Photographic Integrity

[Bob Peterson]

I was trying to make a point about mastery at "image making" at the camera end versus on the computer end.

So one stops being a photographer ("with light" + "draw") at the point the negative is exposed or the raw sensor data written to a file.  Everything after that is not "drawing with light"?  That is, a master photographer never produces a visible image representing the scene s/he wanted to capture?  As I understand you, the position you've taken leads to exactly this end.

If so, we disagree.  IMHO, "drawing with light" ends not when the image is captured, but when a final image is delivered to a viewer. A "drawer with light" envisions a final product that is then delivered in a visible form, not a latent image (undeveloped file or unprocessed raw file).  When capturing using digital sensors, software and decisions about processing the sensor data (the raw file) begin when the person holding the camera perpares by choosing camera settings before the image is captured, if the product of the camera is a JPG file.  These choices mirror the choice of film type made by a photographer using film.

Those equivalent decisions must be deferred to postprocessing if the camera produces only a raw file.  That the same decisions fundamental to the appearance of the final image can be made either in camera, if producing JPEG files in camera, or on the computer during post-processing, if producing raw files in camera, leads me to the conclusion that the role of photographer ends well after the shutter is pressed.

Post-processing a raw image file is, to me, directly comparable to developing the exposed film. Both processes produce a foundation from which the final product is produced.  Longer time in developer lightens the negative, and temperature of the chemical baths influences color balance of the developed negative, just as applying a tone curve to the raw file influences contrast and brightness, and selecting a color temperature determines how to map the binary value to a point in the color space.  That operating on digital files enables an infinite number of retries rather than the chemical development process being a one-time event does not, IMHO, change the equivalence of the digial and chemical darkrooms.

I intend the above to illustrate that the differences between chemical and digital means to achieving the foundation from which a final image product is produced is a very large grey area, not a bright line.  

So what I mean by a "master photographer" is the person who, with his camera, takes the perfect image, not with his software.

By that definition there are no "master photographers."  As we've seen, even Tom Mangelson has been quoted as saying he does manipulate what comes out of his his camera when he prints.  We all know that Ansel Adams spent many hours in the darkroom drawing with light to produce a single print.  Steve Johnson carefully sets the white balance while processing the raw file so that the image colors match the colors of the original scene.  All those generally considered great photographers manipulated their images.

I choose a definition of photographer at a different point in that grey area between pressing the shutter button and laying on the table a drying print. I draw with light at several points in the journey to a print.  Does that mean I surrender integrity?  Not according to those who view my images.

Do I manipulate my images?  Yes, in exactly the same manner that Ansel Adams, Tom Mangelson, Steve Johnson, Michael Reichmann, Seth Resnik, Alain Briot, Richard Avedon, Ctein, and Henri Cartier-Bresson manipulated theirs.

Bob

[JohnKoerner]

Actually it doesn't at all. The only thing that counts in a fight is winning, introducing arbitrary rules which prohibit certain skills one opponent has that can aid winning does not make the the boxing [in your example] superior. To my mind it simply underlines boxing's weaknesses, if you hacprohibit useful defenses/attacks against boxers.
Also there's no reason why an MMA may not have been a boxer to start with and still box as well as do other matial arts.
Doing other MAs only makes you better overall. Just like learning photography techniques outside of the specific area you may be interested in. Most of the better Martial artists are usually good at lots of different MAs. Besides, if you have  abilty to master one, then most of the time you have the ability to master a number of others. It's not mutually exclusive. Same in dancing, the more dances types you do, the bettter a dancer you to tend to become. Those who only practice one style of MA or dance tend to be less proficient, not more proficient. And many of the best dancers have a background in martial arts too and vice versa, Bruce Lee was a Ballroom champion.  And Jeet Kun Do the MA he formulated was an MMA, before the term MMA was concocted.

My analogy was perfect, and your "bottom line assessment" was also perfect.

For everything you said is true: The #1 goal in a fight is to win. The #1 purpose of photography is to capture the best images. And whatever tools you require to do each of these tasks to their uttermost should be employed. Boxing is not a complete art, and you are right, the multi-dimensional nature of MMA underscores this fact and demonstrates the value of cross-training. Taking pictures is not the complete story to image-making either, post-processing elevates the image still further also, thus "cross-training" here too simply means being skilled at producing a better overall outcome.

Yet that said, I guess I still am partial to pure boxing. Even Bruce Lee ultimately dismissed Wing Chun in favor of boxing-type hand strikes. Boxing may not be the complete story to a fight, but there is something about perfecting that skillset in particular that still captures my fancy. Likewise, I am still partial to the idea of having my strong point to image-making be photography, rather than software. Taking the pictures might not be the whole story to image-making either, but I want this to likewise be my main skill focus. This doesn't mean I don't enjoy, and won't try to develop roundedness, in other aspects of the whole process; it just means I have a preference as to where to make my majority focus.

[JohnKoerner]

Post-processing a raw image file is, to me, directly comparable to developing the exposed film. Both processes produce a foundation from which the final product is produced.  Longer time in developer lightens the negative, and temperature of the chemical baths influences color balance of the developed negative, just as applying a tone curve to the raw file influences contrast and brightness, and selecting a color temperature determines how to map the binary value to a point in the color space.  That operating on digital files enables an infinite number of retries rather than the chemical development process being a one-time event does not, IMHO, change the equivalence of the digial and chemical darkrooms.

If "Man A" spent all day taking film photographs and dumped off a box of negatives with "Man B," and if Man B spent all night developing the images, which of these men would you call the photographer?

[Bob Peterson]

If "Man A" spent all day taking film photographs and dumped off a box of negatives with "Man B," and if Man B spent all night developing the images, which of these men would you call the photographer?

Neither.

Bob

[Tklimek]

This simple question has become quite the discussion!  Jack.....were you really looking for an answer or simply looking for a discussion?  ;-)

BTW....I really enjoy your analogies with the martial arts....strange juxtaposition indeed (but one I can relate to...UFC 95 was pretty good btw).

Maybe this discussion is simply a matter of semantics......what IS photography?

I looked for the answer on Wikipedia and obtained this:

"is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a film, or an electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects activate a sensitive chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. Photography has many uses for business, science, art and pleasure.".

I looked on Websters.com and obtained this:

"the process or art of producing images of objects on sensitized surfaces by the chemical action of light or of other forms of radiant energy, as x-rays, gamma rays, or cosmic rays."

These are both much broader definitions that our group here requires for the discussion at hand; or it could be that "Photography" is simply the art of capturing the image and that the art of "Developing" is taking the negative and doing ANYTHING with it.

I wonder (or if anyone here knows could chime in) if Tom Mangelson develops his own prints....if he does.....where does one draw the line?  If his craft were absolutely pure...he could drop his film off at Costco and the results would be no less stunning....right?  And I'm not knocking Costco here.....

If "Photography" can be defined here as the use of a camera system to capture an image, then perhaps someone who does ZERO work in the darkroom (digital or otherwise) but could simply pass along their "negatives" to anyone to print perhaps can be considered a master of their craft.

If "Photography" can be defined here as the use of a camera system in conjunction with the craft of development to produce the best possible image......well then....well I think you see where I'm going with this.

Perhaps you could aid this discussion by provinding a very clear, and very strict definition of "Photography" as you see it.  I think this has been a very fun theoretical discussion but most likely will not change the way anyone is currently operating; those who chill butterflys in a fridge to slow down movement, those who shoot "wild" game in preserve, or those who simply take snapshots on a crowded street.

:-)  All in good clean fun!

Cheers....

Todd in Chicago

If "Man A" spent all day taking film photographs and dumped off a box of negatives with "Man B," and if Man B spent all night developing the images, which of these men would you call the photographer?

[fike]

...
Depends on what you mean by poorly captured.
...

You are definitely right.  Exposures that are ETTR as you mentioned may not look well-captured, but to the trained eye, they are.

[JohnKoerner]

Everytime I come across people who decry post processing, I am tempted to assume they do so as they are not very good at darkroom/lightroom skills, as if they were, they wouldn't deride it so.

Everytime I run across people who type their "opinions," without actually having read the thread first, I think "What an egocentric fella!"

JJJ, I never decried post processing. Never derode it either. If you would have taken the time to actually read my posts, you would have made these comments.

[JohnKoerner]

Neither.
Bob

We disagree. And I would be willing to wager, if you asked a thousand random people my question, all 1000 would choose "Man A" as the photographer and "Man B" as the film developer.

Jack

[JohnKoerner]

Todd in Chicago

Todd, I just spent about 40 min responding thoughtfully to your post, but when I hit "enter" my computer froze ... and I backspaced into a clear screen again.

At this point, I am going to resist the temptation to smash my computer to pieces and try to address your points again tomorrow  

Jack

[jjj]

Everytime I run across people who type their "opinions," without actually having read the thread first, I think "What an egocentric fella!"

JJJ, I never decried post processing. Never derode it either. If you would have taken the time to actually read my posts, you would have made these comments.

I did read posts unlike you obviously, as my reply was not to a post of yours, but someone else's.  

[jjj]

You are definitely right.  Exposures that are ETTR as you mentioned may not look well-captured, but to the trained eye, they are.

And seeing as various pping treatments I use depend on how image was exposed/captured and you do not know my methods, your eye will be just as untrained in judging my images, as they will be for anyone elese who shoots with PPing in mind.
So the idea of being able to completely judge an image's worth at the RAW/undeveloped stage is bogus.
not to mention, people have varying tastes, so a great image to one person is boring to another.

[jjj]

Todd, I just spent about 40 min responding thoughtfully to your post, but when I hit "enter" my computer froze ... and I backspaced into a clear screen again.

At this point, I am going to resist the temptation to smash my computer to pieces and try to address your points again tomorrow  

Jack

One of the many benefits of using Opera as a browser is that you can type one's replies in your notes panel [or copy reply and save to notes] and even if computer has mains plug yanked out, you lose nothing and can even restore all tabs and browsing history too when restarting.

[Rob C]

I´m happy to see that we have moved away from martial arts and are back, safely, insulting one another in the most polite manner that we can muster. The martial arts analogy was a crock-full anyway, a totally false analogy because martial arts, other than shadow-boxing, demand an opponent if to be more than onanism. On the other hand, photography is of itself the perfect onanistic shining path: you do it better on your own. The timing can usually be perfect even if the exposure might be a little adrift.

Rob C

[dabreeze]

all good and great film photographers post-process. not a one that you would see published in a magazine, consider buying their book, or deem a "master" ever simply drops off their film for developing.

they sharpen them using unsharp masks (yes, the very same name given to "digital" edge accuity enhancement; check the history of that evolution for an eyeopener). and this after using the highest resolution capture mediums possible (large format film) and the sharpest lenses money can buy in the field.

to heighten contrast, they use contrast masks, dodge & burn, and higher contrast film stocks to increase black levels and micro-contrast, very similar to digital darkroom techniques designed for the same end result.

as an earlier poster noted, choosing velvia as a film stock (virtually the industry standard in landscape for over two decades) is no different than pushing saturation and vibrance sliders in the digital darkroom but with far less control over amount, with a narrower color gamut, and a preset daylight white balance. color manipulation from the very moment the purist loads the film!!

post-processing ideas didn't start with digital; virtually every digital enhancement technique (sharpening, saturation, contrast enhancement/recovery, etc.) has an antecedent in film darkrooms, which all good and great film photographers have always employed!! many of these techniques were first innovated to solve the technical inadequacies of cameras, film and memory card in reproducing what the finest optical instrument known to man (your eye) can see.

look at the earliest prints of ansel adams' "monolith, the face of half dome:" blocked up face of half dome, not remotely the fully realized (and real looking) print of twenty years later. only his artful processing of the negative, and innovation of darkroom techniques allowed the real masterpiece to come thru. and for this, you deem him not a pure photographer, rather "a Master Artist, and a Master Image-Maker," instead suggesting that a man like Manglesen would, "strictly-speaking, be the true Master Photographer." the height of arrogance and inexperience, if you ask me.

like it or not, the "no digital manipulation" claim is, as another noted insightfully, disingenuous at best and, at worst, purely hypocritical marketing hype at its most cynical. it seems retail photographers can't get the words out of their mouth fast enough these days claiming, even those working exclusively in digital (!), that their processing is purely natural, nothing but natural light, no manipulation, exactly as i saw it, and please buy my one of a kind, completely pure, limited edition (one of only two hundred . . . until i reach 199,  and need to sell some more while still hoping to appeal to society's wise investors with that truly pure baseball card collecting, art treasure, appreciation [$$$!!!]-minded mentality) . . .  

it seems the public is suspect of manipulation, tired of being faked, and almost uniformly uninformed enough to go hook, line and sinker for the "no digital manipulation" ploy.

real photographic integrity would be to simply state your philosophy, transparently and honestly discuss your process, and let the work stand as it might.

or we can simply use your definition and categorically state the only master photographers are those that do nothing but shoot in the field, get it perfect (which, don't get me wrong, is still the very heart and soul of great nature & landscape  photography!!), and then drop it off at the local walmart for some cheap but 'pure' hack-level post-processing.

and just so you don't get all a-twitter, tom mangelsen is one heck of a fine photographer, doing it right, no matter what his claims and however he manipulates his images. his patience, photographic knowlege, understanding of animal behavior, perserverence, and fine artistic sense are what make him a true 'master.'

www.dvbphotography.com

[dalethorn]

For the person who reads all of this and does some of the research, they will learn a lot and appreciate what's involved. That's good. But do we have any common terms or definitions now that can shorten some of this redundant verbiage, so we can get to the point in our discussions, with fewer misunderstandings?

all good and great film photographers post-process. not a one that you would see published in a magazine, consider buying their book, or deem a "master" ever simply drops off their film for developing.

they sharpen them using unsharp masks (yes, the very same name given to "digital" edge accuity enhancement; check the history of that evolution for an eyeopener). and this after using the highest resolution capture mediums possible (large format film) and the sharpest lenses money can buy in the field.

to heighten contrast, they use contrast masks, dodge & burn, and higher contrast film stocks to increase black levels and micro-contrast, very similar to digital darkroom techniques designed for the same end result.

as an earlier poster noted, choosing velvia as a film stock (virtually the industry standard in landscape for over two decades) is no different than pushing saturation and vibrance sliders in the digital darkroom but with far less control over amount, with a narrower color gamut, and a preset daylight white balance. color manipulation from the very moment the purist loads the film!!

post-processing ideas didn't start with digital; virtually every digital enhancement technique (sharpening, saturation, contrast enhancement/recovery, etc.) has an antecedent in film darkrooms, which all good and great film photographers have always employed!! many of these techniques were first innovated to solve the technical inadequacies of cameras, film and memory card in reproducing what the finest optical instrument known to man (your eye) can see.

look at the earliest prints of ansel adams' "monolith, the face of half dome:" blocked up face of half dome, not remotely the fully realized (and real looking) print of twenty years later. only his artful processing of the negative, and innovation of darkroom techniques allowed the real masterpiece to come thru. and for this, you deem him not a pure photographer, rather "a Master Artist, and a Master Image-Maker," instead suggesting that a man like Manglesen would, "strictly-speaking, be the true Master Photographer." the height of arrogance and inexperience, if you ask me.

like it or not, the "no digital manipulation" claim is, as another noted insightfully, disingenuous at best and, at worst, purely hypocritical marketing hype at its most cynical. it seems retail photographers can't get the words out of their mouth fast enough these days claiming, even those working exclusively in digital (!), that their processing is purely natural, nothing but natural light, no manipulation, exactly as i saw it, and please buy my one of a kind, completely pure, limited edition (one of only two hundred . . . until i reach 199,  and need to sell some more while still hoping to appeal to society's wise investors with that truly pure baseball card collecting, art treasure, appreciation [$$$!!!]-minded mentality) . . .  

it seems the public is suspect of manipulation, tired of being faked, and almost uniformly uninformed enough to go hook, line and sinker for the "no digital manipulation" ploy.

real photographic integrity would be to simply state your philosophy, transparently and honestly discuss your process, and let the work stand as it might.

or we can simply use your definition and categorically state the only master photographers are those that do nothing but shoot in the field, get it perfect (which, don't get me wrong, is still the very heart and soul of great nature & landscape  photography!!), and then drop it off at the local walmart for some cheap but 'pure' hack-level post-processing.

and just so you don't get all a-twitter, tom mangelsen is one heck of a fine photographer, doing it right, no matter what his claims and however he manipulates his images. his patience, photographic knowlege, understanding of animal behavior, perserverence, and fine artistic sense are what make him a true 'master.'

www.dvbphotography.com

[JohnKoerner]

... blah-blah-blah ... only master photographers ... do nothing but shoot in the field, get it perfect (which, don't get me wrong, is still the very heart and soul of great nature & landscape photography!! ... blah-blah-blah ...)

Hi Dabreze;

What I got from your diatribe was that, buried within your 625+ words of useless rhetoric was the heart of my point, which was your own admission that the heart and soul of Master Photography is to get it perfect in the field, to remove the excessive need for post process.

Thank you for illustrating my point,

Jack




.

[dabreeze]

Hi Dabreze;

What I got from your diatribe was that, buried within your 625+ words of useless rhetoric was the heart of my point, which was your own admission that the heart and soul of Master Photography is to get it perfect in the field, to remove the excessive need for post process.

Thank you for illustrating my point,

Jack




.

altho there's a lot of good info there, you seem a rather selective reader, to be sure, which illustrates my point . . . arrogant & inexperienced to say the least. peace out!

[John.Murray]

You might want to read about Ansel Adams' "Moonrise Hernandez", arguably one of his best

http://www.hcc.commnet.edu/artmuseum/ansel...s/moonrise.html

[alainbriot]

You might want to read about Ansel Adams' "Moonrise Hernandez", arguably one of his best

http://www.hcc.commnet.edu/artmuseum/ansel...s/moonrise.html

Good example. The book Ansel Adams at 100 has several versions that Adams created over the years, from the ones with the very pale and nearly white sky to the last ones, and best known, versions with the nearly totally black sky.  Different interpretations of the same original.  It is also worth noting that Adams spent the better part of his later years in the darkroom, creating new photographs in the field only occasionally. In Mary Alinder's biography of Adams she points out that Moonrise was one of, if not the, most difficult of his images to print.

[dchew]

Neither.

Bob

I don't buy this assessment.  If I shoot transparencies, drop them off to an E6 lab, retrieve them the next morning and submit selects to an editor, am I not a photographer?

I think this eliminates many successful individuals who would be considered by most to be "photographers."

I realize this interpretation may not have been your intent, but I want to point out that you don't have to do any post processing to be a photographer.

Dave Chew