Is the real not good enough?

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Jeff, Arthur</strong><br>

The communicative power of a shot is expressed by the subject and the way the photographer captures it. Anything after that is just a craft. Cartier-Bresson apparently never printed an image himself, because (he says) he was not interested in the darkroom part, that was done by a trusted person that very well knew what Bresson liked. So, I am glad that at least HCB comes in my help here. He clearly divided the two moments of creating a photograph and I totally agree with him. I love darkroom work but nothing compares to the seeing and executing, and knowing that you got the shot right. This is creative for me, anything after that is a craft that can be learned by anyone.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Cartier-Bresson was exactly one person. I assume you are pointing to him because your last example, Avedon, was dead wrong. Avedon, like many of the greatest photographers of the film era, was into heavy post-shoot manipulation, like Moriyama, Mortensen, Giacomelli, Meatyard, Klein, etc. etc. HCB doing something one way means nothing for photography as a whole.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>I love darkroom work but nothing compares to the seeing and executing, and knowing that you got the shot right. This is creative for me, anything after that is a craft that can be learned by anyone.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Imagination is not a craft, execution of imagination is.</p>

<p>" I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see."<br /> -Duane Michals</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>( Avedon <em>did</em> mention HCB as being his photographic hero, 'worshipping' him )</p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong></p>

<p>As I said in my previous comment taking as an example HC Bresson, I consider darkroom technique just a craft and nothing artistic. I develop and print my own shots and I have never felt creative in a darkroom, although I have a lot of fun doing it. There is no creation there, just chemistry and physics. </p>

<p><strong>Allen</strong></p>

<p>I think what you have described with two very detailed examples is totally a creative process. Sorry, I forgot to mention that everything I said before refers to unplanned photography. I don't do or like the type of photography where everything is planned out and kept under the photographer's control but I certainly respect it and whom does it. For me planning everything out is like recording music in a studio; everything can be perfect and under your control but you miss the adrenaline of the performance. Celibidache (Romanian philosopher, mathematician and musician) used to say that music exists only when you perform it and he always refused to do studio recordings.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p><em>"There is no creation there, just chemistry and physics."</em></p>

<p>I cannot disagree more with you. You are entitled to your view, of course.</p>

<p>I know of some musicians who are afraid to deviate from the composer's score. Klemperer and Stokowski were immensely diferent interpreters of the same material. A negative is like a musical score, it is not a reality until interpreted in the darkroom or Lightroom. Someinterpretations can be artistic, powerful, others just straight prints (the latter the chemistry and physics interpretation).</p>

<p>H-CB chose not to print his own images, possibly in part because his itinerary was not conducive or the pressure to produce "decisive moments" in his journalistic work was too great. He is not a good example of the complete photographer, although his eye and mind clearly surpassed what most would do in his position. He gave up photography for sketching and painting, which he found more fulfilling </p>

<p> </p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Phylo</strong><br>

I meant seeing what normally we don't see.<br>

<strong>Jeff</strong><br>

You seem to know a whole lot about history, technique and all but you never really engage philosophically. Bresson was just one guy but he happened to be Avedon's hero (if what Phylo says is correct...), and probably many others'. </p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong><br>

Interpreters have of course each their own personality and different ways to see the same score but they should never remember that they are not creators, just sensitive and intelligent musicians whose job is to make the music alive for the listener. There is a limit to where interpretation can go. There aren't many ways to interpret Mozart, unless you're doing some crossover. When the composer (creator) wrote a piece, he had in mind a very specific idea that MUST be rendered when performing it. Beethoven writes on the first page of the Pastoral: "more emotion than painting". The Pastoral is the expression of human emotions in front of the spectacle of nature, with some metaphoric references to the historical time, and the conductor must perform it trying to feel that idea. Timber, tone, tempo, change from interpreter to interpreter but there is a limit to personal interpretation or we fall into the trap of relativism. Again, Chelibidache said that "Beethoven 9th Symphony has never been played", I'll let you think about the meaning of this statement.</p>

[User_5888660]

<p>Well Antonio, you sure could have mentioned that earlier in the discussion!!!</p>

<p>Again I disagree. To me it is like composing the music. I write the symphony in my head and then set it down on paper. But then, this whole discussion seems to come down to you don't like something, so you have to try to justify your dislike and convince others that they should also dislike it. So far, you have yet to provide a philosophical basis for your initial statements and the revisions you have made to them. Good luck in your search for the "truth." </p>

 

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Allen </strong><br>

I think I have expressed my vision, you are free to disagree with it but this is what drives me to take pictures and I strongly believe in my ideas. Maybe I will change my mind in the future but for now I believe photography's mission is not to create emotion but to capture it. I will surely never stop searching for the "truth", even if it doesn't exist. </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Truth. Avedon - keeping to one of Antonio's examples, said that all photographs are accurate and none of them tell the truth.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Phylo</strong><br />I meant seeing what normally we don't see.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, and ? As per your OP, you still mean seeing with the eyes, regardless if it's something seen what we normally don't see. I meant with the Duane Michals quote that photography can be seeing with the mind's eye or imagination too, prior or after the exposure is being made.</p>

<p>In the end there's the photograph, either it works or it doesn't. How the photographer got to it ( material, process ) is mostly irrelevant to most ( non-photographer ) viewers.</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>Antonio,<br>

Film and digital sensors cannot ever do what the human visual system does with dynamic range, focusing near and far in a scene, colors, and interpretation, which is always going on moment to moment, connecting visual stimuli with emotions, memories and thoughts. We have always tried to improve on the camera's ability to capture a scene by playing with exposure and development, dodging and burning, etc. Now with digital we have HDR, PS, etc. What I am hearing you say is that you want to leave your captured images "as is" as far as how the film or sensor captures them, and to not use techniques that "muscle up" the image in order to "create a reality better than the original." What I think is that reality is never actually duplicated no matter what we do, and even our visual system and brain do a lot of interpretation. I think this is why so many interpretations of actual scenes are created by different photographers. Each person has a different interpretation in his or her mind to start with.<br>

Your example of the card players looks to me like a classic interpretation of black and white film with a 35mm camera. I'm positive reality did not look exactly like that. For instance, your eye would automatically dilate whenever you looked at a dark area of the scene and "stop down" when glancing at a bright area. In other words to the human visual system the interpretation is dynamic and ever changing, instant by instant. What you remember is necessarily a composite of selected images. If you want to stick with the limitations of simple film capture that is your artistic prerogative, but many photographers like to try to alter their original capture to make it look more the way they saw it at the time, or what they remember, or to even alter it artistically to make the mood stronger or whatever. Its their prerogative too.<br>

Your argument also reminds me of the arguments people use to justify shooting only in jpg or color slides in order to forcibly limit the amount post production and they demand that you must "get it right in the camera," else you are only lazy; or the folks who refuse to crop because they also feel you must "get it right" in the frame, etc. These are all self imposed limitations that strike me as a personality trait tending towards rigid thinking and inflexibility.</p>

[wclark5179]

<p>Try absorbing the meaning of these poems:</p>

<p>http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/moodies/mxdays.htm</p>

<p>What is real and what isn't?</p>

<p>What about beyond our little planet. Now some are suggesting so called "dark" matter occupies the majority of the universe. </p>

<p>Yes, as the poem says, red is grey, yellow white, you decide which is right and which is an illusion. </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p> I believe photography's mission is not to create emotion but to capture it. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>How did you become the person to define that?</p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Steve</strong><br>

I will most welcome a camera that sees like the human eye. The muscling up I don't understand is the one that tries to create a good image out of a dull one or overcharges an already good shot to make it even stronger. Is there a social reason for that? In a historic moment where appearance is everything, photography seems to be very "apparent" and made up as well. The quality of a photo doesn't depend on equipment, just like the quality of violin playing doesn't depend on the violin. Maybe there are influences that photographers follow in order to be on the market or something, I don't know. I am not a photography expert and actually I don't like to define myself as a photographer. I am an observer and I see a lot of unnecessary show-off everywhere.<br>

I don't think my argument reflects rigid thinking but firm belief in my ideas. I don't want you guys to convince me that I'm wrong by pointing out my doubts or contradictions or historic gaps, I just want you to engage philosophically in the conversation if you like it and you think it's worth discussion and expose your vision.</p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Jeff</strong><br>

By thinking a lot about it to the point that I drove my wife crazy and she got really pissed. I really believe that and I need to defend this idea until I will find a better definition. It's just a philosophical inquire.</p>

[sjmurray]

<blockquote>The muscling up I don't understand is the one that tries to create a good image out of a dull one or overcharges an already good shot to make it even stronger.</blockquote>

<p>Antonio, I think the crux of the issue that you are referring to is this idea that some people are altering their images "too much." I agree that many images are over produced with heavy handed photo shop techniques. This is common these days and there is nothing we can do about it. Some people like it. I do believe that the opposite is true as well, that many people simply don't know how to make the best out of their images. This takes skill and practice. In the dark room days one had to learn how to choose the best print paper, how to dodge and burn during the printing, how to use toning, etc. If you didn't do these things you would not be making the best of your negatives. Ansel Adams said that the negative was like the score in music, and the print was the performance. This is still true. Many of my own digital images are altered quite a bit in order to bring out the best in them. I don't think they look "muscled up" but they are much better than if I had done nothing. For example take this one: http://www.photo.net/photo/5668491 I actually used a program that did what is called "tone mapping" which highly altered the dynamic range of the values in this image. Compared to a so called straight rendition it is very different. But, without seeing them side by side this one does not look "muscled up" but it does look better. So it seems to be a matter of to what degree is an image altered. This is of course a matter of individual taste. I guess you just have to be satisfied with your own values. </p>

[antoniobassiphotography]

<p><strong>Steve</strong><br>

Compliments on the photo first of all, it is a very good one. That's not the muscling up I'm talking about; you probably used the tone mapping tool to better balance shadows and lights and you did a great job but that's normal editing and you didn't alter the scene to create a more "dramatic" effect by powering up the clouds and stuff. That is a scene as we probably would see it with our own eyes. The excessive editing I'm talking about is the one that alters reality just to make the image more striking to the eye.</p>

[mike dixon]

<i>The excessive editing I'm talking about is the one that alters reality just to make the image more striking to the eye.</i><P>

The only photos that I can think of that don't fundamentally "alter reality" would be accurate copies of other photographs. Do you think that the man in HC-B's photograph <i>Behind the Gare St. Lazare</i> was actually floating, suspended in the air? Do you think that witnessing the guy leaping across the puddle would have been as striking as the photo of him suspended above it?

[david_henderson]

<p>The essence of this issue seems to be that the OP doesn't accept that photography is a medium with many alternative forms, just like painting, writing, music and so on. Not all painting is or ever was artistic in intent. The guy that paints my house is very good but I'd imagine that not even his mother considers him an artist. The purpose of something written can vary from a very simple communication (Don't Walk) to something entirely set down from the imagination to provide stimulus and pleasure. </p>

<p>And so, pretty obviosly is the case with photography. The OP isn't getting that some photography is considered by its creators, its audience and its industry to be artistic, and that a lot of it is not; that a lot of folk simply don't accept that reality is the sole goal and constraint. Art demands a personal input of creativity whereas some other photography demands less or none. Our choice is whether to like this "creative" input or not, rather than assessing its validity. </p>

<p>Art does not have to be good art, and what the originator may consider to be creative others might think of as being derivative or imitation. Personally if i see any more HDR seascapes with artificially darkened skies and increased saturation I think I'll hurl. But that doesn't mean that I can't see, appreciate and sometimes enjoy a piece of photographic creativity, whether generated behing the camera or in the darkroom or lightroom later. The process of creativity can continue, at the artists sole discretion, until he lets the work go. Complaining about editing in post is akin to denying the poet the right to re-write a verse, the painter to change his mind and paint over, whatever. Not all of those decisions are right, but its never correct to say that the originator didn't have the right to make them.</p>

<p>IMO the cause of the OP's angst is a strait- jacket of his own manufacture- he's simply not seeing a camera as being like a pencil. </p>

<p> </p>

[Julie H]

<p>I, of all people, am obviously not opposed to manipulation or image editing. However, I am always interested in trying to understand other points of view or attitudes -- and I am feeling a growing admiration for Antonio's willingness to keep returning to and attempting to clarify his stance.</p>

<p>It's my feeling that perhaps the core issue that Antonio is struggling to locate is that what he would like (and, I will add, what I always like in good art) is for the meaning, impact, effect -- whatever you like to call your relationship with a good picture -- to come (or should *seem* to come) from *within* the image. It should seem to be unified/one. The thing should seem to be an indivisible whole; of a part. If/when editing seems to have been applied from *without* the image, then it can break the image. Wherever a picture seems to be been riven into "content" and <em>then</em> "process," where there is an apparent or noticeable divide, then I think it reveals the screen; breaks the effect. (Leaving aside art that is *about* breaking the screen ...)</p>

 

[aplumpton]

<p>Julie, Antonio,</p><p>What you call "editing" is for some artists and photographers simply a part of the on-going artistic approach. A distinction must be made.</p><p>In regard to the Beethoven 9th interpretation quote, no inteterpretation of any original score can be considered truly as being definitive, even those conducted by the composer (which obviously the deaf Beethoven might have only done partially). Leonard Cohen would probably agree that even his own renditions of "Bird on a Wire" may not have been as definitive as intended (as most artists want always to improve their work) and it is true that he has changed his versions in recent concerts (a consequence too of his changing abilities and approach as a performer). But here we are in general talking about musicians reproducing someone else's score. While not denying the efforts of some great musical interpretors, it is rather different from the challenge of the artist-sculptor, artist-painter or artist-photographer. </p><p>In the final analysis, you can simply accept that or reject the whole artuistic process and the role of post production as an element (whether the narrow definition of "chemistry and pgysics" of darkroom work or lightroom activity), according to your own approach on the issue. Painting also involves chemistry and physics (nature of media, liquid and solid, drying behaviour, mixing of media, texture, etc.), whereas sculpting stone is primarily mechanical in activity (or "physics"), althoughthe chemistry or mineralogy of the stone affects the result. In other words, all visual art implies some relation to the physical sciences. </p><p>I feel this discussion is missing something very important, which is a wise recognition that, among other things that allow opening up of the mind to possibilities, art does not have any bounds, and art can be created in many different ways.</p><p>Closing ones mind about that simply reminds me of the type of polarised opinion one finds all too often in political debate. </p><p>I do not think that that the question of "is real not good enough" has any relation to art in photography but perhaps does to photography as a simple recording medium.</p>

[rossb]

<p> It's just the modern form of photography. Back in the day people made photos that were pretty normal as they just snapped off the shot and off to the lab. What you see is what you get back. Some photographers took it to a different level and bought a lot of stuff and learned skills in how to fix up their photos, print their photos and so on. The skills were out of the ball park for the average photographer. Now with the DSLR point and shoot camera's and photoshop a little kid can whip up a fantasy picture and have fun doing it. People like to see them and say the magic word "Wow". It's the deal these days. The good thing is if you want your photos to look different then you can also achieve a look that pleases you. Probably a nice film like Elitechrome will render a close to natural picture for someone that wants that. Currently I am having fun with B/W film. I have never felt that B/W photogrphy was realistic at all. Probably what I will stick with from now on with some color family shots here and there. With 6 kids I have a lot of events to shoot. </p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p><strong>What is "real"?</strong></p>

<p>nowadays we are bombarded with reality and with sensations.</p>

<p>There's nothing really "new" coming up. Global communication networks and transport means allow us to produce "tons of reality" flooding us even if we don't ask for it.</p>

<p>We see wars, slaughters, disasters, illness, beautiful places, remote places. In addition, everybody is a potential input terminal for this immense "reality exchange".</p>

<p>Not everybody can compose music, not everybody can paint or sketch, not everybody can act.</p>

<p>But everybody can take a camera and take a picture, or a video-camera and film a scene. And broadcast it.</p>

<p>Everybody can take a computer and tinker with images</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I see a lot of visually strong images that are "muscled up" by heavy digital editing as to create a reality that is better than the original.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Most of the time <em><strong>the process</strong></em> is mixed up with <em><strong>the result</strong></em>. The fact that you can buy a (video)camera, release the shutter, post-process, doesn't make you a photographer, a videographer, or even less <em><strong>an artist</strong></em>.</p>

<p>Provided that there is information overflow, there is an overproduction of stimuli to our senses.</p>

<p>And our senses are numbed. This is a normal human reaction to over-stimulation. Trying to produce an outstanding photo just cranking up the colours is not a solution, it is just a further step in over-stimulation.</p>

<p>To counter this anaesthetisation we produce even stronger stimuli: brighter contrasts, sparkling colours, etc. making us and our viewers even number.</p>

<p>The solution to me is <em><strong>reconnecting </strong></em>the process with the result and the development of visual capabilities to understand this result. Adopting a less consumerist approach and starting thinking:</p>

<ul>

<li>About the photos we see, taking time to watch them.</li>

<li>About the photos we make, considering how we take them, if the result is what we intended and deciding if their visual message is really that good. And maybe throw them away instead of bothering our fellow humans.</li>

</ul>

<p> </p>

[lachaine]

<p>I was doing darkroom printing 35 years ago. I would like to correct the often misconceived example being given that this equated with manipulation. It may have for some, but most people just wanted to make their own prints from what was on the negative. They were not manipulating anything.</p>