Wrestling with the concept of "Straight" Photography

[DavidTriplett]

Less formally one could say the contents of the positive, negative, image, and subject must match. Adding things that were not there, subtracting things that were there, rearranging things out of their original order, means that the picture cannot be "straight".

I like Maris' take on this. It acknowledges the absolute reality that the way in which photons are captured and recorded vary enormously between formats, equipment, and settings. I used to pick between Kodachrome, Ektachrome, and Fujichrome, depending on the color balance I wanted for a given image or setting. Unless one is entirely color blind, B&W is an obvious manipulation from the "natural" scene. As I get older and my eyesight degrades, what I see with my own eyes is not even the same as what I would have seen just a few years ago. All of this, then, begs the question of what is "straight" photography, and gives credence to Maris' definition(s).

 

When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my mind's eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something that is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.

I really like Fred's AA quote, in that it captures the essence of what it means to "make" a photograph. While one can disagree with many of AA's positions, techniques, or statements, I think it would be hard to argue he did not appreciate what it means to be a photographic artist and the essence of photography. As we have discussed previously, I consider the light-sensitive chemicals or sensor sites that a photographer uses to capture light are every bit as much an artistic media as is stone or clay to a sculptor, paints and pigments and canvas to a painter, and sonic energy to a musician. What one does with that media, and the intended versus the realized outcome, is what defines the various strains, genres, and flavors of photography. Straight photography? I don't know that there is any such thing, as such. Every image, without exception, is an interpretation of a scene that is subject to both active, passive, intentional, and unanticipated manipulation and interpretation based on the film or sensor used, the lens through which the light passes, the size of the aperture, the focus point, the duration of the exposure, the nature of the camera body, whether the camera was fixed or moving, the available or applied lighting, et cetera ad nauseum.

 

For me, photography as art occurs along a very broad and poorly delineated continuum. One end is inhabited by the simplest examples, perhaps equally represented by the classic pinhole camera and the point-and-shoot wonder. Denizens at the other end can variously be argued as consisting of composites and extreme post-process manipulation, with every flavor and nuance existing somewhere in between. Regardless where one falls on the continuum, both Maris' and AA's statements apply, because the precipitating action remains the controlled and focused (or not...) exposure of a light-sensitive medium to photons reflected from, or transmitted through, the subject. I'm not one for hyperbole, but everything, without exception, that occurs precedent to or after that initial event is, to some degree, an act of processing, with very real and variable effects on the final image, whether the effects are intentional and predictable or not.

 

This is why the INTENT of an image is so extraordinarily important. As a journalistic or documentary image, one of Julie H's or Michael's composites would be a failure, and subject to severe and deserved censure. As examples of composite photographic art, they are extraordinary. The Nature forum applies its own, quite strict, parameters for what constitutes a nature photo. However, within those strictures there is room for a great deal of "work" in the making of a photograph. The Landscape forum operates under less strict criteria relating to subject, but still we won't see many urban street scenes, simply because we have (mostly) agreed that we want to categorize our submissions. Few of BB's brides would accept a wedding portrait captured and processed under the same criteria Fred might use for street scenes.

 

With all due respect to Sandy, I offer that there is no such thing as "straight" photography. Perhaps there are varying flavors of "traditional" photographic styles and "historically significant" processes, but none can be offered as being free from significant manipulation. I don't do composites, but I do a lot of work in LR in an effort to have my displayed images represent my intent, whether that be architectural or archaeological documentation (as per JDMvW), a B&W landscape a la AA, or a simple travel snapshot to commemorate a place and moment important to my family.

 

Perhaps a case can be made that, somewhere out past the extreme end of the continuum, there is a place where an image becomes less a work of photography, and moves into other representational genres. One might consider the historic use of the camera obscura by painters to achieve "correct" perspective to fall into this zone. Replacement of one-to-one registration (as described by Maris) with painterly or other artistic effects may also slide past the threshold. Yet, for any of these, there seems a broad and poorly defined transition zone, where significant components of the originating image remain, but are increasingly replaced by ever less photographic contrivances. My mother painted from photographs, using oils and a palette knife on canvas. Her paintings would never be confused with photographs. However, I have a friend who made a living as an artist working in airbrush techniques in very large formats (a la Dru Blair and others), rendering paintings with photo-realistic qualities.Did his paintings become photographs, if photos were the source for his image? Does replacement of a mechanical, projected image reproduction process with a hand-applied technique, regardless the accuracy of the reproduction, push the image out of the photographic realm and into another genre?

 

I will offer that, if "straight" photography exists, it does so only in reference to any one of myriad, defined flavors or technologies (such as "Large Format Film B&W Landscapes Using Only Traditional Darkroom Development, Processing, and Printing Techniques", as just one example), but not in relation to photography as a whole.

[rossb]

I was just reading my book "The Eloquent Light" and discovered that Ansel Adams had an opinion about straight photography. I looked it up on wiki and apparently my idea about it meaning free from manipulation is not correct. Since I am not clear about what it is I have no opinion at this time. I will look into Adams and try to find put what he and the other members of the f64 club were talking about.

[rossb]

After a little internet surfing i would say i would be wise not to make a precise statment. However my photos are straight photographs sort of. However its not my goal. I do make crisp B/W family oriented photos printed on high quality glossy Canon paper. I am not clear if hybrid photography can be straight photography or not but I do not care anyway. I just do what i do.

[steve_mareno1]

Actually, there is no such thing as straight photography. My choice of film, developer, lighting, the ISO I choose to shoot at, exposure, lens and format choice, where the camera is placed, etc all dictate what the image will look like. Then, how will I print it? Add contrast, take it down, print it with filters, toning, choices of exposure and paper.....you see the fallacy of this very quickly. What I wonder is, why do people even concern themselves with this? It's like asking an author to submit their writing to the publisher so that it could be printed into books exactly as they wrote it w/o correcting the grammar, tense, typos, and all other manner of editing a piece goes through before publication, and then calling that straight writing. Good luck on that one.

 

Ansel Adams stated over and over that he did not take photographs, he made them. His negatives were simply the starting point for his prints. Edward Weston and many other great photographers worked exactly the same way. Any way you can get the image like you want it is valid. All the rest of it is simply marketing hype.

Edited June 11, 2017 by steve_mareno|1

[Jochen_S]

I don't quite understand why having a lab process your work is "straight." Seems like it would be straighter to process it yourself.

I have a bit of respect towards color processing. - Although I can read a manual and run a Jobo, I don't want to predict &/ guarantee results. I assume a huge lab is closer to the E6 or Kodachrome process standards than I might end being.?

OTOH hiring a seasoned full time printer is less straight than trying on your own. - I'm sure those guys are so used to dodging and burning that they just can't keep their hands to themselves. Same about the clever algorithms in automated mini lab printing. As a B&W darkroom rookie I am encountering negs that I simply can't handle i.e. print straight for a pleasant result. And "straight printing" already isn't straight since I can choose the contrast of my paper.

But once again: We are discussing getting closer to something that doesn't exist.

[Norma Desmond]

For me, photography as art occurs along a very broad and poorly delineated continuum. One end is inhabited by the simplest examples, perhaps equally represented by the classic pinhole camera and the point-and-shoot wonder. Denizens at the other end can variously be argued as consisting of composites and extreme post-process manipulation, with every flavor and nuance existing somewhere in between.

This continuum is a very important point.

Actually, there is no such thing as straight photography. My choice of film, developer, lighting, the ISO I choose to shoot at, exposure, lens and format choice, where the camera is placed, etc all dictate what the image will look like.

I have no problem agreeing to there being no such thing as purely straight photography. But I don't think that makes the term "straight photography" unusable as a relative term. I'd be OK with calling some photos straighter than others. And, I think the shorthand, and a very usable shorthand, for that is calling the straighter photos straight.

 

Thinking about what David said, these things don't come neatly tied up in all-or-nothing packages. But I feel comfortable saying that some of the things Steve mentions, like choosing ISO and where to place the camera, are most often quite different from something like cloning in extra people. I'm not judging and I'm not saying I don't think the latter can be done effectively and appropriately at times. But I am saying it's ok to recognize that there are degrees of things one might do in terms of straightness, and that basic choices we make are different from some of the more extreme choices that can be made.

 

The fact that nothing is purely straight doesn't negate the fact that differences in degree can make a difference in life, can be discussed, and can be thoughtfully addressed and the term straight photography can be applied to things at the farther end of the spectrum.

 

I refuse to get sucked into the Sorities paradox. I don't have to expect myself to perform the impossible and tell you the exact moment when grains of sand become a beach, how few hairs on the head a person has to have to be referred to as bald, or when that proverbial molehill becomes a mountain. I will not allow the Sorities paradox to rid my vocabulary of all sorts of concepts whose boundaries I can't precisely define.

 

I think it's good to recognize that even framing choices and film choices are a form of human imposition or manipulation. I don't think it's so good, though, to then claim that's just like cloning figures into a photo or saturating colors beyond what the human eye would ever see in nature or to say no photo is straight. (Again, not a value judgment about doing the latter. Supersaturation may work well sometimes. But it's a different kind and degree of non-straight than "imposing one's vision" as the eye chooses what to focus on in a scene or where to place the camera.)

 

So, I will continue to use the term "straight photograph" to describe a loosely-bounded class of photos that have relatively fewer characteristics of what I consider to be Pictorial photos. The photos that straddle the boundaries will continue to be a bit harder to classify as one or the other which, rather than undermining the classifications will prove the classifications. I will continue to think that a dozen eggs consists of 12 eggs and that there are exactly 500 sheets of paper in a ream, while simultaneously maintaining less exacting notions of what a tall person is, whether a tragedy can have comic elements, that there are different shades of white when talking about white paint for all those different shades, and that some photos are reasonably described as straight.

[kogalleries]

I love it all and still use it all. I am at the point in my life that I don't care what anyone else thinks about it. Just put an image in Instagram the other day that I added some artistic touches to it. Two unskilled young photographers chimed into the comments saying it was fake. I had to laugh to myself and wonder why do other photographers care that much about another's work.

[JDMvW]

But I don't make major alterations, such as adding or subtracting people.

 

And what's the fun in that? [joke, please no letters]

 

There is, of course, a vast and even unbridgeable distance between photography as fun and as forensic documentation.

 

In the early days of photography it was impossible to capture distinct clouds if the 'land' was properly exposed on the same negative, so the routine practice was to "dub in" separately exposed skies. (link).

 

 

But I have no idea what "straight" means in this context.

[rossb]

Here is a definition of "Straight Photography from Wikipedia. Like I said before it's not my goal to be a straight photographer. I am a family photographer and all I want is nice B/W prints of the family and our lives. I shoot color with my cell phone.

 

"Pure photography or straight photography refers to photography that attempts to depict a scene or subject in sharp focus and detail, in accordance with the qualities that distinguish photography from other visual media, particularly painting. Originating as early as 1904, the term was used by critic Sadakichi Hartmann in the magazine Camera Work, and later promoted by its editor, Alfred Stieglitz, as a more pure form of photography than Pictorialism. Once popularized by Stieglitz and other notable photographers, such as Paul Strand, it later became a hallmark of Western photographers, such as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams and others.

Although taken by some to mean lack of manipulation, straight photographers in fact applied many common darkroom techniques to enhance the appearance of their prints. Rather than factual accuracy, the term came to imply a specific aesthetic typified by higher contrast and rich tonality, sharp focus, aversion to cropping, and a Modernism-inspired emphasis on the underlying abstract geometric structure of subjects.

This aesthetic caught on in the early 1930s and found its most notable use in what came to be known as The West Coast Photographic Movement. Well known photographers, including Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, his son Brett Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Dody Weston Thompson and Berenice Abbott are considered innovators and practitioners of this style. Many other photographic artists of the time considered themselves practitioners of this West Coast counterculture and even formed a group known as Group f/64 to highlight their efforts and set themselves apart from the East Coast pictorialism movement.

This emphasis on the sharp and detailed silver prints dominated modernist photographic aesthetics into the 1970s".

[rajmohan.]

Steve said:

"My choice of film, developer, lighting, the ISO I choose to shoot at, exposure, lens and format choice, where the camera is placed, etc all dictate what the image will look like. Then, how will I print it? Add contrast, take it down, print it with filters, toning, choices of exposure and paper"

 

Agreed. Furthermore, in the digital setting, the output 'straight-out-of-camera' is also subject to the vagaries of the camera's processing engine (if shooting JPGs) or the algorithms of post-processing software (if shooting RAW). So whether shooting film or digital, the image has been transformed in some way from the moment the photons approached the film/sensor to the final image. When dealing with factual documentation (eg photojournalism), I feel that any further manipulation should be kept to a minimum to keep the final result as 'straight' as possible.

But for photography for many other purposes, I don't see any need to keep things 'straight'. I don't like heavily processed images, but that's just me - everyone has their own preferences and tastes, so live and let live!

[Sandy Vongries]

I have a photo of myself as a child with father, grandfather and great grandfather all sitting on a couch in my maternal grandfather's house. Perfect, real, undetectable. except my great grandfather never left Germany. Must be from around 1949. It was not even done by a pro, but my aunt's photo enthusiast boyfriend. On the surface, a straight family photo...in every respect but geography. Intent, or motivation, murky areas. To a degree, some types of photo manipulation are to me a bit like deliberately brassing a camera to appear to be someone more experienced or "salty".

Or think of the recent and ongoing "stolen sky" caper.

Possibly Honest is a better concept than Straight. A quick revisit to the OP should show no intent on my part to create a Procrustean Bed.

[Norma Desmond]

For me, using the word "honest" here doesn't work. There's nothing dishonest (though it is manipulation and probably isn't terribly straight) about increasing saturation or cloning in a person (unless you're claiming the photo is forensic or journalistic). A case where someone steals someone else's image, which is what I assume you're referring to with the "stolen sky" caper, is dishonest BECAUSE OF THE STEALING, not because of how that was accomplished in a technical photographic sense. When a hobbyist or art photographer clones out telephone poles, changes colors, or makes any number of other creative decisions, that's not about honesty. Unless you consider Lewis Carroll to have been dishonest when he created the Mad Hatter, who did not really exist except in his imagination. No, straight photography is not about honesty, IMO.

[Sandy Vongries]

I can understand Straight Scotch, or mathematically straight lines, Straight photos, from the start, initially in quotes, and in my last post Honest preceded by "possobly" always a semantic struggle -- back to your Bullseye.

"Fred hit the bullseye early on, probably a Sorities paradox (LINK)."

Maybe just cud chewing on my part.

[Norma Desmond]

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

—Immanuel Kant

;-)

[BeBu Lamar]

What is straight photography? Even in the case of shooting slides and process normally and only show the slides on a light table I am not sure it's 100% straight. One can use filter, without filter one can under expose or over expose to get certain effects.

For me there is no straight photography as I know more about photography. When I was a 10 year old kid and started out shooting film I would think I did straight photography. My attempt to make my photographs to look the same as the scene proved to be impossible. I learned that photography simply can not capture a scene faithfully so doing photography is about knowing what your photographs will look like if you do certain things and then the goal is to create photographs that you have in mind.

[DavidTriplett]

The risk in quoting Wikipedia for any particular definition or subject is that, while useful, it is NOT acceptable to academics as a reliable reference. (I'm married to an academic who routinely must correct her students in this regard.) However, Wikipedia IS useful in defining the broad outlines of common understanding, and, sometimes, helping to identify more apropos and acceptable references. I am gratified that this has been a discussion, rather than an accusatory argument, and I feel enlightened by the many very insightful comments.

 

As noted by Professor Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr., beware the difference between "truth" and "fact". If you want truth, "...Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall." ;) I think we generally agree that journalistic/documentary photography is, or should be, about fact. Then what is truth as it relates to photography? I think there may be many different aspects to how we relate art and truth, and they will fall into many locales along our continuum. Let us take one of Julie H's composites as an example: Would we consider her work truthful because she uses only graphic elements captured photographically? Or, is truth to be found in the final product being aligned with her own, self-imposed production criteria? Or, are such composites inherently un-truthful? We're back, again, to the sorites paradox. So "truth", like "straight", is subject to a vast range of philosophical interpretations, and we tread dangerous ground when we assert that only one is correct, particularly in regards to so subjective a topic as the representational arts (photography included).

 

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead addresses this issue very well. Architecture has always been subject to the same kinds of cultural and aesthetic politics as all the other arts. Of Rand's two central themes, the question of what is "true" (acceptable) architecture (art) in the face of established norms is most apropos to us here. (The other question, as to ownership of the artistic work product, is for another day.) As photographic artists, is our individual artistic truth found in the arms of the collective, traditional aesthetic, or are we all Howard Roarks who must create independently, or not at all? I am satisfied that, at least photographically, I am somewhere in between, moving along the continuum as desire and opportunity allow.

 

Thank you, all, for your contributions. I shall happily continue down my own very winding path, enlightened, but not diverted, by your insights..

[rossb]

I think it's been a good thread. I did not know what Straight photography was actually and now I have an idea. Even though it has changed nothing in what I do it's nice to pick up a little information. I like a thread like this which is conducted more like a group of friends talking about photography at a coffee shop rather then head butting. I enjoyed the thread. Good luck.

[Julie H]

Would we consider her work truthful

 

 

Good lord, I hope not. Mine are verbs not nouns.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Would anyone here consider photos taken (or made) with an iPhone 7 in the following Apple commercial video as straight photography?...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpUa7YvhUJo

 

Make sure you read the one line at the bottom of the frame at the 55 minute point. It might change your mind or it might not.

[DavidTriplett]

Mine are verbs not nouns.

And never an adjective to be found...?

[Sandy Vongries]

Tim -- with all due respect, Off topic. No interest in phones, utubes or commercials. The entire post has been about still photography.

[Julie H]

And never an adjective to be found...?

 

 

[sternly; picture your third grade grammar teacher looking at you over her glasses]

 

David. Verbs take adverbs, not adjectives.

 

But, but, but ... if you happen to have any spare adjectives lying around, PLEASE bring them to the Philosophy forums and deposit them liberally. Getting adjectives out of anybody around here is like getting [something] out of a turnip (I had to use "something" or Sandy would be unhappy with me, truthwise).

[Sandy Vongries]

Just remember, Julie," Adjectives and Nouns live in the Town. Verbs and adverbs live in the Suburb." Miss Costello will be proud, wherever she is! Will 'ya have to move? ;-)

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Tim -- with all due respect, Off topic. No interest in phones, utubes or commercials. The entire post has been about still photography.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, Sandy. It's quite on topic. The disclaimer at the end of that commercial showing the image quality does suggest those images are not straight out of the camera, they are edited and/or manipulated.

 

If that doesn't convince you, I'll put it to you another way so it does.

 

If the commercial was showing the quality of stills from brand X DSLR, could you tell if it was straight out of the camera photography? And if they did post a similar disclaimer stating additional equipment and software was used, would you be convinced the images were manipulated to look as good as they do?

 

Where would you draw the line at what you considered straight photography with a digital camera?

[Norma Desmond]

As photographic artists, is our individual artistic truth found in the arms of the collective, traditional aesthetic, or are we all Howard Roarks who must create independently, or not at all?

I think of myself as a photographer developing an individual voice, happy to be also steeped in a culture and several communities I feel part of. I use collectively-recognizable symbols and references even as I forge ahead personally. I find it important to bring some traditional aesthetics and art history along with me as I try adapting to newly-forming aesthetics and even seek out some of my own.

 

I think of truth as usually being broad, so I find truth in a combination of the individual and the collective rather than a choice between them. The collective can be, but certainly doesn't have to be, slavish. The collective often is, when functioning well, founded on empathy, understanding, caring and sharing, in which case it can be both supportive and liberating.

 

Many schools of art forged new aesthetics collectively and yet most of the practitioners in those movements had quite strong individual contributions to make to the history of art. Often traditional aesthetics are learned and built upon, not necessarily outrightly rejected, though that does happen, of course.