW) said he would try to

help her two kids thru school.

 

<p>

 

Who said manipulation? Tsss, just "opinion mouldering", it's not

manipulation.

 

<p>

 

From a French who is going to vote soon.

X.

[ralph_barker]

Computer, generate me a picture of a young girl with piercing green

eyes, and a burgundy-colored head covering. No, make her features a

little more angular, and they eyes more piercing. Oh, and darken the

shawl a bit. No, no, no, the expression is all wrong. I want a more of

the Mona-Lisa filter, where you can't tell what she's thinking or

feeling, but it could be anything. No, turn the head a bit to the

right. Soften the light a little. No, that's just not working. Oh,

hell, I'll just go out and take the photograph myself.

 

<p>

 

Now, where did I store that old Leica that manipulated the light so well?

[andy_piper2]

Shoot - even putting a frame around something and removing it from it's

context is 'manipulation'. Or did Doug say that already?

 

<p>

 

I stem from the documentary school of photography - I find the outside

world to be bigger and more interesting than the smaller world inside

my head - BUT I also know that I am making choices and "adjusting'

reality every time I pick a 90 over a 35 - or use this film over that

film - or go out to shoot in one light over another - or choose to

shoot my subject front-lit, side-lit, or back-lit. And I do play with

tonalities somewhat in the computer darkroom, but nothing I couldn't do

with chemicals (just faster and easier!).

 

<p>

 

My standard to myself is that I represent 'reality' truthfully - that

my pictures won't mislead someone else about my subjects.

 

<p>

 

I did a travel story on the highest paved road in North America (up Mt.

Evans, Colorado to 14,264 feet). I struggled to find THE picture that

conveyed "altitude" and "road". Finally saw the shot in my rear-view

mirror and shot it the way the mirror had cropped it - with a 180.

Black silhouette of steep hillside with a notch where the road cut

through and an SUV silhouetted in the notch. Background was layers of

receding backlit blue mountain ranges getting paler and paler in the

distance.

 

<p>

 

Now this was nothing like how a 50mm or 35mm would have represented the

same scene - you would have seen more mountains and road, but you

wouldn't have FELT just how high and narrow the road was. Trust me - I

drove past the site 5 or 6 times unknowing before I happened to see

this 'image' as cropped by the rear-view mirror.

 

<p>

 

Manipulation? You tell me.

[greg_mason]

it is easier to be a purist when shooting for ourselves. when you

are shooting for others it is a diferent story. in portrait work for

example some clients just need help to produce a photo that pleases

them. for example i do not believe i have shot a woman over 40 with

money in years with out some kind of softening either during the

photo or during the printing.

[mike dixon]

I'm not even sure what "purist" is supposed to mean when refering to a

photographer (though I have a sneaking suspicion it's synonymous with

"fetishist"). I wonder if we could have all the purists get together

and agree on a definition; then maybe we could have a sensible debate.

; )

[olliesteiner]

I think Doug Herr gets right to the heart of the issue when he says

(above): "Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image

has begun." How can ANY work of art be any more or less than it is

because of a technique that was employed in producing it? Does the

composition of a photo suddenly get better because I learned that it

was an uncropped full frame? You can have good and bad photos with

uncropped frames. - You can have good and bad photos with cropped

frames. The only thing that matters is whether it is good or bad.

Steigletz said: (sorry, I can't locate the exact quote - this is a

paraphrase): "Step on the negative if you want to. What you did to

get the image is nobody's business!"

-Ollie

[steven_fong1]

The only way to completely avoid 'manipulation' is to act without any

intention whatsoever. Photography is intended, even when you're trying

to be unintentional, thus the idea of manipulation is inescapable. More

to the point is whether i am truly present when i make that picture.

Cheers.

[Spearhead]

<i>Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image has

begun.</i><p>

 

For me, it happens earlier. As soon as I see something I want to

photograph, I begin to manipulate it into what I want. The great

Clarence John Laughlin, who died years before digital manipulation

came to be common, said, "It, therefore, should be possible for even

the photographer - just as for the creative poet or painter - to use

the object as a stepping stone to a realm of meaning completely

beyond itself."<p>

 

The idea expressed in the original post about a separation between

painters and photographers is <i>exactly</i> what has made it

difficult for photography to escape second class status in the art

world. That kind of attitude constantly sets photography back and

keeps it in a tiny box with little value.<p>

 

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