Stands Out

I think the term "photo graphic" is as interesting as what Stephen suggests, as it seems to suggest something other than photography as such yet related to it.

On the other hand, probably not so, as graphic and photography are pleonasms, I think, or rather they are like father and son, as photography and drawing (or other art) are simply different forms of the parent word graphics.

What may be needed to describe a straight photographic image that is mutated to a different appearing image (air brushed or "photoshopped") is some new term. I don't know which, but how about a photo-illustration or photo-derived art? The latter, however academic sounding, seems to sum up the nature of the POW for me.

As photo art, it's interesting. The pin sized catch light probably from a built-in camera flash is unnaturally centered in the eye's pupil. Better to be off somewhere on the iris at 10 am or 2pm to give it more naturalness. I think the width is a little too panograpghic for this type of shot; I would prefer less on the left. Nice photo.

Surely, an image created with good digital skills, but it leaves me cold despite its warm "simple harmony" of a very limited span of colors (around orange). The subject matter seems merely to attempt to please the viewer for a moment or two.
This was my immediate reaction to the image.
Nevertheless, if I do force myself to look into the eye(s) of the face of the child (?) more thoroughly, I catch a feeling of irony and amusement, looking out from behind a lace curtain. But still with this enigma (why?) the image does not make much sense to me or catch my interest.

To me, it is plastic and sterlized. All of the great potential of photography to reveal the true sole of reality is stripped away.

Arthur, I am glad to see that you think language matters in this. It's as if we refuse to see the difference between a mannequin and a human. If we would allow language to follow it's natural course and just develop a term to refer to this kind of thing, it could then have it's own forum. Those that it interests could share with each other and photographers could proceed without such needless distractions. JJ

For me, what you call it doesn't much matter. It still looks the way it looks, which is as Jeremy described.

Calling it a digital rendering wouldn't change a thing and putting it in a different forum wouldn't change anything either.

The Pictorialists wanted photography to be accepted as an art forum and so they thought it best to mimic the traditions and qualities of paintings of the time in order that photography be viewed as art. At least they had the good sense to mimic good paintings and still created some great photographs that had visual appeal, depth of emotion, and beauty. Then, some of those same photographers realized that photos were different from painting, had their own unique qualities, and started exploring those. They got more uniquely photographic, using the reality supplied by the world as a point of departure, caring about the moment and the narrative that moment could suggest. Now, it seems, we've come full circle to where some photographers think they must deny photography in order to make so-called "art." But what they're mimicking, instead of Monet and Renoir, are Chuckie Cheese and the latest computer-graphics cartoons.

[if this is well done, please please please give me something that is not.]

Fred, language matters. What we call this would not change this obviously, but it would change how this is involved in our lives. We are not required to critique sculpture or line drawings in this forum just because they aren't called photographs. A line drawing looks the way it looks, but we are not asked to critique those here.

Maybe, if we got our words to match the new reality with which these sorts if things present us, modern photographers might more readily recognize what they are doing and stop doing it....or at least do it in a different forum so photographers aren't put in the impossible position of giving a photographic critique of something that isn't photograph. Of course Fred, if you wanted to, you could go to this forum and give critiques. The audience would certainly be different though...I for one would not be there. So that would be two things at least that would change Fred. JJ

Looking at this POW it lacks IMO the intention of a photography as well as the intention of a painting,and as such it misses both,and the art result as well.

As a figure behind a curtain it is jumping out strongly to the viewer, instead of being more naturally/subtle shadowed, and therefor the face details are not communicating as a photograph.

The curtain and the face are at the same level of strenght(,especially closer to the figur's face) and so as a painting it lacks the compositionnal communication.

The whole is very steril, and not creating any emotional reaction.

Fred, I'm willing to critique whatever I see in front of me or on my screen based solely on the merits of what I see. Putting it in a category isn't going to fundamentally change that, so in that regard I agree with you. Still, I think Jeremy makes some good points. I too find it difficult to give a critique to a photograph that I don't consider to be a photograph, and I also think that doesn't serve the maker of that photo-derived creation very well either. However, I'm pessimistic about the photographic world's ability to come up with a system to define and delineate these new, largely computer based outgrowths of photography. I'm also mindful that the links between these different forms are continuous, gradual paths with no sharp boundaries between them, making the task of defining and delineating even more difficult. John A gave what I thought was a more complete and fair critique of this POW. However, he had to ask whether it had lost its photographic quality. Had this image been recognized at the outset as not a photograph but rather something derived from a photograph, John would not have had to ask that question.

There are many folks who consider themselves photographic purists who wouldn't allow anything touched in Photoshop to be considered a photo. Those who are complaining here about it being appropriate to this forum don't come across as such extreme purists, obviously. Nevertheless, photographs fall on a continuum. The site has given us a "digital manipulations" category, which for me suffices as category enough without having to ask that photos in this category be banned from POTW or get a separate POTW offering. The site has also determined that it welcomes any final product that started out with a camera or light-sensitive medium, regardless of level of manipulation. I can live with that. I understand the underlying differences but also understand the underlying similarities that would make them all photos.

I do portraits. Very, very different kinds of portraits from what's shot and processed for Madison Avenue or "model shoots," yet I'm perfectly willing to share the category with others who are into a more commercial and radically different handling of portraiture. Photography is a young medium and still evolving. I don't like when categories are used to exclude rather than simply to make things convenient.

I thought John A's critique was off, almost as if to patronize this bad product in the name of being "objective" or "fair." It deserves the same scrutiny as any other photo would get. It's not because of how it was made that I find it doesn't work but because of what it looks like. Both Jeremy and Pnina have hit on some of its visual problems. IMO, it is flat, the eyes are obvious and a cliché and a harbinger of a naive use of flash, the color is sickly sweet like many "pretty" and boring sunsets, and the idea seems more about creating art than expressing a point of view or an emotion or two. Imagine this being unprocessed, what it might have looked like coming out of the camera. It doesn't get much better, does it?

I am not persuaded to change my original critique, which was "...That potential (creativity, as represented by an eye half seen) is lost for me by the wax-like excessive processing (lips, eyes, overall tonality)". The POW goes from a potential of a communicative image in human terms to becoming only "eye candy" and expressionless. Others have mentioned the "plastic and sterile" appearance of the "apparently" human figure.

I totally agree, and that is consistent with my own original thought about the wax-like appearance of the face. Although I understand and to some degree uphold Jeremy's apparent aesthetic, I think that excluding excessive manipulation from the forum would be going too far. We should remember that for many persons photography is both a recording medium and an artistic one.

What would happen to the world of art if we limited brush strokes to a dimension not exceeding 2 mm, or to the qualification of being nearly invisible at three feet viewing distance, with the notion that anything larger might interfere with some perceived reality, or instead if we disallowed use of mixed media in any work of art? Art would suffer greatly for those constraints.

No, lets instead call a spade a spade. Photography is an offshoot of the larger field of graphics (and that specific one that uses direct recording of light photons in the capture process), just like painting and drawing, and we should accept variation of technique and effects as part of a wide reach of the practice of photography. On the other hand, there is traditional photographic practice and what I would call "photographically-derived art." Art, which can be created as well following the initial photon capture and be somewhat independent of the latter, can also be both good or bad art. The word "art" is not a quantitative term of measurement of the quality of work that emanates from that creative process, but simply a human activity that involves creation.

So lets welcome those many photoshop creations that are chosen by our elves, firstly because they seem to please many members of Photo.Net, but secondly because they are based on an initial photographic capture which does not exclude their presence on a photographic site. We can judge the works as photographs and what they may communicate visually to the viewer (technical quality, composition and other art aspects, or effect on the emotions or intellect of the viewer), or not, and we can also consider them more as works of art and perhaps less works of photography, and judge them from a mainly artistic viewpoint. Whichever of these, or of any other criteria one may wish to apply, are perhaps second to that of the perceived effect of the image on the viewer, who is free to judge the work and provide that response.

I think it is interesting that the new tools allow more of an overlap between the three activities of painting, drawing and photography. The potential is there for increased and satisfying visual expression, just as it is for the achievement of much less effective results.

Once the initial "glow" of the power of manipulation is more familiar to the viewer, perhaps the quality of the enhanced visual expression will be of more importance, to that viewer. Artists have always enjoyed playing with new things, but they do not usually arrive at significant art expression until they have fully understood the way the new tools can be best used.

Agree with Arthur . . . although I don't think we have to consider many things posted to be works of art. Most are not. The use of a camera, the use of Photoshop, the use of a paint and brushes does not make someone an artist.

Fred, Jeremy , and Arthur, I think that from the time photography was accepted as a part of the other arts form, like painting, drawing, etching etc.., it has developed its language. I'm far from bing a purist,and for sure agree to manipulation, when it is well done.

Each of us, and I have written it before , come to look at any work, from his/her background, and knowledge, and critique a photo is dependent of those factors. That said, I think that with the factors mentioned above we can understand and evaluate better a work(either manipulated or not).Is it a good work? and when it is not say it is not,and explain our reasons.,which is well done here.

Fred, Jeremy , and Arthur, I think that from the time photography was accepted as a part of the other arts form, like painting, drawing, etching etc.., it has developed its language. I'm far from bing a purist,and for sure agree to manipulation, when it is well done.

Each of us, and I have written it before , come to look at any work, from his/her background, and knowledge, and critique a photo is dependent of those factors. That said, I think that with the factors mentioned above we can understand and evaluate better a work(either manipulated or not).Is it a good work? and when it is not say it is not,and explain our reasons.,which is well done here.
Sorry for the time out, again... ;-))

The camera and lens are only components in digital photography. The CPU and software are much like the traditional darkroom -- on steroids. I remember a long conversation with Ansel Adams as he took me through his darkroom after dinner and explained the lamphouse he had constructed on his enlarger. It had an extensive array of small lamps instead of a condenser. Each of the lamps had an independent rheostat. Ansel would set the rheostat on each bulb to produce a precise amount of light to pass through his negative and would record the settings in his diary for that image. This enabled the precise duplication of the image without the variables of dodging and burning. Maybe Ansel was an analogue pioneer for digital photography.
The creator of the image should be absolutely free to use whatever tools fit her of his imagination. Ansel created his images in his mind long before he touched a camera. I think some of us do the same thing today -- only our range of tools has expanded exponentially.
When it all comes down to it -- it is a matter of personal taste. I love the images of Mark Rothko -- others may hate them. I congratulate Emanuel on this image and encourage him to push his vision the limits.

IMO, talking about what Ansel Adams did (or would do, knowing he would love and use digital photography and digital post-processing) in the same manner as what Emanuel is doing would be like talking about Renoir and Thomas Kinkade using their mediums similarly. The only point of similarity between Renoir and Kinkade is that they both used paints and a brush. The only similarity between Adams and Emanuel is that they both used a camera and post processing. Just look carefully at what Adams did with his post processing and what Emanuel has done and you might see that they are in different universes aesthetically. Ansel Adams can't be used to justify making any and all aesthetic decisions just because it's OK to post process.

Well, I think there is a difference between actually being "objective" and being "patronizing. I also don't know that one can--or maybe should-- ordain something as "bad" globally whereas we can certainly determine that something doesn't fit with our taste.

Personally, I would argue as to whether this image is flat or that there is a naive use of flash. That doesn't mean I don't think the flash could be better, but it isn't far off what I might personally feel would be more optimal for this specific scene (you never know the trade-offs until you try something different, which might have been done before this was created as a final). What I wouldn't argue is that the result here is very stylistic and an image that not everyone is going to respond to. It isn't the type of image that I personally would create or seek out, but I do think it is one of Emanuel's better images using this technique.

I think if we compare this image to this one or this one, the results here feel a bit more refined. While, as I described above, this image has lost much of its photographic quality, I think it is several steps forward from these other images. The technique used here can pretty much obliterate skin texture and create more a sense of blur, as it did in particularly with the woman linked to above, and we end up with eyes and lips stuck on a sea of blurred skin (these aren't quite that far, but I have seen that hanging in a restaurant as samples of a photographer's work). The POW has a bit more of a sense of unity between the features and the skin--they don't feel quite as "pasted" on and that is probably due to the modeling of the face (not being "flat") and the fact that our subject is young (we can accept the smooth skin a bit more than with older individuals). But still, the result we have here has become more of a stylized illustration of a child rather than a photograph of the child. We just need to determine what our goal is.

This technique has become somewhat popular and, as I said above, is often the product of a specific portrait software. (I recently got a copy of a group photo probably using this software, it shouldn't be noticeable in those situations!) I thought this image was a nice step forward from many of the other images that were done with it (or in that manner). But there has to be a determination of whether one is making a photograph of a particular person or just creating an image. There is a delicate balance in the creation of the image with this technique/software even in the latter case. But that is also personal preference!

Virginia, I think that you are absolutely right that photographers are free to do whatever they want and explore their own artistic vision in any way they desire. That's none of my business. But if I ask for a play and I get a movie, that is my buisiness.

Fred makes a good point that photo.net allows this sort of thing so I really have no grounds to object to it as a POW. It just seems to me at least that we never really get going with photographic critiques when we are presented with this sort of thing (yes, we sometimes have lots of interest as Gerry Gentry can attest to, but it's rarely of a substantive photographic nature). There are so many incredible photographers here on this site and so much to learn about the craft of photography that it seems a shame to me at least that we are so often bogged down here with these hyper-manipulated art projects.

But at least Arthur did say that this image is more art than photography (I completely agree with that Arthur) and Fred implied that this is a denial of photography. I guess I'll just have to live with that for now. Best, JJ

Fred: my point about Ansel was that he pushed the technology in innovative ways. Even though Ansel wasn't a big fan of color images, he may have made the largest transparencies ever on commission from Kodak. They hung from the ceiling in Grand Central Station. I had the privilege of spending quite a bit of time with Ansel both photographically and on conservation projects. I believe that Ansel would be on the forefront of pushing photographic, or photo graphic technology if it helped achieve the image he conceived of. While Ansel mostly used a 4x5, he tried virtually every new piece of gear he could lay his hands on. He tinkered with his chemicals in addition to eliminating the condenser in his enlarger. He could stretch the capture capacity of a piece of film about two EVs beyond anyone else I knew. I have little doubt he would be working on the edge of digital photography today -- even if it might only be in the BW world.
Jeremy: Are you suggesting that "hyperventilated" art projects are not photography? Maybe by your definition photography is not art? I guess I reject both of those views.

Virginia, I never defined photography so I'm not so sure how you can take issue with my definition of photography. By the way, I don't

have my own definition of photography. I don't play that futile philosopher's game. JJ

Virginia, I have no issue with pushing the limits of any medium and finding new ways of doing things, using whatever digital tools someone wants to create an image. Ansel Adams, IMO, was not the greatest photographer or artist. I find his working lacking a kind of passion that I appreciate. But I consider him an artist and an amazing craftsperson and technician. I find it hard to define art but I think one element of art is taste. Adams did have taste, IMO. Other photographers, like ManRay, who pushed the envelope of the medium in much more obvious ways than Adams, also had taste. I've seen many digital photo shows where the photographer uses Photoshop or other post processing tools creatively and imaginatively and extensively, probably even more extensively than our current POTW. So, yes, you're allowed to push the medium to its fullest and even beyond. But, no, that doesn't mean I have to respect what you've done, like what you've done, or think what you've done is art. Just because you can do something doesn't mean when you do it it works. My critique of this photo is not about the use of the medium or the so-called "overuse" of Photoshop. My negative reaction is to what I see before me.

However you wish to classify this photograph it is artificial and predictable. The technique is competent. But there is not mystery, no epiphany. It is living room art.

And many people describe it using terms such as "outstanding," "fantastic," "masterpiece," "magic," "gorgeous," and "superb." As John A observed, it is a popular style with many, and I suspect that's an understatement. I sometimes think what it takes to receive these kinds of accolades is to 1) have an element (just an element, not necessarily the full meal deal) of beauty, and 2) be very different, especially relative to what we see in the real world (and therefore relative to what we usually see in photographs). Digital manipulation can serve that up very readily. My favorite is green skies and purple seas getting comments about "great colors!" Just push the sliders until it looks other-worldly, and then post it. It's so damn easy to come across as a talented artist with artistic vision in today's world. Apparently.

Time-out.

Time-out.

Time-out.