Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Chris Calohan on September 14, 2018, 01:08:13 pm
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but on another forum I got into a pissing contest with a wedding photographer and some of his supporters who feel it is okay to have blown highlights and clogged blacks because that is "artistic" license. I called BS and perhaps a bit too loudly but it flies in the face of everything I've learned here and from my own personal experience.
What say youse guys?
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Without seeing it, hard to say. But if the resulting image justifies it, I would have no problem with "blown highlights and clogged blacks."
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but on another forum I got into a pissing contest with a wedding photographer and some of his supporters who feel it is okay to have blown highlights and clogged blacks because that is "artistic" license. I called BS and perhaps a bit too loudly but it flies in the face of everything I've learned here and from my own personal experience.
What say youse guys?
Blown highlights and clogged blacks allergy is a photo club syndrome.
There is no rule here. In one picture it ruins the images, in another it supports the image.
The compulsiveness to inspect each photo in search of clogged blacks and blown highlights is loss of time.
Of coarse, ugly clipped color channels are something else than deliberately placed exposure near to II or VII.
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All depends on the mood, circumstances and surroundings:
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Rob, please some more “clogged” blacks ;)
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Rob, please some more “clogged” blacks ;)
But Slobodan, though they still live in the freezer, I can't get any more Kodachromes processed!
:-)
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I think you've had the only answer anyone can give: "it depends". I suspect that in the vast majority of cases, and in the hands of a photographer less skilled than Rob, they'll look bloody awful, but I don't imagine there's a firm rule.
Jeremy
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Another model with clogged blacks
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Les's image is a near night shot and I would expect solid blacks...but in a daylight, full sun environment, I would not.
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Les's image is a near night shot and I would expect solid blacks...but in a daylight, full sun environment, I would not.
It can be very expressive though...
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IMO "soot & chalk" works when it works. ;D
-Dave-
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But Slobodan, though they still live in the freezer, I can't get any more Kodachromes processed!
:-)
Have them processed as b&w.
Kent in SD
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I would agree that it depends, and more often than not, I personally prefer crushed blacks over blown highlights.
Having said that, there is a trend in wedding photography to use natural light exclusively, which leads to challenging lighting situations, especially in interiors, where it is almost impossible to avoid those issues
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I think what the difference is, is the intent...maybe I'm just too much a perfectionist when it comes to blown highlights. I just can't tolerate them. Bad on me, I guess.
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My knee jerk reaction is to not have 'em, because I was raised on a steady diet of Adams. But when I put my mind to it, I don't mind 'em if they don't distract, or are part of the point. I am incredibly slapdash with exposure these days, because digital lets me commit almost infinite wickedness without anyone knowing.
If it's any comfort, the other chap's pictures are ridiculous, twee, mawkish junk, AND he's got no control over his tone curve. He's blowing highlights left and right because he doesn't know any better. The bride's dress would look much better if he knew how to place tones.
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Although I'm a stickler for NOT getting blown highlights and try my best to prevent blocked shadows, there may be reasons for having them, but they better be darned convincing. It sounds to me the other guy is trying to find excuses for lack of skill.
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Would anyone worry if the image was a painting?
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Would anyone worry if the image was a painting?
The peoples who poke the nose in the canvas while looking to it, maybe.
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but on another forum I got into a pissing contest with a wedding photographer and some of his supporters who feel it is okay to have blown highlights and clogged blacks because that is "artistic" license. I called BS and perhaps a bit too loudly but it flies in the face of everything I've learned here and from my own personal experience.
What say youse guys?
Just curious, are they still pissing? Or did you win?
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My knee jerk reaction is to not have 'em, because I was raised on a steady diet of Adams. But when I put my mind to it, I don't mind 'em if they don't distract, or are part of the point. I am incredibly slapdash with exposure these days, because digital lets me commit almost infinite wickedness without anyone knowing.
If it's any comfort, the other chap's pictures are ridiculous, twee, mawkish junk, AND he's got no control over his tone curve. He's blowing highlights left and right because he doesn't know any better. The bride's dress would look much better if he knew how to place tones.
Ha, wedding photography is probably on of the disciplines where clogged black and blown out whites are a sign of incompetence.
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Ha, wedding photography is probably on of the disciplines where clogged black and blown out whites are a sign of incompetence.
Well of course! The poor woman spends her childhood imagining the perfect dress, her mother and father a fortune buying the damned thing, and then you (not you) expect her to be happy when she can't have preserved, in photographs (that continue the mental infectionvoyage of discovery to her granddaughters), the perfection, the detail, the embroidery and nuances of sheen and tones of white and whiter than white virginity so blatantly expressed On The Day, possibly to the great mirth of her numerous best friends?
Sloppy exposure metering, a badly understood histogram, and there you go: twenty-somethig years of indoctrination shattered in a series of false clicks!
Who'd be a bride or a wedding photographer?
;-)
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My knee jerk reaction is to not have 'em, because I was raised on a steady diet of Adams. But when I put my mind to it, I don't mind 'em if they don't distract, or are part of the point. I am incredibly slapdash with exposure these days, because digital lets me commit almost infinite wickedness without anyone knowing.
If it's any comfort, the other chap's pictures are ridiculous, twee, mawkish junk, AND he's got no control over his tone curve. He's blowing highlights left and right because he doesn't know any better. The bride's dress would look much better if he knew how to place tones.
So you still frequent that forum, eh? Winning wasn't the point, the point was letting others know everything you said above. He doesn't know where to place his tones or how to make the B&G the stars...he just makes excuses to people who think he knows what the heck he's talking about....I guess more power to him, but geeze, really?
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I poke my nose in for a skim now and then to keep tabs on what the eternal beginners are up to. As you may be aware I have an interest in the various cultures of the world of photography.
The other chap is on my mental list of "terrible but in an interesting way" folks, so I opened the thread on my recent pass.
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Ha, wedding photography is probably on of the disciplines where clogged black and blown out whites are a sign of incompetence.
I wish... I’m old, so I don’t count, but the trend in wedding photography where you won’t find a single straight horizon, and colors that look like a bad C print that has been in a shoebox for 30 years and turned cyan/green, blocked shadows, blown highlights... (no objection to doing so if it “actually works” which most of the time in these type photos it doesn’t)... Well, to my eye it just looks ugly.
It kind of reminds me of lovely young women getting ink over most of their body. Might look great when you’re 25, but probably not so much at 65. The album might look “trendy” today, but even a few years from now it will just look like a really bad job.
Rand
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I think the guy actually can't see his blown highlights.
The other forum members seemed to coalesce around the idea that Chris was complaining about the blown out sun, and then amused themselves with mockery. The original photographer did not correct them, either because he was enjoying the support of his friend too much, or because he actually cannot see that the dress was blown out here and there in several of the shots.
What makes this interesting to me that if he were not (presenting himself as) a successful photographer, everyone else in the forum would have shredded him for his technical flaws, but since he is (allegedly) "a pro" the forum falls over themselves whenever he posts anything. That's a depressingly common cultural element in these things. And correspondingly, because he has adopted this persona, and received support for it, he's become remarkably arrogant, flying into a minor tempest of angry disdain when criticized -- being sure that he's going to be backed up by his posse.
It's a lot like high school. The popular kids are, well, they're just popular and you can't quite define why. But there it is, and it's pretty unpleasant for everyone outside the clique, so be sure to join the sycophant brigade early!
The original photographer does have some solid soft skills. He is able to nail those moments when the bride dewily clings to her man, eyes demurely downcast, or alternatively gazing up adoringly, and he's using some presets that warm colors and lift the midtones to produce that golden airy look (and, as a side effect, rather yellow wedding dresses). But brides love the dewy girls and the glowing midtones, and so it sells.
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So you still frequent that forum, eh?
OK, you're going to have to let us (or at any rate me) in on the secret. Which forum?
Jeremy
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OK, you're going to have to let us (or at any rate me) in on the secret. Which forum?
Jeremy
Photo forum (https://www.thephotoforum.com/)
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I wish... I’m old, so I don’t count, but the trend in wedding photography where you won’t find a single straight horizon, and colors that look like a bad C print that has been in a shoebox for 30 years and turned cyan/green, blocked shadows, blown highlights... (no objection to doing so if it “actually works” which most of the time in these type photos it doesn’t)... Well, to my eye it just looks ugly.
It kind of reminds me of lovely young women getting ink over most of their body. Might look great when you’re 25, but probably not so much at 65. The album might look “trendy” today, but even a few years from now it will just look like a really bad job.
Rand
So true, unfortunately, so true.
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Could be that someone who wants to appear hip just does not want "traditional" wedding photos. I've often wondered if anyone ever looks at their photo albums or they are just something everyone buys, like the wedding day flowers that all end up in the garbage soon enough. I don't know anyone who did not live together for significant lengths of time before marrying, the "special day" kind of loses some of its cachet under those circumstances. Maybe to them, the wedding day is just another party. Factor in the 50% (or so) divorce rate, and the brutal fact remains that marriages and weddings don't mean what they used to.
Anyway, isn't the customer always right?
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I think there are at least two aspects to weddings, which affect how they get photographed.
On the one hand, we are having a celebration of this thing we are doing, this commitment we make. We have our family, our friends, we're having a party.
On the other hand, this is also a pageant, a false show, to reveal and promote a few things: The money we've spent, the love the couple has for one another, and the beauty of the bride -- all of which might be completely untrue, it doesn't matter because damn it the show must go on.
Most big dollar wedding photography focuses on the pageant. The mission is to make it look expensive, beautiful, and filled with a sort of glow of love. I look at those pictures and I think "everyone is miserable, except the people who are drunk" because they all know in their hearts that it's a show. The cracks are clearly visible, not because they people aren't smiling (there's photoshop for that) but because nobody looks like that in real life. The dewy bride clings, the grooms look manly, the bridesmaids uniformly have the same vapid smile glued to their faces. Oh look, and now they all leap into the air at once how spontaneous, because people do THAT all the time.
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Would anyone worry if the image was a painting?
The blackest blacks:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-kapoor-vantablack-art-architecture-exclusive-rights-to-the-blackest-black
(He uses them well.)
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The blackest blacks:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/26/anish-kapoor-vantablack-art-architecture-exclusive-rights-to-the-blackest-black
(He uses them well.)
I don't have a problem with blacks, per se, I have a problem when blacks are clogged where they shouldn't be. This guy didn't particularly clog any blacks but he was all over the place in where he set his tonal values, thus his highlights all had more of a "blown" look to them and not as a contributing highlight.
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...This guy...
Any chance we get a link to the picture(s) and see ourselves?
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Any chance we get a link to the picture(s) and see ourselves?
Is it this thread?
https://www.thephotoforum.com/threads/been-a-while-but-a-few-digital-previews-from-a-recent-wedding.430425/
If so, the OP/bulldurham is being unreasonable.
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If so, the OP/bulldurham is being unreasonable.
Possibly. But he began fairly reasonable, and then everyone crapped on him because they like the photographer, and then the wheels fell off. Typical forum nonsense. That forum, in particular, is awful about dissenting opinions.
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Is it this thread?
https://www.thephotoforum.com/threads/been-a-while-but-a-few-digital-previews-from-a-recent-wedding.430425/...
So what exactly people on this thread here, on LuLa, and in particular Chris, find objectionable in those photographs (I do not want to get entangled in the comments on that other forum)?
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That is the forum thread: I don't like taking stuff from one forum and posting on another as it constitutes plagiarism. What I found objectionable is the blown highlights on her dress and the lack of tonal control pretty much anywhere. It seems as if he meters for the overall scene and lets the chips fall where they may...perhaps I am just too old school to think that constitutes good photography.
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I enjoy shooting windows and reflections; they can be exposed any old way I like!
Who'd shoot for any brand new Mr & Mrs Joe Public!
:-)
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Her dress looks fine to me. I don't see a 'lack of tonal control'.
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That is the forum thread: I don't like taking stuff from one forum and posting on another as it constitutes plagiarism...
Not at all. It would have been simply "fair use," even if you posted those pictures here for discussion. A link only is totally cool.
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Her dress looks fine to me. I don't see a 'lack of tonal control'.
+1
Do not see any blown highlights on her dress, except where they belong (e.g. shot #3)
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To my eye, Tang has a preset that he uses that creates some sort of a look that he (and his clients) like, which does awful things to the upper tones. In the cited thread, he's made her dress look weirdly dingy while at the same time losing detail in, as noted, #3. While it's possible that would have been impossible to recover, I find it at least reasonable that he could have brought back a touch of texture. The attentive eye will note that the flowers on the dress are, while not featureless white blobs, consistently blown out to a substantial degree.
I base my overall judgement of Tang on somewhat sloppier work he's done:
http://www.jamestangphotography.com/a-dreamy-forest-wedding-inspiration-shoot-at-skypark-santas-village-james-tang-photography/
is a maze of blown out everythings. The white roses are rendered as featureless blobs of white for no particular reason, over and over, the dress is ruined in almost every shot. The detail shot of the rose on the wooden background blows the rose apart for no apparent reason.
While it's possible that the photos shown on that forum are necessarily that way, he's got a track record of consistently failing to manage his highlights in anything like a reasonable way, so when I see yet more blown highlights, and more crummy looking upper-mids, I am going to cry foul and say "crappy preset" rather than "aesthetic choice" or "technically impossible"
His attitude seems to boil down to "they pay me, so what else matters?"
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... The attentive eye will note that the flowers on the dress are, while not featureless white blobs, consistently blown out to a substantial degree...
Hmmm...
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+1
Do not see any blown highlights on her dress, except where they belong (e.g. shot #3)
Me neither. The only thing I would question is the colour of the groom's suit, which I'm not sure if that's the real colour or the result of post-processing. I'm wondering if the OP is using a calibrated monitor
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Me neither. The only thing I would question is the colour of the groom's suit, which I'm not sure if that's the real colour or the result of post-processing. I'm wondering if the OP is using a calibrated monitor
I also had the impression it was a Leica M8 shot. But the collar of the suit is black. I guess it is correct.
So far I see: good wedding photography and a lot to do about nothing.
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Naughty little arrow Slobodan; atavistic thinking?
;-)
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Such effect is a lot easier to achieve with a Canon DLSR, who lack DR.
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I guess it is just me...but it is a style I do not care for.
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I agree that it depends. I used to bin any shot with blown highlights until I discovered that sometimes that can make a compelling image.
A lot of the time it's a distraction, but not always. I still try to avoid clipping at either end of the histogram when I shoot as I can always clog or blow in post if I feel the image might benefit.