Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: nutcracker on October 11, 2013, 11:12:39 am
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Reichmann has been Raberised (Raberized in North America?).
It was fun reading Michael's article, and clearly fun writing it.
Even more improvement has been achieved on the LuLa site.
Wonderful attitude.
Sean
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Thank you Michael for being the grownup in the room. At one time I too was defensive about the photoshop question, until I embraced it and started enthusiastically saying, "Of Course!" and then following up with something like "I used photoshop to make the scene look like it felt to me in that moment."
In addition to worries about people thinking your pictures are untrue, I think people are a bit offended by the implication that doing things in Photoshop is easy and therefore of little value. Some things may be easy in Photoshop...just as easy as putting a brush to canvas, but making things look great aren't easy, even in Photoshop.
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Does anyone remember when Velvia was scoffed at by some photographers because the colors were too saturated? People said it wasn't real. Some photographic disciplines refused to use it or take any photograph shot with it seriously because it did not render colors they way they thought they should be. As photographers, we have a tool box, fortunately today it's a pretty good, big tool box, and we can choose the tool we want to use to satisfy our vision. Not everyone has the same vision. I will occasionally use HDR (oh the horror, oh the humanity) to achieve my vision. To me, I use it as if I had a giant softbox fill flash, not to create something surreal. But if you like surreal, knock yourself out. I was riding the bus on the far side of the Savage River in Denali a few years ago. There was a group of photographers in the seats in front of me, one of whom you would knew of if I mentioned his name. They were talking about how bad HDR was, but they all used focus stacking. It sounded to me as if they really liked box-end wrenches, but really hated sockets. Different tools. To me HDR is to exposure what focus stacking is to depth of field. Use what you like, produce what you want to produce, but don't make the I'm right so you must be wrong argument.
That's not aimed at anyone, by the way. Just my comments. I could be wrong.
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Hooray, everything is a photograph and deserves equal respect? How dare anyone discriminate? Anything goes!
Right....
John
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Like other visual artists let's have the courage to create images that express how we imagine a scene was, rather than just what the camera saw.
"The photographer can insist till he's blue in the face that a given image is art, but the rest of us expect at least a measure of reportage there -- and we are half the equation."
"Photography in the Age of Falsification" (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98may/photo.htm), The Atlantic, May 1998
The "Did you Photoshop that?" crowd are no longer asking that question, because they are doing it too.
So do they now automatically assume a picture is more Photoshop than Photograph?
So do they now automatically assume I can't believe what you're showing me was not a creation from your mind?
Of course this isn't completely new. One of Galen Rowell's anecdotes (page 29 in "Galen Rowell's vision: the art of adventure photography" (http://books.google.com/books?ei=GD9YUticD4iVjAKOnYDQDQ&id=kWsZAQAAIAAJ&dq=galen+rowell%27s+art+of+adventure+photography&q=%22Rainbow+Over+The+Potala+Palace%22#search_anchor)) tells of his concern about disbelief of his 1981 photo Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.tibet/images.html).
After Dolomites, Italy (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/articleImages/KWR_Home_Page_Images/_DSC0592-Dolomites-photopage.jpg) is disbelief the appropriate response to Big, Big Iceberg (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/articleImages/KR_1_Pics/-Lg-Antartica-8--037-cl.jpg) or do photographers magically get to have our cake and eat it too?
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So do they now automatically assume a picture is more Photoshop than Photograph?
So do they now automatically assume I can't believe what you're showing me was not a creation from your mind?
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I think neither is necessarily true. With the ubiquity of processing tools, I think what we have now is a more sophisticated audience and now they get it. They understand what it means to make an image sepia or add a vignette or increase contrast, etc.... When people are skeptical of what they see and what they read, they are better consumers of media...photography is not excluded.
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When people are skeptical of what they see and what they read, they are better consumers of media...
When in genuinely doubtful situations, people respond with doubt - that's healthy skepticism; but as a general attitude skepticism becomes a way to dismiss what we dislike.
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One of Galen Rowell's anecdotes (page 29 in "Galen Rowell's vision: the art of adventure photography" (http://books.google.com/books?ei=GD9YUticD4iVjAKOnYDQDQ&id=kWsZAQAAIAAJ&dq=galen+rowell%27s+art+of+adventure+photography&q=%22Rainbow+Over+The+Potala+Palace%22#search_anchor)) tells of his concern about disbelief of his 1981 photo Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.tibet/images.html).
When I was in Rowell's gallery they had out sheets of "outtake" chromes, so people could see for themselves that the colors in the prints had not been jacked up in the printing.
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Like other visual artists let's have the courage to create images that express how we imagine a scene was, rather than just what the camera saw.
Period.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vn12n9xrwejxt0o/ovs_opf_XI-16.jpg (https://www.dropbox.com/s/vn12n9xrwejxt0o/ovs_opf_XI-16.jpg)
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This issue of having fun and letting go is an artist's domain. Some photographers that need images to be "real" use reality as their standard because it can be measured.. Therefore this is good, or rather not "wrong". Academic excellence is measurable. "It's Real" is the mantra. Being real does not guarantee art. This goes for painters too. Taking chances is scary and not a measurable quality. It take guts to let go.
Guts? It takes education and an understanding of what photography and art actually are. Reality is not excluded from art, nor is it included. There is no relationship at all!
Somebody asked Picasso "What is art?", he responded "What isn't?"
But then lets make no mistake about photography either, it is never reality. NEVER! As Garry Winogrand put it, "Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed." The scene is reality, the photograph is an illusion created by the photographer using tools such as a lens, a camera, and of course an image editor too.
Reichmann's article said, "[...] let's have the courage to create images that express how we imagine a scene was, rather than just what the camera saw." He's almost right. It isn't courage we need, but the creativity and techniques required to make an image that communicates the feelings we have chosen to viewers. Just note that what the scene was has little to do with it, and all that counts is what the photograph is. They are connected only through the filter of a photographer's imagination.
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"The creativity and techniques required to make an image" -- Digital Art Masters (http://books.google.com/books?id=AW98VZbZdoUC) Volumes 1 through 8
;-)
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I pretty much disagree with all of it, and with good reason.
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I did a talk back in July for our local photo group on the essentials of digital photography, and one part of that was that you take a digital sensor - which is basically a collection of little, tiny solar panels - you collect electrical charges that have been filtered through a Bayer matrix, you run them through an Analog to Digital Controller and you end up with a string of ones and zeroes. That forms the basis for a digital image, but is it a photograph? Digital images aren't 'things', they're just binary code stored as electrical impulses on a storage medium. THEN we run that information through a raw converter (either on the computer or in the camera) and we come up with a bunch of coloured dots displayed on a screen. Did you Photoshop that isn't even a question anymore.
Mike.
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"The creativity and techniques required to make an image" -- Digital Art Masters (http://books.google.com/books?id=AW98VZbZdoUC) Volumes 1 through 8
;-)
I'm not sure of your point there, but it appears to be that the list for "creativity and techniques required" is huge, which is true, but... no individual photographer or photograph uses but a fraction of them. All that any given photographer needs is a few techniques and but a smidgon of creativity to make any one really nice photograph.
Of course it absolutely is true that producing many great photographs, day in and day out week after week, requires an enormous set of talents!
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I did a talk back in July for our local photo group on the essentials of digital photography, and one part of that was that you take a digital sensor - which is basically a collection of little, tiny solar panels - you collect electrical charges that have been filtered through a Bayer matrix, you run them through an Analog to Digital Controller and you end up with a string of ones and zeroes. That forms the basis for a digital image, but is it a photograph? Digital images aren't 'things', they're just binary code stored as electrical impulses on a storage medium. THEN we run that information through a raw converter (either on the computer or in the camera) and we come up with a bunch of coloured dots displayed on a screen. Did you Photoshop that isn't even a question anymore.
Mike.
That is all true. Note that film was absolutely no different, except it cost more and was harder to do at the basic level.
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I pretty much disagree with all of it, and with good reason.
And you won't tell us the reason, right?
H
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I think I would agree with most of it except for the conclusion. The problem isn't that photographers take their art too seriously, it is that they don't.
If the older art forms have taught us anything is that to really create something original you have to stand your ground. Caravaggio and later Rembrandt, Delacroix, Manet and then the impressionists and expressionists all were breaking the rules and had to pay for it in their early careers by being outcasts 'art circles'.
Fine art photography becomes a decorative art if you treat it as a craft. You need experimentation to find the way you want to express yourself. The problem with most modern art forms is that it stops there and then your work has little permanence. They just threw away the rulebook and are now without any direction.
The most famous painters were game changers, the same goes in photography. They didn't just experiment and left it at that. They saw things crystallize through experimentation and changed the rules for themselves and stuck by them. But almost all were very methodical in doing so. Sure they were mocked, but if you stand behind what you are doing that is no problem and you can explain it when asked. The 'outside world' wouldn't think image manipulation to be a problem if photographers hadn't created those problems.
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I pretty much disagree with all of it, and with good reason.
I'd be interested if you could elaborate on that statement John.
Graeme
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... But then lets make no mistake about photography either, it is never reality. NEVER! ...
Oh, no! Yet another RedwoodGuy just made it to my personal LuLa's Hall of Fame (a.k.a. Ignore List) ;)
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
Michael
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
Michael
Seems the order of our times.
Peter
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Enjoyed the article, and saw what I expected in this forum thread. ;D
Funny I rarely get people asking me if it was photoshopped, but I do get them asking me what camera I used because it took really good pictures...... ::)
Alan
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
Michael
hahahaha....excellent!!!
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
Michael
But, but... I was just fooling around, having fun :'(
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Interesting article, with a few obvious flaws.
When you suggest people are insecure for not embracing some of the more intensive uses of software (be it in camera or post) that feels a bit off in my books (let's not get into that debate again but just to say it's not black and white purist or pp demon, there is a middle ground)
And who said photography was "Art"?
It can be, it does not have to be though.
If you want "Art" buy some canvas and oils...
I think software gimmicks are overused (by some) and are getting pretty tedious and corny. BUT..it's your photo journey which is unique and individual for every person.
Anything can be overdone, be it HDR, or the Landscape photographer who "must" always use a ND filter for misty/foggy water shots.
Sometimes experimenting can be fun and rewarding, other times it can be cliché, cheesy and predictable. Sometimes being stubborn can be a hindrance and other times it can reap massive rewards. Everything but the kitchen sink can be risky at times.
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
Michael
In the communication medium of internet forum posts, quite literally, yes. A predilection for more or less heated debate accompanied by various degrees of ego display has been endemic to internet forums since the the first BBSs. It's part of the nature of this medium, devoid as it is of nonverbal communication (which represents two-thirds of human-to-human communication).
As such things go, the LuLa discussion forum community is near the extreme "polite" end of the civility scale. On the opposite end are video game fan forums and the readers' comment section of CNN.com.
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Of course this isn't completely new. One of Galen Rowell's anecdotes (page 29 in "Galen Rowell's vision: the art of adventure photography" (http://books.google.com/books?ei=GD9YUticD4iVjAKOnYDQDQ&id=kWsZAQAAIAAJ&dq=galen+rowell%27s+art+of+adventure+photography&q=%22Rainbow+Over+The+Potala+Palace%22#search_anchor)) tells of his concern about disbelief of his 1981 photo Rainbow over the Potala Palace, Lhasa (http://www.mountainlight.com/gallery.tibet/images.html).
I knew Galen and Barbara fairly well. Not to long before the crash Galen wrote an article in Outdoor Photographer about Bill scanning one of Galen's slides twice: Once for overall exposure and another to extract detail in the Moon. Bill then dropped the Moon from the second scanned file into the first one. The article was an open self-debate over whether that was ok.
Soooo much easier to do today in a raw file! For a short while I wondered how Galen would deal with shooting raw, but I settled on what I think is the obvious answer - He would be using every tool available to create the image in his mind's eye. He even openly dreamt about the day when a digital camera would capture one exposure at several different light levels to then be blended. Hehehe, sounds like the iPhone's HDR-mode to me! Galen was a lot more pragmatic than most people realize. In the midst of highlighting many environmental issues he drove a Suburban. Why? Because for him it was the best tool for the job.
Now of course Galen’s mind’s eye was different than mine, Michaels and everyone else’s. Maybe more “restrictive”, but then again maybe not. What I got out of Michael’s article was a reminder to not let someone else’s opinion of what’s “right” control your art, and more importantly, test your own perceptions. Galen did all the time.
Dave
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I knew Galen and Barbara fairly well. Not to long before the crash Galen wrote an article in Outdoor Photographer about Bill scanning one of Galen's slides twice: Once for overall exposure and another to extract detail in the Moon. Bill then dropped the Moon from the second scanned file into the first one. The article was an open self-debate over whether that was ok.
Soooo much easier to do today in a raw file! For a short while I wondered how Galen would deal with shooting raw, but I settled on what I think is the obvious answer - He would be using every tool available to create the image in his mind's eye. He even openly dreamt about the day when a digital camera would capture one exposure at several different light levels to then be blended. Hehehe, sounds like the iPhone's HDR-mode to me! Galen was a lot more pragmatic than most people realize. In the midst of highlighting many environmental issues he drove a Suburban. Why? Because for him it was the best tool for the job.
Now of course Galen’s mind’s eye was different than mine, Michaels and everyone else’s. Maybe more “restrictive”, but then again maybe not. What I got out of Michael’s article was a reminder to not let someone else’s opinion of what’s “right” control your art, and more importantly, test your own perceptions. Galen did all the time.
Dave
Since I hardly look at any other any other forums (fora?) these days it's nice to know that we fall at the "polite" end of the spectrum. I'd hate to imagine what the other extreme looks like.
Back in the day, CompuServe forums and BBSes, I don't recall people being as vitriolic and strutting, but then memory has a way of smoothing away pain.
Michael
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I think it was a thoughtful article. One quote, "Photographers want their art to be considered just that – art." is a perspective for some photographers. Other photographers, want their "truth" to be considered just that - "truth". There's room for both perspectives.
The two photos in the article are not the way the real world looks. So photo art techniques were applied. That's fine. It's obvious to the viewer. It's a lot of fun to apply different filters to get artistic results. But other photgraphers want to match as best they can what was really there in nature. This is especially important for newspapers, travel magazines, photo essays, etc. where the viewer assumes they are seeing the truth. And even the truth can be done in an artistic way as people like Rowell and McCurry have shown.
In any case, it's good to have fun in whatever way you like to do it. But be true to yourself not what others think. If you have a nagging feeling that what you're doing isn't right, stop doing it.
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Here is a good article regarding how Velvia changed landscape photography.
http://landscapephotographyblogger.com/did-velvia-film-change-landscape-photography/
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Vision is pure interpretation. The world doesn't look like anything. Tiny packets of energy, photons, strike our optic nerves and generate electrical signals. (Substitute waves of energy for photons if you prefer.) The rest--light, dark, color, objects, shadows--is processing. Photons strike sensor photosites and generate electrical signals. Or they strike film emulsions and generate chemical reactions. The rest is, again, processing. Galen Rowell, for one, well understood all this and sought to put it to his advantage as a photographer.
The notion that photos can represent reality is a conceit. One worth indulging in at times, I feel, but a conceit nonetheless. As I said, the world doesn't objectively look like anything. But the notion that photos must represent reality is a dogma...that is, an attempt to reconfigure reality by sheer force of belief and insistence. IMO Michael's article is a useful response to the latter notion.
-Dave-
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Dave: Isn't it reasonable and not a conceit to want to match the unreality of what you see in the photo to the unreality of what you saw originally in the viewfinder?
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Here is a good article regarding how Velvia changed landscape photography.
http://landscapephotographyblogger.com/did-velvia-film-change-landscape-photography/
I remember cringing when I saw Velvia landscape shots, some love it..but it was not loved by everyone!
Provia was more appealing to my eyes or Kodachrome (not high saturation but high contrast)
Photography is taste though, but I would add it would be a pretty boring world if we all did the same thing. As for playing around and having fun, great go for it. But after a while it's like the X factor, you just get sick of it ;D
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Dave: Isn't it reasonable and not a conceit to want to match the unreality of what you see in the photo to the unreality of what you saw originally in the viewfinder?
IMO it's both reasonable and a conceit. :) It's why we reverse the tonal scale of negative film. It's why we kludge sensors with CFAs to mimic the way our eye/brain system creates color. At the same time we shouldn't fool ourselves that we're thus more accurately rendering visual reality. But accuracy is meaningless here anyway...there is no objective visual reality to accurately render. There's only energy (light), energy receptors and interpretation.
In the end it comes down to Winogrand's quote (I'm paraphrasing, I think): photographs show us what things look like when photographed. This acknowledges the interpretive nature of the visual world while leaving it up to each of us as photographers to decide how, and what, to interpret.
-Dave-
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Progress: fooling around -> having fun -> utterly ridiculous (e.g., denying photography as reality-bound -> denying reality).
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IMO it's both reasonable and a conceit. :) It's why we reverse the tonal scale of negative film. It's why we kludge sensors with CFAs to mimic the way our eye/brain system creates color. At the same time we shouldn't fool ourselves that we're thus more accurately rendering visual reality. But accuracy is meaningless here anyway...there is no objective visual reality to accurately render. There's only energy (light), energy receptors and interpretation.
In the end it comes down to Winogrand's quote (I'm paraphrasing, I think): photographs show us what things look like when photographed. This acknowledges the interpretive nature of the visual world while leaving it up to each of us as photographers to decide how, and what, to interpret.
I like your analogy and comparing to conceit!
Winogrand understood this distinction very well. Here's an interesting youtube.com video of Winogrand explaining his philosophy at about 1 minute 50 seconds in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQhZcKzbM9s
"I don't have to have any story telling responsibility to what I am photographing. I have a responsibity to describe well -- In fact that's a photograph -- They're mute, they don't have any narrative ability at all, you know what something looked like, but you don't know what's happening ...
There isn't a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability, any of them.
They do not tell stories, they show you what something looks like, through a camera. The minute you relate this thing
[indicating the photograph being examined] to what was photographed, it's a lie.
It's two dimensional, it's illusional ..."
Winogrand not only rapped the idea that a photograph shows reality, but also went further and says there is not even a story in a photograph. The concept (or conceit) of reality or some kind of a story is all in the mind of the viewer, not in the photograph.
I find that more than somewhat interesting because particularly with Street Photography many photographers and viewers alike feel that what makes Street interesting is the part a viewer imagines about the story supposedly captured by the image. But there is no story, it's only in their imagination and what the photographer does is provide the largest variety of memory triggers possible.
Other photographers strive to provide a photograph that narrows the viewer's imagination down to a limited set of symbols that trigger imagination in an effort to more precisely guide the viewer's imagination to a specific conclusion.
Both styles of photography are quite valid, even thought they are opposites.
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Progress: fooling around -> having fun -> utterly ridiculous (e.g., denying photography as reality-bound -> denying reality).
Reality is like beauty, it's unique to each individual and is entirely "in the eye of the beholder". Reality doesn't exist outside of each person's imagination.
The reality of any given scene is one thing, and the reality of every photograph of that scene is something entirely different. As Winogrand said many times, a photograph just shows you what something looks like when it is photographed. The "reality" in the photograph absolutely is an illusion.
That does not deny reality, it just expands our understanding of it!
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Aloha,
I work everyday, if not shooting; then selling my prints.
Far more people ask me about my camera, lenses, filters, film, mounting and techniques than about Photoshop, I'm glad to tell them about anything.
The amount of time and effort it takes me to earn my living from my work is at times overwhelming, I don't think I would be able to do it if it was not an overriding passion. There are not many shortcuts.
I love shooting, I like trying different things.
I like talking about photography, and some of the amazing places I have been able to shoot with people that view and buy my work. I never wanted to do something that I love to do, and feel the need to lie or make excuses, so I don't.
I don't like working on the computer, it's my least favorite thing, I do find it helpful, no doubt in polishing up some of my work. I'm much happier with an image the less I need to do in post processing, less work/time is always better in my book, but not always possible.
I've found polishing up a turd just gets me a polished turd, at least to my eye, and I am doing this for my eye.
In my work I think about what is impacting me in the scene, so the scene and light need to be pretty cool for me to even want to shoot it, and I've become more obstinate in that regard over the years.
Lighting a dull scene on fire just for the sake of it doesn't appeal to me much (and not that I haven't done it either.) I can understand the need if you are on an eight day shoot and have 7 days of crap light, but I've pretty much found that the 8th day will be heaven. Playing around on the computer doesn't interest me much, but Like everyone I end up there a lot. I am under no pressure to do something I don't want to do so I don't.
I don't do HDR; but I've seen some beautiful HDR-( I guess that's not technical true as my current camera coupled with grads can get huge DR)
I don't do much Black and white; but have seen some beautiful stunning black and white.
I don't do any exposure stacking, but I've seen some wonderfully, no; magnificent stuff.
There's plenty Plenty of room at the table, Photography is the most democratic of all the arts, even children can do it well.
There has always been many valid branches on the tree of art, with new ones growing all the time. It might seem like your branch is better, and you need to tell everyone why it's better, but that's just chirping from your perch.
I can't or won't fault anyone for any technique or methodology used in their work it's not my place or my inclination. I like art based on how it impacts me. not how it was created.
Even at the most basic level of any human endeavor there is an innate competitive drive associated with that endeavor. I believe much of the let's call it "spite" in the professional photographic world (if your an amateur we really truly don't care what you think) is now focused on the amount of post prepossessing
involved in the creation of an image. When its all said and done moving a few sliders around in ACR is not enough to build a career on, but maybe doing that; coupled with more work than you thought was humanly possibly might give you a shot, and if that is what you enjoy doing go for it. I've seen many guys come and go; think you can do it all with CS6 go for it! think you can do it without CS6 go for it! Software is such a small part of what is required to year in and year out produce solid work; its patently ridiculous to give it so much attention.
Anyway, y'all keep it up cause its pretty freaking funny.... chirp chirp
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I believe much of the let's call it "spite" in the professional photographic world (if your an amateur we really truly don't care what you think) is now focused on the amount of post prepossessing involved in the creation of an image.
Mmmm. Certainly not something that I, as an amateur, would even dream of expressing an opinion about, let alone undertaking.
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Progress: fooling around -> having fun -> utterly ridiculous (e.g., denying photography as reality-bound -> denying reality).
Yow! There's a massive difference between (quoting myself) "there is no objective visual reality" and denying reality. :o Light is real as is our eye/brain light receptor/interpreter system. The fallacy lies in believing there's an objectively correct visual interpretation of light emission & absorption. "Objectively correct" just doesn't apply.
Light is pretty simple stuff. When viewed as excitations, waves, in an electromagnetic field it comes in a variety of wavelengths. When viewed as discrete packets of energy, photons, each exists somewhere within a probability range described in terms of a wavelength. That's it. Light has no bright, dark, red, blue, green, etc. property. Knowing this is a liberating thing. You can, for instance, photograph a shaded glacier under a clear sky using daylight color balance (or daylight-balanced color film), understanding that while the surrounding landscape will look "correct" the glacier will be rendered in accentuated blue tones. Rather than get upset at your camera or film for not being sufficiently "accurate," you can quit worrying about accuracy and choose simply to make something beautiful or compelling.
-Dave-
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IMO it's both reasonable and a conceit. :) It's why we reverse the tonal scale of negative film. It's why we kludge sensors with CFAs to mimic the way our eye/brain system creates color. At the same time we shouldn't fool ourselves that we're thus more accurately rendering visual reality. But accuracy is meaningless here anyway...there is no objective visual reality to accurately render. There's only energy (light), energy receptors and interpretation.
In the end it comes down to Winogrand's quote (I'm paraphrasing, I think): photographs show us what things look like when photographed. This acknowledges the interpretive nature of the visual world while leaving it up to each of us as photographers to decide how, and what, to interpret.
-Dave-
Dave: One can certainly disagree about the interpretation and truth of contrast, hue, and saturation levels. But I don't think you can argue that truth exists in a photo where you cloned a horse taken from a picture shot in Texas into a photo taken of a field you shot in Vermont. It may make a nice photo; very artistic and all that. But you'll never convince a jury it represents reality. Granted, the purchaser of such a photo may not care about truth only buying it for the artistic content and how it looks on their wall. But others, let's say a person seeing this photo in a Vermont Travel guide, could be very offended when they learned of the deceit.
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Dave: One can certainly disagree about the interpretation and truth of contrast, hue, and saturation levels. But I don't think you can argue that truth exists in a photo where you cloned a horse taken from a picture shot in Texas into a photo taken of a field you shot in Vermont. It may make a nice photo; very artistic and all that. But you'll never convince a jury it represents reality. Granted, the purchaser of such a photo may not care about truth only buying it for the artistic content and how it looks on their wall. But others, let's say a person seeing this photo in a Vermont Travel guide, could be very offended when they learned of the deceit.
All of that is very true... and totally misses the point too!
Cloning a Texan into Vermont doesn't provide reality. But there was no Vermont reality in the picture to start with!
That picture of Vermont is not really Vermont. It's a picture: A two dimensional object that conjures up some kind of emotion in the mind of a viewer. If the photographer did a good job the emotion of most viewers will be approximately the same. The picture is an illusion.
If the picture is intended for use in a Vermont Travel Guide the illusion it presents to a viewer should probably relate to what Vermont looks like in a photograph. Enhancing that illusion with items typical of Vermont, even if they were photographed in Texas, is valid and functional.
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Try submiting a cloned photo in an insurance claim.
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Try submiting a cloned photo in an insurance claim.
If you lie about what the illusion in the photograph is, it's perjury. Try submitting one that isn't cloned and lie about what it shows.
It makes no real difference what the photograph shows if you perjure yourself. And in fact it isn't the photograph, it's what you say it is, that counts. Nobody accepts a photograph on it's face as evidence, you have to correctly state what it is.
(Incidentally, I shoot a lot of images for insurance purposes.)
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Nobody accepts a photograph on it's face as evidence, you have to correctly state what it is.
Tell that to a photo-finish loser in the Kentucky Derby.
Reality is like beauty, it's unique to each individual and is entirely "in the eye of the beholder". Reality doesn't exist outside of each person's imagination.
Your position would make baseball impossible. Which it isn't.
But there was no Vermont reality in the picture to start with!
My GPS mapping system is based on photography, and it seems to get me around California okay. I couldn't speak for Vermont.
The world doesn't look like anything.
Really? I just ran up some stairs. Didn't miss even one.
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Tell that to a photo-finish loser in the Kentucky Derby.
If a loser believes the decision is wrong and takes it to court, do you expect the court would politely accept their own photograph of the finish as evidence? If that were true there probably would have been several cases already, each with their own photographs purporting to show who really did win.
But in fact the evidence that counts is when they bring in the expert technician/engineer team that desinged, installed, and operated the photo finish camera. Reality isn't the photograph, it's their sworn testimony of what the picture shows.
As Garry Winogrand said about pictures, "They're mute, they don't have any narrative ability at all, you know what somethig looked like, but you don't know what's happening."
Of course what you may not be aware of is that a photofinish camera doesn't take one photograph, it produces a composite of many photographs, all at the same place but at different times. Because of that it is, with multiple pictures, a narrative that tells what happened. But its the expert testimony explaining it that will be the evidence that decides the case. And not one of the pictures alone would be useful, or even recognizable.
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Since I hardly look at any other any other forums (fora?) these days it's nice to know that we fall at the "polite" end of the spectrum. I'd hate to imagine what the other extreme looks like.
YouTube comments seem to the lowest end. :o Whatever the video content, there always seems to be some racist or homophobic comment. And I only ever glance at the top few on display in passing.
What I think that is interesting about online communication is that it is unfiltered and so we get a better insight as to how others who we do not mix with in reality may really feel/think. Even though at times we may really not like what they think.
I also think this is why Facebook can be so much better than for online communication. Because at least in my case, I am are talking to friends/people I actually know [with occasional carefully selected exceptions]. So when I write something they get whether it is a joke or a serious comment. Though if you befriend anyone who walks by then you're going to get the same problems of misunderstanding as everywhere else online.
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Dave: Isn't it reasonable and not a conceit to want to match the unreality of what you see in the photo to the unreality of what you saw originally in the viewfinder?
;D
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I'm going to ignore the troll (search Floyd Davidson on google and you'll find posts from other forums he has trolled).
Ah, he seems to have really, really, really upset quite a lot of people before alighting here. :o
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Bravo, Michael. I could make a dozen remarks with minor "corrections" but why? Bravo is all that I really need to say. Bravo!
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Wow. Does everything have to become a dick size comparing contest or an argument? ???
It's just people fooling around, having their kind of fun :-)
Seems the order of our times.
In the communication medium of internet forum posts, quite literally, yes.
"To be generous, guiltless and of free disposition, is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets: there is no slander in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail; nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove." Twelfth Night - Act 1, Scene 5, Page 5
(http://nfs.sparknotes.com/twelfthnight/page_38.html)
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Vision is pure interpretation. The world doesn't look like anything. Tiny packets of energy, photons, strike our optic nerves and generate electrical signals. ... As I said, the world doesn't objectively look like anything.
This morning the eastern sky was light blue, warming to apricot at the horizon; and the dull blue gray stretching up from the horizon turned rosy pink a little higher in the western sky. When the photo shows that western sky as cyan and we say that's not really what the world looked like, we're talking about phenomena not physics.
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Really? I just ran up some stairs. Didn't miss even one.
John, you just need to think about it more rigorously. Vision gives us a spatial/tonal impression of what's "out there." This helps us immensely in navigating in & interacting with the rest of the world. But you've never seen a stair in your life. What you have seen is a constructed interpretation of a stream of electromagnetic emissions coming from the stair. At our macroscopic level of perception the stair is really there. Your foot really stepped on it. Its visual contours correspond to tactile evidence provided by your feet and/or hands. Yet the notion that it looks like anything intrinsically is meaningless. Vision is based on real data coming from real things but is itself an abstraction.
-Dave-
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This morning the eastern sky was light blue, warming to apricot at the horizon; and the dull blue gray stretching up from the horizon turned rosy pink a little higher in the western sky. When the photo shows that western sky as cyan and we say that's not really what the world looked like, we're talking about phenomena not physics.
Physics underlies all phenomena, Isaac. ;) But back to Winogrand: photographs show what things look like photographed. Break free of the notion that photos must or even can be objectively color-correct and you'll have entered a much broader world of visual creativity.
-Dave-
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Physics underlies all phenomena...
Physics provides a model of reality, let's not confuse that model with reality.
Physics provides explanations that are useful for some purposes and useless for others.
When the photo shows that western sky as cyan and we say that's not really what the world looked like -- we're comparing our experience of seeing the western sky with our experience of seeing the photo -- we're talking about phenomena not physics.
But back to Winogrand: photographs show what things look like photographed.
Remember, that wasn't Winogrand, that was you "paraphrasing".
Winogrand famously said -- "I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."
Apparently he also said -- "There are photographs that function just to give you information. I never saw a pyramid, but I've seen photographs; I know what a pyramid or a sphinx looks like. (http://jnevins.com/garywinograndreading.htm) There are pictures that do that, but they satisfy a different kind of interest. Most photographs are of life, what goes on in the world."
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Remember, that wasn't Winogrand, that was you "paraphrasing".
Winogrand famously said -- "I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."
Don't mistake the paraphrase for something out of context or that differs from what Winogrand meant. He said it many times in many slightly different ways.
"I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs."
"I photograph to find out what the world looks like photographed."
"I photograph to see what something will look like photographed."
"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed."
"[Photographs] do not tell stories, they show you what something looks like, through a camera."
Apparently he also said -- "There are photographs that function just to give you information. I never saw a pyramid, but I've seen photographs; I know what a pyramid or a sphinx looks like. (http://jnevins.com/garywinograndreading.htm) There are pictures that do that, but they satisfy a different kind of interest. Most photographs are of life, what goes on in the world."
This quote does not contradict the previous paraphrase, or the quotes. If you read it in the context of what Winogrand said over and over again, it is just another addition to the same thing: A photograph is an illusion that is very distinct from the scene photographed. The photograph shows you information about a scene, it does not show you the scene.
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A photograph is an illusion that is very distinct from the scene photographed. The photograph shows you information about a scene, it does not show you the scene.
Is that something you were confused about? :-)
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Funny I rarely get people asking me if it was photoshopped, but I do get them asking me what camera I used because it took really good pictures...
What camera? is the obvious conversation starter with a photographer. I think Was it photoshopped? would be too confrontational if they're just making conversation.
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... For a short while I wondered how Galen would deal with shooting raw, but I settled on what I think is the obvious answer - He would be using every tool available to create the image in his mind's eye.
I'll settle on the views he expressed back then, and freely acknowledge that I'll never know how those views may have developed into the present time.
"Because of the increased consciousness about altered images, I became acutely aware of my choices for this book. Over the years I have experimented with double exposures and montages and have rejected them out of hand for consideration here. In an overall sense I see the merging of computer technology with photography as firming my resolves rather than tempting me to contrive images. I've resisted other temptations in photography from the beginning, and I am now reminded more than ever of the need to preserve the personal ethic that has bound my life with my work for almost two decades." p30
"I am intent on preserving the integrity of still photography. I avoid lenses that curve horizons and filters that manipulate color away from what I perceive. Above all, I want my subject matter to be part of a genuine experience rather than a scene created for the camera or one found out of context, such as the taxi in the desert. I recognize that some of my photographs may seem unreal to people who have not experienced the many nuances of mountain light, but all are natural events." p37
But I've used this slightest of excuses as enough reason to fetch Mountain Light (http://books.google.com/books?id=sEObuAAACAAJ) from the local library, so it's all worthwhile :-)
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Is that something you were confused about? :-)
Obviously not, but clearly a lot of people are.
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Where are all those unnamed individuals? :-)
I guess a lot of people initially assume a photograph accurately represents a particular scene, but I don't think they have any difficulty understanding that a photograph "is very distinct from the scene photographed".
Even though she is aware of airbrushing techniques, Jemma says it is something she forgets about while flicking through a glossy magazine. "Because I'm not thinking about it, you just think they're really skinny and that must be real." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24522060)
Jemma isn't confused about the distinction between the photo and the model, Jemma's confused about how accurately the photo represents the model.
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A photograph is an illusion that is very distinct from the scene photographed.
Illusion is the wrong word. Representation is what should be used. Far less confusing/misleading a word.
A photograph is a representation of a scene being photographed. How 'accurate' the representation is, is an extremely variable/debatable quality.
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Illusion is the wrong word. Representation is what should be used. Far less confusing/misleading a word.
A photograph is a representation of a scene being photographed. How 'accurate' the representation is, is an extremely variable/debatable quality.
The word used by Winogrand was illusion. Specifically he was pointing out that it is a two dimensional illusion.
"[...] it's a lie. It's two dimensional, it's the illusion of a literal description ..." -- Winogrand
"A photograph is the illusion of a literal description of how the camera 'saw' a piece of time and space." -- Winogrand
It isn't wrong. A photograph is not a "representation of a scene", because that does imply accurate and complete. An illusion implies incomplete and not necessarily accurate.
And of course Ansel Adams also used the word Illusion:
"what is before the lens always has the illusion of reality; but what is selected and put before the lens can be as false as any totalitarian lie." -- Ansel Adams
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Where are all those unnamed individuals? :-)
Argument for the sake of argument is non-productive.
I guess a lot of people initially assume a photograph accurately represents a particular scene, but I don't think they have any difficulty understanding that a photograph "is very distinct from the scene photographed".
Jemma isn't confused about the distinction between the photo and the model, Jemma's confused about how accurately the photo represents the model.
Citing exceptions doesn't disprove the statement. In fact, because they are clearly exceptions, it proves the original statement. It is a fact that not just a lot of people in general, but a lot of photographers do not realize they are producing a two dimentional illusion, not a representation of reality. Just look at the discussions about getting color "right", at the discussions about "Out Of Camera" vs. Post Processing as a moral issue.
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A photograph is not a "representation of a scene", because that does imply accurate and complete.
Please show that "representation" dictionary definition :-)
a two dimentional illusion, not a representation of reality
Please show why a two dimensional illusion cannot be a representation of reality.
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Argument for the sake of argument is non-productive.
Did you type that with a straight face?
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It isn't wrong. A photograph is not a "representation of a scene", because that does imply accurate and complete.
Please show us that dictionary definition :-)
I'd like to see that definition of representation too. As this for an example is a representation of some political chap and it is certainly not accurate.
You now seem to be doing what you accuse others of, twisting English to mean whatever you think is right as opposed to the general received usage.
(http://img.izismile.com/img/img2/20090422/caricature_32.jpg)
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Physics provides a model of reality, let's not confuse that model with reality.
No confusion here. Models are the best we can do. More on topic: vision is all about building models, no?
Physics provides explanations that are useful for some purposes and useless for others.
When the photo shows that western sky as cyan and we say that's not really what the world looked like -- we're comparing our experience of seeing the western sky with our experience of seeing the photo -- we're talking about phenomena not physics.
A curious person won't leave it at that. She/he will wonder, "How is it that the photo and my mind's eye differ?" Enter physics (allied with neuroscience and chemistry).
I'd really like to engage in the consequences for photography of vision being a modeling/abstracting thing, rather than getting stuck on the modeling/abstracting processes themselves. But I suspect the getting stuck part follows from an unwillingness to so engage. I'd rather be wrong about this...
-Dave-
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Off into the world of emotionalism and gratuitous personal comments it goes...
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Are we to understand that when you write -- A photograph is not a "representation of a scene", because that does imply accurate and complete -- that is according to your personal definition of representation, which may be different from a dictionary definition? ;-)
"... we are all talking about different things unless you use standard definitions." Floyd Davidson September 30, 2013 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=82268.msg667723#msg667723).
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Off into the world of emotionalism and gratuitous personal comments it goes...
Pointing out your casual redefining of English to suit yourself is neither emotional or gratuitous. Particularly when you are so happy to castigate other posters for doing the same thing. It's hardly our fault you've tripped yourself up.
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No confusion here.
Good, it just seemed too much of a stretch to read "Physics underlies all phenomena..." as "Physical reality underlies all phenomena..." and in-any-case wasn't what I'd meant by physics.
A curious person won't leave it at that. She/he will wonder, "How is it that the photo and my mind's eye differ?" Enter physics (allied with neuroscience and chemistry).
As a tangent for a curious person to follow all-well-and-good.
As a response to "that's not really what the world looked like" it's more like a diversion.
I'd really like to engage in the consequences for photography...
Do you think we'd come up with something more than Galen Rowell wrote on that topic 20 years ago? :-)
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Do you think we'd come up with something more than Galen Rowell wrote on that topic 20 years ago? :-)
Maybe not. Galen Rowell said it very well indeed. His Inner Game Of Outdoor Photography is among my favorite books in any category. But I think the landscape photography world is largely in denial of the implications of his writing on color vision and of color vision theory in general. (Note that Edwin Land's Retinex theory, cited by Rowell, is understood to be incomplete but still a good step in the right direction.)
-Dave-
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Pointing out your casual redefining of English to suit yourself is neither emotional or gratuitous. Particularly when you are so happy to castigate other posters for doing the same thing. It's hardly our fault you've tripped yourself up.
But you don't want to discuss the topic anymore, and only post diversions to distract from what has been said.
What was said is that Garry Winogrand, an authoritative source. on multiple occasions and in various ways stated that photographs are not reality, are not the scene photographed, and (his word) are an illusion.
You say Winogrand is wrong, stating "illusion is the wrong word. Representation is what should be used." But you are not the authoritative voice that Winogrand is...
Apparently your disagreement is actually with Winogrand rather than with me, but my pointing out the actual connotation of the words (within the standard dictionary definitions, not contradicting them) seems to be just as misunderstood by you as Winogrand's statements. Incidentally, Rudolf Arnheim, another authortative source, related this to Gestalt psychology and said art is "not simply an imitation or selective duplication of reality, but a translation of observed characteristics into the forms of a given medium" (Film as Art, Arnheim). Which is to say not so much a representation of reality as an illusion of it.
Regardless of how poorly you might understand English word usage, that isn't the topic here. Photography and the analysis of photographs is the topic.. Specifically this thread is about Reichmann's article. In that light I'll toss in another clinker to think about, which is how to relate Picasso's Cubism with photography, in theory, as a philosophy, and in practice.
Take into account that images, whether they are made with a pencil, a paint brush, or a photographic process are at the base level a form of visual communications. Then consider the concept of entropy in communications, as was defined by Claude Shannon in his revolutionary 1949 paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communications" which vaulted the world into the Information Age... with the same concepts that perceptual psycologist Rudolf Arnheim applied to visual art in a 1971 essay "Entropy and Art". That's a lot of background to soak up before the use of a more universal set of symbols to paint a picture with (i.e., Cubism) can be related to the more restricted set of visual symbols available to photographers.
But if one does compare the type of visual symbols used in Cubist painting to the visual symbols in photography, the use of PhotoShop to make them more universal and illusional, as opposed to being a more literal representation, becomes an academic subject rather than an emotional one. And just as Picasso advanced the art of painting with his techniques, photographers applying the same theory will advance the art of photography too.
It's Gestalt psychology applied to production of art with a camera! We can't put an eye on the shoulder of a model the way Picasso did, to make sure it was noticed, but we can do a lot of things to rearranged "the heirarchic scale of importance and power by which some structural features are dominant, others subordinate" (Arhheim) in a way that very definitly makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts in the illusion we call a photograph.
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A photograph is an illusion that is very distinct from the scene photographed.
It is a fact that not just a lot of people in general, but a lot of photographers do not realize they are producing a two dimentional illusion, not a representation of reality.
I have no objection to you clarifying that initial statement so that the distinction is between an illusion and a representation of a scene, rather than between an illusion and a scene. As long as you make clear that is what you wish to do -- just say it wasn't what you meant and correct it.
Meanwhile isn't trompe l'oeil both a two dimensional illusion and a representation of reality?
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Galen Rowell said it very well indeed.
I tend to forget that he was a writer as-well-as a photographer - "I spend two-thirds of my time on writing and one-third on photography; two-thirds of my income is from photographs, one-third from writing."
I tend to forget he was a photojournalist.
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That forms the basis for a digital image, but is it a photograph? Digital images aren't 'things', they're just binary code stored as electrical impulses on a storage medium.
In that case -- Photographs aren't 'things', they're just light-sensitive chemicals that trigger dyes on a storage medium. ;-)
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I have no objection to you clarifying that initial statement so that the distinction is between an illusion and a representation of a scene, rather than between an illusion and a scene. As long as you make clear that is what you wish to do -- just say it wasn't what you meant and correct it.
If that works for you, wonderful. But I don't see that I changed anything about what I meant. A photograph is a reality all it's own, it is not the reality of the scene. It is an illusion. What I'm doing by restating in different ways is trying to make it easier for readers to realize what I mean, and harder for it to be twisted into something else.
Again I'll rely on Winogrand as the authoritative voice:
"[...] maybe the correct language would be how the fact of putting four edges around a collection of information or facts translates it. A photograph is not what was photographed, it's something else."
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What I'm doing by restating in different ways is trying to make it easier for readers to realize what I mean...
I do hope you find some people who genuinely confuse a photograph with reality, so that you may instruct them.
Although why bother to instruct mere figments of your imagination? -- "Reality doesn't exist outside of each person's imagination (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=83025.msg671158#msg671158)."
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I do hope you find some people who genuinely confuse a photograph with reality, so that you may instruct them.
Although why bother to instruct mere figments of your imagination? -- "Reality doesn't exist outside of each person's imagination (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=83025.msg671158#msg671158)."
That is what this thread, and Reichmann's original article, are about.
Why bother posting to this thead if you don't a discussion of that topic?
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I do hope you find some people who genuinely confuse a photograph with reality, so that you may instruct them.
Although why bother to instruct mere figments of your imagination? -- "Reality doesn't exist outside of each person's imagination (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=83025.msg671158#msg671158)."
That is what this thread, and Reichmann's original article, are about.
It doesn't seem to me that apocryphal photographer who showed a wallet snapshot to Picasso and said, "I'd like to show you my wife" genuinely confused a photograph with reality. It seems to me that both he and Picasso shared the obvious understanding that the snapshot was a piece of paper that showed an image of the photographer's wife, and Picasso simply took the opportunity to belittle him.
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But you don't want to discuss the topic anymore, and only post diversions to distract from what has been said.
Not sure if you completely missed the point being made or are wriggling like crazy so as not to admit you made a mistake. One you hypocritically criticised others for. And claiming anything that others on LuLa posts that conflicts with you or your quotes is off topic is tiresome.
What was said is that Garry Winogrand, an authoritative source. on multiple occasions and in various ways stated that photographs are not reality, are not the scene photographed, and (his word) are an illusion.
You say Winogrand is wrong, stating "illusion is the wrong word. Representation is what should be used." But you are not the authoritative voice that Winogrand is...
Give it a rest with the tedious and incessant quoting of others. Seeing as the people on this forum have views that are apparently completely worthless in your opinion, despite your knowing nothing about anyone here, why do you bother with us ignorant and unauthoritative plebs?
Your constant copying and pasting of other people's opinions only seems to indicate you have nothing of your own to offer.
Such as ....
Again I'll rely on Winogrand as the authoritative voice:
Why, simply because he agrees with you? And somehow you think that proves something.
Regardless of how poorly you might understand English word usage, that isn't the topic here. Photography and the analysis of photographs is the topic..
Once again with the hypocrisy. When you aren't quoting someone or critiquing their non-standard English, you are complaining on about personal attacks yet are quite happy to do just that yourself.
And as for my supposed lack of English ability, when I queried that illusion was the wrong word, the fact that it may have first been used in that context by someone else only shows that both of you are misusing the word and certainly not that I didn't realise it was the only relevant voice on photography that made the error. Because you and this God like photographer used 'illusion' in a certain way, then the rest of the English speaking world must be wrong, is what you now seem to be saying.
I'm guessing that the real reason for your recent arrival and the sudden deluge of posts on LuLa is to sneer at us stupid people because you've made yourself very unwelcome at other online locations.
You will now be put on the ignore list.
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It doesn't seem to me that apocryphal photographer who showed a wallet snapshot to Picasso and said, "I'd like to show you my wife" genuinely confused a photograph with reality. It seems to me that both he and Picasso shared the obvious understanding that the snapshot was a piece of paper that showed an image of the photographer's wife, and Picasso simply took the opportunity to belittle him.
Quite possibly or maybe simply some wordplay banter. But because it was Picasso, it will be ascribed a more profound meaning because he's well....Picasso.
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It doesn't seem to me that apocryphal photographer who showed a wallet snapshot to Picasso and said, "I'd like to show you my wife" genuinely confused a photograph with reality. It seems to me that both he and Picasso shared the obvious understanding that the snapshot was a piece of paper that showed an image of the photographer's wife, and Picasso simply took the opportunity to belittle him.
So?
The point is that if you read, and want to discuss the article by Michael Reichmann that this thread is about, that is the topic.
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Not sure if you completely missed the point being made [...]
That you want to distract from reason and logic with a diversion that you've created? It isn't on topic.
Give it a rest with the tedious and incessant quoting of others.
When your opinion is at odds with authoritative expert opinions it should be enlightening. The first point where the light should go on is that your opinin probably isn't well reasoned and/or logical. It should be rethought. But the last thing you should do is attack the person who showed you what authoritative voices have said, or worse yet attack those voices.
Seeing as the people on this forum have views that are apparently completely worthless in your opinion, despite your knowing nothing about anyone here, why do you bother with us ignorant and unauthoritative plebs?
Your constant copying and pasting of other people's opinions only seems to indicate you have nothing of your own to offer.
Don't speak for me. It is quit clear that there are many people here with very valuable opinions.
You again just go on and on with a manufactured distraction. It's not worth responding to.
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... if you read, and want to discuss the article by Michael Reichmann that this thread is about, that is the topic.
You have repeatedly insisted that "A photograph is an illusion that is very distinct from the scene photographed."
What you haven't done is find someone who disagrees, or shown that there are people who genuinely confused a photograph with reality.
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We have not heard a good quote in this thread for a while, so how about this one:
“When you argue with a fool, chances are he is doing just the same”
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‘Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty but the pigs like it.’
I prefer your saying - it's more even-handed.
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Susan Sontag had a great deal to say about the in what ways and to what degree we conflate photographs with reality. Things are different now, 40 years down time, but some things remain the same. We still get irrationally worried and upset when people photograph our children, which suggests that certain ancient superstitions remain.
If you haven't read Sontag, I submit that you're missing some of the basic work that's been done on these admittedly pretty esoteric and ultimately not terribly interesting issues. If you have, then you know what I'm talking about. She had some pretty good thoughts and wrote some of 'em down.
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Susan Sontag had a great deal to say about the in what ways and to what degree we conflate photographs with reality. Things are different now, 40 years down time, but some things remain the same. We still get irrationally worried and upset when people photograph our children, which suggests that certain ancient superstitions remain.
If you haven't read Sontag, I submit that you're missing some of the basic work that's been done on these admittedly pretty esoteric and ultimately not terribly interesting issues. If you have, then you know what I'm talking about. She had some pretty good thoughts and wrote some of 'em down.
But Sontag didn't write so much about the reality of photographs as she did about the reality of photography. There is a difference. She did touch on the idea that people do relate to a photograph as reality, but her real point was the effects of photography on culture. Her essays were on the anthropology of photography, and the effects are essentially the same whether people think a photograph is real or whether they see it as this illlusion/representation that has been under discussion here.
Because I do a lot of "people pictures" I've always been interested in the philosophy that Sontage expressed. She discussed the fact that many people see images, whether drawings or photographs, as usurping a spiritual part of the subject depicted. Sontag famously pointed out that it is an assault to photograph a person:
"To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed. Just as a camera is a sublimation of the gun, to photograph someone is a subliminal murder - a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time."
Which discusses the effects of photography, not the photograph. But necessarily that discussion at time centers on exactly what a photograph is in the same sense we have been discussing:
"such images are indeed able to usurp reality because first of all a photograph is not only an image, an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real"
There are interesting criticisms of Sontag, some of which relate to the style of argument used here by some. One is that her early essays were written before she had the credentials that she ultimately did! It can also be argued that she was even to begin with a credible authority, but some like the idea that until she was partnered with Annie Leibovitz, Sontag didn't know photography well enough to analyze it accuratly. Seems to be nothing more than a well orchestrated and worthless distraction.
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Susan Sontag ... Things are different now, 40 years down time, but some things remain the same.
Indeed, some things remain the same -- "Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing -- which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power." ("In Plato's Cave", in "On Photography".)
So not a vast majority of insecure "fine art" photographers.
ultimately not terribly interesting issues
Indeed, and Michael Reichmann implored us to have fun, so can we laugh at ourselves?
6 page pdf The Adventure of a Photographer (http://beauty.gmu.edu/AVT459/AVT459-001/Calvino.pdf) Italo Calvino, 1958.
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‘Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty but the pigs like it.’
Are you, uh, saying that there's something wrong with wrestling with pigs?