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02/03/2004 01:37:44 PM · #26 |
I'll refer back to a thread I responded to a week or so ago. I don't care at all what has been done to a photo unless it is serving some kind of a photojournalistic purpose (ie documenting reality).
Filter the %$*^@ out of a piece of work for all I care. I may not like it, but if it looks the way you envisioned it, good on ya. Is it still a photograph? Who cares! It's art.
I work for an educational software company as their photog. I'm constantly cutting and pasting elements into images for a variety of reasons. Two cases in particular jump to mind.
In the first, I needed to touch up a number of pictures for a book. The images had been taken by the photog before me, and she had negelected some of the saftey issues this company takes very (too?) seriously. Some of the children were wearing sandals while engaged in various recreational activites (playing soccer, riding a bike, etc.). So, I gathered together a number of people in the company who were wearing trainers, took pictures of their feet, and edited the photos to fix the elements that were "broken". They're still photos, but the elements in them have radically changed. However, I dare say (if I do say so myself) that unless I pointed out the changes, you'd never know. These weren't elements that had been planned when the images were originally shot -- thus not envisioned -- but is it wrong to have made them? Would they have been better photos if I'd actually gathered all the talent back up and reshot the images with the proper footwear?
In the second instance, involving a pre-meditated montage/collage, I was shooting for another book. The storyline took place in the summer, but due to various logistical problems, we weren't shooting until early October. One of the shots I needed to take involved one of the talent jumping into a lake. The water was COLD. Part of the same shot needed to have the "Dad" floating on an inner tube in the shot. (Remember those saftey concerns -- parental observation, especially since the talent wasn't wearing a PFD because wearing a PFD while jumping into the water would have been just as dangerous.) Well, we were having a hard time keeping Dad floating in the exact spot we needed while the kid jumped in the lake. We were a little worried about hypothermia. So, in the end, we took the perfect picture of Dad, and the perfect picture of the jumper, and I edited them together. I also took out most of the leaves that had fallen from the trees into the lake. The goal was to depict a summer scene of someone jumping in a lake with adult supervision. It would have been possible to take the perfect picture by skimming the lake of all the leaves, and somehow anchoring Dad in position, but why?
Rant ended... I quit.... |
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02/03/2004 01:40:14 PM · #27 |
you got me on that one...
never-the-less.... err
Originally posted by Gordon:
Well - it isn't digital for start :)
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Message edited by author 2004-02-03 13:42:50.
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02/03/2004 01:50:47 PM · #28 |
My interpretation of what "photographic integrity" means is that the image I'm looking at could have been taken with a camera. Perhaps there were things "different" about the image as it was actually shot and that it was "post-processed" to remove or add elements, but if it could have been photographed, that to me is still maintaining "photographic integrity" (and just because elements were added or removed does not make it "digital art").
For example, you could use the Mystical Lighting plug-in to add a light ray to a shot in post, or you could use an expensive dedolight and a fog machine, and actually "photograph" the light ray. Either way, the photo now has a light ray in it. One method is easy, flexible and low-cost to achieve in Photoshop, the other way requires expensive, specialized equipment. To me, if the end result still looks like it could be a "pure" photograph (even if it wasn't shot that way), I don't really have an issue with what was done in post, and would prefer to see the artists "complete visualization", even if it isn't a "pure" photograph.
Of course, there are some "pure" photographic techniques that will suffer because of the "digital art" stigma. I was at an art fair last summer and saw some very cool photographs of flowers and other objects that were shot through various types of "water glass" (which is kind of like the privacy glass you see on some shower doors) that gave a very "painterly" effect to her images. The artist had signs in her booth pointing out that the images were not digital manipulations -- maybe because she heard other artists/patrons discussing how "easy" it is to achieve that effect with a Photoshop filter. I think such an image would get hammered here for being "digital art", even though it may be a pure from-the-camera image.
Message edited by author 2004-02-03 14:44:03. |
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02/03/2004 02:31:56 PM · #29 |
Originally posted by KarenB:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
This issue is not new, it just has new clothes. Take a look at Jerry Uelsmann's work.
Jerry Uelsmann
He started in the late 60's doing his work in the darkroom.
Read the interview where he discusses the reception his work first received from his peers( who were printmakers and painters) at the University of Florida and the reception it got from other photographers in NY. |
You can't take anything away from him on his art... but is this photography? I call it using photographs to achieve art. |
You are entitled to your opinion, but, Jerry Uelsmann is widely regarded as a Master Photographer, as well as an artist. Ansel Adams manipulated extensively in the darkroom, does that mean that "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" or any other Adams work is not photography? Is it about the degree of manipulation? Or the fidelity of the final image to our own perception of reality? Is there some undefinable line that a manipulated image crosses to transition from "photography" to "digital art"? Is any degree of manipulation acceptable if we can't discern the result from reality?
I don't believe that photography stops when we set the camera down and head into the darkroom, regardless of the tools used in the darkroom and whether that darkroom has chemicals or software. Personally, I couldn't care less about HOW an image is achieved, if the final image works, it works. For me, it's not about the process, it's about the final result.
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02/03/2004 02:33:48 PM · #30 |
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Is there some undefinable line that a manipulated image crosses to transition from "photography" to "digital art"? |
Yes indeed :)
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02/03/2004 02:43:21 PM · #31 |
The challenge I normally put to myself is to create the effect I want straight from camera. This just gives me more satisfaction, makes me proud of my skills. If I do it in PS I am not proud of it, too easy. That is just how I am.
Nevertheless I have some images which I am sure had more impact because of the manipulation applied. Especially the curves command in PS can really be used to add some punch to a picture and create a wow effect, something people here are very sensitive to.
Take my scent ribbon, final version, within limited editing rules.
The unedited original was :
This was underexposed. I did have a proper exposed one but the scent was not as good. Here it is :
So I used the underexposed one and applied levels to correct the exposure.
But the impact was really made by applying the curves command, pulling up the midtones.
Does this compromise integrity ? Maybe, maybe not, but I would have liked to achieve the effect straight away.
With full editing rules I could even have added the scent in PS. Now that would in my mind violate integrity. I would not do it.
I realise this is totally different from changing reality in a photojournalistic image, which is and should be forbidden. Remember a journalist lost his job earlier this year because of manipulation of a picture from Iraq ?
Your opinion on my example ?
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02/03/2004 02:51:05 PM · #32 |
Originally posted by willem:
With full editing rules I could even have added the scent in PS. Now that would in my mind violate integrity. I would not do it. |
That is a personal choice that you've made. But if somebody else did it in post, and you couldn't tell, why should it matter whether the effect was created in front of the camera, or after the fact with some skillful editing? Furthermore, how would you even know without access to the as-shot image?
Using your image as an example, let's say that the "scent" coming from the bottle was added in after the fact. You give it a high score during voting, and then find out after the challenge is over that the scent was not part of "what the camera saw". Are you going to chastise the photographer for creating the image as he intended to be? Are you going to think less of the photograph? If so, why? Absolutely nothing about the photograph itself has changed, just your knowledge of how it was created. |
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02/03/2004 02:53:06 PM · #33 |
well, define the line... it's your line i suppose, not mine.
on the tree/house photo - i personally would give more credit to him if he knew he was going to meld the two photos prior to taking them, or went out looking for the right elements to shoot to aceive his end, than had he gone through 600 photos of each element searching for things that went together. but beyond that - its photography...
also this is also encompassing more than digital at this point...
Originally posted by above:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is there some undefinable line that a manipulated image crosses to transition from "photography" to "digital art"?
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Yes indeed :) |
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02/03/2004 02:53:06 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Is there some undefinable line that a manipulated image crosses to transition from "photography" to "digital art"? |
Yes indeed :) |
Then there isn't a whole lot of hope of coming up with a good definition then, is there ?
I feel torn on this. I have a irrational like for images that are fantastic but not easily created in photoshop. I have an emotional dislike for images of fairies and rainbows that were hacked together in photoshop.
There is a meaningless value we apply to images that are hard to create, vs. taking the 'easy' way out of waving a mouse around and doing it in photoshop. Who cares how it was created, right ? Well, half of me cares how it was created. That's my photographer half who cares about the history and the technique and the craft of doing amazing things with light and cameras.
Then theres the half of me that likes looking at an amazing image. Someone made a comment about film and noticing how bad the special effects are. I think my dislike of badly and overly manipulated images comes from that. There is a suspension of disbelief involved in enjoying a good photograph. If you can see the obvious photoshop filter usage or the cheap special effects employed, then you can see the wizard behind the curtain and the suspension of disbelief comes crashing down around your ears.
That's why I don't like most of the images at worth1000.com They feel cheezy to me. They look photoshoped, even when it is done well because they mostly display cheap ideas or funny concepts. They don't have artistic integrity, never mind photographic integrity, for my own personal world view.
So I like good pictures. I like ones that don't give away the fact that they were drawn in photoshop or that I can see which filter was applied.
can I draw a box and say everything in this is photography and everything outside isn't ? Yes - absolutely, and that's my own personal moral limits. Can I describe it ? Only when I see it. Does it matter what was used to achieve the image ? My own personal jury is out on that one - I think I don't care. But when photorealistic rendering arrives on everyone's desktop, and you can pull a scene together out of thin bytes, establish a camera position and direction and 'take' a picture of that unreal world - is that a photograph ? It's painting with light that never shone, but you have all the requirements of composition, scene selection and new techniques - but I don't think it is photography.
I like editing that takes away from the scene: improvement by subtraction - but I can see the value in adding things or doing compositing. Another fine exponent of the digital darkroom is John Paul Caponigro //www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/
He makes composite images that look real and real images that look like composites. He creates atmospheric effects in photoshop you could swear you could reach out and touch and uses photographs of real atmospheric phenomina that you'd bet never happened. I don't want to begin to classify or define boundaries for his work - but some of it amazes me and some of it just looks like photoshop trickery. The fact that I often had the amazing reality and photoshop trickery aspects backwards from reality confounds me a bit on this too!
so I'm torn. I understand the pull from the pure photographic side, and I understand the pull from the digital darkroom side. I can see the educational merits of restricting people to developing their 'pure' photographic skills on the 'in the camera' side, but then lament the lack of understanding of the potential in those images when treated with respect in the digital darkroom. And I enjoy rambling without a coherent point or destination.
Message edited by author 2004-02-03 14:55:18.
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02/03/2004 02:55:32 PM · #35 |
EddyG wrote :
That is a personal choice that you've made. But if somebody else did it in post, and you couldn't tell, why should it matter whether the effect was created in front of the camera, or after the fact with some skillful editing? Furthermore, how would you even know without access to the as-shot image?
Using your image as an example, let's say that the "scent" coming from the bottle was added in after the fact. You give it a high score during voting, and then find out after the challenge is over that the scent was not part of "what the camera saw". Are you going to chastise the photographer for creating the image as he intended to be? Are you going to think less of the photograph? If so, why? Absolutely nothing about the photograph itself has changed, just your knowledge of how it was created
No, in that case, I would still like the image as much as before, I would not think less of the photograph, but I would think less of the skills of the photographer.
But I would not chastise the photographer at all, like I make my choice not do that kind of editing, someone else is free to make another choice
Message edited by author 2004-02-03 14:57:07.
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02/03/2004 02:56:13 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
That is a personal choice that you've made. But if somebody else did it in post, and you couldn't tell, why should it matter whether the effect was created in front of the camera, or after the fact with some skillful editing? Furthermore, how would you even know without access to the as-shot image?
Using your image as an example, let's say that the "scent" coming from the bottle was added in after the fact. You give it a high score during voting, and then find out after the challenge is over that the scent was not part of "what the camera saw". Are you going to chastise the photographer for creating the image as he intended to be? Are you going to think less of the photograph? If so, why? Absolutely nothing about the photograph itself has changed, just your knowledge of how it was created. |
What if Willem used his masterful technique with light and foil, and I made a few swooshing motions with my tablet.. Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score?
If so, why am I bothering with his photography lark? I'll just Photoshop the majority of the shot. |
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02/03/2004 03:00:35 PM · #37 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
Originally posted by Spazmo99:
Is there some undefinable line that a manipulated image crosses to transition from "photography" to "digital art"? |
Yes indeed :) |
Then there isn't a whole lot of hope of coming up with a good definition then, is there ?
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No. The definition is what the viewer wants it to be based on his/her own characteristics.
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02/03/2004 03:01:32 PM · #38 |
go ahead and try it - just because its software doesnt means its point and click... you have to know what you are doing to simulate the true light... well i might as well just produce masterpiece photos in photoshop because film is so expensive.... good luck....
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
What if Willem used his masterful technique with light and foil, and I made a few swooshing motions with my tablet.. Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score?
If so, why am I bothering with his photography lark? I'll just Photoshop the majority of the shot. |
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02/03/2004 03:05:31 PM · #39 |
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
What if Willem used his masterful technique with light and foil, and I made a few swooshing motions with my tablet.. Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score?
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Well, thanks for that qualification....
But I think you would deserve the same score, for voting it is the end result that counts, whichever tools used within the rules. But if I would see the same image and see that it was achieved using PS and mine was achieved out of camera, it would still make me more proud as a photographer.
My original reason for joining DPC was actually the limitation on editing allowed.
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02/03/2004 03:05:39 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by soup:
go ahead and try it - just because its software doesnt means its point and click... you have to know what you are doing to simulate the true light... |
I'm fairly well versed in Photoshop..
You didn't answer the questions:
Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score? |
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02/03/2004 03:05:54 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
What if Willem used his masterful technique with light and foil, and I made a few swooshing motions with my tablet.. Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score? |
I believe that simply "few swooshing motions with my tablet" would not provide the same photo-realistic effect. So if you were able to achieve that effect with your tablet, then I say yes, you deserve the same score, because instead of masterful use of light and foil, you are masterful using the tools of your post-processing toolbox.
I think there is some attempt here to say a picture and/or photographer is "better" because they captured "the whole thing" with a camera instead of just evaluating the final image, regardless of the means used to achieve it. In the end, isn't the final presentation what matters? If not, I wonder why Photoshop is such a wildly successful and popular product... |
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02/03/2004 03:06:31 PM · #42 |
OK, what about instead of Mystical LIghting, we get a plugin called 'Mystical Model' that creates perfectly releastic people? Click a button and get perfectly releastic people in our shots. Since it's not adding another photograph, it would be legal, right? It's just a photoshop filter.
Or what if someone uses Bryce or some other landscape renderer to create a photorealistic landscape resembling the Himalayas in their image. Is that just as laudable as if someone actually went to the location?
What about if someone who's very talented at drawing takes a black pic (lens cap on), or a pic of a white background, and then generates an entire image by hand with their Wacom Tablet and the airbrush tool? Perfectly legal, right?
These are all legitimate and laudable talents, but they are not photography, as I understand it. Part of what we're judging here, IMHO, is the skill someone had in controlling their camera and the environment which it recorded.
Originally posted by EddyG:
For example, you could use the Mystical Lighting plug-in to add a light ray to a shot in post, or you could use an expensive dedolight and a fog machine, and actually "photograph" the light ray. Either way, the photo now has a light ray in it. |
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02/03/2004 03:08:51 PM · #43 |
Originally posted by willem:
But I think you would deserve the same score, for voting it is the end result that counts, whichever tools used within the rules. |
That's fair enough. If I were you I'd be pretty upset if I was beaten to ribbon!
Originally posted by willem:
My original reason for joining DPC was actually the limitation on editing allowed. |
Ditto. |
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02/03/2004 03:09:27 PM · #44 |
kudos - yes
score - yes
if side by side on paper they are equal - and the image originated from a camera...
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
I'm fairly well versed in Photoshop..
You didn't answer the questions:
Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score? |
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02/03/2004 03:12:35 PM · #45 |
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
Originally posted by soup:
go ahead and try it - just because its software doesnt means its point and click... you have to know what you are doing to simulate the true light... |
I'm fairly well versed in Photoshop..
You didn't answer the questions:
Do I deserve the same kudos as Willem? And more importantly, do I deserve the same (or potentially better) score? |
Let me flip that on its head, as I feel its less emotionally composed.
Why wouldn't you deserve the same score ?
Why is one way better or more artistic ?
It seems a very modern notion that the value of art is entwined with how difficult it was to make. I find most of the stuff in modern art galleries that I dislike to be more about the process than the quality of the end result.
If I do something really difficult photographically and pull it off marginally, is that better or worse art than someone who creates something beautiful using digital tools (either a DSLR or photoshop, or a rendering package)
Does it have to be difficult to be good ? Is more difficult, better art, even if it looks the same ? I feel you are saying that this is true but I can't grasp why that should be.
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02/03/2004 03:12:55 PM · #46 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
I think there is some attempt here to say a picture and/or photographer is "better" because they captured "the whole thing" with a camera instead of just evaluating the final image, regardless of the means used to achieve it. |
I must admit, I certainly fall into the category of appreciating photographic skill more than photoshop skill. Maybe that's because I have less of the former than the latter..
Originally posted by EddyG:
If not, I wonder why Photoshop is such a wildly successful and popular product... |
Photoshop is hardly just a photo editor. PS is used for practically all raster graphic creation/manipulation. |
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02/03/2004 03:13:34 PM · #47 |
Originally posted by PaulMdx:
Originally posted by willem:
But I think you would deserve the same score, for voting it is the end result that counts, whichever tools used within the rules. |
That's fair enough. If I were you I'd be pretty upset if I was beaten to ribbon!
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You bet, I would be telling everybody I was able to do that without editing. But would accept it since those are the are rules of the site.
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02/03/2004 03:14:17 PM · #48 |
Just a few thoughts while reading all this...
I am not against editing whether it be in the darkroom or software. I think it is loads of fun. I also think it has it's place. I worked at a hospital for a doctor who did publication prints for her articles. They had to be realistic, but we did a lot of dodging and burning to enhance or beautify. Yes, Patella, that is great that you can change their shoes. Heck, I replaced my head with one from a different photograph onto one where the rest of the family looked better for a greeting card and no one was the wiser! ;) Do I get excited, as Gordon says, when I see something amazing to view. Yes. And then I want to know how to do it too. Advertising has less (if any) limits to manipulation - that is the nature of the beast. On the other end of the spectrum, Photojournalism needs to remain realistic to report actuality to the viewer - the nature of that beast.
What I am searching for is the placement of all of this, and everything in between here on DPChallenge.
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02/03/2004 03:15:08 PM · #49 |
With all the discussion from photography purists on the evils of software manipulation and photographic integrity do they feel that shooting photos in RAW mode and then "developing" them the way that looks best violate this integrity?
I would be interested in opinions on this aspect of digital photography.
There is definitely a fine line between a photograph and when it becomes digital art. However, I think that the determination is based on the viewer's concept.
Any number of us may look at a certain photograph and some will think it is a magnificent photo, while others will complain about too much software manipulation.
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02/03/2004 03:16:20 PM · #50 |
Originally posted by soup:
and the image originated from a camera... |
and here is the essence of the dilemma.
I think we can easily establish the boundary cases. Mag's lens cap on and paint everything on the black canvas approach I think is unassailably not a photograph, even though the image originated in a camera.
But when does editing to enhance an image become creating something that doesn't exist ? When does creating something that didn't exist stop being a photograph ? (I don't think the answers to these two questions are necessarily the same thing either)
I have many images that 'don't exist' in a sense of the real world that I think are easily what most people would consider a photograph.
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