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 04/19/2004 12:05:28 PM · #1
There's been a lot of discussion about advanced photo editing, and though I think the Site Council has stated in a few places that we're working on it, I wanted to go ahead and put a yellow icon on it. Something I specifically wanted to comment on was one of Gordon's comments in another thread:

Originally posted by Gordon:
I think there might be a tendancy to overreact and throw the baby out with the bathwater here.

In many cases the advanced editing rules have been used to produce truely great photographs - well beyond what could be achieved with the basic editing. So to your question, I'd still say 'no'

Some modification is potentially required, but modification doesn't mean turning the clock back and ignoring anything we may have learned in the process.

I completely agree with this, and I feel this is the direction we are taking in our attempts to rectify the situation. As to those attempts, we are currently finalizing votes for disqualification of a few entries in question, and we are working on changes to the advanced editing rules. Those changes are intended to clarify and to put in writing the spirit of where we believe the site wants the advanced editing rules to be.

To those who question the speed at which these decisions have been made, I remind you that we are making decisions on behalf of 16,000 users and do not with to do so without careful deliberation.

Drew
 04/19/2004 12:10:30 PM · #2
Thanks for a great site :) My hats off to you and many others that take the time to make it what it is.
 04/19/2004 12:16:08 PM · #3
I agree fully with your comments. This site is great and the changes brought to the rules a few months ago have made for some truely great works. We should not throw it all out because of a few who have abused of the wording in the rules. MOST editing that has been done was done in true photographic style.

We are photographers, not graphic artists. Let's remember that.
 04/19/2004 12:20:55 PM · #4
[Cross-posted]

I'm not at all surprised by this course of events. As I tried to point out before, you cannot expect to culture the community by editing rules alone. Neither can you stem the preference of voters for album covers over photographs by quasi-moral paradigms like 'photographic integrity' or voting these images low, as individuals and as an apparent minority.

When taste (or the lack of it, depending on your perspective) is interpreted as an entirely personal matter, regardless of context, medium or a collective aesthetic sensibility, anything goes, and no 'editing rule', but the most restrictive, is going to stop it.

What this (amazing) site suffers from, IMHO, is not from a lack of rules (editing-) rules, it's from ciritical faculty and will. The best thing we can do under the circumstances is to continue the debate, no matter how tedious it gets sometimes, in the hope that we will grow as tired of the most obviously vacuous images as we have in the past of subjects like cats, plastic toys and overly saturated sunsets.

That which we truly love, I swear, endures
 04/19/2004 12:30:25 PM · #5
Thank you for the halcyon moment.
:)

Thanks guys and gals. Most of us know your working on it, you hear us, and it will all work out.
Great job. Wish I could insert that little thumbs up icon here <--->
 04/19/2004 12:33:10 PM · #6
I'm cross posting from something that laurielblack posted in another thread

Originally posted by laurielblack :
'Just for my 2 cents worth...
I feel like novices like me don't have a snowball's chance to ever live up to the digital image trickery I've seen on this site. I joined to learn how to take better digital pictures...not to learn how to make a picture into something it never was and deceive all who have seen it. '


Interestingly, I think every time I put a camera to my eye, I'm trying to make scene into something it never was, and decieve all who saw it.

To me - that's the essence of composition - to betray the myth that the camera never lies.

Photoshop post-capture manipulation has just brought it home - but the truth was never out there.

For reference, here is an interesting interview with A. D. Coleman on veracity on photography.
 04/19/2004 12:38:51 PM · #7
Drew, thanks for posting.

I responded to the post of Gordon's which you have quoted and said that I agree too.

It was unrealistic of folks to expect that the introduction of advanced editing rules would take place without a few minor teething problems - those teething problems are no reason to rescind the whole change and I'm confident that Site Admin and Site Council will find a way, given time, input and support, to make things work better.
 04/19/2004 01:25:14 PM · #8
/Pedro is not sure that disqualifying those images from the current challenge is fair necessarily. Under the current wording of the rules, it might seem that those ones are/were acceptable.

I'm all for changing the wording to eliminate future ones, but since a little unfair to punish those who seem to have fallen within the scope of the rules.
04/19/2004 01:27:33 PM · #9
Originally posted by Pedro:
/Pedro is not sure that disqualifying those images from the current challenge is fair necessarily. Under the current wording of the rules, it might seem that those ones are/were acceptable.

I'm all for changing the wording to eliminate future ones, but since a little unfair to punish those who seem to have fallen within the scope of the rules.


I agree and advocate flogging the voters instead. ;-)
 04/19/2004 01:34:15 PM · #10
Originally posted by mariomel:
We are photographers, not graphic artists. Let's remember that.

Uh, I am a graphic artist, as demonstrated by my scores :(
 04/19/2004 02:15:42 PM · #11
Why is the solution to this issue no more simple than for the people who object to advanced editing to restrain themselves to entering only the basic challenges?

Whatever the decision(s) of the SC and admins they will have my support.
I only wish those who are injecting drama into the discussion would cease.
 04/19/2004 02:20:26 PM · #12
IMO there is room in the world for all these types of images. The problem is that they are not perhaps fairly judged against each other. And the skills involved in using photoshop vs. a camera are DIFFERENT. The point (initially from what i gather) of DPC is to improve photography, CAMERA, skill.
I for one am in favor of this, while I like to clone out my dust, I do not want to learn photoshop at the moment, just my camera.
And I hope we will lean towards that and occassionally have a 'digital art' challenge.
 04/19/2004 02:46:23 PM · #13
Originally posted by Pedro:
I'm all for changing the wording to eliminate future ones, but since a little unfair to punish those who seem to have fallen within the scope of the rules.


I think it would be unfair to UNCLEBRO and all the rest of the photographers who entered Window View to leave the 1st & 2nd up there.
04/19/2004 02:58:15 PM · #14
A new members take on this. Take it for what it is worth.

I have seen a ot of finger pointing here and there, but mostly the pointing is being done at the rules and tools. These are not the problem here. Sure they could, and should, be rewritten to enhance clarity, but they just allow the tools. The tools are incapable of making decisions and are incapable of knowing if their use has violated 'photographic integrity'.

It has been my understanding this sight is about learning photography, and darkroom technique is certainly a part of photography. Sure it requires a different set of skills, but getting just the right composition in the viewfinder before snapping the shutter is just the first half of producing a photo. The second half is in the darkroom, regardless of where the darkroom is, in an acual room with chemicals or in a computer with pixels. It takes both to create the end result of a photo.

At the moment I am more interested in the camera skills than I am the darkroom skills. In practice, I am new to all of this; but for most of my life I have looked at scenes and thought to myself that it would make a good picture. Now that I am moving forward to learn more, I have started with the basics; and my first challenge entry (in Strength) is doing much better than I expected it to, so I am pleased with my progress.

There is one point in all the discussion that I have not been able to come to clear conclusion about. Is the art of photography taking a picture that clearly represents what was explicitly there in the environment to be represented, or is it taking a picture that duplicates what the artist sees while looking at the environment? Both, to my way of thinking, maintain 'photographic integrity'; one is more camera oriented, the other more darkroom oriented; but both photograph what was seen in the environment. This says nothing about the images creating something that was never in the environment to be viewed, however. Those I consider to not maintain 'photographic integrity'.

David
 04/19/2004 03:03:49 PM · #15
Originally posted by Britannica:

There is one point in all the discussion that I have not been able to come to clear conclusion about. Is the art of photography taking a picture that clearly represents what was explicitly there in the environment to be represented, or is it taking a picture that duplicates what the artist sees while looking at the environment?


I think this is largely a purely personal decision. In fact, you can frame it just as 'is any art about clearly representing what was explicitly there in the environment, or is it making a picture that duplicates what the artist sees/feels while looking at the environment.'

This has been an essential point of contention in many art forms through history (realism vs. expressionism, Futurism vs. impressionism, all the way up to more contemporary abstract styles.
 04/19/2004 03:06:24 PM · #16
I guess if I was going to put my 2 cents worth in it would be to say that I thought dp stands for digital photography and some of what many are doing could be perceived as "digital presdidigitation". I can understand the "purists" who want to see a well done photograph that wins on it's own merit over trying to determine if what they're looking at is actually a manipulation of a good idea gone bad.
 04/20/2004 04:25:05 AM · #17
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by Britannica:

There is one point in all the discussion that I have not been able to come to clear conclusion about. Is the art of photography taking a picture that clearly represents what was explicitly there in the environment to be represented, or is it taking a picture that duplicates what the artist sees while looking at the environment?


I think this is largely a purely personal decision. In fact, you can frame it just as 'is any art about clearly representing what was explicitly there in the environment, or is it making a picture that duplicates what the artist sees/feels while looking at the environment.'

This has been an essential point of contention in many art forms through history (realism vs. expressionism, Futurism vs. impressionism, all the way up to more contemporary abstract styles.

But does it have to stay a point of contention? By leaving it up to each individual to decide for themselves what 'photographic integrity' means, there will be disagreements. It just seems this is the point at which the recent arguements (which I am finding are not just recent) originate from. By not defining clearly what is meant by photographic integrity on this site, the SC is leaving the contention simmering in the background -- just waiting to boil up all over again.

In fact, by addressing each instance of the contention boiling over, the SC are in fact defining what photographic integrity means to this site (or at least in the challenges) -- they are just doing so in a haphazard manner. Instead of defining it, bit by bit, over long periods of discontent, it just makes more sense (to me at least) to define it concisely and then refine the definition as needed.

There would be one place to make a change instead of an ever growing list of rules and restrictions. And, when the inevitable growth of the site continues and disagreements arise again, there will be one place to look for any changes that need to be made.

I imagine some will say this would stifle creativity, but I do not believe so. Creativity is boundless and grows with simplicity. From what I see, only complexity can kill creativity.

I do not see how we are to be expected to ...to hold photographic integrity in the highest regard when both submitting and voting if it is left up to everyone to decide for themselves what it means.

David
 04/20/2004 07:21:34 AM · #18
Originally posted by Britannica:

But does it have to stay a point of contention? By leaving it up to each individual to decide for themselves what 'photographic integrity' means, there will be disagreements.


Well - like I said, it has been a point of contention for over 4000 years in the art world, and since the first pictures were taken, in the photographic world. Certainly at first Photography was looked down upon as only fit for recording a scene. One or two fairly well respected photographers along the way have rejected that notion and attempted to make photographs with perhaps some emotional content.

If you feel you have a good definition that would keep everyone happy I'm sure the entire world would appreciate it. Is art only for the representation of the subject, or is it about representation of the artist's emotions. You actually want to pick one of those ?

I think it would be a much reduced competition either way.

Message edited by author 2004-04-20 07:24:47.
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