S&D Pub: on sharpness

[tonmestrom]

<p>Cartier-Bresson once said "sharpness is a bourgeois concept" and I think he hit it on the nail. Technique for techniques sake has almost never led to succesfull photos. Personally I'm one of those photographers that have invested a lot of time in mastering technique and I think it's often neglected as the fundament for good photography. Nevertheless it should never be more than a means to an end.</p><div></div>

[tonmestrom]

<p> </p><div></div>

[wieslawmamon]

<p>I would say, using maths language, that technique in photography is a necessary but insufficient condition for making a successful shot, an idea, vision, the way we see the world must come first, without those 'ingredients' even the most breathtaking range of tones, sharpness and that sort of stuff will at best make a photograph nothing more but a pretty picture.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p >“Cartier-Bresson once said "sharpness is a bourgeois concept" and I think he hit it on the nail”</p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >I think, taking away the bourgeois thing, he was actually saying it’s about the photograph other than the technical quality. In the times he was living in, and the limitations of cams and films, it was particularly relevant. However, that was yesteryear, today, there is no excuse for poor technique; laziness is the thought which come to mind. </p><div></div>

[Damon DAmato]

<p>I tend to be pretty tolerant of <em>motion blur</em> which, sometimes, can make the shot more interesting. Sometimes I'll purposely work on the edge of what I can handhold, just to change things up for a few shots. You expect lots of misses and hope for something cool to happen.</p>

<p>If a photo is <em>o</em> <em>ut of focus</em> , it has to be a really good photo, or important for some other reason, to get past that.</p>

<p>This is a shot of Zack Arias, a photographer and blogger from Atlanta. I noticed him conducting a workshop on the street in Hollywood, pulled over, and shot him. It was getting dark-- I'm at 1/25 at f1.4, from an idling pickup, so it's pretty blurry and out of focus. I'd guess many people would consider it fatally flawed, and I wouldn't argue with them about it.<br /> Personally, I like it because <em>it's him-</em> - it looks like what I saw that day.</p>

<p align="center"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3457/3970833304_3e58f46322_o.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="560" /></p>

[fi_rondo1]

<p>"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept"</p>

<p>Bresson himself has become a bourgeois concept.</p>

<p>Sharpness itself has become an epidemic that has nothing to do with technique but with what technology has made possible. To blur or not to blur, that is a question only asked by photographers who have considered what they want their pictures to look like. Although the poet, Wallace Stevens was talking about other things, I think the last line of his poem The Snowman is a way of looking at taking pictures. That we try to capture the <em>Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.</em></p>

<p>Sometimes nothing calls for a sharp image. Other times, not... But, as many have already said, here and elsewhere, it's what's called for when it's called for.<em><br /> </em></p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Following on Fi's thoughts about sharpness and technology and how "sharp" has become an often distracting goal, I'd almost prefer to talk about <em>clarity</em>. Ton, can you site the context for this quote of Bresson's? I'd like to read his surrounding ideas to get a better handle on what he was after with the comment.</p>

<p>How clear do we want our photos to be? It seems there can be an array of answers, all of which have merit depending on the situation. We may want to leave ourselves and our viewer with some level of ambiguity or we may want to take a much more distinct stand or position with our photographs. If we are trying to be clear with a photograph, we might use "art can be interpreted any way you want it" as an excuse when others don't get our "message." Nevertheless, I recognize that people are always going to bring their own experiences and even prejudices to images. As a photographer, I have to balance those aspects when listening to and absorbing people's reactions to my photos.</p>

<p>Sharpness and its partner, blurriness, are tools. In and of themselves, neither is "good" nor "bad." They do what they do. Blurriness may clarify motion or it may obscure detail. It can make some things clear while making other things muddled (and "clear" isn't necessarily better than "muddled").</p>

<p>I think I understand what you mean when you say technique is "a means to an end." But that splits them up more than I'm comfortable with. It feels like it sets up a hierarchy that I'm not sure I find necessary. I simply see them as partners. When I've worked with partners, there's a back and forth between who works hardest sometimes and who is the face of the project at various times. I think there is a sense in which technique can, sometimes, become the actual subject of a photo, in a good way. I look at paintings by Monet and the brushstrokes aren't just support for a vision, they are the vision to a great extent. It's the haystack or the bridge that is actually the means. Nan Goldin's technique can't be separated from her subject because it is the vehicle through which and only through which I am aware of the content. And the color, the technique, the strong highlighting, etc. is as much the subject as the person or place. Her technique is getting me somewhere. And it is also there already.</p>

<p>It's not unlike the kind of thinking in "the medium is the message." Technique often has its own voice and is, in fact, an end in itself. At a certain level, the expression is the technique and is not just being voiced by the technique.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p> "There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." Ansel Adams</p>

<p>A bit more nuanced then HCB's quote, and I think it covers also what Fred is talking about, namely that a sharp image doesn't automatically makes a more interesting or compelling image BUT also not quite saying that sharpness per se is to be neglected because it may be a bourgeois concept. The Adams quote is saying rather, more clear then the HCB quote even if both photographers might have meant the same, that technique and idea should complement each other.</p>

[ray .]

Sorry guys, I don't know about anybody else, but over about a dozen lines on one comment in these threads really puts me to sleep, especially when I know

the point could have been made with considerably fewer words. Or if you really can't help yourself, how about posting at least one photo for

every half page you write?

 

Sometimes blur or out of focus works, sometimes it doesn't; it's probably dependent on at least a hundred different factors. I'm not sure though if it's worthy of a

treatise other than what's contained in your body of work.

[Damon DAmato]

<blockquote>

<p>...can you site the context for this quote of Bresson's?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>After reading that question, I started thinking maybe it's one of those, "first, kill all the lawyers" things that everybody seems to get wrong.</p>

<p>There are several versions of the story out there. You'll have to Google "Helmut Newton" and "sharpness is a bourgeois concept" and make up your own mind.</p>

<p>From what I can tell, he said it to Helmut Newton. Cartier-Bresson had been commissioned to take portraits of photographers over eighty. One of them was Newton, who noted Cartier-Bresson's hand wasn't as steady as it once had been, and some of his photos were a little soft.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Ray--</strong></p>

<p>You're officially excused from reading any post you don't want to read :)</p>

[ray .]

Thanks, I feel much better now.. ;)

[fi_rondo1]

<p>If Damon's story is right then Bresson's comment was an off-hand remark that can be interpreted in certain circles as a little joke. If it was something said in passing it's pretty amusing how this has become enshrined in photographic lore. Bresson's distaste for the bourgeois is typical of the upper crust's attitude toward the merchant class.</p>

<p>Fred's comment on clarity makes sense... clarity implies vision (which, last I checked, doesn't seem to be a bourgeois concept-yet)...</p>

<p>The quote Phylo posted is more apt:<br>

"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept." Ansel Adams</p>

<p>We need some pictures. The following was an accident. I had the settings all wrong but the mood is closer to how I was feeling at the time.</p>

<div></div>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>>>></p><div></div>

[ray .]

Love those

 

... Phylo & Fi

[michael s.]

<p>I guess my 'technique' -- such as it is/was -- more or less matched my subject's technique: a fast glance in a dark spot.</p>

<p><a title=". by sandbagm, on Flickr" href=" title=". by sandbagm, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3306/3176194752_0e427cd629_o.jpg" alt="." width="750" height="563" /> </a></p>

[tonmestrom]

<p>Fred, partners is a good word yes. What's at the chore of this is that we have all kinds of possibilities nowadays that it's easy to forget that some things can be used creatively as well instead of striving for a technical "perfection" that has essentially nothing to do with the quality of a photo as a whole. Nevertheless I don't agree completely with you Allen because, while it's basically true that optics and what not where once not as good as they may be today, the difference is not as big as some make it out to be.<br>

What's kind of ironic for instance is that while technology has tried, and succesfully so, to get rid of grain in even high ISO films to a standard that was once out of reach we now develop methods to artificially apply grain.<br>

As for the context of that quote I'm not sure. Damon may well be right. However, more than one of HCB's photos can be called soft although I'm convinced it's not just optics that are responsible for that.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>"What's kind of ironic for instance is that while technology has tried, and succesfully so, to get rid of grain in even high ISO films to a standard that was once out of reach we now develop methods to artificially apply grain." <strong>--Ton</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, it is ironic. Very good point.</p>

<p>I understand that we respond to grain emotionally (and also somewhat nostalgically), so wanting to reproduce it even with a medium that doesn't "naturally" produce it (digital), seems perfectly reasonable. At the same time, I think imagination and creativity will eventually win out over the desire to continue to create grain "artifically." People will actually start using the potential of digital and the qualities uniquely belonging to digital and other aspects of digital photography (like backlighting, for example, since so much imagery is now viewed on monitors) and these new things will become the new grain. Just like many watercolorists stopped trying to imitate oil after a while and began to love and respect their particular medium for its own characteristics. This is why I tied technique so intimately to aesthetics. There is a significant creative aspect to technique and to an intimate appreciation of medium.</p>

[sd_woods]

<p>For what it's worth, I vaguely remember reading that Robert Capa didn't think sharpness was that important. I suppose his famous image of the dying/dead soldier is testament to that statement.</p>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>I don't think I ever tool a photo with "sharpness" as a goal. Sometimes not even correct exposure or acceptable composition.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[michael_dimarzio]

<p>Oh yea, who cares about EV? Hhahaha, try to make a cola out of this hahahaha.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Reminds me of the line in the song: "It aint what you do it's the way that you do it. ... and that's what gets results." <br>

When I look at different types of prints I impulsively compare the technical aspects of digital and large format. I know very well what a fine 8 x 10 contact print is supposed to look like. I'm watching digital trying to catch up - it's a way of keeping score. It isn't as satisfying as enjoying a picture for the picture's sake. It's the same as looking at PS arted photos and admiring how well they emulate painting or drawing. <br>

On the other hand, lately, I find it completely satisfying to art a photo trying to endow it with some graphic quality reminiscent of "historical" (not digital!) photo techniques. Is it merely decorative whimsy or a serious understanding of the expanded photographic aesthetic I ask myself. Or not. TX grain - cool!</p>

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