Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Giedo on January 01, 2007, 04:06:28 am
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Alain,
Thank you for your insight!
I've struggled with this issue for long and tried a lot of diferent approaches. At one point I got so frustrated of explaining (and the lack of result of this approach as you clarified) that I tried a simple 'NO' for an answer: a straight lie! This helped me too, as people don't expect an answer like that and don't dare to question your integrity. ;-)
But I like your approach much better and will certainly adopt it.
Thanks again!
Giedo
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Alain,I'm not surprised you've had a problem with people asking "if you manipulated you photos" quite honestly it has taken you a long time to learn what most people learn at an early age i.e. trying to justify one's actions to those who are trying to put one down is a waste of time.
Having read most of your articles here at LL while finding the articles interesting and in some cases informative they do on the whole suffer from long windedness and tend to belabour the point somewhat. So yes I think you are correct in saying "yes or no " and my advice would be to say it more often in your articles and conversations with people.
P.S. I like the way you manipulate your images.
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Alain, for crissakes hire an editor!
Rob C
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There is simply no reason to engage in a discussion with people who have an agenda to put themselves in a superior light with respect to you. Ever.
Do I manipulate my photographs? Of course - the very act of taking a photograph is a manipulation of reality. Cameras simply don't record reality absolutely. The entire argument is a waste of time.
Do I feel the need to persuade others to my point of view? Nope. Don't have time. Too many photographs to take, too much annoying stuff to get done and out of the way.
Don't want to buy my photographs? Fine then. Don't like me? Fine, goodbye.
Another good column Alain. thanks.
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At one point I got so frustrated of explaining that I tried a simple 'NO' for an answer: a straight lie!
But I like your approach much better and will certainly adopt it.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93101\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Good decision ;-) The power of the response I recommend lies in the fact that you are speaking the truth.
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Do I manipulate my photographs? Of course - the very act of taking a photograph is a manipulation of reality. Cameras simply don't record reality absolutely. The entire argument is a waste of time.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93125\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Ask the questioner what they mean by manipulation. Then try to answer, or not. A simple yes or no may be sufficient.
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Well, most film prints were manipulated so why shouldn't we do the same for digital negatives?
Remember when we would burn and dodge prints to lighten and darken areas. Remember adjusting the color filters for prints to make the blue negatives taken in tungsten light look more normal. Or the urban legends about the white dog dyed green for St. Patrick's Day where the lab spent hours making the dog white again?
What about the choice of films to decide if an image should have the look of Fujichrome, Kodachrome, or Ektachrome. Grab a demo copy of Alien Skin's Exposure and see how your image would have looked back in the days of film depending upon which film stock you used and how it was processed.
Print the same print on different papers. See how the creamy look of a Fine Art Paper with no OBA, optical brightening agents, is different from the same print on a similar white paper with OBA, and is different from the same print on a glossy RC paper.
Use a demo copy of AKVIS's Sketch or Fo2PiX's ArtMasterPro and see how an image can be manipulated to produce a completely different look.
Folks who work with remote sensing, or image analysis, know that an image is really a raw product and it is the post processing that brings out, distorts, or hides the information in that raw image. With digital, it is just easier to manipulate that raw information into a final image.
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Alain: Thanks for your most recent article. Clear, concise and to the point. Did I like it?
Yes.
Mike.
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Alain,
Thanks for the in-depth thinking behind "Just Say Yes". Since the first article in the series, I have been looking forward to each new edition.
While I think you have covered the topic of the buyer/browser quite well, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on handling the gallery or art show judy with regards to the typical question of being placed in a "color photography" vs "digital and manipulation" catagory.
Typically the rules say work created by "non-silver" techniques must be place in the "digital and manipulation" catagory. If you follow letter of the rules, anyone who simply drum scans a 4x5 for printing on a large format inkjet or lightjet has produced a work created by a non-silver technique, regardless if the development is nearly the same as what would have been done in a "chemical" darkroom.
Yet, it seems as if the "color photography" catagory is more fitting to the landscape photographer such as yourself who simply developes the photo using digital tools.
Do you follow the rules and go along with the mis-interpretation that simply using a digital process will somehow yield a more "manipulated" result than someone doing contrast masking, dodging and burning in a chemical darkroom?
Or you do classify yourself in the catagory of which your end result, the final print fits?
Should not the term "manipulated" be reserved for extremes like the moving pyramids of that National Geographic cover in 1982, or placing the face of a man on a woman's body?
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Hi Timothy,
I don't categorize myself, besides saying that I create landscape photographs. I'm not big on juried shows, or competitions. Regarding galleries, I am not in favor of labelling the work beyond the subject matter, or, preferably, the name of the artist/author, be it in shows of my work or of other photographers' work.
Photography needs to "grow up" in that sense. Painting, for example, is way further in that respect. The Louvre doesn't organize its painting galleries on the basis of medium, neither does the museum of Modern Art in Paris, or other major art museums. Rather, they organize their galleries on the basis of style or period.
Photography, while a much younger medium, has enough of a body of work already to use the same approach. The real issue is stepping back from looking at technique so much and starting to look at art in an equal amount. I may address all this in a future essay, but the fact is that the whole series "Reflections on Photography and Art" is about this need for change. This is why I started the series with "Art & Science".
Regarding manipulation, I am comfortable with the term. Personally, I prefer the term "enhancement" but if people say "manipulation" I won't correct them. The terminology is not all that important. What truly matters is being comfortable with the approach we use.
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The concept of image alteration seems to be very popular among those who couldn't make a good photo to save their life. When they see something they know they couldn't possibly create, they usually say "it's all photoshop". Yeah right. The worst of all is, not only they can't take pictures, they're lousy at detecting real photoshop alterations; you could rework most of the picture and they wouldn't notice it, but if you shoot a sunset with 30s exposure to smooth the waves into a mist, and use a nd4 grad to cover the sky and bring out the shadows, scan the slide with straight settings and just print it, they are bound to scream "photoshop" and nothing you can say will convince them, so there's no point in trying. They don't need to be convinced, they need a brain transplant.
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Good essay (as usual), Alain.
It is too bad that photography hasn't "grown up" enough to put this issue behind it, at least in the public's eye. I suspect that serious amateurs, like myself, have an easier time dealing with this issue than do many pros. Since I don't have to sell my photographs to survive, I am free to ignore juried shows that insist on classifying images and clients who want me to meet their strict criteria. I, too, am proud of what I bring to the images I display.
I wonder how Jerry Uelsmann responds to questions like "Do you manipulate?"
Anyway, to the question, I say "Yes!"
And to the essay, I say "Yes!"
Eric
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I wonder how Jerry Uelsmann responds to questions like "Do you manipulate?"
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93287\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Salvador Dali, who like Jerry Uelsmann was a Surrealist, said that:
One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.
Surrealism is, in part, the representaion of dreams or of a dream-like state.
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Thanks, Alain, you always get us to thinking -- and commenting!
It is somewhat amusing that, to many people, an increase in color saturation produces a "manipulated" print whereas a decrease produces a classic black/white print.
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It is somewhat amusing that, to many people, an increase in color saturation produces a "manipulated" print whereas a decrease produces a classic black/white print.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93289\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Yes, I agree although in my view this also addresses a different issue that I plan to write about later in the series. However, eventually it is important, in my view, to move away from concerns for the terminology. What matters is being comfortable with the approach we choose to use, which in my case is to modify, in various ways, the image coming out of the camera.
Different people will call this approach different things and that's OK with me. What is important is that they understand that I "modified" or "changed" the image. That what they are looking at, in the final print or master file, is not the image I started with, not the image that came out of the camera.
What also matters is that this is a radically different approach to that of other photographers who prefer to not modify the image coming out of the camera.
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I don't disagree with any of the above, but will say that there seems to be a kind of undefinable difference between "manipulating" a photograph to make it look more like the actual on-the-ground experience, and manipulating it to make it more salable...although that might be as much a matter of taste as anything.
If you took a photo of a ranch home in a valley with winter snow around it, and sharpened it, eliminated dust spots, cloned out a little piece of phone wire in the upper left corner, burned here and dodged there, and even converted it to black and white, etc., I wouldn't be bothered; the changes are incidental to the photograph and the experience. If you put the glow of home fires in the window, amped up the sunlight so that it cast glowing orange tints across the snow, etc, stuck a couple of sea gulls up in the sky, and essentially turned it into a Thomas Kinkade scene...then I'd have more of a problem. And as a collector, if I saw a photo like the Kinkade version, I might ask if it were manipulated -- that is, if it's a presentation of something that never was, and perhaps never could be. And if it was that, I wouldn't buy it.
JC
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... there seems to be a kind of undefinable difference between "manipulating" a photograph to make it look more like the actual on-the-ground experience, and manipulating it to make it more salable...
JC
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93330\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Good point but I am not talking about making an image more sellable. I am talking about making my photographs express my memories of the scene. Personally, I don't place a limit on what I can do, to make sure I have complete freedom to express what I want to express.
I am aware that the approach I recommend ("yes" or "no") is a "black and white" so to speak, approach to this issue. However, as I explain in my essay, attempts at providing "shades of grey" answers to people who ask whether I manipulate my images or not have proved to be ineffective.
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Good point but I am not talking about making an image more sellable. I am talking about making my photographs express my memories of the scene.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93334\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I have found it very difficult (or impossible) to solve a problem or answer a question until I know what the problem is or what the question is. I still think the easiest way to answer "Is it manipulated?" is to simply ask "What do you mean by manipulated?" Now you know the question and perhaps have a better chance to intelligently answer the question than by giving a simple yes or no (which may be a correct or incorrect answer to the intended question). There is no need to assume what the question is.
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I have found it very difficult (or impossible) to solve a problem or answer a question until I know what the problem is or what the question is. I still think the easiest way to answer "Is it manipulated?" is to simply ask "What do you mean by manipulated?" Now you know the question and perhaps have a better chance to intelligently answer the question than by giving a simple yes or no (which may be a correct or incorrect answer to the intended question). There is no need to assume what the question is.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93335\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
In my situation, I have no problem with people saying that my work is manipulated. So, to me, the question "is this manipulated" is perfectly clear and does not require to be stated more specifically. My answer is "yes".
I must add that I tried the approach you recommend before deciding to use the one I describe in the essay. I felt that knowing which types of manipulations my interlocutors were referring to would help.
Why do I no longer use this approach? Because, in my case, it failed miserably. You may, however, be more successful than I was with it.
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However, the approach you recommend is perfectly worthwhile, in particular if you feel that you need to know which types of manipulations your interlocutor is referring to.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93338\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I have no need to know "which types of manipulations [my] interlocutor is referring to," merely a desire to answer their question. And I have no need or desire to assume that because it looks manipulated to a viewer, that it is or isn't. "[l]ooks" manipulated may be yes or no.
To a person who has never seen snow, all that white stuff may look manipulated. Same with a green tree to an Eskimo. So, "Yes, it is manipulated" might be very misleading.
But then, to the photographer, maybe educating isn't important, or misleading is important, or perhaps the photographer really doesn't care one way or the other. I guess in that last case, either yes or no would be suffiecient..
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"Angels on the head of a pin" discussions like this make me want to run screaming down the hall. It is not possible to not manipulate a photograph. Starting with the choice of camera and lens focal length to the media the image is printed on there are a large number of possible decisions that one must make when taking (making if you like) a photograph. You can let the camera default to auto mode, but you have decided to do that, and must accept the results. You can choose to print the image as-is, but you still have to choose paper, ink set, chemical process, etc.
And so, the only possible answer to "do you minipulate your photographs?" is a resounding YES. No other answer will do.
I do think that the word manipulate has some negative vibes. For example: "I don't like being manipulated" is something you might hear in conversation. Perhaps a better choice of word here might improve the way we look at this process.
Michael
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..., the only possible answer to "do you minipulate your photographs?" is a resounding YES. No other answer will do.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93353\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
That is certainly one answer. To think it is the "only possible answer" is a bit narrow minded, in my opinion. "No" has been offered as an alternative.
The there are "Maybe" and "Perhaps."
"Depends on what you call manipulated" still another.
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Howie, are you a lawyer?
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I do think that the word manipulate has some negative vibes. For example: "I don't like being manipulated" is something you might hear in conversation. Perhaps a better choice of word here might improve the way we look at this process.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93353\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I agree. I personally call what I do "enhanced" or even "modified" but I don't mind manipulated if this is what people want to call it. Different names for the same thing... I think there's a metaphor about this but I can't remember it right now.
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Howie, are you a lawyer?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93367\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
No.
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No.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93371\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
So you can be specific.
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So you can be specific.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93372\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I thought "No" covered it pretty well. Never have been, never will be.
If you care, retired engineer. I've been a photographer for a very long time.
May I ask why?
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As far as the "yes" is concerned, fine, no problem. I think anybody who would firmly answer "no" is either deluding themselves or basically has no understanding of photography.
But there's one area in this essay that I feel unhappy about, and within which I feel a certain amount of contradicton. Alain's insistence on seeing the world as a beautiful place is commendable, but I assume from his writings and his photography that he actually cares about this world, and not just of beautiful imagery he can derive from it.
Modifying a photograph to remove a house, say, which "defaces" (this is always going to be subjective) a landscape can be counter productive. If the photographr wants to restore a pristine state to a landscape, presumably he or she cares about that landsacape, and is upset by the damage done. However, concealing that damage, both from the audience and from one's self, is potentially going to lead to complacency.
I'm not particularly convinced by Alain's insistence that he can, as an artist decision, totally divorce himself from reality, or at least a relatively generally accepted reality. In my opinion, art without engagement is not very fulfilling or indeed convincing to either the artist or the audience. It may be much easier to sell - but then where do we draw the line between the sort of production line stuff that turns up in IKEA posters ? Perhaps the message in Alain's art is "this is how I want the world to be" - but therein lies the danger of the audience interpreting it is "this is how the world is", and there really is no need to worry about those sweet polar bears....
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Salvador Dali, who like Jerry Uelsmann was a Surrealist, said that:
One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.
Surrealism is, in part, the representaion of dreams or of a dream-like state.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93288\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
But then again, Cartier-Bression identified himself at least to some extent with the Surrealist movement, and he, perhaps, is one photographer who could honestly have answered "non".
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David,
This is how I would see it: a lot depends upon the integrity of the artist to make this type of decision. I feel that the artist has a right to make these decisions, and you have the right to reject the work if you don't like the decisions. Granted that some of these decisions may not be so obvious, but painters make them all the time - why not photographers?
My favorite example. Lets say I shot a great image of a mother fox and her kits. But there was a beer can in the background. I would never add another kit to the image, but the beer can would stay or go depending on what I wanted to illustrate.
Michael
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David,
This is how I would see it: a lot depends upon the integrity of the artist to make this type of decision. I feel that the artist has a right to make these decisions, and you have the right to reject the work if you don't like the decisions. Granted that some of these decisions may not be so obvious, but painters make them all the time - why not photographers?
My favorite example. Lets say I shot a great image of a mother fox and her kits. But there was a beer can in the background. I would never add another kit to the image, but the beer can would stay or go depending on what I wanted to illustrate.
Michael
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93447\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Oh, I don't mean to say it is wrong as such. I do it too, sometimes, although less & less these days. For example, I recently had a shot of a waterfall in a storm which had a small sign intruding into it. I knew it would be better if I took the sign out, and photographers who've seen it have instantly zeroed in on it (it is tiny, but even so). Non photographers don't seem to notice it, or don't mind.
I know it is there. I know it is a visual imperfection. But if I take it out, it will miss it. There is a footpath by the waterfall, indicated by the sign - it is not particularly easy, especially not in a rainstorm, and actually going there i those conditions was only one stop short of stupid, but even so, if I take it out, what am I saying ? That this some pristine savage wilderness ? I'd be lying. I couldn't avoid it, as moving the camera would have exposed it to spray.
I can see where Alain is coming from, and I certainly do not deny his right to be there, especially as he is quite open about his intention and vision. But I'm not sure it is what I want, personally, from photographers.
Actually, as an afterthought, I'm actually currently reading Alain's book (highly recommended by the way), in the chapter on developing a style. Maybe by beginning to work out where my vision differs from Alain's, I'm actually beginning to realise that I might actually have some hope of developing a style of my own :-)
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Oh, I don't mean to say it is wrong as such. I do it too, sometimes, although less & less these days. For example, I recently had a shot of a waterfall in a storm which had a small sign intruding into it. I knew it would be better if I took the sign out, and photographers who've seen it have instantly zeroed in on it (it is tiny, but even so). Non photographers don't seem to notice it, or don't mind.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93454\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
One of the best descriptions of a good teacher that I have heard: someone who knows what to leave out. Works for photography and other art forms too.
One's eye should flow over the photograph, and I tend to take out things that pulls the eye away from that natural flow. Small white spots for example, reflections, that sort of thing are obvious. If your sign pulls one's eye perhaps it should go. Or perhaps the waterfall should go?
I tend not to think about this stuff too much. I just sit down at the screen and poke at the image unitl I like what I see, and print it. A gut approach I guess. A few years from now I will probably approach this process somewhat differently. But, with the possible exception of basic technique, no one can tell me that I am doing it wrong. That is the really neat thing about art.
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One of the best descriptions of a good teacher that I have heard: someone who knows what to leave out. Works for photography and other art forms too.
One's eye should flow over the photograph, and I tend to take out things that pulls the eye away from that natural flow. Small white spots for example, reflections, that sort of thing are obvious. If your sign pulls one's eye perhaps it should go. Or perhaps the waterfall should go?
I tend not to think about this stuff too much. I just sit down at the screen and poke at the image unitl I like what I see, and print it. A gut approach I guess. A few years from now I will probably approach this process somewhat differently. But, with the possible exception of basic technique, no one can tell me that I am doing it wrong. That is the really neat thing about art.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93466\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I see the possibility for other than "no" answers here. "Maybe." "Perhaps." "Sometimes." "It depends."
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I see the possibility for other than "no" answers here. "Maybe." "Perhaps." "Sometimes." "It depends."
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93471\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Howie, please give me an example of an unmanipulated photograph.
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Howie, please give me an example of an unmanipulated photograph.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93475\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
What do you define as "manipulated." A must to accurately answer this question for you.
If merely making the image "manipulates," then there are, of course, none by definition. It is easy to prove all prints are manipulsted if you first assume all prints are manipulated.
If cloning out cigarette butt(s) is manipulating, then those with cigarette butt(s) are not manipulated. But then what do you call prints that have no visible butts to start with?
If "It looks manipulated" is your definition, then those prints that do not look manipulated (to you) are not manipulated (to you).
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Well, I don't have a lot to do today; I'll go one more round.
Take whatever dictionary definition you like for manipulated (in current use, not from the 1300's) and then give me an example.
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Take whatever dictionary definition you like for manipulated (in current use, not from the 1300's) and then give me an example.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93481\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
OK. I found this definition in an on-line dictionary.
"To tamper with or falsify for personal gain"
Example. None of my images are manipulated according to this definition because none have produced any "personal gain."
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OK. I found this definition in an on-line dictionary.
"To tamper with or falsify for personal gain"
Example. None of my images are manipulated according to this definition because none have produced any "personal gain."
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93485\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Depends on how you look at it. As soon as you have pointed the camera you have tampered; what you select with the camera position, zoom, etc.
Personal gain does not have to mean money. It could easily mean the pleasure you get from the photograph.
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Depends on how you look at it. As soon as you have pointed the camera you have tampered; what you select with the camera position, zoom, etc.
Personal gain does not have to mean money. It could easily mean the pleasure you get from the photograph.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93487\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
"Personal gain does not have to mean money. It could easily mean the pleasure you get from the photograph." Sounds like further defining the definition.
So it really does depend on how you define manipulated. I have many images that produced no pleasure at all from any immediate stage of image making. Some images were a chore to make and I did not make them for my pleasure. I guess too that if you back your definition up to the to include the pleasure I got from the cup of coffee I drank 10 mintues before I set up my tripod (and don't count pinching my finger in the tripod's legs), then maybe every image is manipulated. (If pinching my finger hurt really badly, does that make the image less manipulated?) At some point in time I have experienced both pleasure and pain from the photographic process.
Two more definitions:
To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner. I give this a likely or even a resounding yes. Even if I picked up the cigarette butt before exposure instead of cloning later. Back this up to include the making stage, and the answer is yes, manipulated.
To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously. I give this a depends or maybe. (The obvious cropping when making an in camera image I do not consider either shrewd or devious. There is no intend to hide, either shrewdly or deviously, that the image was made. I do not include photoshop "tricks" here.) This seems to fly into the face of "looks manipulated." If it looks manipulated, perhaps the managment was not so shrewd or devious.
Still depends on how you deside to define manipulated.
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Howie, please give me an example of an unmanipulated photograph.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93475\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Would a projected slide qualify?
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I'm actually currently reading Alain's book (highly recommended by the way), in the chapter on developing a style. Maybe by beginning to work out where my vision differs from Alain's, I'm actually beginning to realise that I might actually have some hope of developing a style of my own :-)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93454\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Good point and thank you for the compliments on my new book. Style develops through both hard work and personal choices, among other factors. The choices we make are both about what we like and what we dislike. Finding out what we dislike allows us to make a selection just as much as finding out what we like. In fact, what we dislike is often a more powerful motivation to "do our own thing" than finding out what we like.
Many artists, inventors, or other creative individuals got started doing their own thing because they did not like what others did, or did not think others were doing it the way it should be done. There are many examples in the world of fine automobiles to take but one example. Enzo Ferrari and Ferrucio Lamborghini, in Italy, are good examples. Both offered a new approach to cars. So did Ettore Bugatti.
In fact, designers or engineers that choose to start their own company, often do so because they are unsatisfied with what exists around them. In many instances, they worked someone else in the same field, until they decided to go their own way. This decision is usually motivated by the desire to go further, to do things differently or to do thing better. Without a reaction towards what is already in existence at a given time, there would be no progress and no new styles would emerge.
I know that, personally, my current style is as much a reflection of what I like as it is a reflection of what I don't like. In many ways I want to provide to my audience an alternative to what was there before I got started as much as provide myself with the satisfaction of creating my own world, my own reality.
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Would a projected slide qualify?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93495\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Depends what you project it on
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Would a projected slide qualify?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93495\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
If you define manipulated to include projecting a slide. then, yes, it is manipulated.
I would answer your question with "it depends." It depends on how you define manipulated. I would not include projecting as manipulated.
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If you define manipulated to include projecting a slide. then, yes, it is manipulated.
I would answer your question with "it depends." It depends on how you define manipulated. I would not include projecting as manipulated.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93506\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
MANIPULATION ALERT MANIPULATION ALERT
Slide copier; slide sandwich; dupes; quality of projector; type and size of screen.
Go back to slide's golden years and read Modern Photography and Popular Photography. People were manipulatiing slides like crazy.
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MANIPULATION ALERT MANIPULATION ALERT
Slide copier; slide sandwich; dupes; quality of projector; type and size of screen.
Go back to slide's golden years and read Modern Photography and Popular Photography. People were manipulatiing slides like crazy.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=93512\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
IF that is your definition of "manipulate." Define slide copiing as "manipulation," and you are absolutely correct - a copied slide has been manipulated. Same with a slide sandwich, a dupe, etc.
MANIPULATION ALERT MANIPULATION ALERT
Before you can possibly determine whether something has been manipulated, you must define what "manipulate" means.
If you want to define manipule as "To tamper with for personal gain," then eating a steak is manipulating it.
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IF that is your definition of "manipulate." Define slide copiing as "manipulation," and you are absolutely correct - a copied slide has been manipulated. Same with a slide sandwich, a dupe, etc.
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This is getting a bit too circular. I don't have a personal definition of manipulate. I use what the dictionary says. Without dictionary definitions we are lost in chaos.
Let's just say that I create a personal interpretation of what I see before me. Pretty much the same way as my, then, 5-year-old daughter used my camera to make her personal interpretation of the back end of our cat. And then laughed her head off.
See you round the forum.
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If you define manipulated to include projecting a slide. then, yes, it is manipulated.
I would answer your question with "it depends." It depends on how you define manipulated. I would not include projecting as manipulated.
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I agree. It depends on the temperature of the lamp, color and flatness of the screen and similar trivia, but basically, chromes on a lightbox or projected on a screen are as close to straight, unmanipulated photography as we can get, if we assume a straight E6 process. So, if we ignore the fact that photography itself is a form of manipulation, we can get unmanipulated photography, if anyone cares. I certainly don't - I will modify and manipulate whatever I like, because I don't see myself as someone who records documentary snapshots. I see myself as a painter who is too lazy to learn how to use brushes and paint and instead opted for film and lenses. I don't record physical reality, I record my thoughts and moods. I don't even care about physical reality - it's never the same anyway, there's nothing constant in it. People just delude themselves thinking otherwise.
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Check out the Adams # 8 and particularly the comments re: manipulation and "pure photography" - the other 12 are classics as well...
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-pho...nged-the-world/ (http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/)
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Check out the Adams # 8 and particularly the comments re: manipulation and "pure photography" - the other 12 are classics as well...
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-pho...nged-the-world/ (http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/)
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Ah, yes, "Pure Photography". First: make the world black and white, then control tonality by optical and chemical means, then . . . ;-)
Maybe it is the definition of oxymoron we should look up, and not the definition of manipulated ?
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Ah, yes, "Pure Photography". First: make the world black and white . . . ;-)
Maybe it is the definition of oxymoron we should look up, and not the definition of manipulated ?
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OK. I looked up oxymoron.
A paradox reduced to two words, usually in an adjective-noun ("eloquent silence") or adverb-adjective ("inertly strong") relationship, and is used for effect, to emphasize contrasts, incongruities, hypocrisy, or simply the complex nature of reality. Examples: wise fool, ignorantly learned, laughing sadness, pious hate.
I also looked uo parapox - a statement that contradicts itself.
"Pure photography" fits the adjective-noun and two word criteria. But what about the paradox)? If you assume "pure photography is self-contridictory, then you haven't you assumed the manipulation answer is yes? Now that is circular.
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Howie - not only circular but it takes these discussions to the absurd, which in my opinion, I'm afraid that they are (but it perhaps takes an engineer's mind to know this!).
As Helmut Newton once said on that Canadian fashion channel, Fashion TV, whilst expressing amused amazement at the furore surrounding not only fashion but his photography too: 'for God's sake, it's only a photograph!'
Unless you work for CSI or some other such agency, whether you do or do not manipulate matters zilch, so to hell with anyone else's opinion on whether you do or you don't (remember those school days when they asked that about the school honey?); just go out and do whatever turns you on - that's about all you should expect from photography: personal gratification. If you are a pro you already know this; if you are a wannabe then get over it - you'll have a better time doing your own thing as, how and when the mood takes you. As I said, that's the best you can hope for from the experience.
Ciao - Rob C