Landscape 'gardening'

[thomas_k.]

<p>I do feel that many idealized landscape photographs (and films) can create a false perception of existence of pristine, unchanged by humans parts of our planet - while in fact they are not. It is important for (especially city dwellers) in my country: US to be aware that wast majority of land is irretrievably transformed from it's natural state. Our national parks are really only small islands left for us to visit. Beautiful images of nature should not detract us from efforts of needed preservation. I think we all have some responsibility to photograph not only the "good" by also the "bad".</p>

[charles_stobbs3]

I've always thought a sterile landscape with no trace of human existence is boring (including many of

Ansel Adams works). A road, a path, a fence, a boat, a shed is a must for me.( I haven't reached a

decision about power lines, vapor trails and now trash.)

[AlanKlein]

<p>I find that discovering, experiencing and photographing beautiful parts of nature is uplifting and spiritually rewarding. There's enough ugliness in life that I run into that I don't have to capture it to hang on my walls. </p>

[jim_service]

<p>"What are the limits to 'enhancing' a landscape?"<br>

Getting arrested.</p>

[frode]

<p>The only thing you cannot remove is the camera. There are however limits to what you can use your image for. For example, don't remove the beer cans before you take the picture and then use your image for documenting that there were no beer cans.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

But there weren't, after you had removed them.

[david_henderson]

<p>I do notice that most landscape paintings don't include rubbish or unnecessary ( in the artist's view) branches, cars, etc. We don't get "The Fighting Temeraire with two floating egg boxes" or "The Hay Wain with a pile of steaming horse-s**t. Can't think why photographers should be relatively disadvantaged unless they actually want to include it. But sometimes a change in position is easier than tidying this one.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>David, your post makes me consider all the differences (and, of course, the many similarities) between painting and photography that would make it the case that paintings would be more likely than photos not to include beer cans in landscapes. Thanks for bringing it up.</p>

<p>Q.G.'s point is also interesting. On one level, he's right. Were I documenting the clean-up of an area, there would be NO beer cans after the cleanup and I'd be presenting what was now the case. If I claimed there had never been beer cans, I'd simply be a liar. Photos are used in all sorts of ways. It's one of the jobs of a viewer to figure out which ones are telling a truth and which are telling a lie. Of course, the photos themselves don't tell truths or lies. The people using them do . . . or at least may. In many photographic instances, no one is concerned with this, which I am more inclined to call "accuracy" than "truth," because I think truth is often significantly more deep (and harder to achieve) than accuracy.</p>

<p>Which brings me back to David's comparison of painting and photography. Photos are often seen as more "documentary" than paintings, for better or worse and whether they should or should not, because a camera is pointed at the world itself whereas so many paintings originate in the imagination of the painter. That's not to say a photographer doesn't use his imagination in extraordinary ways, but it is to notice a difference in how paintings and photos are generated, which will often affect expectations and responses.</p>

[movingfinger]

<p>I would ask why the focus (no pun intended) on the foreground and man made stuff? Is it just assumed to be OK to enhance the sky and clouds, perhaps with a polarizer or other filter in the capture and/or more commonly now, in post-processing? What about selective tweaking of the saturation? Arguably those distort the reality much more than removing something that is somewhat temporary anyway such as a piece of litter?</p>

<p>The contrast between painting and photography is one my wife (a watercolor painter) and I frequently discuss. Often when driving, we come across a nice, rural pastoral scene that I wish to photograph but when I get serious, stop and survey closely, I inevitably see the telephone poles, wires, cell phone towers, and now the increasingly common wind turbines, etc, that can't be eliminated from the viewfinder. Oh yes, and possibly small junk in the foreground too. In the film days I would often reluctantly pack up and drive on, today with digital PP-ing I at least have the possibility of removing those distractions. I tease my wife that painters have it easy, they can simply exclude any distractions in the first place. Needless to say, she has a few words on how much easier photographers have it.</p>

<p>I see no problem with any modifications. I agree with the opening one-liner response from Ellis, when you feel you've gone too far in your mods, then you have. But if asked, and sometimes even without being asked, the photographer should honestly represent that the image has been modified.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Photography often offers an alternative to mythology.</p>

[thomas_k.]

<p>Photographs also can present unexpected and unintended facets of the subject. If we photoshop everything to our liking we loose this quality of the medium.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>It is disheartening and demoralizing after working so hard to present a picture we're really proud of to hear the viewer brush off your work with the question, <em>"So, did you Photoshop it?" </em> How do you respond? What do you say? You want to cry, or punch them in the nose. They might as well be asking an artist if his oil painting was done by the numbers as we did when we were kids. </p>

<p>People didn't look at photos like that years ago. They accepted your work on face value. Maybe there were less power lines around.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p><em>"So, did you Photoshop it?"</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>When I've been asked this question, I haven't been demoralized or taken it as a brush off. I take it as someone being interested in my photo and my process and I answer it honestly. When someone asks about my work, I take it as an opportunity to share ideas. Some really good conversations have been started by such questions as <em>"Did you Photoshop it?" </em>It's a very reasonable question in this day and age. I'm confident in and proud of the creative usage I make of Photoshop. I might be demoralized if I felt I was using it to cheat or to mislead.</p>

<p>I may be occasionally nostalgic for times gone by, but if I get stuck in the past it could prevent me from moving forward.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>The funny thing, Fred, is that at the photo club I belong too, no one ever asks that question. Everyone assumes it <em>was</em> Photoshopped. There are no longer limits, at least in these local clubs, how much or how little editing you can do. It's just accepted. (Well, I have my reservations, as you know.)</p>

<p>When I showed them the results of one of my photos and mention is was taken on film, their question was an incredulous, <em>"Where do you buy film today?" </em></p>

<p>It's really amusing because everyone in the club is retired or nearly so. They all used film at one time. They now are converts to digital and have accepted for the most part, full throated support of Photoshop, even though many of them are not very good at it. These are people who shot slides, like me, for years. Or sent their film out to one-hour developing shops that gave you back 4"x6" prints, sometimes two each for the price of one. These people never edited before. Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks?</p>

[frode]

<p>What about "manipulations" like this? Changing viewpoint (and focal length) is one of the strongest tools for influencing the image that a photographer have. I have seldom (never) heard any anti-photoshoper questioning "manipulating" the image's content by changing viewpoint (and focal length), although this is a very common way to change the picture to tell the story you want it to tell, and hide away the story you do not want it to tell. I believe that photoshopping away a beer can in one of these two images, leaving it in the other, would not be the first thing that people would point to as the biggest difference between the two images.<br>

<br>

</p><div></div>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Both of them are "truth" and would be "false" if you cloned in the people. </p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>I do it all the time ! Beer cans, garbage, old news papers any thing that is a distraction from the subject gets removed. I don't think it's cheating since I would have to Photoshop them out anyway. </p>

[frode]

<p>What truth? Obviously not the same truth. And the image would represent one aspect of the the "truth" if I had cloned away the people: "This is how Trollholmsund would look like without people" or even: "This is what an image of Trollsund with cloned away people would look like".</p>

<p>An image is just that, an image. It takes a man or woman to lie about it. That is what it is about, the presenter of the image lying about the image, not the image lying about the "truth".</p>

<p>Best wishes,</p>

[david_henderson]

<p>I did wonder, when raising the comparison between painting and photography, whether to suggest that the issue relates to the possibility that many people consider just about all painting (imaginative) as "art". Whereas photography is more literal/documentary and considered by quite a lot of people as a "craft". Personally I like the process of deciding what's in and what's out of a photograph, whether that is achieved by waiting or revisiting or by the use of software. I think, no matter how you achieve it, a decision about what's in or out, or what the light and colours are like, demonstrates an imagination at work. Simply capturing what happens to be there, being true to nature in the context of a landscape for example, is less imaginative than the guy who takes the beer cans and cigarette butts out. </p>

<p>Two further points if I may. There's a famous photo competition - forget which one- which absolutely forbids the use of software to clean up even minor rubbish and has disqualified "winners" for doing just that. The same competition would be happy to accept an image where the same rubbish had been cleared away before the shutter was pressed. I find that distinction just weird.</p>

<p>Finally I think Alan's point is right, both about the photographs produced by club members and their age/background. I think that years ago, many club members were effectively excluded from competitions because they didn't have advanced darkroom skills, were never going to have them, and could not afford to use the top labs. Software has done much to democratise photography, both by limiting the cost so that folk on limited incomes can afford to play at a decent standard because their film and processing costs zero, and because any decent camera and a $100 piece of software could put you up there with anyone. </p>

[AlanKlein]

<blockquote>

<p>An image is just that, an image. It takes a man or woman to lie about it. That is what it is about, the presenter of the image lying about the image, not the image lying about the "truth".</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The viewer assumes the photographer is telling the truth, that their camera captured what it saw at the time the shutter was snapped, not that the people were magically added later. As David indicated, with paintings, people assume the image came through the artist's imagination. A camera is more considered documentary, even though we modify its images for effect. It comes down to where you draw the line. But painters have more license, photographers less so. </p>

<p>Also, it comes down to the use of the image. If it's for aesthetics, to match the décor of the furniture, then more license is given. If it's documentary, or photojournalistic, then less license is given as truth is more paramount. A phony photograph published in a newspaper is as lying as a reporter writing things that are not the facts. It can even incite war or send an innocent to jail. Pretty dangerous stuff. </p>

[Brad_]

>>> "So, did you Photoshop it?"

 

From conversations I've had with people over the years about my photos, the discussions have been about

what the viewer is feeling, narratives conjured, circumstances of the capture, connection felt with subjects,

access, etc. In all, I have never, not once, been asked if any of the photographs I have made have been

photoshopped (in the context of elements being removed or added).

[q.g._de_bakker]

A viewer viewing a landscape clear(ed) of beer cans and other rubbish knows that there could be beer cans and other rubbish when the moment comes he visits the site himself. He'll probably bring and leave a lot of it himself. It's not as if some secret is kept from him, as if he is misled.<br>But whether that is so or not, the landscape probably is more appealing as something to look at when there is no such rubbish. So when creating something that is meant to look appealing, remove the rubbish.<br>Is it in some way bad that music is recorded in studios shielded against all noise pollution that we, and the musicians, and the recording engineers etc. know will be present when someone listens to the recording? Is it a lie? I don't see how it would be. We want to hear the music, not the noise. No need to add that noise outside the isolated studio by recording it along with the music. Essentials and incidentals.

[thomas_k.]

<p>Isn't perfect landscape photography a bit like perfect nude photography? There is not much to it after first positive impression. Imperfect bodies and landscapes hold more interest for me.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>John Cage was cagey enough to insist that we pay at least some attention to the "noise" (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4′33″">4'33"</a>), that background noise has some audible value. He was most likely going for something other than what a lot of people would consider an appealing experience. I know a lot of people who have no patience for Cage. I wouldn't necessarily want to sit and listen to 4'33" on a lot of occasions, but the idea of the piece taught me to listen to things I normally wouldn't. Rubbish can have its own visual interest. What's rubbish on a street or a landscape can take on new meanings when photographed, in certain hands and with an eye that sees beyond the ordinary . . . and beyond the ideal.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

Whether a landscape is perfect or not, Thomas, depends on two things. One is what your idea of perfect is. The second is the landscape itself.<br>Whether an interesting or perfect (or both) landscape looks better with or without some litter is another matter.<br><br>You could make rubbish in a landscape the essential part of what you are trying to show, Fred. And it may make a very interesting subject (well... i doubt it. But i'll let anything surprise me). When it is not however, it is not. The question then is what to do with it.