Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: JackWinberg on June 24, 2015, 08:44:29 am
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Bravo for a well-written piece on a very contentious subject!!!!
I teach Photographic History at our local college, and your historical section gives me several new and exciting leads.
THANK YOU................... Jack Winberg
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But this is hardly a new problem with photography. As the author pointed out, this has been going on since photography came in to existence.
Photographers have always manipulated their photographs. The process of developing and printing negatives involves manipulation. I don't think it is possible to create any photograph (analog or digital) with absolutely no manipulation.
Of course, that raises (not begs!) the question of what is and ain't manipulation. Manipulation often has a negative meaning. So defining manipulation would be important for such discussions.
The line between photography and artistic creation is difficult to define.
Trying to define at which point does a photograph stop becoming an accurate representation and start being not an accurate representation is even harder.
One could take an extremist viewpoint and state that ANY changes to a photograph means that the photograph is no longer an accurate representation... but that's kinda silly.. as most extreme positions are.
To me, part of the definition would be the intent of the photographer. But even that is a squishy concept.
I am not sure there is an answer to this quandary.... nor am I convinced that there needs to be an answer.
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A wonderfully thoughtful article by a mature and skilled artist. Few are brave enough to openly discuss that many of the leading landscape photographs today are artistic renderings as opposed to 'objective' depictions. It is nice to find someone self-confident enough in their art to start this conversation.
The (mis)conception that photography is a process of simply depicting things 'as they are' has held the medium back in the minds of those interested in 'art', and limited unduly the creativity of those who make photographs.
It used to be much harder, and require greater skill, to create the sort of images we are talking about (eg Jerry Uelsmann who's work is unparalleled), but this 'debate' has been a constant long before digital.
It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Bravo Ignacio.
- N.
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It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Bravo Ignacio.
- N.
+!
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It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Bravo Ignacio.
- N.
I also agree... providing that the discussion is limited to art.
But when the discussion moves to photojournalism, I think it gets a bit complicated.
With art, I do not believe there should be any expectation that the art does not reflect only what the artist intended. With art there is freedom
With photojournalism, there is an expectation that the photograph reflect some measure of an accurate representation. Defining what that level is and where the breaking points are is difficult.
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While well-written and researched, I think it's dishonest to treat an image that seeks to depict the reality as experienced by the photographer in the same way as an image that's manipulated to create a reality that simply never existed.
The former makes up for the shortcomings of our gear and abilities to create something that's still subjective and creative and that to me is photography, pure and simple.
The latter to me is an altogether separate field within photography and should be treated as such in competitions etc.
In the end, you can write all you want, but if an image becomes controversial the moment people feel it was created in the computer instead of in the camera, it's a clear sign you've moved away from what people expect photography to be.
I don't want to limit artistic freedom, but I do think we should use separate labels for separate fields. To me, Palacio creates images (and beautiful ones as well), but not photographs. He just starts with photographs.
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While well-written and researched, I think it's dishonest to treat an image that seeks to depict the reality as experienced by the photographer in the same way as an image that's manipulated to create a reality that simply never existed.
The former makes up for the shortcomings of our gear and abilities to create something that's still subjective and creative and that to me is photography, pure and simple.
The latter to me is an altogether separate field within photography and should be treated as such in competitions etc.
In the end, you can write all you want, but if an image becomes controversial the moment people feel it was created in the computer instead of in the camera, it's a clear sign you've moved away from what people expect photography to be.
I don't want to limit artistic freedom, but I do think we should use separate labels for separate fields. To me, Palacio creates images (and beautiful ones as well), but not photographs. He just starts with photographs.
I agree with this.
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I will briefly register my disagreement with this thread.
The research is thin and sloppy, which is to be expected when you rely almost entirely on wikipedia. He's equating Pictorialism with Composite Printing, which is simply wrong. He inexplicably leaves HP Robinson out of his list of historical figures.
He introduces ideas like "Image Manipulation vs. Manipulating Reality" and "Technical Retouching vs. Creative Retouching" and then simply drops them.
Vast swathes of the piece are simply copied from wikipedia (with citations, to be sure, but they're just cut&pastes, sometimes with a very light edit).
There is no synthesis, there's simply repetitions of "questions" of the sort that are raised by people on internet forums. This debate, like the "is photography art?" has not been a serious debate in decades. Rather, it's a straw debate we can haul out to discuss whenever we need some content and haven't got any ideas.
If this was presented purely as a piece of "look, this is how I do my work, here is my process" I would have no problem with it. But it is instead a weird mixture of that along with several thousand words of a high-school student's notion of "scholarship" stirred in, for no apparent reason.
Is there a thesis in here? Is there even an organizing principle?
While there's a bunch of definitions made and questions raised, the entire thing seems to boil down to: I manipulate images and I think that's OK. Oh, and, have some wikipedia entries. If there's any more actual content in there, could someone please summarize it for me?
I will grant that I'd rather see people photoshopping their photos than smashing up coral reefs, though.
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...I do think we should use separate labels for separate fields. To me, Palacio creates images (and beautiful ones as well), but not photographs...
Photoshoppographers™ (myself included) create photoshoppographs™ (or is it shoppophotographs™?) ;)
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I teach Photographic History at our local college, and your historical section gives me several new and exciting leads.
In case you haven't already come across the book of the exhibition -- Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop (https://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=faking+it+before+photoshop&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YeSKVdGmE4StogS83oHYBQ&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)
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While there's a bunch of definitions made and questions raised, the entire thing seems to boil down to: I manipulate images and I think that's OK. Oh, and, have some wikipedia entries.
Uncharitable, but not wrong.
@Ignacio :: I struggle to understand when I read some comments and criticisms whether we are talking about Image Manipulation or about Manipulation of Reality.
When there are “wildlife photographers” breaking coral reefs and rearranging them to get the perfect shot that is "Manipulation of Reality".
Other stuff is Manipulation of the Viewer.
@Ignacio :: Why Is It That Photography Gets Singled Out More So Than Other Arts With Judgements About Manipulation?
Potentially photography can provide better literal documents, so we're naturally disappointed when wondrous colors on Monte Fitz Roy turn out to be banal digital coloring. We had thought you were sharing a special moment from a far corner of the world. Is that so difficult to understand?
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It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Bravo Ignacio.
- N.
[/quote]
For more than 3 decades I've made my living selling prints to hang on the walls of mostly upper-income, generally well-educated people. People, not "collectors."
I think my market, just people not photographers, has largely moved past this issue. They accept manipulation if it produces what they like and ask few if any questions.
Journalism is obviously another discussion.
For the record, my work is pretty straightforward.
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I teach Photographic History at our local college, and your historical section gives me several new and exciting leads.
In case you haven't already come across Bruce Barnbaum: Corridors (http://www.barnbaum.com/images/Mixed_Bag/01_Corridors.jpg).
… perhaps if I combined them with an appropriate second negative, I could produce something that I would have photographed if I had encountered it. Hence the term "Ideal Landscapes."
… I realized that I could create a whole new world completely from my imagination by combining negatives -- perhaps a foreground from one location with a compatible background from another, or by placing a more interesting segment of one negative into the upper right quadrant of another negative -- as long as they seemed to form a believable image.
…
I have to admit that there are some limits to this idea. In my collection of photographs by other photographers, I have an image … but what lifts it above just being a wonderful landscape is the presence of a lightning bolt in the distance that coincided with the exposure. It is a transcendent moment, putting an exclamation point on a dramatic scene photographed during a thunderstorm. But I wouldn't view that image the same way if I knew that the lightning bolt was added afterwards from a separate exposure. Yes, the image would be the same, but I wouldn't be satisfied with a falsely created moment.
pp62-65 "The Essence of Photography: Seeing and Creativity (https://books.google.com/books?id=G2MpBQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA1&dq=the%20essence%20of%20photography&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false)"
Yes, the image would be the same, but I wouldn't be satisfied with a falsely created moment.
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
If you don't think photographs can be "pictures of reality" (whatever that's supposed to mean), you should take out your phone and snap a photo of whatever is in-front of you.
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
Amen! ;)
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They are, however, rooted in reality, which is why there is any concern whatsoever about manipulation.
Manipulation of a painting does not take it farther from its source. Manipulation is what painting is all about. Manipulation of a photograph does take it farther from its source.
See also sculpture, etc.
This is basic stuff. I'm pretty sure Sontag was going on about it in the 1970s, so I am frankly surprised that Ignacio doesn't provide us with the well-known stock answer, instead .. well, nothing coherent, actually.
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Amen! ;)
"pictures of reality" is a barn-door so-wide that a pencil sketch will fit through, so unreasoned approbation will be all you can offer.
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All of his examples are art made from a photograph or collection of photographs.
No different than a quilt made from a collection of pieces of cloth.
There is a current large market for art that starts as a photograph, or more, and is HDRed, saturated and combined.
I would guess that most of the buyers know they are hyper-realistic representations, but do not care. It is bright and colorful and glossy and looks good in their home. They are happy.
I consider the art a photographic quilt. Scraps of color and other photographs are brought together to create something.
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Good article and inspirational images!
All of his examples are art made from a photograph or collection of photographs.
No different than a quilt made from a collection of pieces of cloth.
There is a current large market for art that starts as a photograph, or more, and is HDRed, saturated and combined.
I would guess that most of the buyers know they are hyper-realistic representations, but do not care. It is bright and colorful and glossy and looks good in their home. They are happy.
I consider the art a photographic quilt. Scraps of color and other photographs are brought together to create something.
Most buyers don't even distinguish between realistic, hyper-reealistic, HDR, and collages - if they like the shapes and colors, if the piece fits over their couch, and the price fits their budget, they will buy it, and be indeed happy.
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
++1
If one confuses reality with a picture of reality, one also has a problem.
The only question I have is whether an image is a representation of reality which conveys "truth" about the reality. Manipulation before the shutter is tripped (selecting a point of view, angle of view, cropping, exposure) and after always occurs. But does the manipulation expose reality or hide it?
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
Now, that sounds deep but actually means nothing.
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Photography is often the best representation we have of an exterior reality. If you don't think so, look at a Google map, then click down at the corner to get the satellite photograph. You will toggle 1-for-1 between an entirely synthetic, manmade view and a photograph, and the photograph is a much better representation of what you will see on the ground. (Although the synthetic maps are often more useful for some purposes.) In my opinion, this is the fundamental philosophical position of the photograph: that it is our best representation of reality. There are any number of ways to demonstrate that: take a picture of a friend, show it to a mutual friend, and see if the first friend is recognized. That's so simple, so fundamental, that it makes arguments that photographs are essentially an abstraction seem, well, stupid.
But of course other things can be done with photographs, and always have been. I don't think that most people have a problem with that, as long as the photograph isn't intended to deceive in a harmful way. Photographs can be used to lie, just as words can. (I've recently seen joke photos of the leaning tower of Pisa being held up by the hands of a man posed in the foreground, and, in another funny case, projecting upwards from the open fly of a young man lying on the ground. Neither of those was intended to deceive: they were simply jokes.) My biggest problem with most manipulated landscape photos is that I sense that they are somehow intended to deceive, often to produce a sale. If somebody offers a highly colored landscape for sale, with the notation that it has been photoshopped, I have no problem with that; but I also think that the sales would be harder to make. If a beautiful but photoshopped landscape is sold with the implicit suggestion that this is a representation of reality witnessed by the photographer, I would have a problem with that: it's simply a lie. There are also cases (Moonrise, by Ansel Adams, for one) in which there has been some serious manipulation, but the key here is, everyone knows it. Nobody is deceived.
I reject the argument, "I'm an artist, so I get to lie." In fact, I think it should be the other way about: "I'm an artist, so I don't get to lie."
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Isn't this issue of photo manipulation just another aspect of the very broad issue, 'What is truth?'
We tend to categorise works into 'Fiction' and 'Non-fiction', often perhaps not realising that it's rarely an 'either/or' situation. Works of non-fiction tend to be simply less fictitious and more factual than works of fiction, but they still contain fictitious elements, just as many works of fiction contain some factual elements.
It's often said that history tends to be written by the victors. We're all biased to some degree. Even scientists who strive to be as objective as possible, can fall into the trap of 'selection bias', an example of which is the current controversy over Anthropogenic Global Warming. You wouldn't expect a climatologist delivering a lecture on the dangers of rising CO2 levels to ever mention any of the benefits of rising CO2 levels. To do so would be counter-productive to the message he's trying to get across, and he might get the sack from the Climate Research establishment he works for.
When photographers, or people in general with a camera, take a photo, they are expressing a personal bias through choice of subject, degree of cropping, choice of perspective, choice of DoF, shutter speed and so on.
When photographers later process such images for display or printing they will continue to 'improve' the appearance of the image, in accordance with their personal biases and preferences, using whatever tools are available.
It's quite natural and normal for a photographer to strive to produce the most pleasing result for himself, and/or others, if he has the time and the inclination.
The issue of the deliberate addition or subtraction of major elements in the image as shot, should be viewed in terms of the potential harmful consequences of such manipulation.
Clearly such manipulation of forensic shots could be very dangerous and lead to miscarriages of justice.
Likewise, the manipulation of journalistic shots, in terms of adding or subtracting major elements to the original scene, could have disastrous effects that might provoke riots and result in deaths.
On the other hand, if a journalist were to remove some distracting and irrelevant elements in his image, prior to publication, such as a tree branch jutting into the image from one edge, or some overhead power lines that spoiled the composition, that would be unlikely to have any serious consequences.
However, this raises the issue of whether or not a photo-journalist should be allowed the discretion of determining what is an inconsequential manipulation. Perhaps it's safer and wiser to have the general rule in photojournalism, 'No manipulation at all, in terms of adding or subtracting major elements within the field-of-view captured.'
As regards the example of replacing the sky in a landscape with a more interesting sky depicting a streak of lightning, I see no problem with this. Is there any place on earth where cloudy skies and lighting strikes never occur?
The fact that the sky and lightning in a particular photograph was shot on a different day at a different location is of little consequence as long as no confusion results. However, if a photographer were to visit the centre of the Sahara desert, take shot at a recognisable location, then replace a plain and rather boring sky with a dramatic, cloudy sky depicting a flash of lightning, certain meteorologists might get confused if it is the case that thunderstorms never occur in the centre of the Sahara Desert. I think that might then raise some ethical issues. ;)
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
Yes, this is fine. But, let me ask you something: do you think it is ethical to combine photographs into one image, and submit said image as what was in front of the camera at a certain moment, to a contest, and win prizes? Just because this was done 100 years ago, and just because it is done a lot easier these days, it does not mean it is correct.
I am not talking about focus stacking, say, I am talking about things like the example already stated about the light on top of Mount Fitz Roy, and so on. Creating art is one thing, trying to shove it as something which it is not, that is another thing.
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Yes, this is fine. But, let me ask you something: do you think it is ethical to combine photographs into one image, and submit said image as what was in front of the camera at a certain moment, to a contest, and win prizes? Just because this was done 100 years ago, and just because it is done a lot easier these days, it does not mean it is correct.
I think it's unethical to do that for a competition where this is against the rules. However if it is allowed by the rules I don't think there is anything unethical about it.
It is also unethical to sell this "stacked" print without disclosing the technique to the buyers, but if you are open about it and the buyers know and accept it I think it's fine.
Reading the article I summarize it as: you can manipulate however you like and the photographer/artist has to decide how far he wants to go with that. As long as you're open and honest about what you do there is no problem with it. The problems arise when you start saying it all happened in front of your lens at one moment (or short period) in time while in actual fact it's a combination of several different shots taken at different times and/or different places. Then it becomes unethical (or simply said, you're lying)
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The question is not whether or not manipulation is "allowed" because that has to be about personal choice, but how are these images delivered to a wider audience. If I describe myself as a "Travel and Nature Photographer" I would suggest that there is a risk of borrowing the photojournalist's cloak of authenticity for the images I am showing, whereas if I claim to be a fine art photographer then maybe my freedom of expression is more acceptable. Ignacio has been very honest in showing how some of his images have been constructed, but for me they are diminished in value because of the process they have been through. Adding skies, deleting elements, stretching mountains - these are all manipulations that change the very nature of what is being portrayed and are fundamentally different from dodging and burning to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships, to paraphrase AA.
Personally, I no more want to own a "cut and shut" picture than I do a "cut and shut" car. I want images to be about a moment in time, to generate an emotional response and be as much about the journey as the photograph itself. But clearly there is a market for this kind of thing.
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Interesting discussion. It made me think because initially I kind of felt rejection. But being honest to myself... also admiration. That made me wonder.
On the negative side I put it as "a Playboy style Landscape" , something pimped to glossy that probably doesn't exist in real.
Also a thought how much depended we are of the right circumstances appeared to me. In other words, once you spent thousands of dollars or euros to get to a beautiful location, will you be able to make the shots? When circumstances in fact suck and the shots at best mediocre? How many people have the opportunity to return often? Circumstances can't be manipulated. In such situation its VERY tempting to create the image at the computer afterwards. The beauty of the place is there, you simply create the light.
During my travels I found that my best shots often came in a bunch together, simply just because the circumstances were right.
On the positive side I see images that are absolutely pleasing for the eye and are very skilfully created. When people get more aware of the beauty on nature by this, who am I to reject that. If the artist is clear about his work it's OK with me.
In my personal work I find myself working less and less in a photo, but to be sincere, sometimes I do take away that ugly ...
My greetings to all because its my first post here and hopefully not my last. I am a regular visitor of Lula for at least 8-9 years, and I am mostly shooting people and landscapes.
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I reject the argument, "I'm an artist, so I get to lie." In fact, I think it should be the other way about: "I'm an artist, so I don't get to lie."
If I were to change one word in this from "lie" (which has a negative connotation) to "create" (which has a positive connotation), would you agree with the new statement?
Do fiction writers lie?
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I wouldn’t care one bit about photographic manipulation or composites.
Appealing images? Fine! Just as long as nobody composites penguins and polar bears into one image and tries to sell it as original nature.
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My greetings to all because its my first post here and hopefully not my last. I am a regular visitor of Lula for at least 8-9 years, and I am mostly shooting people and landscapes.
Welcome to the forum!!!
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When I pick up my brushes as a painter I don't feel compelled to tell any truth other than my own. Why should it be any different when I pick up a camera?
Thankfully, photography has grown up.
All very fine. As a landscape photographer, I adjust contrast, saturation, sharpness, white balance, the usual stuff. B&W is also not reality. But I draw the line at adding/removing/stretching elements.
As an artist, of course one has the freedom to create whatever images one wants, using the tools. But, one does not have the right to state that such an image depicts reality, and try to sell it as such. Most times, when one looks at an image and it looks fake, is because it is fake.
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Frankly that's stating the blindingly obvious.
Is anyone anywhere arguing for dishonest misrepresentation?
No.
The whole thing is pretty much a non-discussion. Nobody seriously thinks there's anything to be discussed at this point.
Every now and then a news organization gets Very Stern with a stringer for photoshopping. This is mainly to sustain the illusion that the media is honest.
Every now and then someone gets tossed from a competition for violating a no-photoshopping rule. This is no more interesting than someone who submits a print that is too large, or whatever.
And then we have people on internet forums, who are always willing to go another round of 'well, I feeeeeel that it's OK to' blah blah blah in circles for a while.
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As an artist, of course one has the freedom to create whatever images one wants, using the tools. But, one does not have the right to state that such an image depicts reality, and try to sell it as such.
How common is it for a photographer to actually state that their product depicts reality? I have not seen that in any photographic art store, but that's just my experience.
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There IS a default assumption that if the photograph looks more or less realistic, that is it real.
This assumption is fading, the younger generation, raised on the Internet, probably don't have it very much. Older people like us still suffer from it.
Ten years ago, if you made a realistic looking composite, the onus was on the artist to state that it was a composite, because of that default assumption. This is essentially the same thing as, just to fabricate an example, stating up front that sculpture that appeared to be marble but which was in fact cast, was cast and not carved. You can spin out examples yourself all day long. When the appearance of a thing, in a social context, gives an impression that is at odds with reality, honesty requires a statement about the truth. See "lie of omission".
Right now we're in a grey zone, culturally. Many people assume that all photographs are 'shopped, many do not.
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The beauty of the place is there, you simply create the light.
As-if the light is a minor detail in the beauty of a photograph :-)
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Thankfully, photography has grown up.
Not grown up, grown cynical.
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I share what I care to share.
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Some viewers value a quality image taken in-camera more than a quality image created in the computer. The problem therefore can exist where the artist presents an image as being largely created in camera, where in reality it was created mostly through post-processing. In write-ups accompanying such images, the artist quite often talks about how they "got the image" - talking about the cold weather, camera settings, etc., but gives nil info regarding computer work. Many photographers may be doing this innocently, but some do it on purpose - because they know that the public often values in-camera work more than computer work.
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Photography for me is a way to have fun. Fun to hike to nice places, fun to take a shot at exact that moment of light and fun to discuss with friends. On a rainy day I like to have fun with my pictures...in photoshop or whatever is available. Its like being a DJ, mixing records into a new composition.
In my opinion manipulation of an image is an essential part of what I want to present to the public and I would never claim that my photographs represent the 'truth'. They are my 'vision' and nothing more, remember it's not an exact science where manipulation of data is a great sin (but happens anyway under the current publication pressures set by funding agencies and university management)
Therefore I think its a great article, even with the wikipedia quotes.
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Few are brave enough to openly discuss that many of the leading landscape photographs today are artistic renderings as opposed to 'objective' depictions.
Few are brave enough to caption their pictures -- Lofoten, fake aurora; Antelope Canyon, fake light shaft; Fitz Roy, fake alpenglow …
Perhaps there's too much risk that -- Lofoten, aurora; Antelope Canyon, light shaft; Fitz Roy, alpenglow -- would be preferred.
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Few are brave enough to caption their pictures -- Lofoten, fake aurora; Antelope Canyon, fake light shaft; Fitz Roy, fake alpenglow …
Perhaps there's too much risk that -- Lofoten, aurora; Antelope Canyon, light shaft; Fitz Roy, alpenglow -- would be preferred.
+1
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I am sort of astonished to find an active discussion of reality versus photographs on LuLa forums. I think of this place as a little more sophisticated than that.
This is the sort of thing that people who don't know anything and haven't read anything think is interesting. And, god love 'em, we were all young and naive at some point, and you gotta think stuff like this through for yourself. I just thought most of those people were on other forums.
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I am sort of astonished to find an active discussion of reality versus photographs on LuLa forums. I think of this place as a little more sophisticated than that.
This is the sort of thing that people who don't know anything and haven't read anything think is interesting. And, god love 'em, we were all young and naive at some point, and you gotta think stuff like this through for yourself. I just thought most of those people were on other forums.
I am sort of astonished not by the fact that this discussion takes place on LuLa, but by the fact that it takes place so often, and it always starts with (to state it generally) assertions that there is there is no objective reality to be photographed, and even if there were, photographs are abstractions incapable of representing reality, and therefore -- and this is always the central element of the discussion -- that it really makes no different what we do with a photograph as long as it is artistically interesting or "valid", whatever that means. Some us reject all of this. And it's an important argument. But you're right in one way: a lot of it seems fairly sophomoric. But sophomores have to go through this, right? And what better place to do it? For me, the most distressing part of the whole discussion is that, discernible in the background, most of the time, is a suggestion that we might be able to pawn these things off as actual representations of an objective reality, if we can only get the manipulation right. In other words, if we fake it well enough, we can make a buck. In most fields outside of art, that would be called fraud. I believe fraud should be discouraged.
I don't know what "reality vs. photographs" even means. They're both real.
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In my mind this thread and the article it refers to is not about "photography" vs. "reality", but it is about how much and what sort of image manipulation people find acceptable before a photograph becomes a "photoshopgraph" (or digital art)
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In my mind this thread and the article it refers to is not about "photography" vs. "reality", but it is about how much and what sort of image manipulation people find acceptable before a photograph becomes a "photoshopgraph" (or digital art)
Exactly. We all understand that photographs do not represent reality, even when they are not "changed". The selection of shutter speed, aperture, filters, etc, all that turns a photograph into an interpretation of reality. Let's say I take a landscape photo, and I captioned it with the camera and filter settings: 24mm lens, f11, 300 minutes, Lee Big Stopper. I could then add the WB, contrast, saturation, clarity, sharpness, etc, settings in the RAW developer. My usual workflow.
When photographers start compositing from several photos, stretching, adding, deleting elements, etc, and then want the rest of the world to believe that the scene was like that, that is fraud and fake.
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When photographers start compositing from several photos, stretching, adding, deleting elements, etc, and then want the rest of the world to believe that the scene was like that, that is fraud and fake.
I tend to agree with that. In a way the same rules as for the "newsphoto of the year" are applicable, though maybe a tad less strict. But, when you are clear that its artwork based on photos, there in fact is no limit in what you do, and it may be a very appealing result. There is always a point however where it becomes a thin line between them.
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
THAT will grace a place on the wall above my Epson 11880! :)
Thanks and best wishes!
Georg
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... Some us reject all of this...
Amen, brother!
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... We all understand that photographs do not represent reality, even when they are not "changed"...
Count me out.
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We all understand that photographs do not represent reality, even when they are not "changed".
Do you think a pencil sketch can "represent reality"?
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Do you think a pencil sketch can "represent reality"?
Ok, whatever...
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Whatever?
http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/representational
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Yes, Isaac: WHATEVER. Good God, give it a rest. Its Friday, go get some fresh air..... ::)
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There is an implied shared experience in landscape photography - that the photographer stood at that place and witnessed a scene and that the viewer could have been there also. You invite the viewer to share the experience.
How do you talk to a client about an image with a fake shaft of light in it? This is what I can't understand. There are a gazillion images of Antelope Canyon with shafts of light - what is the purpose of faking it? Do you tell your client - well I was there but I was disappointed in what I saw so I decided to add some awe in photoshop?? I would buy a work by Mr. Uelsmann that is an obvious depiction of a fantasy but I would never buy a landscape that is a deception and a fake shaft of light - a fake aurora are just that.
There is a reason to take real landscape photographs and you can debate whether any of them are art or not. But our world changes constantly and a beautiful record of that world is something a landscape photographer can leave behind. We really don't need fake landscape photography - spend the time in the field to get that shaft of light or the aurora. Or do as Isaac suggested and put the word "fake" in the title.
I disagree with the philosophy expressed in Lula articles that says that moving rivers, swapping skies, faking shafts of light has anything to do with landscape photography. It is digital art at its worst.
Sharon
I think photographic documentation is bad. It is a perverse substitute for being there yourself, though such compromises are sometimes necessary.
I prefer art.
Bruce
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How do you talk to a client about an image with a fake shaft of light in it?
A picture titled - Antelope Canyon, fake light shaft - would, of course, be commentary on the state of popular landscape photography ;-)
I think photographic documentation is bad. … I prefer art.
I think you may have misrepresented the words you quoted.
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Bruce a truthful photograph can be art. A fake shaft of light can be art too, I guess, but it's not landscape photography.
Sharon
I think trying to separate truth and beauty is a bad idea.
I think art infects most of what people do, though perceived amounts may vary.
Bruce
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I had to take a brake from wrangling kitty pictures to be this wise, but it was worth it.
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I enjoy reading these discussions for several reasons, among them: To see if anything new has been added to the debate; to see how certain some are that their opinion is the absolute correct opinion; to see if anyone will ever say, "I think you're right and I'm wrong, I've changed my mind."
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I enjoy reading these discussions for several reasons, among them: To see if anything new has been added to the debate; to see how certain some are that their opinion is the absolute correct opinion; to see if anyone will ever say, "I think you're right and I'm wrong, I've changed my mind."
Don't hold your breath.
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There is an implied shared experience in landscape photography - that the photographer stood at that place and witnessed a scene and that the viewer could have been there also. You invite the viewer to share the experience.
How do you talk to a client about an image with a fake shaft of light in it? This is what I can't understand. There are a gazillion images of Antelope Canyon with shafts of light - what is the purpose of faking it? Do you tell your client - well I was there but I was disappointed in what I saw so I decided to add some awe in photoshop?? I would buy a work by Mr. Uelsmann that is an obvious depiction of a fantasy but I would never buy a landscape that is a deception and a fake shaft of light - a fake aurora are just that.
There is a reason to take real landscape photographs and you can debate whether any of them are art or not. But our world changes constantly and a beautiful record of that world is something a landscape photographer can leave behind. We really don't need fake landscape photography - spend the time in the field to get that shaft of light or the aurora. Or do as Isaac suggested and put the word "fake" in the title.
I disagree with the philosophy expressed in Lula articles that says that moving rivers, swapping skies, faking shafts of light has anything to do with landscape photography. It is digital art at its worst.
Sharon
You go girl! With you 100%.
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I enjoy reading these discussions for several reasons, among them: To see if anything new has been added to the debate; to see how certain some are that their opinion is the absolute correct opinion; to see if anyone will ever say, "I think you're right and I'm wrong, I've changed my mind."
fwiw I came to accept the point Rob C. made about creativity (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=74139.msg598464#msg598464).
fwiw You'll be able to find discussions on this topic where I argue against positions taken by Sharon and John Camp.
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fwiw I came to accept the point Rob C. made about creativity (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=74139.msg598464#msg598464).
fwiw You'll be able to find discussions on this topic where I argue against positions taken by Sharon and John Camp.
Interesting you should bring that up Isaac. After much deliberation I too came to accept it. Reluctantly. I miss his posts.
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I am sure a photo can represent reality, but not necessarily the whole truth. There is a reason why photos can be used in court and a reason why we carefully compose to bring a photo to the level of art.
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I am sure a photo can represent reality, but not necessarily the whole truth. There is a reason why photos can be used in court and a reason why we carefully compose to bring a photo to the level of art.
The best reply yet. :)
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The best reply yet. :)
but also off-topic ;D
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but also off-topic ;D
Haha, you made me laugh, but I disagree. "Photoshoppers" tend to claim (also in this discussion) that reality in a photo does not exist, what in my opinion only troubles it.
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Haha, you made me laugh, but I disagree. "Photoshoppers" tend to claim (also in this discussion) that reality in a photo does not exist, what in my opinion only troubles it.
Glad I could make you laugh, this is all supposed to be fun anyway ;)
See my reply #53 on page 3 why I think it's "off topic", but I can understand why you disagree
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I am sure a photo can represent reality, but not necessarily the whole truth.
Haha, you made me laugh, but I disagree. "Photoshoppers" tend to claim (also in this discussion) that reality in a photo does not exist, what in my opinion only troubles it.
See Andrew's remark (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg832791#msg832791).
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I am sure a photo can represent reality, but not necessarily the whole truth. There is a reason why photos can be used in court.
But so can hand drawn sketch and diagrams. Both require a witness to testify, on oath, that they accurately depicted (at least some facet) of their subject at the relevant time.
This doesn't really advance the present discussion.
- N.
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This doesn't really advance the present discussion.
Unless we were pretending that photos could not be pictures of reality (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg832542#msg832542) :-)
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If you think photographs are pictures of reality, your problems is with reality, not with photographs.
;)
- N.
yes, it was kind of a response, but unconsciously. :)
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A wonderfully thoughtful article by a mature and skilled artist. Few are brave enough to openly discuss that many of the leading landscape photographs today are artistic renderings as opposed to 'objective' depictions. It is nice to find someone self-confident enough in their art to start this conversation.
The (mis)conception that photography is a process of simply depicting things 'as they are' has held the medium back in the minds of those interested in 'art', and limited unduly the creativity of those who make photographs.
It used to be much harder, and require greater skill, to create the sort of images we are talking about (eg Jerry Uelsmann who's work is unparalleled), but this 'debate' has been a constant long before digital.
It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Bravo Ignacio.
- N.
Jerry Uelsmann never attempted to fool anyone with his photo compositions. The author on the other hand doesn't have the courage to call his work a digital composite. Instead he uses the word manipulation. As if his level of intervention stops at manipulating curves in Photoshop. This is what I find dishonest and misleading about his word choice for disclosure. There is no bravery here Nick.
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Insofar as photos derive much of their strength from the intimate connection with reality they enjoy, they lose that power individually and collectively as they are manipulated.
Photography could fade completely as an art when the current generation dies off and every living person assumes that all photos are composited, manipulated, half erasures and the other half additions.
It's not just Photoshop here. Photorealistic digital effects in movies and, I suppose, myriad other factors, are creating a new generation for whom photos have no particular claim on reality, on truth. Photos become a quick and easy way to make drawings, which may or may not be reality based.
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… the human process of emotional response and appreciation begins to shut down when we stop to ask "Is it real?"
1996 "Sunrises and Simulations" (http://www.mountainlight.com/articles.html)
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Insofar as photos derive much of their strength from the intimate connection with reality they enjoy, they lose that power individually and collectively as they are manipulated.
Haven't all paintings and sculptures throughout history derived much of their strength, if not all of their strength, from an intimate connection with reality, as perceived by the viewer?
There's a lot of evidence implying that Renaissance painters during the 13th to17th centuries used mirrors and lenses to help them 'manipulate' a more realistic effect by projecting images of detailed objects and faces onto the canvas. Composite paintings showing amazingly intricate detail of a dress or tablecloth traced from a reflection of such objects onto the canvas, would have been mixed with other elements which were entirely a product of the artist's imagination.
We don't know for certain which painters used such techniques because they kept their methods a trade secret, just as a photographer would not care to advertise the fact that the impressive sky in a photo was not shot at the same time and place as the foreground. So What! In such circumstances you get two photos for the price of one. Why complain if you suspect the photo is a composite? The sky represents a real sky and the foreground represents a real foreground.
As I mentioned before, problems might arise if such a photo with a replaced sky were presented as a documentary shot of an unusual event, such as a rain storm in the centre of the Sahara desert. That might cause some confusion among meteorologists. As long as such photos are presented as 'Art', I don't see a problem. The word 'art' always implies a degree of manipulation.
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Haven't all paintings and sculptures throughout history derived much of their strength, if not all of their strength, from an intimate connection with reality, as perceived by the viewer?
No, not really. From a very early time -- the early Egyptians -- it was recognized that art almost always contained a variety of manipulations that removed it from reality. These manipulations could be either cultural or psychological, or both. (Google "Ahkenaten art.") In fact,in some eras, the Egyptians simultaneously made highly realistic art, somewhat abstracted art, and highly abstracted images derived from natural objects and used as hieroglyphic symbols -- so they had a full panoply of artistic styles and abstractions all in the same era, just as we do. They knew perfectly well that people didn't have both eyes on the same side of their head...
The thing that gave photography its power, right from the start, is that it in some way *removed* psychological and cultural manipulations. Artists of wildly different styles and temperaments could set up a camera in front of a landscape, and shooting one-after-another, take essentially identical photographs. They couldn't do that in their painting, nor would they want to. The photographic artist still selects the image he/she wants, but the raw image itself is firmly attached to an exterior reality, rather than the interior psychology of the artist. As far as I know, the very first photo that we have is a kind of landscape -- it shows the corner of a building. Any artist of the time (first half of the 19th century) could have made a better image of the same thing -- more realistic, correct color, etc.
So why go to photography at all? Because when it came to the most difficult images -- portraits -- the painter simply couldn't match them for flat, uninflected realism. This is the essential element that gives photography its power: the camera doesn't fix anything, doesn't look away, doesn't react to the cultural or psychological state of the artist. The camera simply takes an image. Because of that, photography has a certain credibility with viewers. All kinds of things can be done to a photo after it's taken, but those erode the credibility, rather than enhance it. For example, before we had color film, we had colorized prints. Yet, I've never seen a colorized print that appeared to me to present a higher degree of realism than a black-and-white. With a black-and-white print, I *know* that red and green may show up as the same shade, and I accept that, because that's all a black and white representation can do. Once a print is colorized, though, you begin to ask, "Really? Was the sky really blue and not gray? Was the grass really deep green, and not yellow-green?"
When a painter paints a portrait of somebody he knows to a certain degree, he has in his mind all of the different expressions of that person's face, as well as the way the person talks, his sense of humor, and so on. All that is taken into account in the process of painting. A camera simply makes an image -- the sitter may have hairs sticking out of his nose, may be haggard from a restless night, may have a pimple on his forehead, and the camera just doesn't care. A painter always does, and what he puts in or takes out is a matter of psychology and culture, a matter of choices. Many portrait artists today use photography to reinforce particular aspects of a portrait that they may have difficulty capturing in a live session, and in my opinion, to the extent that they do that, the deader the image becomes. Painted portraits, IMHO, require the psychology, culture and hand of the artist to be foremost, because that's where painting's strength is; a photographic portrait needs to push as close to an objective realism as possible, because that where the photographic strength lies.
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A nicely thought out post, John, although I disagree with the last sentence. If a photo (portrait) needs to push as close to objective reality as possible, then removing colour would be an immediate disqualification. I don't agree with that.
To me, a photograph should be any single frame captured by a still image recorder, plus any changes to the image values (eg brightness, contrast, colour, tone) or deletions (crop, clone, burn to black, dodge to white, etc). Yes, I allow any removals e.g. clone out a whole person for all I care, and still call it a photo.
BUT NO ADDITIONS. Add anything to a recorded image and its creator should call it My Graphic Art, not My Photo. Even in the example (I think in the current LL 'new landscape photography' article) where the writer superimposed the same scene on two layers, showing the foreground at sunrise and the background sky at sunset, call it Graphic Art.
I like to keep things simple for this definition, as you no doubt noticed. :)
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Spot on, John. That's pretty much exactly what I would say if I were infinitely patient.
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I was a rabid defender of "true photography" at one time. Then I realized it's not about the manipulation. It's all about disclosure.
See the discussion has many layers, but for me it all comes down to this:
Do you call the final production a PHOTOGRAPH ???
YES: almost any manipulation is prohibited. People still equate a photograph with reality.
NO: anything goes. Just do not call the final product a photograph. Then photography becomes one of the tools used to arrive at the end result.
What I do not like about the article is the way it is written. Just the opening sentence makes clear that there will be no discussion of the topic. Just stating the obvious position of the author with some provocative questions without answers.
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'All the arts are based on the presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence.'
- Andre Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, 1960
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The world has has made this discussion somewhat arcane. Which is not to say it is pointless, just that technology has left it behind. The smartphone is not only destroying the sales of stand alone cameras, but has pushed us into a new time with the level of manipulation that is possible now in under a minute (including uploading). Like it or not, most of us who use "serious" cameras are going the way of the daguerreotype. Curiously, the most original and interesting work I see around is now also done on smartphones.
When a painter paints a portrait of somebody he knows to a certain degree, he has in his mind all of the different expressions of that person's face, as well as the way the person talks, his sense of humor, and so on. All that is taken into account in the process of painting. A camera simply makes an image -- the sitter may have hairs sticking out of his nose, may be haggard from a restless night, may have a pimple on his forehead, and the camera just doesn't care.
I don't think this is a good example, though I can't think of one that works better. To the question of whether to express inner or outer reality, most artists or even hobbiests will probably want to go for both. In photography, the portraitist wants something of the personality there, so will select camera with a sensor or film they like, choose an appropriate lens, focal length, shutter speed and aperture, stage the sitter, maybe use makeup, arrange lighting and then jolly them along until they get the expression and posture they are after. Nowadays if we are unlucky they may then use a plug-in to photoshop the hell out of them. We live in hope that there are pores left. No worse than vaseline on the lens I suppose. Yes, at the click of the shutter the sensor doesn't care, but it's rather too late by then.
If I'm to man any barricades I'll go for photojournalism. Unfortunately photojournalists have mostly been fired by the penny-pinching scoundrels that run our newspapers, whose version of truth in reporting has always made the photographs of people like Johansson and Karcz look straight by comparison.
David
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No, not really. From a very early time -- the early Egyptians -- it was recognized that art almost always contained a variety of manipulations that removed it from reality.
That's an interesting concept, 'art removed from reality'. How does anyone find any meaning in something that is removed from reality? If a painting or sculpture is not based on reality, or what one understands as reality or what one recognises as reality, how does one understand what it is or what it represents?
Hieroglyphics and Chinese Pictographs that sometimes have a slight resemblance to the object they denote in a language, are in a different category. They have been deliberately distorted, reduced in size and vastly simplified for good practical reasons. Any artistic origins relating to reality have been jettisoned to make the language usable.
However, if you wish to include ancient languages of a pictographic nature in the same general category as paintings and sculpture, then for the sake of clarity I will amend my statement that you quoted, as follows.
"Haven't all paintings and sculptures throughout history derived at least some of their strength and often much of their strength, if not all of their strength, from an intimate connection with reality, as perceived by the viewer?" Is that better? ;)
The thing that gave photography its power, right from the start, is that it in some way *removed* psychological and cultural manipulations. Artists of wildly different styles and temperaments could set up a camera in front of a landscape, and shooting one-after-another, take essentially identical photographs. They couldn't do that in their painting, nor would they want to.
That's a gross oversimplification, John. Hundreds of books have been written since the invention of the camera on how to get correct exposures to retain detail in the sky, for example, or manipulate artificial lighting to make a portrait more appealing, or raise shadows during the development stage, whether in Darkroom or Lightroom. It's very unlikely that artists of wildly different styles and temperaments would take essentially identical photographs of the same scene, unless of course you are referring to a specific camera that has been preset on a tripod and all that the artist is required to do is press the shutter button, as a monkey could do.
So why go to photography at all? Because when it came to the most difficult images -- portraits -- the painter simply couldn't match them for flat, uninflected realism. This is the essential element that gives photography its power: the camera doesn't fix anything, doesn't look away, doesn't react to the cultural or psychological state of the artist. The camera simply takes an image.
You're writing as though the camera is a robot. It has no volition. The photographer takes the image using the camera as a tool. The camera and lens usually offer lots of choices of different settings, and some cameras do a lot of electronic 'fixing' to get a particular effect in the resulting jpeg.
However, I agree that any person with relatively little training, can produce, using a camera, a very detailed and life-like portrait or landscape which would takes years of prior training and days of painstaking work for a painter to replicate with a reasonable degree of accuracy. I can understand why Picasso at some stage in his early career became very despondent about this fact. Why try to compete with the photographer! And he didn't.
What I don't agree with is this notion that simply because the photographer is capable of producing a realistically accurate, forensic, documentary or journalistic image using the camera, and usually a more accurate image than the most skilful painter, that he should therefore be confined to such restrictions and not allowed to be freely creative using Photoshop. That would be ridiculous. As long as the photo is correctly classified as 'photographic art', that's fine by me.
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Sure, Ray. Photography, painting, sculpture, bulldozers, Eggs Benedict, it's all pretty much the same stuff. No point in trying to distinguish between them.
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If a photo (portrait) needs to push as close to objective reality as possible, then removing colour would be an immediate disqualification. I don't agree with that.
What if color is subjective?
…color is not something out there in the world, separate from us (http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/10/361219912/if-the-same-shade-looks-both-yellow-and-gray-whats-color).
"The agreed-upon technical definition of color," says Fairchild, "is that it's a visual perception."
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Did you perhaps intend to post this quotation down in User Critiques or Discussing Photographic Styles to provoke Russ Lewis? :-)
Where does it fit into this discussion? (Question not criticism).
I was quoting Andre Bazin to echo John Camp's post. Photography's strength is that it bypasses human manipulation.
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Sure, Ray. Photography, painting, sculpture, bulldozers, Eggs Benedict, it's all pretty much the same stuff. No point in trying to distinguish between them.
Just out of curiosity, Andrew, I wonder what I've written specifically that implies that I think there is no point in trying to distinguish between a painting and a bulldozer. I always like to be clear in my writing. ;)
The evolution and survival of the human species has been, and will presumably continue to be dependent upon our capacity to distinguish between such obvious differences that you mention, and much subtler differences as well.
You should know if you've read a few of my posts dealing with the technical side of photography that I'm very fussy about dynamic range. The lack of dynamic range capacity of certain cameras can result in some parts of photographic images of certain scenes, specifically the deep shadows, being far less accurate than such shadows would be, or could be, in a painting of the same scene.
Likewise, there are probably countless millions of photos that have been taken since the camera became popular, that depict totally unrealistic skies; far less realistic in fact than any painter could produce. I'm talking about totally white skies devoid of detail, ie. blown skies.
That the camera, generally, and in the right hands, can be a very efficient tool for capturing a moment in time with great ease, accuracy and detail, is not under dispute, and this is obviously the great attraction of the camera.
I just find it very odd that some folks seem to disapprove of photographic manipulation but seem okay with the manipulations employed by painters and sculptors throughout the ages.
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Sure, Ray:
In response to my remarks about where photographs specifically get their strength, you started out with:
Haven't all paintings and sculptures throughout history derived much of their strength, if not all of their strength, from an intimate connection with reality, as perceived by the viewer?
Which pretty much seems to be an effort to smash photos, paintings, and sculpture all together, because, after all, their strength derives from the same place. And then you go in the same vein for several posts. This is to willfully miss the point of photography which I was reiterating, and which John quite clearly laid out in a later post. Photography is different from painting in interesting ways, with certain consequences, and so on. And they you cheerfully reply with 'eh, nah, I feel like it's pretty much the same as painting and stuff, and I am going to ignore your point'.
Actually, it's pretty clear that you're playing debate club games of just trying to knock over whatever the other fellow is saying, without any sort of thesis or idea of your own. But that is, I admit, a bit of extrapolation.
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Sure, Ray:
In response to my remarks about where photographs specifically get their strength, you started out with:
Which pretty much seems to be an effort to smash photos, paintings, and sculpture all together, because, after all, their strength derives from the same place. And then you go in the same vein for several posts. This is to willfully miss the point of photography which I was reiterating, and which John quite clearly laid out in a later post. Photography is different from painting in interesting ways, with certain consequences, and so on. And they you cheerfully reply with 'eh, nah, I feel like it's pretty much the same as painting and stuff, and I am going to ignore your point'.
Actually, it's pretty clear that you're playing debate club games of just trying to knock over whatever the other fellow is saying, without any sort of thesis or idea of your own. But that is, I admit, a bit of extrapolation.
Not at all. I always try to be factual and logical. I would never be so silly as to argue that a camera is not a different type of tool to a paint brush.
My thesis is that most artists, until the invention and development of the camera, have probably tried to represent reality in paintings and sculptures to the best of their ability, given the primitive tools available at the time and within the context, traditions, understanding of perspective, and general limitations of the times they lived in.
We live in modern times and now have the benefit of amazing and fantastic tools, such as digital cameras and Photoshop. My thesis also makes the point that just because we now have the ability to produce a more accurate representation of most scenes using a camera rather than a paintbrush, and can certainly represent such scenes with greater ease and speed, it does not follow that artistic manipulation of the photographic image should be out of bounds or off limits.
Just as an artist with a paintbrush might deliberately enhance and distort a person's appearance when painting a portrait, in order to flatter the client, or perhaps reveal a hidden character trait; and just as the artist with a paintbrush might create an exaggerated dramatic effect when painting a landscape, or introduce some symbolic significance, the photographer should be allowed to achieve similar effects using his tools.
What's your problem! ;)
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And so you persist, Ray. The camera, you will generously allow, is a completely different tool for doing pretty much the same thing.
Again, you dismiss, this time without even mentioning it, the idea that photographs are different. You deny a hundred years of scholarship. You deny a broad history of geopolitical impact made by photos which would have been impossible with etchings or paintings or whatever. In your universe, the USA is still fighting in Vietnam.
By denying that photos have been essentially different objects, you make a silly statement. By doing so dismissively, airily, even a little snootily, you manage to not only be wrong but insulting.
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Conceding that we have a number of honest differences in viewpoint represented here, I'd like to suggest that people who are interested in this subject either take a look at James Nachtwey's book "Inferno," or simply Google "James Nachtwey" and then go to "Images." The thing that happens with Nachtwey's best work is that he captures the most brutal images of war, and yet, coming through many of them you see an aesthetic, you see the hand of an artist. The point I'm making here is that some of the most powerful art being made right now is being made by photographers, in certain small niches. (In my mind, painting and sculpture somewhat have lost their way in the past forty years or so.) So -- Nachtwey's work is both powerful, and it's art. Not simply photojournalism, but a step far beyond that. In that work, I think you see the real crystalized potential of photography, and why manipulation tends to weaken a photo, rather than strengthen it. I would like to see a landscape, portrait, or street photography as aesthetically powerful as Nachtwey's war photography. Can it be done? I don't know, but I don't think we're finding out, because I don't think many photographers (that I know of) are really trying to do that, really have aspirations that high, are willing to take those aesthetic risks. Changing a pink sky to lavender really doesn't get there.
Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer recently had a print sale of a landscape photographer from England, named Kate Kirkwood, who is doing the kind of stretching I find quite rare. Some of her images are here:
http://www.katekirkwood.com
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Conceding that we have a number of honest differences in viewpoint represented here, I'd like to suggest that people who are interested in this subject either take a look at James Nachtwey's book "Inferno," or simply Google "James Nachtwey" and then go to "Images." The thing that happens with Nachtwey's best work is that he captures the most brutal images of war, and yet, coming through many of them you see an aesthetic, you see the hand of an artist. The point I'm making here is that some of the most powerful art being made right now is being made by photographers, in certain small niches. (In my mind, painting and sculpture somewhat have lost their way in the past forty years or so.) So -- Nachtwey's work is both powerful, and it's art. Not simply photojournalism, but a step far beyond that. In that work, I think you see the real crystalized potential of photography, and why manipulation tends to weaken a photo, rather than strengthen it. I would like to see a landscape, portrait, or street photography as aesthetically powerful as Nachtwey's war photography. Can it be done? I don't know, but I don't think we're finding out, because I don't think many photographers (that I know of) are really trying to do that, really have aspirations that high, are willing to take those aesthetic risks. Changing a pink sky to lavender really doesn't get there.
Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer recently had a print sale of a landscape photographer from England, named Kate Kirkwood, who is doing the kind of stretching I find quite rare. Some of her images are here:
http://www.katekirkwood.com
I don't even consider the debate "Is photography art?" any more. It is.
But, just like paintings, it can be great, powerful, etc or it can be trivial, boring etc, or anywhere in between.
So, I don't think that your question, of how good/effective it is, is relevant to the question of whether it is art or not; more relevant to the question of is it good art or crap. And it's really drifting off the topic of whether manipulated, photo-based images are photographic (art) or are they graphic art.
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And so you persist, Ray. The camera, you will generously allow, is a completely different tool for doing pretty much the same thing.
Again, you dismiss, this time without even mentioning it, the idea that photographs are different. You deny a hundred years of scholarship. You deny a broad history of geopolitical impact made by photos which would have been impossible with etchings or paintings or whatever. In your universe, the USA is still fighting in Vietnam.
By denying that photos have been essentially different objects, you make a silly statement. By doing so dismissively, airily, even a little snootily, you manage to not only be wrong but insulting.
Lighten up on the ad hominem Andrew. It establishes only that your own view is hardly comprehensive or convincing. Your conception of what photography "is" happens to be more personal and subjective than you seem willing to accept. Yes, photography has unique characteristics which permit it to render images with exceptional levels of realism, if one so chooses. That is but one facet of the medium.
There exists a class of individuals for whom the notion of the existence of an objective truth is of super-ordinate importance (to the extent they often lose perspective on the fact that their attachment to such is hardly universal). My sense is that it is this sub-group for whom 'veracity' in photography takes on the neo-religious level of importance that underlies the vitriolic expression found in this discussion.
Photography is no truer than religion.
- N.
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Pointing out that someone is wrong and insulting is not ad hominem.
If it is not the uniquely photographic connection to reality that has made photography especially powerful and important (in the ways that it has been powerful and important), then what did? What is the mechanism by which photography sways public opinion in ways that no other medium does?
That's all falling by the wayside nowadays, which is both inevitable and unfortunate.
Arguably, telling someone that their carefully researched, thought out, and argued positions are really just cultist blather is ad hominem. You're failing to address the substance and instead dismissing the idea out of hand, and making accusations about the other chap. Hmm. Yup.
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It is fun watching people argue on the Internets Tubes. ;D
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I suspect that I'm getting a certain amount of blowback because people think I am telling them they shouldn't photoshop their pictures.
I'm not.
I'm saying that photoshopping your pictures has consequences, and implying rather broadly that, as with most actions with consequences, it behooves one to think about it a little before charging ahead. And, since I find those consequences interesting, I'm talking about them a bit.
But by all means, photoshop away. Stretch the mountains out, remove telephone wires, add in trees, paste in a sky from someplace else. I don't mind a bit.
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Yes, photography has unique characteristics which permit it to render images with exceptional levels of realism, if one so chooses. That is but one facet of the medium.
This would be a good place to list other facets of the medium and suggest why you consider them to be more important.
(Ignacio presented landscapes, so please provide examples from landscape photography.)
It would be nice to stop treating it as a debate at all, and simply move to a paradigm in which the aesthetic and communicational value/success of images are considered, free of nonsense about what is 'real'.
Within the aesthetic of landscape photography does a fake light shaft demonstrate expressive authenticity (http://www.denisdutton.com/authenticity.htm) ?
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I was quoting Andre Bazin to echo John Camp's post. Photography's strength is that it bypasses human manipulation.
In context (https://books.google.com/books?id=y3EKWOUQtxcC&lpg=PA13&dq='All%20the%20arts%20are%20based%20on%20the%20presence%20of%20man%2C%20only%20photography%20derives%20an%20advantage%20from%20his%20absence.'&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=%22All%20the%20arts%20are%20based%20on%20the%20presence%20of%20man,%20only%20photography%20derives%20an%20advantage%20from%20his%20absence.%22&f=false), and what about photography's [pdf] "capacity to engage with both the process and experience of time" (http://www.metelerkamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Questioning-Realism-web-version.pdf) ?
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I've written in a fair bit of detail on this subject elsewhere. Here's a mildly abridged version of that material:
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It’s undeniable is that a photograph's power as a photograph derives from some sort of deep connection with reality. If photographs are to be a thing in their own right, that connection with reality has to count for something -- because there isn't anything else. If you truly think photographs are really just quick paintings, I suppose you can stop reading here.
We, the viewer, tend to make two mistakes. The big one is that we confuse the 1/30th of a second of reality with something larger and longer. How often have you heard someone exclaim, about a photograph of someone they do not know, "Oh, you really captured her personality" when, of course, there's not a shred of evidence that is true? A successful portrait feels like a picture that captures personality. We assume that, from a look at the picture, we understand in a useful way what was going on there and then.
The second mistake we make is to assume that what we see is, at least, the truth of that 1/30th of a second. We assume that what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment. This is also untrue, of course. There's stuff outside the frame, there's manipulation within the frame, and so on.
The first mistake is built upon the second. We trust the truth of the captured instant, and extrapolate from that. When we find the frame itself to be untrue, the whole charade collapses. Which is why people get SO MAD about doctored news photos.
Thus, in the past, we had a situation in which the reality of a photograph was assumed. If it looked real, the assumption was "it looked pretty much like that", that's pretty much what most people thought when they saw the picture. This is why a photo of a little girl running down a road, naked and on fire, had such an impact on the Vietnam war. A painting of that same scene, a drawing, a verbal description, would have had far less impact simply because the viewer would automatically assume that it could never have really looked like that. That's utter madness, nothing is that terrible. And yet, it was just that terrible, the child's terror and pain was just that great.
There is a reason that the US military is controlling the photographic narrative from their current wars so tightly. They'd really prefer not to have their lovely lovely wars messed with, thankyouverymuch, and they have learned some painful lessons in what happens when you let accurate visual depictions of war escape into the public eye.
That was then, this is now.
The generation after mine is, to a large degree, distrustful of the contents of the frame. They assume all photos are 'shopped, are manipulated, and edited. Half erasures and half composite, all untruth. They don't seem to mind this, but the result is that we as a culture are starting to view photographs as quickly made drawings, with no more truth or reality in them than the maker chose to put in. The deep connection with reality is being, I think, broken.
Nobody makes the second mistake much any more, we’re mostly too clever. The first mistake can’t be far behind.
If people no longer believe in the content of the frame, then they no longer believe that there’s anything special about a photograph. It’s just a fast way of drawing, and might contain anything the photographer wants it to. The little girl running down the road on fire? That’s probably just a still from the latest Mad Max film, isn’t it? And anyways it can’t have been that bad, the photographer probably ‘shopped it to pep it up a bit. Whatever.
Where is Vietnam, anyways, and what do you want to do tonight?
Does this mean that it’s bad to photoshop some mountains? Nope. You’re just part of an inevitable sea change in the way people look at photos. There’s no stopping it, and there’s no moral victory in putting the computer away.
Wouldn’t hurt you any to think about these things a bit, though.
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An excellent post. I agree with everything you said, except with reservations when you say, "The deep connection with reality is being, I think, broken."
I initially thought the Internet was revolutionary, but it just turned out to be another form of television which makes it easier to look at programs (i.e. websites) that you like, and you have a million channels, instead of 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from. In other words, I think that the skepticism (not necessarily cynicism) about the net has finally set in, and that's a good thing.
The same is true with photography. I think the digital revolution in photography (as expressed most comprehensively in Photoshop) has damaged the medium's reputation for veracity, but only for now. Eventually, I think, the boat will right itself; it just might take a few more years, and "manipulated" photographs, and especially manipulated "art," will be seriously devalued. An optimistic view, I admit, and it may not happen...but I think it will.
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... Wouldn’t hurt you any to think about these things a bit, though.
Darn, Andrew, you may be asking a bit too much of many. What I experience daily in the office, on the roads or on foot down town makes me wonder if possibly a majority have forgotten how to think on their own. After all, it can be dangerous! One might come to different conclusions that others.
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I hope you're right, John. Still, I suspect the genie is out of the bottle. We have photorealistic effects in movies, even in utterly mundane films.
We have photoshopped celebrities on every magazine cover.
We have North Korea's hilarious efforts at propaganda, monthly, it sometimes seems.
And so on. You'd have to be a starry eyed idealist to believe in any of the Important Photos if it were made today, surely?
But I hope you're right. I like that photography is more than painting really fast. And I do see your point. If people simply get over it, or if we are more at pains to separate altered from unaltered, perhaps there will re-open a space for the reality based picture? There are paths one can imagine back, I suppose!
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We have photorealistic effects in movies, even in utterly mundane films.
We have photoshopped celebrities on every magazine cover.
But people don't watch movies, and they don't buy magazines. Instead they look at photos of their friends and family on Facebook. These photos, mainly shot on smartphones, are unmanipulated; pixels have not been shifted. Sure, 'filters' may have been applied, but most of these filters attempt to simulate the aura of the film-based photograph; by approximating the look of film, the filter appears to give the image greater depth and authenticity. As pixels aren't moved, the image retains its indexical relationship to reality. Indeed, it thrives off it. Facebook is the contemporary 'space for the reality based picture'.
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Thanks for a great discussion, and for the article that started it :)
I tend to think of art as meta-reality. The best of such art in is more real than reality - for me. I find some of the best of such art in graphic fiction (Scott Adams, Neil Gailman, ...).
Should photography be like this? Yes, imo those that publish photos do it for a reason. The reason is that we want to say something. This can be "look how great I am". Aside from this why not try to enhance the photo, to make it a better representation of reality if this is the goal of the photo? I only capture a tiny aspect of the reality when make an exposure. From that starting point its only fair to have the means to better represent the reality.
So to add to the great post from amolitor; wouldn't hurt to think about why you share a photo.
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It’s undeniable is that a photograph's power as a photograph derives from some sort of deep connection with reality.
Denied: A photograph is merely a shallow reflection of past sensibly-perceptible-reality - but that's more than we have without a photograph.
If photographs are to be a thing in their own right, that connection with reality has to count for something -- because there isn't anything else.
Yes there is something else - Quick&EasyTM image-making (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=99231.msg813973#msg813973). (Compare to tracing (https://books.google.com/books?id=7NrmQgAACAAJ) mirror or lens images, and consider that photographs are being replaced by computer generated images when that's quicker and easier and cheaper.)
Yes there is something else - by virtue of Quick&EasyTM image-making, a "capacity to engage with both the process and experience of time".
There's a shallow reflection of reality and Quick&EasyTM and a capacity to engage with time and …
We, the viewer, tend to make two mistakes.
We, the writer, tend to make two mistakes -- over-generalization and overreach.
"Oh, you really captured her personality" can be understood as a polite social utterance rather than a statement of belief.
We may indeed "from a look at the picture, … understand in a useful way what was going on there and then" (depends what's useful).
We assume that what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment. This is also untrue, of course. There's stuff outside the frame, there's manipulation within the frame, and so on.
"There's stuff outside the frame" does not contradict "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment".
The assumption "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment" is contingent on the premise that the photograph was not manipulated.
The generation after mine is…
Is that just your assumption, or a generalization from a handful of individuals to a generation, or …
Enough already!
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Published: November 4, 1984 (http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/04/magazine/photography-s-new-bag-of-tricks.html?pagewanted=4)
"In the not-too-distant future, realistic-looking images will probably have to be labeled, like words, as either fiction or nonfiction, because it may be impossible to tell them apart. We may have to rely on the image maker, and not the image, to tell us into which category certain pictures fall."
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1984! Whoever wrote it, would make a good futurist.
Maybe soon we will, indeed, need labeling to categorize photographs: journalistic, forensic, artistic, abstract, composites, panoramas, ...
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Whoever wrote it…
Fred Ritchin, a former photo editor of The New York Times Magazine.
The underlined link provides the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/04/magazine/photography-s-new-bag-of-tricks.html
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Isaac, you appear to be trying to rebut my argument by talking about Photography, the activity.
I'm talking about Photography, a body of two dimensional visual objects.
Since we're talking about two almost completely different things, I don't think there's any scope for an actual discussion.
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I'm talking about Photography, a body of two dimensional visual objects.
The comment I gave specific-reply-to never mentioned (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg834094#msg834094) "photography" - you talked about photographs and so did I.
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Your 'quick and easy' reference refers to the activity of photography.
It's quite tiresome to follow-up your citations and dig through them to find out, invariably, that they are completely off point despite some trivial keyword matches.
I don't know if you're doing it deliberately, and I don't care. Which is why I so rarely bother to reply to you.
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Your 'quick and easy' reference refers to the activity of photography.
To the process of photography - by virtue of which we gain a capacity to engage with time - as-well-as the pursuit of photography.
Similarly your claim of "some sort of deep connection with reality" refers to the process of photography.
It's quite tiresome to follow-up your citations and dig through them to find out, invariably, that they are completely off point despite some trivial keyword matches.
I look forward to your clarification of how "There's stuff outside the frame" is an example of something untrue about "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment".
I look forward to your clarification of why we would assume "what we see in the frame was, at least, what was literally there at that moment" if we knew "there's manipulation within the frame".
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No. I am talking about objects not activity. Claiming otherwise is simply wrong.
I am the authority on the subject of 'what is Andrew talking about' and you are not.
Your lame pseudo intellectual efforts to wrest me off track and waste my time are for naught.
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No. I am talking about objects not activity. Claiming otherwise is simply wrong.
If your claim of "some sort of deep connection with reality" does not refer to "the process of photography" - recording light - what does it refer to?
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Does anyone else need any help with these clarifications or is it pretty much just Isaac?
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Just Isaac.
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Does anyone else need any help with these clarifications or is it pretty much just Isaac?
Take any response to what you write as an opportunity to expound, for the alternative is no interest in what you write (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101662.msg834345#msg834345).
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Does anyone else need any help with these clarifications or is it pretty much just Isaac?
You are wasting your time with Isaac. :(
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The photographic artist still selects the image he/she wants, but the raw image itself is firmly attached to an exterior reality, rather than the interior psychology of the artist.
A live video feed might be "firmly attached to an exterior reality"; a photograph is firmly detached.
You seem to be describing a photo-booth rather than "a photographic artist".
The camera simply takes an image.
You seem to be describing a photo-booth rather than comparing a portrait painter with a portrait photographer.
Many portrait artists today use photography to reinforce particular aspects of a portrait that they may have difficulty capturing in a live session, and in my opinion, to the extent that they do that, the deader the image becomes. Painted portraits, IMHO, require the psychology, culture and hand of the artist to be foremost, because that's where painting's strength is; a photographic portrait needs to push as close to an objective realism as possible, because that where the photographic strength lies.
There have been many celebrated portrait photographers. Which of them are celebrated for pushing as close to an objective realism as possible?
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There have been many celebrated portrait photographers. Which of them are celebrated for pushing as close to an objective realism as possible?
Thomas Ruff.
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I've noticed that in most threads, after they reach 3 or 4 pages, it is mostly the same 7 or 8 people posting dozens of messages, back and forth, talking NOT about the topic, but criticizing what the others have written. And ultimately, telling each other figuratively (and sometimes literally) that they are idiots. And it usually is the same 6 or 7 people in whichever sub-forum you look at.
Hmmmmm What a coincidence!
They are, if nothing else, prolific.
Brad
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Conversations and discussions do tend to progress.
But yes, the descent in to nitpicking about what 'is' is appears to be inevitable. I try to avoid it and get back on track, but am obviously not always successful.
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…talking NOT about the topic, but criticizing what the others have written.
Are you talking about the topic? :-)
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Thomas Ruff.
"I didn’t want to hide anything. Yet I also didn’t want the people I portrayed to show any emotion."
pdf "Does a portrait without identity still have value to us as people?" Gil Blank and Thomas Ruff in Conversation (http://www.gilblank.com/images/pdfs/blankruffintvw.pdf) 2004.
A photo-booth would have allowed the people to show or not show emotion as they wished, but the artist photographer seems to have had his own agenda.
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A photo-booth would have allowed the people to show or not show emotion as they wished, but the artist photographer seems to have had his own agenda.
Yes, his agenda is to get 'as close to an objective realism as possible'.
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Is 'as close to an objective realism as possible' something Thomas Ruff claimed, somewhere?
"I wanted to do a kind of official portrait of my generation. I wanted the photographs to look like those in passports… I didn’t want the police/viewer to get any information about us. They shouldn’t be able to know what we felt at that moment, whether we were happy or sad."
Why should we take deadpan to be objective realism?
(Thanks for mentioning Thomas Ruff, the interview is quite interesting.)
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Why should we take deadpan to be objective realism?
Good question. Why do the authorities forbid us from smiling in ID photographs?
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Why do the authorities forbid us from smiling in ID photographs?
To keep the facial recognition software happy -- "New Jersey bans smiles on driver's licenses to safeguard facial recognition (http://rt.com/usa/license-jersey-recognition-face-956/)"
US Passport Photo Requirements -- "Taken with a neutral facial expression (preferred) or a natural smile (http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/passports/photos/photos.html), and with both eyes open"
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Not allowed to smile is on the passport photographs is one thing, which has some logic behind it.
But the finishing of those photographs is abominable, I don't know what patent or machinery they use.
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And, like a mother bird faking a broken wing to draw the predators away from the nest, Isaac finally succeeds in dragging the thread into the weeds.
Another victory.
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And, like a mother bird faking a broken wing to draw the predators away from the nest, Isaac finally succeeds in dragging the thread into the weeds.
Another victory.
Are you talking about the topic?
Please answer my previous (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg834706#msg834706) requests (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg834683#msg834683) that you clarify your comments. If you wish to change what you said previously, do so.
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I was wrong.
It is not fun watching people argue on the Internets Tubes. :(
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watching people argue
Without a shared willingness to provide supporting evidence and adapt in response to counter-arguments and counter-evidence, there's no more than - What I said is right because I said it.
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I am, of course, willing to respond to most people's requests for clarification.
There's a very short list of people I am not willing to do that for, because of their demonstrated unwillingness to listen. If your goal is to drag me off topic and to waste my time, a) I am on to your game and b) No.
The list includes more people than Isaac, for reference.
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My game is that I'm willing to have others show that I'm mistaken because that's an opportunity for me to learn.
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There have been many celebrated portrait photographers. Which of them are celebrated for pushing as close to an objective realism as possible?
Thomas Ruff.
Yes, his agenda is to get 'as close to an objective realism as possible'.
"We all lost bit by bit the belief in this so-called objective capturing of real reality.
…
I've been asked a lot why my portraits never smile. … And in the seventies in Germany we had a so-called Terrorismushysterie: the secret service surveyed people who were against nuclear power; the government created or invented a so-called Berufsverbot. This meant left-wing teachers were dismissed, so sometimes it was better not to tell what you were thinking. All over we have those video cameras, in the supermarkets, the car park. In big places everywhere you've got those cameras. If you stand in front of a customs officer, you try to make a face like the one in your passport. So why should my portraits be communicative at a time when you could be prosecuted for your sympathies."
Journal of Contemporary Art (http://www.jca-online.com/ruff.html) (edit: Summer 1993, pp78-86)
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Another interesting link. Thank you.
I still believe that Ruff, in his portraits, is working in an objective, realist paradigm (Neue Sachlichkeit, The Bechers etc). In his later work we become aware that his practice is about a critique of different modes of representation. And so the portraits, with their apparent objectivity, start to seem ironic.
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I still believe that Ruff, in his portraits, is working in an objective, realist paradigm … the portraits, with their apparent objectivity, …
Fortunately, for this discussion, I don't think Thomas Ruff's artistic intentions matter much. I don't think we need to bother about whether his intentions changed between the 1981 24x18cm prints and the 1985 210x165cm prints; or whether his stage direction achieves an aesthetic of objectivity, by being less than objective.
"I had lost my faith in photography and I wanted to understand what it really is about. So I decided to see what would happen when no photographer is there, just the subject and the camera." … Delahaye randomly asked homeless and destitute Parisians he encountered in the Metro to have their picture taken alone in a photo booth (http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/sullivan/sullivan4-10-03.asp).
I'll certainly accept Luc Delahaye's project as pushing towards "an objective realism".
Now to the point of the question I asked John Camp (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg834915#msg834915): while we might find a few projects like these, won't we find an overwhelming number of celebrated portrait photographers who do not "push as close to an objective realism as possible" ?
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Why should we take deadpan to be objective realism?
Good question. …
"What's in a Face? Blankness and Significance in Contemporary Art Photography (http://www.jstor.org/stable/40368490?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)", Julian Stallabrass, 2007.
If you're interested in that sort of thing :-)
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I was quoting Andre Bazin to echo John Camp's post. Photography's strength is that it bypasses human manipulation.
For sake of argument, let's accept that description. That does not make pure un-manipulated photography the strongest photography. That does not make "push as close to an objective realism as possible" the prescription for a strong "photographic portrait".
Pure un-manipulated photography has weaknesses and deficiencies, which we remedy to make a stronger less-pure photography.
The question is not purity, but whether the different properties we each consider to be essential are lost or preserved.
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The drive towards realism has marked many of photography's greatest moments (Atget, Evans, Arbus, Avedon, Ruff etc). I'm not sure if purity comes into it. All photography is rhetoric - even giving your subject a coin to take his own portrait in a photo booth. In the essay you linked to, Stallabrass speaks of an 'objective style' - that's probably more appropriate than 'objective realism'. John Camp was simply arguing that indexicality is an important property of photography. Yet the index is always dressed up in one way or another - therein lies the 'objective style'. All photographs are manipulations, but I don't think it's unreasonable to have an aversion to the particular manipulation that breaks the index (i.e. pixel pushing in Photoshop).
Anyway, the key participants in this conversation seem to have left the building.
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John Camp was simply arguing that indexicality is an important property of photography.
I don't think so; but if that's how you'd like to read his comment then let's read Nick Devlin's comment as -- Yes, we know (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg833938#msg833938).
All photographs are manipulations, but I don't think it's unreasonable to have an aversion to the particular manipulation that breaks the index (i.e. pixel pushing in Photoshop).
I think it would be unreasonable to have an aversion to one technology "that breaks the index" but not some other technology, if the concern really is "that breaks the index".
I think it would be unreasonable to have an aversion to "that breaks the index" without consideration of the result, if the concern really is stronger photography.
Anyway, the key participants in this conversation seem to have left the building.
All the better to preserve their opinions ;-)
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The drive towards realism has marked many of photography's greatest moments (Atget, Evans, Arbus, Avedon, Ruff etc). I'm not sure if purity comes into it.
This is the Approved Narrative, at any rate.
There's always been a split between.. well, between somewhat fluid groups. One side, generally speaking, opposes manipulations to some degree or another, the other side taking the "anything goes" approach. The idea that the "greatest moments" have been consistently lunges in the direction of realism is a fairly clear case of history being written by the victors.
We're currently in a very weird position, historically, where the prevailing actual belief is that "anything goes" but the prevailing "heros" were largely somewhere in the anti-manipulation camp. The Victorian-era manipulators, in particular, are widely reviled.
The only substantive argument I have ever seen that opposes manipulation for any reason better than "I hate that guy" is that photographs ought to look like and be photographs, rather than paintings. This pops up here and there throughout history, but nobody ever really tries to make much sense of it, and these days the argument seems to be almost entirely lost. Except for a few fringe weirdos like me.
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As a side note, I'm not sure indexical means what you think it means. I am pretty sure I understand what you intend by the word, but since its definition is something quite different (as near as I can tell) I'm not sure.
If you had a moment to do so, I'd be grateful if you unpacked your intended meaning for us a little.
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An index, as I understand it, is a sign that has a physical connection with the reality that it signifies. The index is an imprint of that reality. So the wax impression that a dentist makes of your teeth is an index. And so is a photograph - if it hasn't been manipulated.
CS Pierce came up with the concept. (It's possible I've misunderstood it - if so, please correct me.)
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Got it, that makes a lot of sense and is a Very Useful Concept.
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An index, as I understand it, is a sign that has a physical connection with the reality that it signifies. The index is an imprint of that reality. So the wax impression that a dentist makes of your teeth is an index. And so is a photograph - if it hasn't been manipulated.
Then the more detailed and accurate the index the more numerous are the realities which it signifies.
A blade of grass implies the remaining universe, but that does not make it art. Walt Whitman makes it art.
Bruce
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Huh?
An index has, by definition, a physical connection with the reality that it signifies, which would (one thinks) substantially limit the realities it signifies.
This is perhaps one of the virtues of the concept as applied to straight photography: rather some some navel-gazing semiotic masturbation in which whole worlds might be seen, by the sufficiently inspired critic, in a painting, the photograph admits but a single reality. Albeit a rather limited and narrow one.
When we insist (as we do) that the photograph comment on time beyond the moment of exposure, and on things beyond the scope of the frame and the visual, we tend to get in to trouble. But at least we start from a singular and well defined place. To wit: the reality which made the imprint that is embodied by the photograph.
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Oh, well OK, if you want to see it that way.
I think there never is one reality associated with any photograph. This is photography's strength. It is never merely about the photographer, the subject, or the social context. Painting can [sometimes] in contrast suffer from being limited to the narrow view of painter.
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I think there never is one reality associated with any photograph. [ ... ] Painting can [sometimes] in contrast suffer from being limited to the narrow view of painter.
I don't get this at all. Could you expand it a little? I was.. sort of.. OK until you contrasted it with the narrowness of painting.
How does a photograph get to be looser, freer, less confined to reality, than a painting?
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And so is a photograph - if it hasn't been manipulated.
fwiw "One of the insights afforded to us by computational photography, is the understanding that whether an image has a resemblance to an object or not has little to do with indexicality (https://books.google.com/books?id=8U_7AAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA20&ots=NF_DcmaLOv&dq=%22A%20Sack%20in%20the%20Sand%3A%20Photography%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Information%22&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q=%22has%20little%20to%20do%20with%20indexicality%22&f=false). Rather it has everything to do with the algorithmic processes that operate on the raw data collected by the light-sensitive sensors in a camera. … These insights allow us to revisit the 'indexicality' of the analogue photograph and to suggest that here too there is a sort of computation at work…"
fwiw "As myriad critics have pointed out, the application of Peirce’s term to photographic practice was inherently flawed from the outset because… (http://dismagazine.com/discussion/41736/a-discursive-mask/)"
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All photography is rhetoric - even giving your subject a coin to take his own portrait in a photo booth.
Being rhetoric is one of the more unfortunate of the many realities which befalls photography in its position as a vital art form. Painting, being dead, can say nothing if it chooses.
I am willing to fancy some singular reality, but it is excruciatingly vague and in no way photogenic.
Though they may be in the same photo, the index of a raven is not the same reality as the index of a writing desk.
Bruce
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fwiw "One of the insights afforded to us by computational photography, is the understanding that whether an image has a resemblance to an object or not has little to do with indexicality (https://books.google.com/books?id=8U_7AAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA20&ots=NF_DcmaLOv&dq=%22A%20Sack%20in%20the%20Sand%3A%20Photography%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20Information%22&pg=PA28#v=onepage&q=%22has%20little%20to%20do%20with%20indexicality%22&f=false). Rather it has everything to do with the algorithmic processes that operate on the raw data collected by the light-sensitive sensors in a camera. … These insights allow us to revisit the 'indexicality' of the analogue photograph and to suggest that here too there is a sort of computation at work…"
The fact that there is a photographic process (chemical with film, algorithmic with digital) doesn't undermine photography's indexical status.
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Though they may be in the same photo, the index of a raven is not the same reality as the index of a writing table.
Intriguing. Where's Poe?
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Intriguing. Where's Poe?
If he got to choose, in hell, I guess.
You'll be glad to know that there already exist extensive scholarship on the question of why a raven is like a writing... Sorry, I miss quoted. It should be "desk". I will go back and change it.
Bruce
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Bruce, I confess that I am not following you really at all.
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I'm interested in the idea that a photograph can have multiple realities, and can extend outside of the frame, both spatially and temporally. However, I think these dynamics are grounded in the photograph's fundamental indexicality.
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The image data file is a report on the number of photons that fell into each of the camera sensor's photosites during the course of the exposure. It's a record of an event in which light bouncing of the subject was mapped onto the sensor. For sure, it is somewhat abstract compared to photons effecting changes to a piece of silver gelatin.
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Bruce, I confess that I am not following you really at all.
I worry when you say things like: "But at least we start from a singular and well defined place." I think, maybe in mathematics, but not around here. You continue: "To wit: the reality which made the imprint that is embodied by the photograph." From an omniscient point of view it may be "the reality", but the best people can do, outside the spell of an artist, is a mishmash of partially described realities.
We don't know why a raven is like a writing desk, and the more we index them the farther apart they get. They might be parts of a successful photograph, but the photograph does not succeed because they are a single reality but in spite of them being separate realities. Or so it seems to me.
Bruce
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We don't know why a raven is like a writing desk, and the more we index them the farther apart they get.
This is the sort of thing I am not following. With respect, it seems to me to be a sentence that means either nothing or almost nothing. To the extent that I can puzzle the meaning out, it seems to be saying nothing either relevant or interesting.
So, I'm not following.
But that is OK with me, clearly you have some ideas of your own, and I have some of my own, and we're finding one another mutually incomprehensible. It is not the end of the world!
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I mean, if the point is something like this: there's no such thing as objective reality, so there's nothing for a photograph to index there are several problems with this kind of thing.
Immediately:
The first clause is open to discussion, but even if we stipulate that there's no such thing as an objective reality, it does not follow that there's nothing to index. Maybe photos index something else, after all.
At more length:
Even if we stipulate that there's no such thing as an objective reality, AND that there is therefore nothing for a photograph to index, NONETHELESS, the photo exists and is different from a painting. At this point we can start going on about levels of subjective reality, and point out that photos index or are otherwise attached to one level, and paintings another.
Because, ultimately, straight photos are not paintings. They are different and whatever the differences are, wherever they spring from, they are the root of what makes a photograph powerful as a photograph. It literally does not matter what model of reality, of thought, of whatever, you use, because photos are manifestly not paintings. Any model you use that mushes them together is therefore wrong.
Beating around the bush with philosophical koans doesn't actually change that, it just muddies up the water to no particular purpose.
ETA: The point I've been making all along is, in these terms, that people believe in an objective reality, and they believe that a photograph indexes a real slice of that objective reality. Even if we're all brains in vats, it is precisely these beliefs which give photography its distinctive power. If you like, you can delete all discussion of actual realities from what I have said, and replace it with equivalent statements about what people believe, and nothing changes.
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I'm more in favor of Objective Reality than I am in what other people believe. Audiences vary.
Robust though objective reality may be we are unable to perceive it in anything approaching a coherent manner. We just make do.
Photography is part of making do and I agree that indexing is one of its strengths, though only when used well.
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The image data file is a report on the number of photons that fell into each of the camera sensor's photosites during the course of the exposure. It's a record of an event in which light bouncing of the subject was mapped onto the sensor. For sure, it is somewhat abstract compared to photons effecting changes to a piece of silver gelatin.
No longer "an imprint of that reality" but measurements and statistical approximations. (However, I'm not going to take this any further.)
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No longer "an imprint of that reality" but measurements. (However, I'm not going to take this any further.)
That's a relief, as I'm uncertain about my definition of the index as an 'imprint'. It seems to me that the image projected by a camera obscura is an indexical image. Likewise a shadow. The burning of this image into a piece of film, or the analysis of this image by a digital sensor, is not what makes it indexical.
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I'm interested in the idea that a photograph can have multiple realities, and can extend outside of the frame, both spatially and temporally. However, I think these dynamics are grounded in the photograph's fundamental indexicality.
And then: "..............I'm uncertain about my definition of the index as an 'imprint'. ............... the image projected by a camera obscura is an indexical image. Likewise a shadow. The burning of this image into a piece of film, or the analysis of this image by a digital sensor, is not what makes it indexical."
Wow!!!!!! spatially temporally indexicality imprint
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Regardless of whether it is "indexical" or something else is somewhat beside the point. It is something literal enough that we believe we can "know" something about the scene.
Anything that permits us believe that Phan Thị Kim Phúc was truly that terrified would be equivalent. A painting does not have this property, nor does a verbal description (and, increasingly, a photograph doesn't either, which is my thesis in this thread). What it *is* hardly matters, what it *does* to us, what it allows us to believe, that is the important thing. That is the property that photographs have had, a property that photographs are losing for a variety of reasons -- among them the widespread use of photoshop.
The change is not really in the photograph, it is in us.
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Regardless of whether it is "indexical" or something else is somewhat beside the point.
What other "deep connection with reality (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg834094#msg834094)" do you have in mind?
Yes, photography has unique characteristics which permit it to render images with exceptional levels of realism, if one so chooses.
With exceptional levels of perceptual realism - "The apparent realism of digitally processed or created images, then, is a function of the way that multiple levels of perceptual correspondence are built into the image (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213468?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents). These establish reference points with the viewer's own experientially based understanding of light, space, motion, and the behavior of objects in a three-dimensional world."
"… lighting effects that makes them appear to be actual items photographed in a studio or out in the wild. … Technically, KeyShot works by simulating the scattering of photons (http://www.wired.com/2013/03/luxion-keyshot/?viewall=true) as they bounce around in a scene and interact with the different materials."
"But finally I would claim that we still have only the beginnings of an account of the fascination photography exerts and although the use of the term “index” may have helped explain some aspects of this fascination, I am not at all sure it is either an adequate or accurate term. … I think this approach prematurely cuts off the claims … that the photograph exceeds the functions of a sign and that this indeed is part of the fascination it offers."
pdf What’s the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs (http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sites/default/files/kapitel-pdf/157_039-050.pdf) Tom Gunning, 2004
If you're interested in that sort of thing :-)
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That [Andrew's last post] makes sense to me and I agree.
I am in favor of honesty. Credulity, however, must be tempered.
My father kidded his father for believing something merely because it was in print.
Mechanical reproduction can be very helpful, but who do you trust is frequently a better question than what do you trust.
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That [Andrew's last post] makes sense to me and I agree.
That post (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg836012#msg836012) includes several different statements. Do they all make sense to you? Do you agree with all of them?
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Wow!!!!!! spatially temporally indexicality imprint
http://www.dpreview.com
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That post (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg836012#msg836012) includes several different statements. Do they all make sense to you? Do you agree with all of them?
Pretty much.
I too regret the encroachment of human duplicity into systems intended [largely] for enlightenment, whether it's the press, the telephone, photography or the internet.
It's not just bad behavior that's the problem though. The levers of power over the world around us keep getting more effective and widely distributed. Whether we want to or not we are likely to make a mess. Messes are hard to believe in. I think, in the future, people should believe in being part right if they are trying to make it real compared to what. . .
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What it *is* hardly matters, what it *does* to us, what it allows us to believe, that is the important thing. That is the property that photographs have had, a property that photographs are losing for a variety of reasons -- among them the widespread use of photoshop.
Everytime this comes up, Nick Devlin reminds us that photos "… require a witness to testify, on oath, (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg833095#msg833095) that they accurately depicted (at least some facet) of their subject at the relevant time".
"The truth claim must always be supported by rules of discourse, whether rigorously defined (as in scientific or legal evidence) or inherent in general practice (as in the belief that news reporting generally tells the truth; It seems to me that doubts about journalists’ commitments to the truth more likely undermine belief in the truth claim of a photograph than the simple fact of technical manipulability).
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We must keep in mind that only a limited practice of photography ever made accuracy or truth claims an essential part of its practice and that many uses of photography intentionally flout such claims."
pp43-44 "What’s the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs (http://www.nordicom.gu.se/sites/default/files/kapitel-pdf/157_039-050.pdf)"
What's at question in discussion of Ignacio Palacios's article is Sharon's understanding that -- "There is an implied shared experience in landscape photography (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=101482.msg832921#msg832921) - that the photographer stood at that place and witnessed a scene and that the viewer could have been there also. You invite the viewer to share the experience."
Along with something akin to the old controversy --
… concerning artistic labor centered on the accusation that the painter had "contrived to persuade a number of aesthetic individuals who have more money than brains to pay high prices for a few hours' slapdash work with his brush."
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For Ruskin, Whistler's aim was detached from any serious mode of naturalistic inquiry, making his way of painting nothing more than a lazy affectation (https://books.google.com/books?id=ZQu1CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT135&lpg=PT135&dq=%22nothing+more+than+a+lazy+affectation%22&source=bl&ots=71_2QZmoUK&sig=LibQFCultADIbjdYCdpiO1TI__k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=oyqgVb_vN8WzoQS4_arIBQ&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22nothing%20more%20than%20a%20lazy%20affectation%22&f=false)."
p123, Photography and the Art of Chance