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12/19/2004 09:30:44 AM · #1 |
I am brand new to this site, and have been reading the challenge guidelines. Two things stand out for me:
1. Even in the advanced editing categories, it is required that all images contain all their information in the original shot. In other words, you can't combine two images into one. This can lead to some fairly absurd contortions: see the following challenge image ΓΆ€” //www.dpchallenge.com/image.php?IMAGE_ID=53459 .
My question is, why? If someone is gonna go to the trouble of spending hours mopcking up a Rube Goldberg contraption to INCLUDE a previous image in his new image, when it would be simpler just to briung the previous image in digitally, how is this serving to advance the cause? It seems artifical in the extreme to me. I say this despite that I almost never combine images in my work.
2. The rules require that all images be created within the timeframe of the contest. Why? Why is this important? Especially when we get into dramatic-nature type photography, this is rather rewarding the serendipity factor isn't it? Yesterday I took a wonderful, bleak autumn picture. The current challenge doesn't fit it, so it now is ineligible for any challenges, ever. What about photos taken on road trips, etc?
I'm sure there's a rationale for this, but it seems arbitrary to me. I'm also sure this has been discussed before somewhere in the forum, so forgive me if I'm opening an old can of worms.
Robt.
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12/19/2004 09:34:28 AM · #2 |
I don't understand your first question, and as for the second, the whole point is that you get set a challenge and then go out and take a photograph around it, thinking carefully about how to meet it. The dates stop people from throwing in any old photo from days gone by they think might meet it.
Also, it allows proof that you took the photograph, ie, holding the original exif data.
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12/19/2004 09:36:15 AM · #3 |
1) This site is supposed to be about photographic skills, not digital art image combination skills.
2) The whole point of the site is to provide a new challenge each week and to make people go out and shoot to a topic. If people could submit any old shot, old experienced people with massive archives would win every time, leaving young'uns like me with no chance.
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12/19/2004 09:39:01 AM · #4 |
Rankles,
Thanks for your quick reply. Does this help clarify?
First question: why is the digital importation of a second image into the main image forbidden, when a contetsant can PRINT or PROJECT the first image and use it in his photograph and that's acceptable? The same thing can be done digitally.
Second question: I understand that for some of the challenges, but on others (primarily scenics) it seems arbitrary and limiting. Also, the exif data can still be required even on older pictures. One must still have the original file. |
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12/19/2004 09:39:11 AM · #5 |
Something about the timeframe:
You can't win a medal in the Olympics if you didn't participate and do well during that time frame. If you happened to hold the Olympic record for a certain event doesn't mean you win every other Olympics sitting at home until someone else breaks your record.
Message edited by author 2004-12-19 09:39:45. |
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12/19/2004 09:43:35 AM · #6 |
Konador,
Ok, I follow that but, on the first question, how does it follow that rigging up a TV set in the backseat of a car to reflect an image into the rearview mirror, complete with external power source etc, is a particularly photographic skill?
Still, I'm new here. Gawd knows, when I was a working photographer (which I was for 25 years) we had to do all sorts of stuff just like that for some of our studio work, especially the Psychology Today covers. It's just that NOW, where photography is at now, this same sort of stuff is done digitally, and personally I think that's a valid photographic skill.
I don't mean to make waves though, I'm just studying the tenor of the place, ya know?
Robt. |
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12/19/2004 09:47:52 AM · #7 |
| Using a TV in the backseat is just like using a projector to create your background in an image and photographers have always done that. |
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12/19/2004 09:50:32 AM · #8 |
Your example is all about creativity. Sure, the same could be done in photoshop, but you're not allowed to because, like was already mentioned, this site is more about photography than photoshop.
...Some people get more involved than others in the challenges here and it usually pays off the more creative you get.
If you're looking to fine tune your photography skills, then this site is the place for you. There are other sites out there that have competitions like this one but where full editing is allowed (if that is your cup of tea).
Hope that helps.
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12/19/2004 10:00:08 AM · #9 |
And welcome to the strangely obbsessive place that is DPC, Robert.
Your first argument, about the relative acceptable procedures and this site's approach to them, rather requires a bit of history of this place.
The 'advanced editing' ruleset was introduced after some degreee of controversy a while ago. The intention was to allow various selecting techniques and to facilitate the digital equivalent of dodging, burning, cloning out of minor annoyances, dust-spots and the like. Those boundaries have been pushed, of course, as people play with their processing, but I think it's generally accepted here that we have a fairly good balance at the moment. The major worry was to prevent the more digital realms of editing from taking over, and to keep the site primarily about photography, rather than editing (of any kind).
The time frame is absolutely what this site is about, and what makes it radically different from elsewhere, to my mind, and what makes it the most fun. Come midnight EST Sunday and Wednesday, absolutely every one of us here is in exacltly the same position. There are of course imbalances, in folks resources, available time, equipment, physical location, mobility and the like - but this makes it about going out and finding the shot you want, or about putting the careful time into setting it up: so it's about taking photographs, not trawling you archive.
There are some frighteningly good photographers here, and some outrageous images have been found within these rules. If you need something else, there are plenty of places to look.
Oh, and part of the fun of those concocted images precisely is the ludicrous fun of putting a television into the back of your car, etc.
Ed |
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12/19/2004 10:24:55 AM · #10 |
Ed,
Now THAT makes a world of sense, thank you. I'm here to play, in any case. My photographic skills are quite advanced (if I do say so): I was a working photographer for 25 years, and taught it also at UCSD.
What I'm doing now is discovering a whole new world of digital imagery. In film photography I was a large-format, zone system dude. I kinda burned out and laid off for a while. This photoshop stuff is allowing me to develop a personal "zone system" for color, and I'm still working on that. Only been doing it a couple years.
Nice to meet y'all.
Robt.
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12/19/2004 10:30:26 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
Ed,
Now THAT makes a world of sense, thank you. I'm here to play, in any case. My photographic skills are quite advanced (if I do say so): I was a working photographer for 25 years, and taught it also at UCSD.
What I'm doing now is discovering a whole new world of digital imagery. In film photography I was a large-format, zone system dude. I kinda burned out and laid off for a while. This photoshop stuff is allowing me to develop a personal "zone system" for color, and I'm still working on that. Only been doing it a couple years.
Nice to meet y'all.
Robt. |
Yes his answer was pretty great heh, and you have a great portfolio by the way, welcome to DPC.
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12/19/2004 11:12:23 AM · #12 |
Just some thoughts...
One of the things that stands out to me in your example, bear, is the work and adjustment that it took to properly expose the different components of the chosen shot. I'm sure during that process, or maybe later upon retrospect, the artist had spent a considerable amount of time considering 'what will make the best exposure in all of the fields of interest?'
When/If faced with a once in a lifetime shot where a projection shot and varied exposures are intermingled, that experience will allow him to ensure that the one chance has the most success. Allowing the digital importation of his additional elements would never have challenged him to explore the possibilites that would prepare him for that. At least that is where I see the limitation on multiple images having the most effect on this particular photograph.
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12/21/2004 09:54:01 PM · #13 |
Arcanist,
That's an interesting area for discussion. When I began my photography career, in the late 60's, it was as the lab man for a studio that did all the work for T. George Harris and his new "Psychology Today" magazine. I soon was promoted to studio grunt and, eventually, photographer. If anyone remembers those old PT covers, they were ALL basically like this winning, headless image. Some creative eprson on PT staff would come up with a "concept" for a cover, and we (the studio) would have to translate this into photography via set-building, makeup, lighting, whatever. Pretty much exactly what y'all are doing with a lot of these challeneges.
We had a specific time window to work in, and the work had to be accomplished in camera. A certain amount of retouching (airbrush work) was possible, but the need to resort to it was considered a black mark.
HOWEVER....
(continued in next post) |
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12/21/2004 09:55:04 PM · #14 |
I assure you if we were doing that work now, we'd be doing it with a digital camera and photoshop. Is this a Bad Thing? The end result is allt hat matters, when you start getting "commercial"; however you can get the work done in the least time at the highest quality is the way you're going to go.
Another example; I soon went into specialization as an architectural photographer, and I had a very succesful career at this. Working from a Southern California home base, I had to do a lot of shots with plain blue skies, boring as hell. We used to wake up before dawn every day and scan the sky, have a LIST of locations that needed shots with some atomosphere, and tear around town like crazy trying to catch the light at half a dozen places on the rare days when we had interesting skies.
So we worked hard on perfecting a masking technique for B/W printing (most of our work was in B/W then, color wasn't yet predominant in serious architectural work) and we created an indexed file of sky negatives matched to time of day and direction of light. Then we'd shoot the buildings in clean light and graft in the appropriate sky as needed. This was required by our clients. They didn't care if the damned sky was "real", they just wanted to see drama in it.
(continued in next post) |
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12/21/2004 09:55:17 PM · #15 |
Now, of course, it's a snap; just 'shop in some sky. This is the current state of the art in commercial photography. Anyone who wants to be a succesful commercial hotshot better have command of BOTH photographic and digital techniques. You still have to compose your shots, light them, and render them clearly. But many contortions we used to go to to get a desired image on film are no longer necessary.
It's a time of vast changes in that world...
(robt)
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12/21/2004 10:21:31 PM · #16 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
I assure you if we were doing that work now, we'd be doing it with a digital camera and photoshop. Is this a Bad Thing? The end result is allt hat matters, when you start getting "commercial"; however you can get the work done in the least time at the highest quality is the way you're going to go.
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No, it would not be a bad thing, but it also would no longer be photography. There are web sites out there that encourage photoshop skill in digital image manipulation. This is a digital photography site, and hence, emphasizes the product of the camera and photographer's imagination and ingenuity. Your example of the "old days" methods of putting together the Psych Today covers is a great story, and an experience that should ring familiar to many of our more talented members here.
Welcome to the site. The initial images in your portfolio are amazing!
-J |
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12/21/2004 10:58:27 PM · #17 |
Strange,
I really don't have an axe to grind, believe me. I understand this POV and I am comfortable with it. I am just sort of musing on how the photography world is changing.
Hear me, world: I AM NOT ARGUING TO HAVE THE GUIDELINES REVISED...
That said, it's an interesting thing to me: in the "old" days our studio was in the forefront of "manufacturing" (or assembling, creating, whatever) artifical environments to be rendered realistically on film, for magazine covers, one a month for several years. And these covers broke new ground, they were much-awarded and much-praised and much-imitated in their day. (Understand, I was a grunt hand in this operation, I was not creatively responsible for this work). The skill sets that were used to create these totally manufactured photographs included things like painting, carpentry, metalwork, special effects, lighting, creation of custom filters, gawd knows what-all else.
(continued next post) |
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12/21/2004 10:58:38 PM · #18 |
And that's exactly what is being exalted here in MANY of these ribbon-winning images. This is a site for "pure" photography. Digital art is not what we are about. Check. BUT these sorts of solutions incorporate all sorts of skills that have nothing to do with "photographic" skills, unless we expand our definition of "photography" to include construction and assemblage. That's what we did at PT, and the "real" photographers looked down their noses at us. Pictures, after all, never lie. Right?
So the fascinating thing to me is how the boundary shifts over time. I'd submit that skill at photoshop is more closely allied to "real" photography, whatever that is, than skill at construction and assemblage and engineering etc etc.
(robt)
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12/22/2004 08:56:51 AM · #19 |
I've just been informed that this site will accept long posts even if the preview window doesn't. My posts were truncated in preview so I have been putting them up serially. Sorry for any clutter.
Robt. |
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12/22/2004 09:21:54 AM · #20 |
To throw my two cents in. I am a competent and well sought digital artist. I still do catalouge work and have been involved in advertising for many years.
I found DPC and happy to be able to come back to the basics. Check my port under digital art. I make my own smoke and fire etc, I never use plug-ins.
What I have tried to do is create images that look digital, but doing the entite effect in the camera. Of course, I do all types, but coming from a digital background, with ps since version 1, I find it exciting to revert to the old days before PS. Hollywood before PS got along very well. People forget this.
So, welcome. Your experience will help you and once you get into it you will come to appreciate it more. Your work is great. |
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12/22/2004 09:51:16 AM · #21 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
Konador,
Ok, I follow that but, on the first question, how does it follow that rigging up a TV set in the backseat of a car to reflect an image into the rearview mirror, complete with external power source etc, is a particularly photographic skill?
Still, I'm new here. Gawd knows, when I was a working photographer (which I was for 25 years) we had to do all sorts of stuff just like that for some of our studio work, especially the Psychology Today covers. It's just that NOW, where photography is at now, this same sort of stuff is done digitally, and personally I think that's a valid photographic skill.
I don't mean to make waves though, I'm just studying the tenor of the place, ya know?
Robt. |
You speak much sens sir, this debate has been around for the past 2 years. Gordon is a good person to listen to for this argument.
It seems the advanced editing rules do not allow that much advanced editing, and only make way for people finding other ways to get around the restrictions. Yet the result is the same whichever way around you do it. Seems crazy to me but I am in the minority which is fine :D
Welcome to DPC, I like what I hear and look forward to seeing your submissions.
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12/22/2004 10:21:38 AM · #22 |
If you take a course in high-performance driving, they teach you how to pull out of a skid, even though you (hopefully) will never experience one in actual traffic. I see learning how to completely compose that in a singe shot as somewhat analogous, learning a technique you may never need to be prepared and expand your mind.
Most of us do not have 25 years of experience building props and composing photos, and are having to exercise these crwative faculties for the first time.
Most importantly, the challenges are time-based. If you give us an entry with some buildings, a sky from another shot, with the full moon dropped in from another shot, it may be a lovely piece of art, but it would be a royal pain to validate as legal. Ergo, one file/entry is a completely practical rule to have given that this is an edicational site run by volunteers for the unremunerated enjoyment of themselves and the members.
There is nothing preventing you from creating any interpretation you want of a challenge and posting it for comment. People here actually go gaga over a lot of "digital art" but just don't want it in the competetions, where software, hardware and experience can tip the playing field too far. |
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12/22/2004 11:43:24 AM · #23 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Most of us do not have 25 years of experience building props and composing photos, and are having to exercise these creative faculties for the first time. |
This is the problem you see, doing things the hard way (such as Kiwi's no edit shot, or the one referenced in this thread) actually teach the creativity to be done in the wrong way - whereby without such restrictions they would just use the clone tool or copy in another shot from a past shoot rather than set-up TV's in the backs of cars!
This is a bad technique!
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Most importantly, the challenges are time-based. If you give us an entry with some buildings, a sky from another shot, with the full moon dropped in from another shot, it may be a lovely piece of art, but it would be a royal pain to validate as legal. Ergo, one file/entry is a completely practical rule to have given that this is an educational site run by volunteers for the unremunerated enjoyment of themselves and the members.
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Again i agree, but it's flawed as we can use old shot, and even other peoples shots taken in the past - all you have to do is stick it behind your subject and all of a sudden it becomes legal.
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12/22/2004 11:45:42 AM · #24 |
Or even a multiple exposure?
Why bother trying to edit stuff into your photo using PS when you can do it legally by the above method? |
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12/22/2004 11:53:59 AM · #25 |
This multiple exposure thing is another interesting point: back in the day, we used to go absolutely crazy with trying to keep track of our large-format films for multiple exposures: we'd do tracings of the ground glass image and rubber-band them witht he appropriate film holders so we could re-expose the film with, say, the moon in it at a later time. I used to do moon-in-sky shots and NOT process them; I'd vacuum bag them with their tracings and freeze them, then pull them out of storage as needed to re-expose with a building as subject.
Nowadays, of course, we do all this digitally. But the old way was a real adventure...
robt.
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