Luminous Landscape Forum

Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Paulo Bizarro on November 19, 2018, 10:22:17 am

Title: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Paulo Bizarro on November 19, 2018, 10:22:17 am
Thanks, finally an article that talks about Landscape Photography:)

Good reading.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Larry451 on November 19, 2018, 10:31:13 am
excellent article
Larry.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 10:37:34 am
Superb article, raising and answering a fundamental question about "photographic realism" that is forever asked and forever debated. This article has archival value. I should also mention that the International Landscape Photographer of the Year freely downloadable PDF books of 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017 should not be missed - they are inspiring.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 19, 2018, 10:57:15 am
Quote
Can you win a photography competition without some post-production? I doubt it.
The article assumes digital manipulation. Does this mean that a large format contact print can no longer be competitive?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:03:02 am
Well, just ask yourself: have you ever produced a photograph from a raw file that doesn't need some editing? That is "digital manipulation" - it's technically unavoidable unless you systematically like your camera's and Adobe's etc. version of your photo out of the box. Eastway addressed this correctly. Whether you can make a contact print of exhibition quality depends on the negative you are printing and your printing skill. Going back in time, one can find many excellent photographs made this way. What wins competitions of course is anyone's guess.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 11:08:02 am
Eastway dances around the important issue which is what the viewer's expectations are versus what the print actually is, but never quite pins things down. He talks about, essentially, what the viewer's expectations ought to be, but that is not quite the same thing as what those expectations are.  Simply asserting that since a print was in an art gallery that the viewer's ire is unreasonable doesn't actually help much.

That said, we are wandering slowly into a  world in which everyone assumes that every photograph is a fabrication. In another year or two (possibly even now, but I don't think we're quite there) the vast majority of photographs will be fabrications, the output of a neural network into which 1 or more raw files were stuffed.

All the business about how every picture is manipulated is, ultimately, a distraction. Sure, it's important to realize that drawing a clear and firm line between fish and fowl is simply not going to happen here, but the fact that grey areas exist is no reason to declare the whole thing moot which is, honestly, kinda where he's going. He's slipped in a mickey by pretending that the only distinction that really ought to matter is whether a picture is a composite or not.

This is a difficult question, and I do not think that satisfactory answers will be forthcoming.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:16:45 am
His perspective seems to me more nuanced than what you are inferring here. He talks about context and purpose being critical to the acceptability of the treatment, and I think this is an important point that should not be missed.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 11:18:18 am
Contact prints are normally burned and dodged, you select paper, contrast grade, and exposure time, you have probably manipulated development of either the negative or the print or both.

If you simply follow the meter and the times in the book for everything, you will get a print which is, maybe, arguably "straight" but it certainly will not win  awards -- nor would it ever have.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 11:20:41 am
Mark: Yes, he does, and gives a perfectly reasonable discussion of that. But all of that speaks to what expectations ought to be, and I think it is important not to lose sight of the fact that ought to and are align surprisingly infrequently. It is the latter which causes trouble, dragging out the former doesn't actually help much.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:26:02 am
Mark: Yes, he does, and gives a perfectly reasonable discussion of that. But all of that speaks to what expectations ought to be, and I think it is important not to lose sight of the fact that ought to and are align surprisingly infrequently. It is the latter which causes trouble, dragging out the former doesn't actually help much.

Yes of course - ARE and OUGHT TO don't necessarily converge, but what to make of that? OUGHT TO is a matter of judgment, and that can be all over the place. So clearly OUGHT TO must reflect what he thinks it "ought to" be!  :-) We can agree or not.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:30:38 am
Contact prints are normally burned and dodged, you select paper, contrast grade, and exposure time, you have probably manipulated development of either the negative or the print or both.

If you simply follow the meter and the times in the book for everything, you will get a print which is, maybe, arguably "straight" but it certainly will not win  awards -- nor would it ever have.

Maybe I missed this decades ago when I worked in the chemical darkroom like so many of us, but how does one burn and dodge a contact print, which to my recollection is usually a negative firmly sandwiched onto a piece of photographic paper and exposed to light? As for the rest of it - clearly yes - starting from the selection of film one used - they all had their own grain structure and characteristic curves, and the developers we used had different effects on the character of the resulting negative. Etc.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 11:42:34 am
It works the same as with an enlarger, except for the position of the negative!

You interpose you hand or another tool between the light source and the negative/paper sandwich. When I was doing it, I actually used a light bulb mounted in a coffee can on an extension cord, rather like a work light, but more symmetrical. I could hold it steady at a good height for even illumination, but I also used it a bit as a sort of light-painting apparatus, "hosing down" this bit with a little more light, while my hand shaded that other bit.

To be honest, I may have made all this up myself based on a misunderstanding of Edward Weston's apparatus? I'm not *certain* that I've heard of anyone else doing it this way, but my impression is that I stole it all from  some notes on Weston.

It works fine, although precision is a bit tougher to accomplish, and a bit more hit and miss when you do.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:46:19 am
Looking back, I just thank technical progress every day that I can move a few sliders to completely alter the character and quality of an image. I know this will rub those with fond memories of the past the wrong way, and I agree ahead of the argument that one art form or technical approach isn't a substitute for another, but still - we've come a long way with the digital revolution.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 19, 2018, 12:14:13 pm
Contact prints are normally burned and dodged, you select paper, contrast grade, and exposure time, you have probably manipulated development of either the negative or the print or both. If you simply follow the meter and the times in the book for everything, you will get a print which is, maybe, arguably "straight" but it certainly will not win  awards -- nor would it ever have.
So if every print is manipulated, why even mention that if you don't manipulate it, it won't win a competition?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 12:40:30 pm
Good question.

I find the inevitable "but every print is manipulated" discussion to be somewhat beside the point in these things. I mean, it's true, but while it feels relevant, I don't think that it really is.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: digitaldog on November 19, 2018, 12:49:03 pm
Well, just ask yourself: have you ever produced a photograph from a raw file that doesn't need some editing? That is "digital manipulation" - it's technically unavoidable unless you systematically like your camera's and Adobe's etc. version of your photo out of the box.
Ask this fellow who not only uses Photoshop (he provided the duotone curves for Adobe) and IS a digital landscape photographer but will NEVER manipulate his images using Photoshop (think clone tool):
https://stephen-johnson-gtt1.squarespace.com/biography
If he had a perfect landscape shot but there was a cigarette butt in the shot, he'd crop it out or use another shot, but he would never manipulate that image to remove the cigarette butt.
Maybe he should write the next article here on landscape photography considering his bkgnd and influence on the topic.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 12:53:25 pm
Ask this fellow who not only uses Photoshop (he provided the duotone curves for Adobe) and IS a digital landscape photographer but will NEVER manipulate his images using Photoshop (think clone tool):
https://stephen-johnson-gtt1.squarespace.com/biography
If he had a perfect landscape shot but there was a cigarette butt in the shot, he'd crop it out or use another shot, but he would never manipulate that image to remove the cigarette butt.
Maybe he should write the next article here on landscape photography considering his bkgnd and influence on the topic.

Given the extremity of his position on image editing, I really wonder about how much influence he has on the topic.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 12:57:48 pm
PH Emerson was moderately influential in his time, and eschewed even dodging and burning. He did accept manipulation of development and, interestingly, taking a second exposure for sky and compositing that in (orthochromatic emulsions kind of demanded it).

I guess I should take back my earlier remarks about "straight" contact prints never winning awards, now that I think about it more. Emerson did, I think, win awards and his pictures are anyways very very nice and "important" whatever that mean. And I do think they're fairly "straight" in the sense of minimal post.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: digitaldog on November 19, 2018, 01:39:34 pm
Given the extremity of his position on image editing, I really wonder about how much influence he has on the topic.
If you've only imagined it, you haven't experienced it. Fact is, he's been 'processing' digital landscape photography far, far longer than just about anyone in these parts.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 19, 2018, 02:22:30 pm
My bottom line - is the image interesting and would I like to have it hanging on a wall in my house.  The images in the article are all well done.  Digital processing is a fact of life as was dodging and burning in Ansel Adams days (also remember that Adams also used zone system principals in developing the negatives). 
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 02:25:04 pm
My bottom line - is the image interesting and would I like to have it hanging on a wall in my house.  The images in the article are all well done.  Digital processing is a fact of life as was dodging and burning in Ansel Adams days (also remember that Adams also used zone system principals in developing the negatives).

Well put.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 02:32:53 pm
Just because a thing exists doesn't mean it's not worth discussing, and discussing well.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 19, 2018, 03:41:40 pm
"If you take a photograph in Yosemite, should it look exactly like Yosemite, or is there room for interpretation?"
 I'm a newbie here and maybe I didn't understand well the subject of the conversation :-)
As far as I know when I take a picture of Yosemite I am converting the image I'm seeing into a number of 0's and 1's through the eyes of my camera. This, I suppose, is the Raw File.
Then, say, I put this file into my PC and send the data to my monitor using (so i believe) a translating profile. My monitor shows me a picture of Yosemite that can or not be what I felt and saw when I took it. My Monitor is calibrated to some standards and shows me a (hopefully) pleasant picture that can be or not what I took. But I bet this is NOT the Yosemite I saw and/or felt an that moment and from that place.
So already there it has been a lot of "manipulation". Do I remeber Yosemite as it was then or my memory tells me something different?  (at my age after 10 minutes I cannot remember many things :-)
OF COURSE I am going to interpret. I firmly believe that there is no other way.
The important thing  is that the picture pleases me. If other people like it, I'm still more pleased. But if not, then they just like something different.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 03:57:47 pm
Yes, you got it. There is lots of manipulation happening from the moment you push the button on the camera. But I think that aspect of it should be distinguished from the intentional constructs photographers can create in post-capture workflow, where the possibilities have become infinite and really only limited by the imagination. It is here where photo most intentionally departs from "scene reality" and the question about its legitimacy is asked. I think this aspect is more of what Eastway was writing about.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 19, 2018, 04:10:36 pm
How much "manipulation" is too much "manipulation" is unanswerable in general. The example given was saturation: +20 is okay but +50 is too much? Different people are going to draw the line in different places. Lots of heat but not much light.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: leuallen on November 19, 2018, 04:56:06 pm
About the cigarette but prominent in the landscape. The dude would crop it out or use another image. Come on. I spent time and effort getting the image and no stinkin cigarette but is going to ruin it for me. It reeks of photo snobbery at its highest. Viva Content Aware Fill!

Larry
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: digitaldog on November 19, 2018, 05:38:00 pm
About the cigarette but prominent in the landscape. The dude would crop it out or use another image. Come on. I spent time and effort getting the image and no stinkin cigarette but is going to ruin it for me. It reeks of photo snobbery at its highest. Viva Content Aware Fill!

Larry
Yes he could crop AS mentioned. No he will not use Content Aware Fill and as its his images, it's his call.
Your images?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: luxborealis on November 19, 2018, 06:02:12 pm
Amongst all artist media, this only seems to be a debate amongst photographers...

Do landscapes need to be factual? An emphatic No!

They NEVER have been and NEVER will be. The only ‘reality’ is reality itself. Everything else – EVERYTHING – is a facsimile. When will photographers finally wake up and realise they do not corner the market on reality. They never have and they never will.

BTW – a contact sheet may be the most direct way of making a photograph without human manipulation but it is still a facsimile. You have changed reality by introducing a medium that is not reality.

Art is not reality. Photography is art. Therefore photography is not reality!

Aaaaaagggghhhhh! (Sorry, that’s the sound of my blood boiling at yet another iteration of this ridiculous debate.)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 19, 2018, 06:28:36 pm
The whole business has almost nothing to do with how manipulation is appliied,  or of what kind.

It has to do with gap between the viewer's expectations, and the reality. Not with what the viewer's expectations "ought to be" but what they actually are, which something to do with the individual viewer, a little bit to do with the context in which the picture sits, and a great deal to do with what the picture looks like.

As a separate issue, the modern take on landscape photography leaves me completely cold. The idea used to be that The Land was something very special, and that showing it to people was a wonderful thing. The answer to the question "did it look like that?" was expected to be in the affirmative, in  some reasonable sense, because the entire point was that it looked wonderful.

Now the answer is a laugh and "of course it didn't look like that!" which begs the question "why the hell am I looking at your picture, then?"

Those are, I suppose, to circle back somewhat laboriously, my expectations for landscape photography, and I am exquisitely conscious of the gap between my expectations and the reality of pictures thrust under my nose in these modern times.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 19, 2018, 06:40:18 pm
As a separate issue, the modern take on landscape photography leaves me completely cold. The idea used to be that The Land was something very special, and that showing it to people was a wonderful thing. The answer to the question "did it look like that?" was expected to be in the affirmative, in  some reasonable sense, because the entire point was that it looked wonderful. Now the answer is a laugh and "of course it didn't look like that!" which begs the question "why the hell am I looking at your picture, then?"
I think this is an important point to remember. A lot of landscapes today look like sci-fi renderings of other planets from my youth. Many are beautiful, but entirely false. It initiates the discussion of photography vs. photo illustration, which never ends well.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 19, 2018, 07:09:54 pm
Well this "ridiculous debate" made me aware of the existence of Content Awafe Fill which I thought is not present in CS2, the version I was using until not long ago.
For me it has been "useful debate" in a way
Just joking :-)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Ranger Rick on November 19, 2018, 07:27:51 pm
Has anyone downloaded the 2017 book?  I keep getting all the images dimmed out, using Safari and Firefox.  Never had this problem before.  Used both Safari and Firefox.  Looking at the flip book (which technology I detest) is fine.

Rick
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: DChris on November 19, 2018, 07:29:27 pm
I am very open minded about photography, I am never critical about what equipment someone uses or how much post processing one does, and I find all these "illustrations" great and wonderful, I would have been proud to say I had done these...but...I would NOT call these "photographs", "illustrations", yes, but not "photographs".

How about "international landscape illustrator of the year", I would say yes to that.

Sorry if that's against everyone else's thinking.

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 19, 2018, 07:35:07 pm
Amongst all artist media, this only seems to be a debate amongst photographers...

Do landscapes need to be factual? An emphatic No!

They NEVER have been and NEVER will be. The only ‘reality’ is reality itself. Everything else – EVERYTHING – is a facsimile. When will photographers finally wake up and realise they do not corner the market on reality. They never have and they never will.

BTW – a contact sheet may be the most direct way of making a photograph without human manipulation but it is still a facsimile. You have changed reality by introducing a medium that is not reality.

Art is not reality. Photography is art. Therefore photography is not reality!

Aaaaaagggghhhhh! (Sorry, that’s the sound of my blood boiling at yet another iteration of this ridiculous debate.)

I think the fact that the competition now under discussion, ends on the 30th of November, means this article is actually a thinly disguised advert, to try to get us landscape photographer types, to pour a little more money into the organisers coffers, but hey ho, I might be wrong.....

I sort of agree with most of what you have said above Terry - mostly!

But when manipulation and PP moves from being derived directly from reality and into creating a composite fantasy, then it should be declared as a fantasy and judged against other works of fantasy and not against works of reality, as this competition seems to be doing and the author seems to be saying he is happy to do.

I really feel sorry for the poor schmucks who pull their guts out, day in and day out, trying to make the best picture they possibly can, based on a representation of what was actually there in front of them at that moment they released the shutter. Who are then competing (and also paying highly for the privilege - $25 per image in this instance) in these types of loooong internet domain name 'photography' competitions, against people who just make stuff up, even though they might be very skilled at doing it, it is not based on reality and therefore it is not fair, it's like comparing apples with oranges. But as long as there are enough schmucks to keep on handing over their hard earned cash, in a forlorn hope of winning, even when as it turns out, they never had a snow ball in hell's chance of ever doing so, then of course they will be happy to let anything go through - as long as you give them plenty of money.

I also agree that anything can be 'art' and in that respect anything goes. But surely in competitions, it is incumbent on those running it, to differentiate the awards given for images that are of a processed reality and images of a processed fantasy?

And again I agree, that if you are creating something (a fantasy image/art) and people are buying it and they like it and you enjoy doing it, then there is nothing wrong with that, and so fill up your boots as they say. But if you are making something up (a fantasy image) and entering it into a competition and winning, against people who are not making stuff up, then surely that is not fair, as it is just not a level playing field is it?

In my mind several of the images shown in this article, seem to be more in the fantasy images category and remind me of a line from Father Ted "it's like chewing gum for the eyes".

Oh and even though you and I are all now talking about 'realism' in photography due to this article and what is acceptable and what isn't, that was only ever a veneer to stir things up and spark some interest. But getting you to go to their loooong internet domain name website and then possibly be tempted into giving them some of your money, that was the real reason I suspect.

But as I said at the beginning, I might be totally wrong here and if I am, then I apologise whole heartedly and without reservation, as I am obviously a complete idiot, but then again, I might be totally correct.

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Rand47 on November 19, 2018, 07:36:15 pm
Well, there certainly are no boundaries for where realism ends and sur or hyper realism begins.  At least as far as modern, digital, landscape imaging is concerned.  Most of the really stunning landscape images I see posted in places like the Fred Miranda site, one would never see with their own eyes, no matter how long they camped out at the site of the original "click."

One very honest "fine art" photographer recently spoke to a group I belong to.  His talk was on how to become a fire art landscape photographer who actually sells their work successfully.  His all too telling "bottom line" for success was to create images with "major impact" (loosely translated as 'turn up the saturation!") and "will it match someone's couch in their living room."

Thank God for people like Charlie Cramer and G Dan Mitchell.  Their work is truly inspiring, and while "manipulated," it is manipulated to better give a sense of "how it felt to be there" (in my opinion anyway).

The images in the book presented here (with a very few notable exceptions) are, in my opinion the very definition of the humorous saying about the difference between POP art and ART.  That being:  POP Art = "Wow!...….. Huh?"   And ART = "Huh?..... WOW!"

Rand
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: DChris on November 19, 2018, 07:45:26 pm
POP Art = "Wow!...….. Huh?"   And ART = "Huh?..... WOW!"

Rand
[/quote]

I like your post

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Wayne Fox on November 19, 2018, 10:02:34 pm
Maybe I missed this decades ago when I worked in the chemical darkroom like so many of us, but how does one burn and dodge a contact print, which to my recollection is usually a negative firmly sandwiched onto a piece of photographic paper and exposed to light? As for the rest of it - clearly yes - starting from the selection of film one used - they all had their own grain structure and characteristic curves, and the developers we used had different effects on the character of the resulting negative. Etc.
Pretty easy to do with a large format contact print, since often the light source is an enlarger/lens without a negative in it.  You can dodge/burn it the same way you could if you were projecting the image from a smaller negative.

As far as a raw file being digitally manipulated, I think many forget just how much a film exposure is also manipulated by the engineering of the emulsion.  Most transparency films modified saturation of certain colors and often the choice of film was based on the colors in the scene.  Net result was rarely 100% true to the colors of the original scene, but the result were pleasing to viewers.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 19, 2018, 11:00:33 pm
Pretty easy to do with a large format contact print, since often the light source is an enlarger/lens without a negative in it.  You can dodge/burn it the same way you could if you were projecting the image from a smaller negative.

As far as a raw file being digitally manipulated, I think many forget just how much a film exposure is also manipulated by the engineering of the emulsion.  Most transparency films modified saturation of certain colors and often the choice of film was based on the colors in the scene.  Net result was rarely 100% true to the colors of the original scene, but the result were pleasing to viewers.

Ah, yes - I had those lightboxes in mind in that comment, but now that I think of it, back in the 1950s/early 60s I did put negatives shot with a Graflex on top of paper, under glass, and exposed the sandwich using an enlarger. So that would have permitted dodging and burning. I did this only for indexing/referencing (and still have them!!) so never thought of manipulating them.

For the film - very much so. I remember from my stints in part-time photographic retail back in those days comparing photos made with Kodachrome/Kodacolor versus Agfachrome/Agfacolor, as we sold both - the former was more saturated than the latter, to the extent one talked of the Kodak look versus the Agfa look. I remember the discussions - people accustomed to Kodak film found Agfa film anemic while those accustomed to Agfa considered Kodak colours artificial. Neither provided accurate renditions of "scene reality". Likewise in B&W, one obtained very different effects between say Plus-X/D-76 versus Adox KB14 developed in Neofin Red. The problem with pigeonholing the realism of photographs is that they can look so very real in some respects and be so very unreal in others in one and the same photograph.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Alan Klein on November 19, 2018, 11:22:51 pm
Most of the pictures he showed in the article look fake.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: LesPalenik on November 20, 2018, 03:48:53 am
Fake, but pretty
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: 32BT on November 20, 2018, 04:16:52 am
How about perspective distortion?

I think this: https://fstoppers.com/photo/282017

is a great picture. Apart from perspective it seems factual, all be it processed to modern taste. Yet the perspective seems congruent in alluding to Asian naive landscape drawing. So, both as an artistic expression as well as a factual document it appears to be an honest representation of reality. Just not in a way that we perceive reality under normal circumstances.


Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Paulo Bizarro on November 20, 2018, 04:27:44 am
I find it interesting that some people go to the movies and are not bothered by CGI and what are in fact computer generated movies; and then cry out loud "fake" when photographs are the subject of discussion.

I suppose the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz was real? Is it more real to have a person with a costume, or do it in the computer?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 20, 2018, 08:10:10 am
... Art is not reality. Photography is art. Therefore photography is not reality!

Aaaaaagggghhhhh! (Sorry, that’s the sound of my blood boiling at yet another iteration of this ridiculous debate.)

It think you would do your blood pressure a favor by not creating straw men that cause your blood to boil in the first place.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 20, 2018, 08:53:51 am
Paulo, the problem (never cited in these thing pieces) is the gap between expectation and reality. Nobody expects movies to be real, unless it's marketed as a documentary.

People do expect photos to be real in some sense, some of the time. And it's not as simple as "in the newspaper, Yes; on a gallery wall, No."
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 20, 2018, 09:05:43 am
Just to throw my hat into this ring, I tend to side with Andrew’s (amolitor) views on the matter.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Alan Klein on November 20, 2018, 10:48:21 am
Fake, but pretty
Instead of digital art or fake, I just thought of a good word for photos that have been photoshopped that way: Super-reality photography. Then everyone can be happy.  Purists like me will be happy that they're not called straight photography and those that like them can feel that they're as honest as an unretouched photo.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 20, 2018, 10:53:25 am
Instead of digital art or fake, I just thought of a good word for photos that have been photoshopped that way: Super-reality photography. Then everyone can be happy.  Purists like me will be happy that they're not called straight photography and those that like them can feel that they're as honest as an unretouched photo.

What's a "purist" Alan?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: LesPalenik on November 20, 2018, 11:23:55 am
Instead of digital art or fake, I just thought of a good word for photos that have been photoshopped that way: Super-reality photography. Then everyone can be happy.  Purists like me will be happy that they're not called straight photography and those that like them can feel that they're as honest as an unretouched photo.

Or superbly processed.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 20, 2018, 11:39:09 am
Just to mention that the concept of Ideal(ized) Landscape is a known concept in paintings. In other words, photography did not invent that concept, i.e., the attempt to represent reality the way we would like to see it, not the way it is.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 20, 2018, 12:02:28 pm
There are grey area all over the place here, what looks real versus not-real, and so on. The fact that lines between things are not sharply defined should not be taken as an indication that there are not two different (or 100 different) things.

The "all photos are manipulated" argument is used to justify infinite manipulation, by pretending that the absence of sharp lines indicates the absence of categories entirely. The "well, it's all subjective, what's too much to one view is not enough to another" again pretends that because there is no clear distinction, no distinction at all is necessary. And yet again the argument that "what is too much for this photo is not for this other" follows the same pattern.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: luxborealis on November 20, 2018, 12:23:16 pm
Kind of reminds me of a Trooper song from the 1970s... Round, Round We Go. Interestingly, another song on the same album is Raise a Little Hell.

I’m with Andrew Molitor and Dave on Skye as well, but it’s helpful to read the different perspectives and shades of grey.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 20, 2018, 12:41:35 pm
There are grey area all over the place here, what looks real versus not-real, and so on. The fact that lines between things are not sharply defined should not be taken as an indication that there are not two different (or 100 different) things. The "all photos are manipulated" argument is used to justify infinite manipulation, by pretending that the absence of sharp lines indicates the absence of categories entirely. The "well, it's all subjective, what's too much to one view is not enough to another" again pretends that because there is no clear distinction, no distinction at all is necessary. And yet again the argument that "what is too much for this photo is not for this other" follows the same pattern.
I agree. It is about establishing parameters rather than absolutes.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 20, 2018, 12:44:19 pm
Would anyone say that W. Turner was less a landscapist than J. Constable?
IMO they were just different artists
They are probably not exhibited together, but that's all
Same in photography, just a different medium for more or less the same underlying idea
Again in IMHO
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: VincentDJohnson on November 20, 2018, 01:08:21 pm
Long and short of it is, nobody ever called Jerry Uelsmann a "fake", because he was clear about what he was doing. What makes some of these landscapes so amazing is the fact that most of us are lead to believe by the artist that they are factual and that's what blows us away. The fact that they were able to capture this moment not that they were able to fabricate it.

I choose not to fabricate my landscapes, so why should I be competing with fabricated ones in a contest, unless it's absolutely clear that fabrication is allowed? And then where do we stop? Can I create a elements that didn't exist and add them in via Photoshop, or is it just allowed if I took it from another "factual" image?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 20, 2018, 01:13:20 pm
... What makes some of these landscapes so amazing is the fact that most of us are lead to believe by the artist that they are factual and that's what blows us away. The fact that they were able to capture this moment not that they were able to fabricate it...

Can someone point out which of the images that illustrate the OP article are "fabricated" and in which way?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 20, 2018, 01:15:35 pm
I choose not to fabricate my landscapes, so why should I be competing with fabricated ones in a contest, unless it's absolutely clear that fabrication is allowed?[/quote]
Compete on the quality of your images. Some people like straight photography; others fantasy. There is room for both. It is not a zero sum game.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: OmerV on November 20, 2018, 01:21:58 pm
I wonder if this is more a problem for landscape than urban or cityscape photography. I think that since the majority of the population now resides in urban environments, rural and wild landscapes are actually a bit of a mystery, romanticized, idealized, and sentimentalized. If that is true, then the expectation of beauty in landscape photograpy is sustained more by imagination than truth.

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 20, 2018, 01:29:06 pm
"the quality of your images" is a phrase sufficiently vague as to be meaningless, as nearly as I can tell.

The trouble is that a landscape which more or less captures what it really looked like is one thing, and a photoshop job is another.

In the first instance, the photographer ought to be judged (roughly) on their ability to see what is in front of them, and to select the right vantage point, moment, and so on. The photographer's ability to translate that wonderous real world at that moment into something we can see and feel for ourselves.

The fabricator, on the other hand, should be judged perhaps on the power of their imagination and their ability to turn it into something we can see and feel for ourselves.

The two, really, are not comparable. If we don't know which one the picture is, or perhaps more accurately where on the spectrum it lands, or at any rate roughly where it lands in the multivariate space of possibilities, then we will end up judging it by the wrong criteria. If, for example, someone paints in a decisive moment, we need to know that, lest we judge them instead on their ability not to paint but to anticipate. Painting being in many cases easier than anticipating, we might overrate the photographer's skill. Conversely, a straight photograph that looks like a painting deserves to be judged on  the former standard, rather than the latter.

One does not enter a walrus into the hog competition at the fair.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: amolitor on November 20, 2018, 01:32:05 pm
In my limited experience, people who shoot in  urban environments are if anything worse than landscape photographers, forever erasing logos from  hats and moving signposts around. Sometimes it's just a little trivial cleanup, but as often as not they're simplifying a complex urban landscape into something much cleaner and more graphical than it really was.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: dchew on November 20, 2018, 01:47:37 pm
I think this is an important point to remember. A lot of landscapes today look like sci-fi renderings of other planets from my youth. Many are beautiful, but entirely false. It initiates the discussion of photography vs. photo illustration, which never ends well.

One of my all-time favorite "landscapes" from my "youth":
 8)

Dave

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Rand47 on November 20, 2018, 04:07:03 pm
The more I think about the language used in the article, the more I think there's a rat there, somewhere.

Take "factual" versus "room for interpretation"?

"Authentic" versus "impure"?

Etc.

After thinking about it for a while I think all these terms are loaded with "value connotation" that actually obfuscates rather than clarifies.

For a long time I've used "literal" and "non-literal."  I'm either going for "this is how it looked" (literal) or "this is how I interpret what I saw" (non-literal).  Much less value laden.  Neither literal nor non-literal speak to whether something is authentic, or impure, or factual.  That kind of language is artsy-fartsy nonsense and the use of those kinds of value laden words connote an underlying "position" even when the use of them is supposedly "neutral."

One man's opinion.

Rand
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 20, 2018, 04:28:42 pm
Speaking of Peter Eastway...

There are several photographers who inspire my photography: Ernst Haas, Eric Meola, Pete Turner, Jay Maisel. But there is one particular photograph that profoundly changed my view on photography and determined my future direction. And that single one was by Peter Eastway, many years ago. I was positively shocked. I always wanted to know "what else is there" (paraphrasing Minor White) and how to venture beyond reality, while remaining firmly grounded in it. To add the element of how I see it or how I want to see it, not just how it looks like. To try to distill the essence of reality, and reduce it to it.

For some reason, I never approached that level of abstraction in my landscapes, but it just occurred to me that my inspiration from that single Peter Eastway's image finally resulted in my latest award-winning architectural image, The River of Gold (https://www.slobodanblagojevic.com/p631768190/e9611b82a) (or Golden Wave (https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=127576.0), alternatively).


Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Rand47 on November 20, 2018, 05:05:24 pm
Slobodan,

Ernst Hass' "The Creation" is one of my prized possessions.  That book has inspired me for many years now.

Rand
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Kevin Raber on November 20, 2018, 10:02:33 pm
I agree with Slobodan.  I have had the privilege to have Peter as a friend for many years.  He and I have photographed together in many different corners of the world and he always inspires me.  He's a great human and a super friend. We have been talking of doing more and more together in the future so stay tuned.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: jeremyrh on November 21, 2018, 03:42:11 am
my latest award-winning architectural image, The River of Gold

No politics on the forum. Slobo. Besides, those rumours were false.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 21, 2018, 04:03:42 am
...I always wanted to know "what else is there" (paraphrasing Minor White) ...

I really like that phrase.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 08:36:29 am
No politics on the forum. Slobo. Besides, those rumours were false.

Omg, it took me a few seconds to figure that one out 🤣
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 08:43:30 am
I really like that phrase.

Me too. It is one of the two quotes I am using to describe my approach to photography in the About section on my website.

The whole quote is:

One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.”

Minor White

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: jeremyrh on November 21, 2018, 09:41:00 am
One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.”

<copied for future use>
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Alan Goldhammer on November 21, 2018, 12:43:49 pm
Just to mention that the concept of Ideal(ized) Landscape is a known concept in paintings. In other words, photography did not invent that concept, i.e., the attempt to represent reality the way we would like to see it, not the way it is.
Excellent example is the Hudson River school of painting in the 1800s.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 01:02:11 pm
While I was in a Nicosia (Cyprus) museum recently, I came across this side note that speaks about idealized landscape:

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Peter McLennan on November 21, 2018, 02:53:42 pm
Two points, if I may:

1) Anybody here ever done any advertising photography?  I thought so. :)

2) The manipulation begins when you raise the viewfinder to your eye.  Everything else is just a matter of degree.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 03:21:28 pm
... 2) The manipulation begins when you raise the viewfinder to your eye.  Everything else is just a matter of degree.

Breaking the law begins when you jaywalk. Mass shooting or mass murder is also breaking the law. It is just a matter of degree.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 21, 2018, 03:36:10 pm
Breaking the law begins when you jaywalk. Mass shooting or mass murder is also breaking the law. It is just a matter of degree.
And what law of photography prohibits manipulation?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 21, 2018, 04:23:40 pm
And what law of photography prohibits manipulation?

Let's clarify a few things here: (1) there are no "laws of photography" and (2) every photograph is a manipulation. Those two facts aren't the essence of this discussion. The discussion is about how far we can let our creative imagination take us before a photograph no longer even pretends to be a realistic rendition of a scene, but rather uses the scene, or scenes, as creative raw material to craft another kind of image. The question is whether doing that still qualifies as "photography", which in terms of the etiology of the word means "painting with light". We can paint anything with light much as we can with a paint brush, albeit the media are different. So yes, it all qualifies as "photography" and the output qualifies as "photographs". In the final analysis, it's the output that matters, different people see the qualities of that output differently, so quality is judgmental, and in the final analysis whether any of us think it's any good goes back to what Alan Goldhammer said many posts previous: "would I hang it my living room" (or put it in my collection).
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 21, 2018, 05:38:14 pm
And what law of photography prohibits manipulation?

I don't disagree with a word you say Mark, BUT...

When you run a 'Landscape Photography' competition, then surely the title of the contest suggests the images should represent a definable landscape and not an illusionary landscape?

If I were to clone a large oak tree in full leaf, growing out of the top of Mount Everest, would that be allowed into this particular 'Landscape Photography' competition? I think it probably wouldn't be, or how about Saturn with all its rings hovering 20ft over my back garden? So again I imagine this type of work would be thrown out and found to be unacceptable to the competition organiser, not to mention the other competitors. So to say that anything goes and it is OK, is not really true is it? Because even the person running this contest will have his limits.

So the question then becomes, if we are going to have limits (for competitions at least), then surely it should be an industry agreed standard type of limit and not what an organiser, who is being paid and deems to be acceptable on any given day, chooses to allow..

If anyone wants to put their work into a photography competition, then put your work into the WorldPhoto.org (https://www.worldphoto.org/). It's free (yes FREE) and the prize values are about the same and it is also being run by recognised industry representatives from Sony - and if you are selected as a winner, then you may be asked to show them the RAW file the image came from.

Did you also know, that in a large competition and especially a fee paying competition of $25 per shot like this one is, that what you get for you money, is someone skimming through the images at a rate of around 1 or 2 images per second. Which if my maths serves me correctly, works out to around $18,000 per hour - which is nice work if you can get it I suppose...

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 05:44:13 pm
And what law of photography prohibits manipulation?

What that question has to do with what you quoted I said?

The point I was making is that of course it is a matter of degree, but that degree matters.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 21, 2018, 05:46:39 pm
I don't disagree with a word you say Mark, BUT...

When you run a 'Landscape Photography' competition, ................
Dave

I have nothing to do with competitions, so whatever they specify for their entry conditions reflects their taste and priorities and isn't necessarily a useful criterion of anything for me.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 05:47:03 pm
... every photograph is a manipulation...

Mark, I think Andrew Molitor already explained earlier, more eloquently than I could, why such statement is misleading and meaningless.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 21, 2018, 05:49:22 pm
Mark, I think Andrew Molitor already explained earlier, more eloquently than I could, why such statement is misleading and meaningless.

Ya, but it remains to be the case anyhow.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 21, 2018, 05:50:38 pm
Can someone point out which of the images that illustrate the OP article are "fabricated" and in which way?

Bumping this question up, since no one bothered to explain, while we keep vehemently arguing against “fabricated” landscapes.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 21, 2018, 06:04:37 pm
Bumping this question up, since no one bothered to explain, while we keep vehemently arguing against “fabricated” landscapes.

I think we are discussing the topic of the article, as the writer has explained it. In other words, he is discussing the images he has shown to us in this piece and how they may not represent reality. So without trying to point a finger at any given image, the fact that he raises this point himself and then I assume tries to illustrate it with these images, must mean that even he knows some of them or fake.

But I know what you mean Slobodan, that you want someone to take up the challenge and actually point to one of the images  ;)

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 22, 2018, 05:30:46 am
I have just re-read my posts on this topic on a beautiful morning on the Isle of Skye, and I seem to be coming across as a really miserable grumpy old man, with a massive chip on both of my shoulders, and which I suppose I am at the moment, as I seem to be suffering from some sort of post fantastic photographic holiday depression type of thing.  :(

So I ask everyone's forgiveness for my various rants and I apologise profusely and will now try to stay well clear of any heated types of discussion, until my emotions settle back down once again and normal service resumes...

thanks

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: KLaban on November 22, 2018, 06:18:12 am
I have just re-read my posts on this topic on a beautiful morning on the Isle of Skye, and I seem to be coming across as a really miserable grumpy old man, with a massive chip on both of my shoulders, and which I suppose I am at the moment, as I seem to be suffering from some sort of post fantastic photographic holiday depression type of thing.  :(

So I ask everyone's forgiveness for my various rants and I apologise profusely and will now try to stay well clear of any heated types of discussion, until my emotions settle back down once again and normal service resumes...

thanks

Dave

^

Well, isn't that rather refreshing?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: 32BT on November 22, 2018, 07:57:03 am
^

Well, isn't that rather refreshing?

If it came from someone who actually needed to apologize, then yes, but i don't recall ever having seen Dave swirling over some imaginary bounds of morality in these parts. Or is he really apologizing to other grumpy old men that he may have behaved like one as well?

His only apology i will accept is a post with more of his images. ;-)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 22, 2018, 09:20:49 am
Ya, what's he got to apologize for? Nothing he said falls outside the bounds of civilized debate as far as I can tell. It's a fascinating topic about a very old issue - I remember debating a subject very similar to this over 50 years ago in the context of the question of the day back then, "is photography art?" and the perspectives were no less varied! Especially discussing it with (paint) artists!
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 22, 2018, 09:22:53 am
Mood swings, Dave? 😉

Or you just suffer from the Stendhal syndrome?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 22, 2018, 09:38:28 am
Mood swings, Dave? 😉

Or you just suffer from the Stendhal syndrome?

Well, never heard that one before - one learns something new all the time, so for those others who may be in the same boat, here's what I found on Google:

"Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal's syndrome, hyperkulturemia, or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing art."

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 22, 2018, 09:53:55 am
Mood swings, Dave? 😉

Or you just suffer from the Stendhal syndrome?

Im learning some Kultur as well as Photography.
Every 100 words I have to google one :-)
Just joking
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: KLaban on November 22, 2018, 09:55:39 am
If it came from someone who actually needed to apologize, then yes, but i don't recall ever having seen Dave swirling over some imaginary bounds of morality in these parts. Or is he really apologizing to other grumpy old men that he may have behaved like one as well?

His only apology i will accept is a post with more of his images. ;-)

I'm not sure I need to apologise, but being an admirer of Dave and following his honourable example I'm going to anyway, just in case.

I'm sorry.

;-)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dale Villeponteaux on November 22, 2018, 10:22:27 am
I've had trouble following this thread in that I don't know what reality is. My senses give me a version of reality refined over eons to be useful to survival, but that is only an abstraction of reality. For instance, I have no direct perception of electrons but electrons and their orbits define chemistry which defines our very being, including thought processes. I think thoughts (pace!) are real since they can effect changes in the external world but they too are abstractions.

So there is a representation of reality provided by my senses, another provided by thoughts and imagination, another by photons impinging on a sensor other than my retina and on and on.

Which representation is more real? I suppose I could choose the one from my senses, since I share that with other human but that would only be a convention.

I apologize for being sentitious; I was up very late.

Regards,
Dale







Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: KLaban on November 22, 2018, 11:10:29 am
Well, never heard that one before - one learns something new all the time, so for those others who may be in the same boat, here's what I found on Google:

"Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal's syndrome, hyperkulturemia, or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing art."

Do tears count?
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: LesPalenik on November 22, 2018, 02:55:01 pm
Well, never heard that one before - one learns something new all the time, so for those others who may be in the same boat, here's what I found on Google:

"Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal's syndrome, hyperkulturemia, or Florence syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing art."

I also experienced some of those feelings after being exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly when viewing and touching a lovely piece of art. 
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 22, 2018, 02:59:50 pm
I doubt even Stendhal suffered from Stendhal syndrome.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 22, 2018, 03:08:11 pm
I doubt even Stendhal suffered from Stendhal syndrome.

Further from Wikipedia, for doubters:

Quote
The illness is named after the 19th-century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Marie-Henri Beyle), who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio.

When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are buried, he was overcome with emotion. He wrote:

I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves'. Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.[2]

He had been shown the frescoes in the church including those by Giotto, and modern writers frequently attribute his emotions mistakenly to the latter rather than powerful historical associations of the tombs.[citation needed]

Although psychiatrists have long debated whether it really exists, its effects on some sufferers are serious enough for them to require treatment in hospital.[3] The staff at Florence's Santa Maria Nuova hospital are accustomed to dealing with tourists suffering from dizzy spells and disorientation after admiring the statue of David, the masterpieces of the Uffizi Gallery and other treasures of the Tuscan city.[4]

Even though there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in Florentine art, especially at the aforementioned Uffizi in Florence, dating from the early 19th century on, the syndrome was only named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence. There is no scientific evidence to define the Stendhal syndrome as a specific psychiatric disorder; on the other hand there is evidence that the same cerebral areas involved in emotional reactions are activated during the exposure to artworks.[5]
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: faberryman on November 22, 2018, 03:17:20 pm
You forgot to quote this part:

Quote
It is not listed as a recognised condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

It is a creation of the Romantics. Think Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 22, 2018, 03:30:56 pm
You forgot to quote this part:
It is not listed as a recognised condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

It is a creation of the Romantics.

If you had read "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" (27 psychiatrists and mental health experts; ed. Bandy Lee, St. Martin's Press 2017) you would have come across the point made more than once that there deficiencies and inadequacies in that manual, so just because it isn't listed there perhaps doesn't necessarily mean much, but this isn't my field so I'll leave it at that.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: LesPalenik on November 22, 2018, 07:05:30 pm
Stendhal syndrom for witnessing great visual art and Beatlemania for music. And some men act irrationally in the presence of beautiful women.

Quote
Take one 2001 study by researchers Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre at McGill University. They recruited ten individuals who had at least some formal music training. Each participant selected a song that, they claimed, gave them (good) chills. The researchers played a 90-second excerpt of their chosen song while the subject laid in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, a device that measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow. Compared to control (neutral) sounds, music that elicits physical and emotional changes activated limbic, paralimbic, and midbrain regions. And these areas are implicated in pleasure and reward, not unlike the neural pathways that recognise yummy food, addictive drugs, and sex.

https://www.businessinsider.com/science-explains-why-girls-went-so-crazy-for-the-beatles-2014-2

Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: rabanito on November 23, 2018, 07:05:41 pm
Stendhal syndrom for witnessing great visual art

I never faint when opening my photoboxes so I assume that I don't suffer from Stendahl's Syndrome...or rather my pics are not that great.

Maybe both propositions are true :-(
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Rand47 on November 23, 2018, 11:16:31 pm
I've had trouble following this thread in that I don't know what reality is. My senses give me a version of reality refined over eons to be useful to survival, but that is only an abstraction of reality. For instance, I have no direct perception of electrons but electrons and their orbits define chemistry which defines our very being, including thought processes. I think thoughts (pace!) are real since they can effect changes in the external world but they too are abstractions.

So there is a representation of reality provided by my senses, another provided by thoughts and imagination, another by photons impinging on a sensor other than my retina and on and on.

Which representation is more real? I suppose I could choose the one from my senses, since I share that with other human but that would only be a convention.

I apologize for being sentitious; I was up very late.

Regards,
Dale

I appreciate the clarity of your contribution.  But it makes me wonder why you bother to photograph anything at all?  If it is for your own pleasure only, you can’t assume that the image you are viewing represents anything other than a “possible” representation of sensory input.  And if photographing for others, that “anything you have to say” in your work has any relevance to others, at all.

This is, in part, the pain of modern man, stripped of any notion of objective reality.
Rand
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 24, 2018, 07:01:21 am
His only apology i will accept is a post with more of his images. ;-)

OK, but only because you asked  ;)

I will also put these images up in the 'Landscape' section as well at some point.

Feeling much better now, after spending a rather amazing afternoon in the swirling Scottish mist and fog, next to a calm and reflective loch. That after 5 solid hours of shooting in the exact same location in sub zero temperatures (which I never noticed, I was oblivious to it by that point), and where every shot seemed to be even better than the shot before it, and which finally came to an end with a really nice sunset, with candy colours clouds, reflections and flowing mist - well what more can I say, it was just one of those days, that would lift the spirits of any photographer who still had a pulse :D

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Kevin Raber on November 24, 2018, 12:02:18 pm
Dave, well-done images.  Wish I was there.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 24, 2018, 01:00:18 pm
Agreed - beautiful work.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on November 25, 2018, 12:00:39 am
Agreed - beautiful work.
+1.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on November 25, 2018, 01:30:30 pm
If you had read "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump" ...

Mark, do you also have a penchant for colorful Hawaiian shirts?  ;)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on November 25, 2018, 04:07:22 pm
Dave, well-done images.  Wish I was there.

Thanks Kevin and everyone else who has commented - thanks :)

Yes it was just one of those days, where every time I thought to look down at my watch, yet another hour had passed by in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

You know it is bit like Michael once said in one of the LLVJ's if I remember correctly, or at least something similar to it: 'That a day like that and images like this, can put a smile on your face that will last for the rest of your life.'

Dave
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Mark D Segal on November 25, 2018, 06:21:36 pm
Mark, do you also have a penchant for colorful Hawaiian shirts?  ;)

No :-)
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Hassyman on December 11, 2018, 12:56:57 pm
I think the line is simple. When you can see that an image is fabricated then you have gone too far. That goes for the majority of the winning images in the competion "LPOTHY". THe images look like they are picked out from a fairy tail. The overall winners images are just fantasy. I rather watch The Lion King or Happy Feet.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Martin Kristiansen on December 16, 2018, 02:56:07 am
It works the same as with an enlarger, except for the position of the negative!

You interpose you hand or another tool between the light source and the negative/paper sandwich. When I was doing it, I actually used a light bulb mounted in a coffee can on an extension cord, rather like a work light, but more symmetrical. I could hold it steady at a good height for even illumination, but I also used it a bit as a sort of light-painting apparatus, "hosing down" this bit with a little more light, while my hand shaded that other bit.

To be honest, I may have made all this up myself based on a misunderstanding of Edward Weston's apparatus? I'm not *certain* that I've heard of anyone else doing it this way, but my impression is that I stole it all from  some notes on Weston.

It works fine, although precision is a bit tougher to accomplish, and a bit more hit and miss when you do.

You are quite correct in the broad strokes of the system. I used it myself with 4X5 but with difficulty. It’s easier on large negatives.

In the very early days with printing out paper when the exposure might be made on the roof of a building under full sun the printer would use lamp black on the glass holder to hold back some areas, usually shadows of course. That had the advantage of repeatability when making multiple copies.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: greyshark on December 18, 2018, 02:43:56 pm
I confess I've found this dscussion fascinating, as it's evoked a strong feeling of deja vu. I recall reading similar debates on the line between "real" and "fake" photographs as far back as the mid sixties, and I'm sure the topic had been thoroughly debated many decades earlier than that. In fact not long ago some were still debating whether a photography could be a work of art.  As recently as the fifties there were those who still insisted that photography was a science and could never be an art.

The mere fact that digital techniques have become dominant tools really matters little (IMHO). In the early seventies I spent the better part of a summer producing high contrast b&w prints using a photostat camera to create 11x14 paper negatives that I then re-copied to positive prints.  At each of the four stages of the process I used a variety of dodge and burn techniques, a variety of techniques to alter the chemical reactions, and even immersion in ferrocyanide bleach to alter the images. I can't recall a single occession when I was accused of producing prints that were somehow invalid.
My point is the introduction of digital techniques shouldn't make any image any more or less "real".  I would propose that the issue should never be expressed in terms of validity.  Rather we should recognize that differences in style are just that, nothing more.  After all, is a Van Gogh painting any more or less a painting than one by an Old Master?  We should never hesitate to classify a photograph by style, but we should never consider any one style any more "photgraphic" than another.
Title: Re: Landscape article - Peter Eastway
Post by: Alan Klein on December 18, 2018, 08:55:33 pm
I confess I've found this dscussion fascinating, as it's evoked a strong feeling of deja vu. I recall reading similar debates on the line between "real" and "fake" photographs as far back as the mid sixties, and I'm sure the topic had been thoroughly debated many decades earlier than that. In fact not long ago some were still debating whether a photography could be a work of art.  As recently as the fifties there were those who still insisted that photography was a science and could never be an art.

The mere fact that digital techniques have become dominant tools really matters little (IMHO). In the early seventies I spent the better part of a summer producing high contrast b&w prints using a photostat camera to create 11x14 paper negatives that I then re-copied to positive prints.  At each of the four stages of the process I used a variety of dodge and burn techniques, a variety of techniques to alter the chemical reactions, and even immersion in ferrocyanide bleach to alter the images. I can't recall a single occession when I was accused of producing prints that were somehow invalid.
My point is the introduction of digital techniques shouldn't make any image any more or less "real".  I would propose that the issue should never be expressed in terms of validity.  Rather we should recognize that differences in style are just that, nothing more.  After all, is a Van Gogh painting any more or less a painting than one by an Old Master?  We should never hesitate to classify a photograph by style, but we should never consider any one style any more "photgraphic" than another.

So this is your first post here.  So welcome to the site.  You'll fit in just right.  :)