Would you process a photograph to this degree?

[richardsperry]

Kerik Kouklis is an alternative process photographer. You should check out his work.

 

http://www.kerik.com/new/

 

He uses several different processes and workflows for his work. One of which is to scan a plate, print it to a large

transparancy, then contact print to paper. The vast majority of his work is done using 100+ year old techniques, that you

or I would probabably never use, and then uses PhotoShop during the making of a REAL photograph.

 

I am fascinated by this process and his work. And if Ilford goes bankrupt after Kodak, it's something I might be forced to

take up.

 

Cool video.

 

[dan_south]

<p>+10000 to everything that Ilkka said above. There's a point where the image diverges far enough from the original content of the negative (file, etc.) that it should be considered something other than a photograph.</p>

<p>I can't offer an objective way to determine where that "fine line" lies, but to extend Ilkka's analogy, if I took a photo of a model in a bikini, isolated only the bikini in a Photoshop layer and pasted it onto a drawing of Miss Piggy, I would no longer call the end result a photograph, even though the final image contained some amount of information captured by a still camera. If on the other hand, I used lights and a backdrop to photograph the muppet dressed in a bikini, I would still call that a photograph.</p>

 

[richardsperry]

Dan,

 

Take your "non photo" of Miss Piggy in a bikini and print it.

 

Now take a photograph of that print(with a background and lights, ha).

 

Would you call the photograph a photograph?

[Norma Desmond]

<p>We can argue about what's a photograph and what's not a photograph. That's a whole lot of fun. But we're being disingenuous. I think it's been shown quite clearly on this thread that we are using different standards depending mostly on our taste to determine what's a photograph and what's not. It's got more to do with our taste than what medium is used. So, it's rare that the work of ManRay or the work of Adams is referred to as a non-photograph and yet, people who do no more manipulation than they and play around with the medium no more than they are called non-photographers, especially when it's with photoshop instead of the darkroom or someone who's finished product they don't like as much as ManRay or Adams.</p>

<p>It's all well and good to claim categorization has its place. I can see that point. And I'd be willing to buy this photograph/non-photograph division if I ever felt it were consistent and genuine. But it's not. On PN, at least, it is mostly used as an exclusionary tactic or a subtle put down. The more you read these inane threads, the more you realize that.</p>

[john_bellenis]

<p>That's an excellent post Fred - I think you've summed up perfectly what's going on here.</p>

[museebfoto]

<p>In this long and interesting debate I would like to draw your attention to the work of Misha Gordin who processed his photo in a traditional darkroom to his own satisfied degree.<br /> <a href="http://bsimple.com/home.htm">http://bsimple.com/home.htm</a></p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p><em>Now take a photograph of that print(with a background and lights, ha).</em><br /> <em>Would you call the photograph a photograph?</em></p>

<p>I would call it a photograph of a piece of digital art.</p>

<p><em>it's rare that the work of ManRay or the work of Adams is referred to as a non-photograph and yet, people who do no more manipulation than they and play around with the medium no more than they are called non-photographers</em></p>

<p>There is no inconsistency. Photography or non-photography is not about whether the image is manipulated or not, but with the method used to make the image. The optical enlarging of the negative is merely a second step in the photography process (light draws the image) and the manipulation occurs by e.g. placing objects in the path of the light during the exposure of the paper. Here the manipulation occurs <em>during</em> the photography. If instead the negative is scanned and manipulated in a comparable way in photoshop, then the manipulation occurs <em>after </em>the photography.</p>

<p>I don't know why this is so hard. Well actually I do know - it is because some people insist on having their work viewed under a category which deceives the viewer about the nature of the image because that category has a certain reputation.</p>

<p>If you read the above discussion you will find several comments as to how the digital manipulator will make every effort to hide the fact that the image was altered. If the person is entirely comfortable with what they are doing, why then try to make it look like something it is not? I think the problem is that some manipulators are at least a little uncomfortable with admitting what they're doing and want to keep the process of the image hidden and then they invent all kinds of fabulous excuses like "everything is manipulated since the whole world and all eternity is not shown in one".</p>

<p>I have no issue with digital art, it can be good or bad, just like photography. I do seem to have difficulty communicating with people who make an (conscious or unconscious, I do not know) effort to not understand meanings of words and how to use them correctly, instead choosing to confuse and say that nothing really means anything and it's all blurry. Language is meant to communicate, not to confuse.</p>

[johne37179]

I can only speak for myself, but I see mt camera as a capture device similar to a sketch pad. Sometimes my vision for an

image is a vanilla and traditional black and white photo and others it is a Monet painting. Why one vision should have

more or less legitimacy is beyond me. Both start with the same camera, both get processed with the sme software ...

Photoshop. So, does which code in the software determine whether or not the legitimacy is sucked out of the image?

[john_bellenis]

<p>Ilkka, I'm with John on this one. You can give your personal opinion about whether you call an image a photograph, a "non-photograph", a digital image or a helicopter if you want. As long as you make clear that it's just your personal opinion that great.</p>

<p>What you don't get to do is to attempt to define a genre, or state as a fact what category different levels of processed images go into. </p>

<p>Photographic image making has evolved and been a moving target since it's inception, and thank goodness for that. Let's not try to limit people's vision by degrading their images and making them somehow second class or inferior to the almighty "photograph" as you see fit to define it.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"I don't know why this is so hard."</em> --Ilkka</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's so hard because it's so false. You've arbitrarily labeled doing things in the darkroom to be part of the photographic process and doing things in photoshop (the digital darkroom) not to be part of the photographic process. It's a senseless and arbitrary division created only by you. Others realize that the photographic process includes many stages, from planning, to pre-visualization, to setting up the shot (if that is done), to taking the shot, to processing the shot, to displaying the shot.</p>

<p>There are people who refuse to call any image displayed on a screen a photograph, even if it is displayed directly as it came out of the camera. They are simply dinosaurs who sound silly to everyone else who has moved on with the changing times and methods of working and presenting photos.</p>

[richardsperry]

Ilkka,

 

So is a photogram a photograph? Is a contact print a photograph?

 

If I burn a digital image to a film negative, and use an enlarger to print, is that print now a photograph?

 

 

 

"I would call it a photograph of a piece of digital art."

 

What is digital about it?, it is a piece of paper with ink on it. We are defining terms here, why would you define a tangible

piece of paper with ink as digital?

[richardsperry]

"If you read the above discussion you will find several comments as to how the digital manipulator will make every effort

to hide the fact that the image was altered"

 

Jerry Uelsmann does this too in the darkroom.

 

So does Misha Gordin, in the darkroom.

 

Are you saying they are not photographers?

 

And for that matter, there are photographer posters here who still believe that Adams did not photoshop his prints in the

darkroom. I would say that his alterations are well hidden, given that.

 

 

"Language is meant to communicate, not to confuse."

 

Poetry is confusing, often intentially confusing. Is it now not language?

[richard_john_edwards]

<p>It's good to sometimes compare Music with Photography, one visual and one audable. but both very creative proceses. (I notice it has been done on this thread a few times).<br>

Music nowdays is also digital and the level of manipulation to the music is as complex as it is in photography. Do we not call it music? of course it is still music and of course we know it has been "digitised". Voices are enhanced, pitch is corrected, cut a paste is common with sections of the music. echo, reverb, delay, compresion, chorus, a whole swag of digital tools at the disposal of the musician/producer. IT IS STILL MUSIC. The same goes with photography, it has now been digitised, colour enhancement/replacement, cut and paste, distortion, blend etc etc. IT IS STILL PHOTOGRAPHY. Some would have us call it other than photography, There is no logic here. visualization, interpetation, and yes"Manipulation" of an image taken with a "camera" is what photography is about. All items discussed through out this thread fit that catagory.</p>

[johne37179]

Are you saying all my MP3 files ... Purely digital are music? I'm shocked. I've always thought they were lies about music.

[richard_john_edwards]

<p>JOhn, I was refering to the processing and the creating of the music, not where or how it was stored. I hope you dont listen to MP3's!, With an MP3 there is bugger all detail there. <br>

I have 2 versions of Beethovens "Adagio Monto Cantabile" 24bit 197khz and a CD 16bit 41khz, Its like looking at Ansell Adams "Moonrise over Hernandez" Museum quality and comparing the quality to a web based version of the same. </p>

[johne37179]

It's hard to put the system at home in my pocket. I'm also burdened with these 70'year old words that can hardly hear a

single word my wife speaks.

[dan_south]

<blockquote>

<p>It's so hard because it's so false. You've arbitrarily labeled doing things in the darkroom to be part of the photographic process and doing things in photoshop (the digital darkroom) not to be part of the photographic process. It's a senseless and arbitrary division created only by you. </p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's not accurate at all. Ilkka said noting of the sort. You're parsing words to forward your own agenda. Digital manipulation that mimics traditional darkroom manipulation still produces a photograph. No one would argue that it's still a photograph if you apply dodging, burning, enlarging, cropping, contrast adjustment, sharpening, color management, etc.</p>

<p>But a digital composite of Elvis and Marilyn holding hands over a stitched backdrop of a Grand Canyon sunset is a fabrication of reality. Using the Free Transform tool to make a squat castle look taller and copying and pasting trees around it to balance a rather awkward composition, that's just as much a fabrication.</p>

<p>The digital artist whose work we have been discussing refers to himself as a photographer and offers workshops in photography. I haven't revieewed the curriculum of his workshops in detail, but if he teaches techniques of digital fabrication, why doesn't he just call his work Digital Photographic Art and teach workshops under the same banner? That was Ilkka's point, i.e. that the term 'Photography' is accredited some measure of respect because of what people like Ansel Adams have been able to accomplish within the traditional boundaries of the medium. When someone comes along with a whole new set of tools and creates something via means that bear little resemblance to the darkroom tools of Adams and his contemporaries, why do they continue to label their work Photography? </p>

[richard_john_edwards]

<p>Dan, you are limiting your comentary to a single image, do some homework on Peter and then provide some rational debate. here is a link to some of what he teaches. <a href="http://www.betterphotography.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=491:critiique9&catid=33:free-sample-masterclasses&Itemid=141">http://www.betterphotography.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=491:critiique9&catid=33:free-sample-masterclasses&Itemid=141</a></p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>whole new set of tools and creates something via means that bear little resemblance to the darkroom tools of Adams and his contemporaries</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When people started using enlargers, instead of contact printing, and the capabilities changed dramatically, nobody jumped up and down screaming that it wasn't photography. It was radically different, and composites were appearing commonly in the late 1800s and accepted as photographs. The problem now is that people can't accept that manipulation is available to a wide variety of people and have decided to rewrite history, claiming that what's happening now is radically different than then. But it isn't. Enlarging, and the associated manipulations that came with it, were dramatic changes from what photography had been.<br>

<br />It appears that photographers back then were a lot more open minded than they are now. Well maybe photographers were more open minded then than web forum residents are now.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>As I said above, it's a sad part of human nature, kind of like scapegoating. Make someone else into the OTHER, the NON-PHOTOGRAPHER, and you somehow feel better about yourself. It's as elementary as US vs. THEM. </p>

[dan_south]

<p>Richard, you're welcome to address any point or points that I've made along the way. If you think that they are genuinely irrational, please tells us why in some detail and I'll do my best to explain myself. Perhaps I have made some errors; I'll keep an open mind. But your dismissal of this entire debate as irrational is not worth a response. I have already acknowledged Mr. Eastway's considerable success, and I have stated that he can do anything that pleases him, his fans, and his customers. I simply stated that I would not do some of the same things that he has done. Which part sounds irrational to you?</p>

<p>Fred, I'm sorry to hear that you're feeling sad about the human condition. Hope you feel better soon. ;-) </p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Dan, you must have misunderstood me. I don't feel sad about the human condition. I'm exhilarated by the human condition. I think it's sad that some people need to make OTHERS feel different or need to use labels to refer to them to make them seem different in order for them to feel OK about themselves. I hope that's clearer to you. It should be clear, because it's exactly what you're doing.</p>

[richard_john_edwards]

Dan it is my lack of computer skills that prevents me from addressing specific point. I don't know how to take previous

Text and insert it into a grey box. I did not intend to state that your whole arguments was invalid, merely wanted to

state that Eastway unlike you or I enjoys considerable success with his photographic carreer, and regardless of our

opinions we should respect. Hope you didn't take offense to my comment. None was intended.

[Ian Taylor]

<p><em>"However, I would NEVER do this."</em></p>

 

<p>Well. his photos are better than yours so maybe you should.</p>