Smokey Mountain Stream - Middle Prong

[David Eckels]

... this forum doesn't seem to be populated by fans of digital art...

How true! But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be stirred up every once in a while!

I like the OP although it does something to my brain that is somewhat uncomfortable, maybe the effects are a little over the top as some suggested. Taken for what it is, the saturation does not bother me either and I think it works. As donbga said, I think you are on to something. Keep experimenting.

As for the original image, I have to disagree with Russ if I understood him correctly; the level of saturation has a quality of believable unbelievability that is successful IMHO, and the contrasts in the reds and greens are appropriate to my eye.

Just a thought: Perhaps we need a thread or category for "Digital Art" like the ones started by Rob, Eric, and others, but where C&C can be offered. This way, the posts would be sequestered from the real photographers and would spare them angst

*No personal attacks intended, implied, intimated, or otherwise suggested by my comments 

[stamper]

My comment about "separate rooms" meant that digital art and digital photography are two separate and distinct categories, even when the former is derived from the latter. There are fans and admirers (and buyers) for each, but they are hardly one and the same group. Let's just say that this forum doesn't seem to be populated by fans of digital art.

By the way, your personal attack is duly noted.

You should have stated that in your original post. If you quote someone then you are supposed to post the quote as it was originally posted. You changed the quote to suit your own ends and then wrongly attributed the quote to me.

Quote from: stamper on November 04, 2016, 01:51:40 PM
There is are obviously rooms for both.

That kind of conduct in a forum is frowned on to say the least and a moderator should take action so that it isn't repeated, hence the reason for the "personal attack"

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... You changed the quote to suit your own ends and then wrongly attributed the quote to me.

...That kind of conduct in a forum is frowned on to say the least and a moderator should take action so that it isn't repeated, hence the reason for the "personal attack"

Seriously!? I added things to your quote for rhetorical purposes, and did it in such a way (bold, strike-through) that it is quite obvious what and how is changed. Your quote was still there.

Personal attacks, however, are frowned upon on this forum.

[stamper]

Seriously!? I added things to your quote for rhetorical purposes, and did it in such a way (bold, strike-through) that it is quite obvious what and how is changed. Your quote was still there.

Personal attacks, however, are frowned upon on this forum.

Seriously?? You were in the wrong. Misquoting other members quotes is definitely frowned upon. As to personal attacks.....you have form??

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Just a thought: Perhaps we need a thread or category for "Digital Art" like the ones started by Rob, Eric, and others, but where C&C can be offered. This way, the posts would be sequestered from the real photographers and would spare them angst ...

By all means.

If, however, you decide to post some or your digital contraptions in regular threads, please put a warning in the title, like NSFP (Not Safe For Photographers) 

[Peterretep]

Except for the insanely pushed saturation.

Strange to see the pushed saturation in that image, I don't know why that is showing like it is because the tiff file in Photoshop is much less saturated.
Earlier in this thread I commented that "The vast majority of my work is pretty straight photography." and that the OP was a fun departure. If you want to better see what I was referring to please see my website for "real" photographs.    http://www.mountainphotographics.com/

[David Eckels]

By all means.
If, however, you decide to post some or your digital contraptions in regular threads, please put a warning in the title, like NSFP (Not Safe For Photographers) 

Oh Slobodan, that is SO funny. "Digital contraptions" - LMAO! Much appreciated.

But there is a serious side to all of this, which I have been meaning to write about in a blog and not gotten around to it: Where does photography end and (digital) painting begin? I am sure not an original idea. Peter clearly "transgressed" into "painting" but that does not obviate discussions about the esthetics or effectiveness (measured how?) of what he did. I understand views about "street" and can certainly appreciate HCB et al and the preference that such represents "real" photography. Please bear with me, I am not trying to put words in anyone's mouth. I can also very much value Rob's, almost Ecclesiastical, Solomonic even, reminders that there's is almost (always?) nothing new under the sun. I have also been taught, as you know, some fantastic technical and esthetic lessons in these forums. And I get individual preferences. That being said, how can we progress from the tried and true, traditional, perhaps mundane recording of images for one's own personal taste and satisfaction without exploring a few digital contraptions?

I agree, maybe this is not the forum for that and I think Eric started an Abstracts thread that has seen some very intriguing compositions that push the definition of photography, but have much to teach about form, composition, and color; more importantly, perhaps, about creativity. What may be lacking there is the opportunity for thread-related-C&C and perhaps like "User Critiques" under "The Art of Photography" we need a "Digital Contraptions" category where such can be explored. Of course with an explicit NSFP warning included!

One final note: I find some of the dichotomous views expressed here at times fascinating; ships passing in the night as it were. If we (all) were interested only in our own satisfaction with an image, why would we post it here for feedback? Why wouldn't the standard "critique" be, "If you like it, go with it?" Photography was an art form heavily dependent on technology. I would argue that it still is, but also that the paradigm shift in technology forces some reassessment of esthetics. So, how are "digital contraptions" any different than composite film negatives, for example?

One additional final (sic) note I apologize to Peter for hijacking this thread; didn't mean to do that, but then he inspired me!

[Peterretep]

One additional final (sic) note I apologize to Peter for hijacking this thread; didn't mean to do that, but then he inspired me!

Not a problem at all David, in fact I very much appreciate your thoughts as that takes C&C further with better thought provoking communication. It's the the old "what is art" question, what is photography? The photography of Jerry Uelsmann would surely come into play within this debate. It's best to come down off of our high horses and be open to other methods and other ways of seeing and expressing. With that said I'm not at all a fan of photographic images derived from software in which an image is simply globally changed into something other via a push of a button or a slider. I think the more time one spends working on an image the more it is a product of the skills and creativity of the photographer/artist rather than just a reliance on software doing the great majority of the work.

[Rob C]

Not a problem at all David, in fact I very much appreciate your thoughts as that takes C&C further with better thought provoking communication. It's the the old "what is art" question, what is photography? The photography of Jerry Uelsmann would surely come into play within this debate. It's best to come down off of our high horses and be open to other methods and other ways of seeing and expressing. With that said I'm not at all a fan of photographic images derived from software in which an image is simply globally changed into something other via a push of a button or a slider. I think the more time one spends working on an image the more it is a product of the skills and creativity of the photographer/artist rather than just a reliance on software doing the great majority of the work.

Which leaves it open to the dangers of becoming a dog's breakfast of confused 'ideas' that were not ideas in the first place as much as product of random wanderings through the computer after the event. In fact I think you are stating a contradiction: the more you work on it the more software usage you are putting into the effort. Ideally, the job is best done in camera via the shooter's eye. Accentuating a little bit here and there is one thing, especially as a digital file seems to be best worked upon the less it's been manipulated by the camera itself, but taken to extremes where it instantly denies its origin is, for me, a mistake.

Rob

[Rob C]

"I agree, maybe this is not the forum for that and I think Eric started an Abstracts thread that has seen some very intriguing compositions that push the definition of photography, but have much to teach about form, composition, and color; more importantly, perhaps, about creativity. What may be lacking there is the opportunity for thread-related-C&C and perhaps like "User Critiques" under "The Art of Photography" we need a "Digital Contraptions" category where such can be explored. Of course with an explicit NSFP warning included! "  ... David Eckels


And therein the problem: there is nothing wrong with photography as it is. The challenges in photography are about seeing and ability to use cameras and lenses. Those are not met by creating bastard mediums that can be neither one thing nor the other. Creating those things is the creation of something outwith photography, outwith painting; they need new names.

I can respect a photographer who is able to define a new look by his/her vision, but not simply through messing with the chemicals, as it were. I never did believe in cross-processing, for what its worth; it was a rather too close cousin of what sometimes comes out of computers today. I'm of the opinion that creativity in photography is blown when the shot no longer looks believable.

Film and digital captures are both legitimate means to the end of making a good photograph, whether as a print or an Internet resident. Overcooking either in post is something else.

Rob

[Peterretep]

Rob, I'm quite a fan of random wanderings and like the phrase, "you don't know where you're going till you get there". There have been "bastard mediums" and tecniques for decades before the advent of digital photography. Even color photography in it's early days had it's detractors, and still does. Photography starts with the ability to see and uses cameras and lenses to communicate that vision but doesn't need to be restricted to only that formula. Digital techniques can greatly expand that with tools to take it beyond conventional photography. So the question at this point is, when is it not a photograph anymore but a digital image or whatever name you would like to hang on it. Obviously that's totally subjective and without a definitive answer so what is the point of even going there? It's best answered for one's self.

"In fact I think you are stating a contradiction: the more you work on it the more software usage you are putting into the effort. Ideally, the job is best done in camera via the shooter's eye." For the original image I posted that is not the case at all. The way I worked on it was to first to make it totally "cooked" then from that point selectively backing away from it using aspects of the original to do so. Essentially, the more I worked on the more like the original it became.

[David Eckels]

And therein the problem: there is nothing wrong with photography as it is. The challenges in photography are about seeing and ability to use cameras and lenses. Those are not met by creating bastard mediums that can be neither one thing nor the other. Creating those things is the creation of something outwith photography, outwith painting; they need new names.

So, Rob, are you saying that photography is largely what happens in camera with a little dodging, burning and perhaps color correction afterwards? Not trying to put words in your mouth although I would accept that as a definition or, say, a cardinal rule for the sake of argument. But, the fathers of photography manipulated as much as their technology allowed. Not all, but some, and of course we'd have to exclude photojournalism. Now we have different (better? worse?) technology, obviously. Back in the day, were there arguments about too much dodging and burning not being photography? So if I've made myself clear, it seems there is a threshold, beyond which something that started as one thing becomes something else altogether. If I have stated this rightly, then starting with photojournalism (thou shalt not modify) on one end, understanding the traditional limits in "film photography" for lack of a better term, where is the threshold crossed with digital technology, where "photography" becomes a bastard medium? Is it merely a personal standard? Is it even worth exploring albeit, perhaps, in a different setting? Seeing is one thing, capturing is another, and interpreting is yet another. Visual artists see (I include photographers), not all are able to express what they see in the capture (painting or photography) and some succeed marvellously, others not so much. But it seems to me that it is in the interpretation*** (wherever that may lead) that a vision is shared, whether beautiful or truthful or vulgar or crass or mundane. I don't think this is off topic, but perhaps it is. I'd be interested in your thoughts, as always!

***whatever post-processing choices are made

[Arlen]

Strange to see the pushed saturation in that image, I don't know why that is showing like it is because the tiff file in Photoshop is much less saturated.

There does appear to be something strange going on with the png files as displayed in Firefox and Chrome browsers. On my wide gamut (but not standard gamut) monitor they look much more saturated in the browsers than they do when opened in Photoshop, even though they have an embedded sRGB profile--which should ensure correct color management, at least in Firefox.

[Rob C]

David, I think I've already put it as clearly as I'm able to see it for myself.

I am not totally convinced that 'wet' photography was any the more pure; all those 'photographic' images made without cameras fit right in there, too, but their damage was very limited because it wasn't about to be transposed into other things quite as readily as digital trickery allows. I think you can't really put the wet pioneers into the same box as the digitists; those early guys were learning what the medium could actually become - its boundaries were not yet defined very clearly. As you know, several schools of photographic thought sprang up and were devoted to aping paintings, avoiding anything to do with paintings and then, finally discovering that photography wasn't painting all along, and that it had a very valid space all its own. In short, photography came of age.

Now, taking this outwith what I understand to be the meaning of photography (and no, nothing to do with drawing and light) but the art/craft of photography, we start to tread on marshy ground. When one takes the real away and, in its place, presents a construct, then I think things become spurious. And I see it respresented very well via Hollywood and the media: was a time photographers - often via Magnum or Globe - would be given freedom on film sets, and thus we have the visual legacy of those wonderful images by Ernst Haas et al. shot during the making of Marilyn's The Misfits just a year before she was no more.

Now, those pictures reveal a woman already in trouble, in all of her vulnerability, exactly as does Avedon's classic made at the end of a session when she stops playing the rôle of Marilyn and shrinks back into being lost and afraid. Apparently, Avedon shot it knowingly for that reason, and, he claimed she understood and did not attempt to thwart him. And don't forget: at the same time as photojournalists were given access, so were the overlit studio PR shots being made and sent to salivating fans. Today, none of that, AFAIK, is allowed to happen: teams of PR and legal aides supervise, everything is vetted and retouched to hell, and what do we get? Absolutely interchangeable plastic dummies. That's my rather tortuously made point: there is real and there is bullshit. One either gets that point or one does not. I remember writing recently about somebody saying that he'd give every painting of Christ for one photograph of Him. I think we are on the same page, he and I. One honest Marilyn is worth every PSed actress and superstar you can name. How exciting that Jennifer Aniston hasn't aged a day since making Friends!

For me, that reality carries over into everyday photographic reality. Mess too much and hey, you get mess.

Rob C

[David Eckels]

...there is real and there is bullshit....

Rob, I am not trying to reduce all that you said to this one point. I think I get it, although I am still trying to wrap my mind around your other references; how I wish I had more of a liberal arts exposure as an undergraduate! If, for the sake of discussion however, photography is about the "real," then it would seem to me you are saying there is a form of deception in taking something "real" and enhancing it (raising contrast, saturation, blurring, compositing, cloning out, even cropping, etc); Uelsmann was at least an "honest deceiver" because it was obvious that his images were "analog contraptions." Your reference to mood in film brings me to my point/concern/question: Nothing is real about photography (I think you've made this point elsewhere) just as seeing Marilyn Monroe play a character in a film, acting or not, is not experiencing much of anything about the real person. A photograph of Christ, from my point of view, would be no more real than a painting, unless it was by a portrait painter of course So, if you accept only for the moment my view that nothing is real about photography, except of course photojournalism then why draw boundaries around what can or should be done with the presentation of an image? Not saying that's what you're saying, just saying that's kind of what I am hearing. I am sure there are questions of degree in all of this and I am making an "8-bit" point in a "16-bit" world But if you would accept for the moment my premise simply for discussion's sake, then shouldn't a digital contraption stand on its own merit for esthetics, composition, form, movement, etc? I can understand if someone doesn't care for it, but then isn't that simply a matter of taste?

By the way, I don't think the foregoing is a "right/wrong" discussion, I am simply trying to understand why some with strong understanding and training in the arts have such strong opinions about "the way it 'sposed to be." Ah, artists!

I am excluding images in which extensive changes have been made, but the images are represented as "the way it was." These would seem to me to be a different kettle of fish.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

David, my friend, obfuscate it all you want with a bunch of words, but it remains quite simple: "hard to define, but when you see it, you know it." 

Don't bring Uelsmann to your defense. He had a concept behind his whimsical "analog contraptions." Concept is what differentiates crap from art. Moving a few sliders left and right, or clicking on a few presets or "art filters" is not a concept and not art.

[Patricia Sheley]

 "the way it 'sposed to be." Ah, artists!    :quote David.

That would be a sad and sorry equivalent David, thankfully. I think you sense the cage and may even sense that those who do not feel it are not aware that they are not rubbing raw on its limits having long ago been fitted too tight with "sposed to be's". Free man unwilling to set himself free. The presence, the other, the venturing will not be found there, even if viewed by the mirror of closed experience, they judge themselves comfortable. Suspension, do you know that place at the very turn of the high point as you swing, that place in between where time itself has no measure...that departure point outside of self~ artists desert themselves to find space and freedom there, that space of venturing living beyond our individual mortal selves, that search has an eternal life...some name art. So many sub categories: painting, photography, the soundless words of poets (the beautiful open spaces shaping in the betweens).

I wouldn't worry about Jerry Uelsmann...ever see his spaghetti eater film? He knows where to find those spaces and places. He knows suspension, and mortality and has great joy in the encounters of his venturing/art. There was a wonderful show of his work and step by step demonstration of his method at the Peabody Essex Museum some years ago. His sense of free and suspended was almost as the moment between inhale and exhale. I found myself several times caught there in between, just as happens to me somewhere deep into unmeasured hours behind the lens or with paper moving beneath my pen...I with a jolt discover I may have forgotten to breathe. I will not be eternal, but these encounters and freed searches are, and I believe we have the luxury of taking that swing ride to the top and freeing ourselves there awhile to be part of the eternal...I suppose for me that may be the sense of art lives on. Celebrate the awareness of the bars...decide for yourself which side. Lumine!
Patricia

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Two additional comments from me:
1.   I don't believe I have ever posted an image that has sparked as much commentary as Peter has here. To my mind, that makes his post quite a successful image.

2.   I am tempted to steal the term "Digital Contraptions" as the title to my next book.   

[Patricia Sheley]

And with apologies to Peter, I did mean to comment, but did a brain fade. I know the general location of your image. It is rich with possibility, but this day, as if the rains had visited and the heavy overcast had not yet lifted, the scene flattened the embarrassment of riches of possible image choices. Other than the overexposure in the foreground water the tonal contrast level simply does not exist. The color is there but...the flatness has rendered a three color bookplate. Please do not take this as brutal...just puzzling out loud why the wide variety of reactions and "critique". It probably accounts for the "Disney like" comment. You yourself must have subliminally perceived this as you were drawn to play; good skills, seemingly well composed, but crushed by light's abandonment. So, an opportunity to play, always a good thing. And do agree with Eric that on the level of, what is that term for turning to see what the activity is all about (?)...rubbernecking~ this has been a highly successful image. Thank you for placing yourself on the sacrificial altar of critique. Wish I could offer you a conciliatory toddy. Don't forget to turn your clocks back~ at least to a point resetting before my comments. Lumine!
Patricia

[Rob C]

David, my friend, obfuscate it all you want with a bunch of words, but it remains quite simple: "hard to define, but when you see it, you know it." 

Don't bring Uelsmann to your defense. He had a concept behind his whimsical "analog contraptions." Concept is what differentiates crap from art. Moving a few sliders left and right, or clicking on a few presets or "art filters" is not a concept and not art.

The content of another delightful nutshell!

Rob