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08/03/2005 12:05:49 PM · #51 |
Originally posted by Beagleboy:
For those who consider many of the pictures here to be digital art, then I guess you consider much of what is available in such highly esteemed periodicals such as National Geographic and other fine publications as digital art. I think the contributing photographers would beg to differ.
There is photography skill involved. |
Can you realistically envision any of the Wooden ribboners, or other shots with like amounts of editing evident, appearing in NG? I can't. Not unless NG did a story on digital photography techniques. But I am not saying that there is no skill involved in their making.
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08/03/2005 12:16:12 PM · #52 |
Originally posted by Gil P:
I'm late to post... BUT this question can be looked at in reverse... are you so opposed to it because you don't master PP? |
Calling Kosta's skill at post processing into question is uncalled for. He is at least very proficient if not a master at it. And it is irrelevant to this discussion.
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08/03/2005 12:18:10 PM · #53 |
photography = art
medium used = digital
That's all I have to say.
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08/03/2005 12:25:35 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by coolhar:
...that's why I would tend to call them digital art instead of straight photography. |
So would I... right before I scored them a 9 or 10. Good thing this isn't Digital Straight Photo Challenge (DSPChallenge). ;-) |
Well it's not DSPChallenge but it seems to be moving toward becoming DAChallenge, or Digital Art Challenge. How far does it go in that direction before you become alarmed and seek ways to push it back towards what it used to be? Or should we just let it drift along it's merry way?
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08/03/2005 12:26:43 PM · #55 |
 I'm confused now,is this me or digital art :-) |
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08/03/2005 12:29:49 PM · #56 |
I think that what a lot of people tend to miss in this sort of discussion is that the entire business is about providing something that someone wants to look at. If you're the only person looking at your shots, then you get to dictate what you want to see. If you're putting it up for an audience, you need to know what that audience wants to see, and getting upset because your audience doesn't want to see the same thing you do is truly an exercise in futility.
In a conflict of wills between you and the world, bet on the world.
DPC viewers like highly processed eye-candy with little subtlety and a neutral or positive emotional content only. (For those curious, my personal threshold is simple: if I look at a picture and think, "It probably didn't look like that to the person standing there," then it's a 'processed' look. If I can be tricked into thinking that I would have seen exactly the same thing with my own eyes, it's not.) The opinions of the posters in these forums won't change that, so get used to it, and set up your shots accordingly.
This is one of the reasons I haven't submitted for a contest in a while (though the main reason is that I'm backlogged touching up over a thousand other shots), so I can definitely sympathize, but this is one of those cases where the customer is always right. |
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08/03/2005 12:33:58 PM · #57 |
Since alot of this thread sems related to Heida's winning shot for wooden, by chance she posted her un edited shot here in her post processing mentorship thread. If this is over processed then so is the bulk of modern photography. Is any photograph taken after Mathew Brady, and the time of glass plates something other than "real" photography.
Although I treasure the fact that this site is anti-digital manipulation, we have to realise that once direct contact photography was over, and different chemistries of film and paper with the advent of the enlarger allowed doging and burning, there was no longer "straight" photography.
It seems on this site, any manipulation that is a replication of a film photography trick is OK, anything new from the land of digital is rejected as apostay.
Is filtering to imitate B&W or IR film more "real" than cranking up than layers so thick you have trouble seeing the original exposure? |
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08/03/2005 12:38:32 PM · #58 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
How far does it go in that direction before you become alarmed and seek ways to push it back towards what it used to be? |
Any perceived problems with the types of images presented tend to be self-correcting. The voters will score high for images they want to see and low for images they don't. |
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08/03/2005 12:51:19 PM · #59 |
Here is my take on it:
DPChallenge has more talented members now then ever before.
Winning a ribbon becomes harder and harder for every month that pass.
We've come to the point where a fantastic photo doesn't do the job anymore, you need both a fantastic photo AND fantastic processing, to create a true master piece.
Unless you're a talented photographer AND a talented photoshopper, you don't stand a chance of winning ribbons anymore. That's just a fact.
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08/03/2005 12:57:28 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Since alot of this thread sems related to Heida's winning shot for wooden, by chance she posted her un edited shot here in her post processing mentorship thread. |
Looking at Heida's blue ribbon winner Fairyland and it's original, do you really think the winning shot resembles the original a lot? And has the way Heida processed it made it look more like what was before the camera? For me the answer to both of those questions is no. And I think the original conveys more "mood" than the edited version albeit a more gloomy emotion.
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Although I treasure the fact that this site is anti-digital manipulation ... |
I treasure that too. I hope we can preserve it.
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08/03/2005 12:57:38 PM · #61 |
It would appear, if I may coin a phrase, that Harvey is championing the cause of the "unadorned image". I say this in all sincerity, not meaning to suggest anything negative by it. He appears to hunger after a photographic ethos where the vocabulary is "plain speak". In a sense, Harvey is championing "prose" where people like me are working with "poetry". This is a dichotomy that has all sorts of parallels in the "real world"; plain folk vs fancy folk, plain food vs fancy food, etc.
There is great value in plainness & simplicity & unadorned reality. I don't for a minute argue that. Apparently the voters can recognize well-done examples of this also; see aboutimage's blue ribbon image in "tools of the trade".
Nevertheless, where he and I differ, I think, is in the characterization of work such as Heida's as "digital manipulation" as it it is a new phenomenon. As I've said before, stuff like this is squarely in the mainstream of photographic history. I think DPC is doing a decent job of rewarding both sorts of imagery. The recent spate of high-placing raptor shots, for example, seems to me to be relatively "straight" photography, and I have sometimes wondered why nobody has ventured the opinion that "so many winning raptor shots is bad for DPC".... After all, this isn't DBC (digital bird challenge), is it?
All this stuff moves in cycles. The voters, in the end, will have what they want. The shooters, in the end, will shoot what they're motivated to shoot. The ribbons, in the end, are only virtual. I think it's a whole lot of fun, and we should take pains to keep it that way :-)
Robt.
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08/03/2005 12:59:52 PM · #62 |
Originally posted by terje:
Unless you're a talented photographer AND a talented photoshopper, you don't stand a chance of winning ribbons anymore. |
That's simply NOT true. CeeDeez won a ribbon last week, and I think she's just starting to learn PS. The recent blue ribbons in Independence and Sport II had very little PS work. Winning a ribbon still requires a fantastic photo, but Photoshop is NOT a requirement. |
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08/03/2005 01:01:52 PM · #63 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by terje:
Unless you're a talented photographer AND a talented photoshopper, you don't stand a chance of winning ribbons anymore. |
That's simply NOT true. CeeDeez won a ribbon last week, and I think she's just starting to learn PS. The recent blue ribbons in Independence and Sport II had very little PS work. Winning a ribbon still requires a fantastic photo, but Photoshop is NOT a requirement. |
Only the basics in PP is required. You don't need to be a guru. As always, you have to have something good to start with.
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08/03/2005 01:10:56 PM · #64 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
It would appear, if I may coin a phrase, that Harvey is championing the cause of the "unadorned image". I say this in all sincerity, not meaning to suggest anything negative by it. He appears to hunger after a photographic ethos where the vocabulary is "plain speak". In a sense, Harvey is championing "prose" where people like me are working with "poetry". This is a dichotomy that has all sorts of parallels in the "real world"; plain folk vs fancy folk, plain food vs fancy food, etc.
There is great value in plainness & simplicity & unadorned reality. I don't for a minute argue that. Apparently the voters can recognize well-done examples of this also; see aboutimage's blue ribbon image in "tools of the trade".
Nevertheless, where he and I differ, I think, is in the characterization of work such as Heida's as "digital manipulation" as it it is a new phenomenon. As I've said before, stuff like this is squarely in the mainstream of photographic history. I think DPC is doing a decent job of rewarding both sorts of imagery. The recent spate of high-placing raptor shots, for example, seems to me to be relatively "straight" photography, and I have sometimes wondered why nobody has ventured the opinion that "so many winning raptor shots is bad for DPC".... After all, this isn't DBC (digital bird challenge), is it?
All this stuff moves in cycles. The voters, in the end, will have what they want. The shooters, in the end, will shoot what they're motivated to shoot. The ribbons, in the end, are only virtual. I think it's a whole lot of fun, and we should take pains to keep it that way :-)
Robt. |
And I don't wear jewelry either.
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08/03/2005 01:15:03 PM · #65 |
With word around about my entry, I'll post the original for yeah-all and give you my take on 'digital photography vs digital art'
Here is the original, resized only:
Here is my entry:
I planned in my mind what I needed in the original set up to be able to turn it into the vision I saw in my head, using the rules. This image is actually one of my less processed ones. I don't know how you feel about the original vs my entry, but it looks pretty damn good to me considering I was using a 1.4 megapixel point and shoot.
Why should someone add a blue filter to their lamps or lens, when they can simply shift the color balance is PS and get pretty much the same results? And better yet, more control over them. I could have spent hours and days with the picture and make it better without photoshop, but why? It's pointless in todays times. I saw the vision in my head and was able to make it what I want it to be. To a photographer in the pre-photoshop times, it would be absurd that a young punkass kid would be doing this. Without my light set up, composition, ect, I could have never turned it exactly into what it is in photoshop. Photoshop won't save a bad picture.
I'm a person who doesn't get real excited about 'normal pictures,' I like having more control over my pictures. I don't know what a person like me would do if I lived in the past before computers, (I'd probably be an acid-head or something.) People can do the creative things they want now, it's great. You still can't easily draw a completly real looking image in Photoshop, but people are geting close. So that's where the photography comes in for me. I think it's safe to say all the ribbon winners up there have very good knowledge of photography, (i don't know about Joey Lawrence, he's kinda gay), they have a strong base to work with.
I do understand there are people who don't like the heavy processing, that's what this thread is all about and that's fine. But, if Heida's picture came in first place she is definatly doing something right. The voter's aren't all mysterious idiots who don't know "real photography." Most are you and me, people who are interested in art and vote high what pleases them the most. |
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08/03/2005 01:18:22 PM · #66 |
Clap, clap for Joey! Well said, dude. And no, by my standards that's not especially obtrusive post processing. Others will not agree, I'm sure. But it's allt here in the original. As far as I'm concerned, the "heida" blue is more PP'd than this one, not that this is meaningful one way or the other...
R.
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08/03/2005 01:39:00 PM · #67 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
and I have sometimes wondered why nobody has ventured the opinion that "so many winning raptor shots is bad for DPC".... After all, this isn't DBC (digital bird challenge), is it? |
and to think I came so close to posting a rant about that! ;-)
I am with Joey on not being impressed by straight photography for its own sake. What is the point? I run a web development business and I get annoyed at resume's that say "I can code a whole website in notepad" - there are purists for purism's sake in every field. To me it is all about productivity and the finished result.
Harvey - you need to gets yourself some sleep, man. ;-)
never a thread killer around when you need one...
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08/03/2005 02:39:00 PM · #68 |
Meh, most of my posts have been thread killers, so here goes!
My shot for textures:
still looks absolutely flat, despite increasing the contrast, yet my eye could percieve many curves in the real landscape. My efforts at basic PP are still lacking, as I'm learning what PS can do, but the quality of post processing required to get this to look bowl shaped again is still beyond me. (I've had a go at D&B, but the results look very obvious). The thumbnail shows some different curves than are evident in the main photo.
But then what we see is true 3d, and what the camera can see is purely 2d. Is it wrong to try and give a sense of depth to a flat photo that we saw clearly as having multiple surfaces through our eyes?
The original shots that bear posted earlier and of heida's winning shot in Wooden are good examples of flat looking photos; their post processed versions have so much more depth to them. This isn't about excessive post-processing, this is about the psychology of vision.
Go look at pre-Renaissance portraiture from the last millenium; it doesn't have the tricks of perspective, or even of physiological correctness, so to me it looks flat and uninteresting.
I really appreciate the skill that goes into dodging and burning an image in post processing to bring out what the eyes really see, let alone what the mind's eyes can see. So to me, none of the recent ribbon winners are overly processed - they have been processed enough to give us the 3d look we want to see.
Io
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08/03/2005 02:52:38 PM · #69 |
Originally posted by scalvert:
Originally posted by terje:
Unless you're a talented photographer AND a talented photoshopper, you don't stand a chance of winning ribbons anymore. |
That's simply NOT true. CeeDeez won a ribbon last week, and I think she's just starting to learn PS. The recent blue ribbons in Independence and Sport II had very little PS work. Winning a ribbon still requires a fantastic photo, but Photoshop is NOT a requirement. |
scalvert, great for her.
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I'm confused now,is this me or digital art :-)
