Photographic Integrity

[pegelli]

I do appreciate most of the input, but it seems to me this horse isn't going anywhere anymore, so I think I am going to dismount

Hi Jack, agree and I'll dismount as well. I've also never seen a thread where so many times there was agreement to disagree on items people actually agreed on (respectfully or disrespectfully)    

By the way, I liked the discussion as well and also pointed me to a website (Mangelson's) that I didn't know but really like the pictures on.

[dalethorn]

I think this discussion has potential, mostly unrealized because people are trying hard to say that there's no significant difference between processing in-camera and post processing, and/or no significant difference between minimizing post processing versus maximizing it, as long as you're satisfied with your own rules.

So I though I'd add one more perspective.  I consider myself to be a purist, yet I do some PP that other purists may find objectionable.  Instead of spending a lot of time composing, I just try to get to an interesting place to shoot a photo, then bracket as best I can for the frame and the exposure, allowing extra around the edges for rotate and crop.  Then back in the lab, I experiment with whatever small rotation is needed to get it right (minimal), then crop to the final frame, then whatever other minor adjustments need to be made due to camera limitations, do as few as are needed.

I did a lot less of this with film, due partly to the more cumbersome methods of rotating and cropping, and partly due to the film usually giving a better look than what I get with digital, which is less predictable.

But the basic intent is exactly the same, despite the different approaches - to try to capture an image, rather than create it.  And I don't have a problem with creating, I'd just prefer it be labeled.

[lensfactory]

ALL images are created, not captured. In dutch me actually say "make" a picture not "take" a picture.
ALL images are created and a distortion of any objective viewpoint. To say one is a purist in this is to say you are fundamentally holding on to a subjective viewpoint and calling it something of more value than another viewpoint. It is to say a human sees better than a bee, or a wide angle is a better representation of 'reality' than a telephoto...and on and on...
It IS obvious that we represent ideas more than anything actually material or physical when we take a photograph. And though I DO think the universe itself is composed of ideas, as to what they are, if they can be quantified, or where they reside is probably unanswerable.

I suppose you could argue that the status quo defines what this idea of 'more pure' photography is. But otherwise I would be hard pressed to be able to come up with a definition of it, so how could using photoshop NOT just be just another part of this process, like using a Skylight Filter or a certain Film Type.How could it be otherwise?

[JBerardi]

I think this discussion has potential, mostly unrealized because people are trying hard to say that there's no significant difference between processing in-camera and post processing, and/or no significant difference between minimizing post processing versus maximizing it, as long as you're satisfied with your own rules.

Not to be rude, but who exactly is saying that? I'm not seeing it.

[dalethorn]

ALL images are created, not captured.

False on its face. Many people pick up a camera and snap and that's it. Files *captured* are displayed on the monitor - not even printed.

You could say that digital images are an interpretation of whatever, but they're still captures until you do something besides capture (press the shutter).

Why would you insist on "made"? To then jump to the next point, that the shooter intends to "create"? Sure,  you can argue semantics, but demonstrate how a person who snaps only is the same as a person who also post processes. Not just two different concepts - two different worlds.

[lensfactory]

False on its face. Many people pick up a camera and snap and that's it. Files *captured* are displayed on the monitor - not even printed.

You could say that digital images are an interpretation of whatever, but they're still captures until you do something besides capture (press the shutter).

Why would you insist on "made"? To then jump to the next point, that the shooter intends to "create"? Sure,  you can argue semantics, but demonstrate how a person who snaps only is the same as a person who also post processes. Not just two different concepts - two different worlds.

They aren't captured at all...but made by all the technical instruments and evaluations (and there are many), by the camera that is being used. Printing is hardly the bifurcation point of something becoming 'more real', it is just derivative of the initial process. The initial process always being pre-visualisation...what one 'decides' to capture,take,make,whatever... in the first place. That is the territory of ideas..whether they be subconscious or intentional. The 'post-processing' is everything that happens after that. The amount of post-processing makes no difference to this fundamental idea.

[John Camp]

One of the underlying faults of this discussion is the idea that what the camera captures is a neutral "reality," when, in fact, it's not. If you shoot under florescent lights, the shots will be green, even though your eyes didn't see the environment as green, because your brain adjusted its white-point. So when you post-process your images to a better white point, what you're doing is struggling to adjust a machine capture to a brain capture. There's nothing fake about that.

I agree with Jack about at least one thing: the person who does the capture is the creative one, the artist, the journalist, whatever, when the intention is "straight" photography. The function of the post-processor is essentially technical, in the sense that he is making adjustments to fit a particular straight vision. You can see this in an interesting way in the relationship between James Nachtwey and his darkroom man in the film "War Photographer."

But then there's the other side, in which the capture may be essentially irrelevant, compared to what was done later. Andy Warhol looked for certain kinds of photographs of Marilyn, Mao, Jackie Kennedy, etc., and then, through selection, post processing, and conversion to a different form of printing (silk screen) he turned them into art. The same is true in this recent controversy about the Obama poster image -- the original photographic image showed little imagination, little technique, little of anything creative -- the creative work was what happened when the artist re-processed the image.    

There's a mistake in arguing that these two things are the same, or even similar, or that one necessarily follows the other. They may be quite distinct. Or, they may not be. Jack's problem is that he apparently believes that the camera is a neutral arbiter, and if he adjusts it correctly, it'll do all the work. Well, no. He's got the raw material, but then he needs to make the print, because there are a million ways to make the print, and if he's not involved in that, then the final work will be as much a product of the printer's imagination as it is of his.

[JBerardi]

I agree with Jack about at least one thing: the person who does the capture is the creative one, the artist, the journalist, whatever, when the intention is "straight" photography. The function of the post-processor is essentially technical, in the sense that he is making adjustments to fit a particular straight vision. You can see this in an interesting way in the relationship between James Nachtwey and his darkroom man in the film "War Photographer."

That's probably true in most cases, but what about, say, W. Eugene Smith. I'd consider his stuff "straight" photography, but there's no way he could ever have just handed his negatives off to another printer and achieved the same results. His creative process did not end until he had the final print... and designed his own layouts... and wrote his own captions.... and quit whatever publication he was working for in disgust over their meddling with his work in any way. Point being, the creative processes does not stop with the capture for some photographers, regardless of how "straight" the photography in question might be.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I am an artist and I use the camera to make my initial sketch. As such I'm far closer to the accepted definition of art than perhaps the bastard art form known as photography. You either want to call photography art - in which case anything goes - or you call it a new definition 'photography' which you have to define. Given that most photographers are desperate to consider their work an art form, why on earth would they limit it within boundries non existent in any other creation of art? I personally would hate for my work to be defined as simply captured rather than created as that says a lot about whether what I have produced is art. Between what I have in my mind and the finished image presented to the public - everything in between - is just an annoyingly necessary process. I refuse to let that process define my presentation of the image I had in my thoughts. You don't call that photography? Fine, but it is art. I know what I prefer. Believe me that if I could draw or paint or sculpt to express my thoughts and emotions I wouldn't bother with the machine known as a camera. Either photography is art or it isn't - you can't have it both ways.

Brings to mind Alain's new series. Pure Art. His expertise makes it objectively good art. If he had painted it to express the same vision, that vision would have been expressed just as well. He used a camera as his paintbrush, the results - magnificent.

You can almost always tell the difference between someone taking a good 'photograph' and someone trying to express a vision through photography. I believe the latter is art, the former is just knowing when to press a button and usually does not invoke emotion or connection upon viewing.

[Rob C]

I am an artist and I use the camera to make my initial sketch.invoke emotion or connection upon viewing.

pom

I am not certain what you mean: are you saying that you take a photograph as an aide memoire (ironically, can´t depend on my own to know whether that takes a hyphen) from which you paint, or are you saying that your original photo is later manipulated into something else but still in photographic form? If you mean simply that you paint from photos, so do millions of other artists; if you make highly altered photos from your first shot then you are still a photographer, I guess.

But I love the upfront: I am an artist, even if, obviously, I can´t understand what that currently means.

I have a question of my own for you. As you may or may not have gathered over the years via posts here, my professional life was within the world of model photography; now retired and unwilling/unable to pay big bucks to these girls, I have two options: stop altogether or find a pasture new. Recent very painful personal events have pushed me into realising that sanity consists of, or might be found in, keeping busy, so I have turned the quest for that pasture into this, and hence the question for you, two, in fact, for the price of one: I make a painting, which I then photograph in sections, and from the files I produce digital colour prints. Once I have the stuff on file I delete the original painting and create a new one in its physical space/place and the process start again with fresh material. So, is that art, photography or possibly both at the same time? And where stands its integrity?

Rob C

[jjj]

pom
I have a question of my own for you. As you may or may not have gathered over the years via posts here, my professional life was within the world of model photography; now retired and unwilling/unable to pay big bucks to these girls, I have two options: stop altogether or find a pasture new. Recent very painful personal events have pushed me into realising that sanity consists of, or might be found in, keeping busy, so I have turned the quest for that pasture into this, and hence the question for you, two, in fact, for the price of one: I make a painting, which I then photograph in sections, and from the files I produce digital colour prints. Once I have the stuff on file I delete the original painting and create a new one in its physical space/place and the process start again with fresh material. So, is that art, photography or possibly both at the same time? And where stands its integrity?

My view is that it is indeed art. You just happen to be using a camera for part of it. Plus, using a camera does not disqualify the end result from being art. The lack of creative process is the disqualifier.  
Integrity in art? Unless you are trying to deceitful, why would it not have integrity. Deceitful could mean for example - selling prints as limited, when you are not limiting them.

[dalethorn]

You argue well.  You could do a part on Boston Legal.  Unfortunately, you're wrong here.  Way wrong.  I know the meaning of 'capture', and what the meaning of the word is is.  And 'capture' describes the full essence of what my camera does.  Perhaps your camera is different.  Good for you.  The smile lives on after the cat is gone.  Not only does my camera capture scenes, it captures souls.  Just ask any of many aboriginal peoples around the globe.  They know what capture means, instinctively even.  Enough of these semantics.  Back to capturing a few more souls.  Perhaps your camera *makes* souls, like a god.  Wow!

They aren't captured at all...but made by all the technical instruments and evaluations (and there are many), by the camera that is being used. Printing is hardly the bifurcation point of something becoming 'more real', it is just derivative of the initial process. The initial process always being pre-visualisation...what one 'decides' to capture,take,make,whatever... in the first place. That is the territory of ideas..whether they be subconscious or intentional. The 'post-processing' is everything that happens after that. The amount of post-processing makes no difference to this fundamental idea.

[Ben Rubinstein]

pom

I am not certain what you mean: are you saying that you take a photograph as an aide memoire (ironically, can´t depend on my own to know whether that takes a hyphen) from which you paint, or are you saying that your original photo is later manipulated into something else but still in photographic form? If you mean simply that you paint from photos, so do millions of other artists; if you make highly altered photos from your first shot then you are still a photographer, I guess.

Hi,

I meant that I paint using a camera instead of a brush. Just as an artists sketch serves as the base for the final painting, the camera's RAW image is just the very beginning of the transition from the idea I had in my mind when I stood there to the final 'painting'. The idea that a pure capture defines the medium of photography as art is an utter hypocrisy.

[walter.sk]

Given that most photographers are desperate to consider their work an art form, why on earth would they limit it within boundries non existent in any other creation of art?

Brings to mind Alain's new series. Pure Art. His expertise makes it objectively good art. If he had painted it to express the same vision, that vision would have been expressed just as well. He used a camera as his paintbrush, the results - magnificent.

You can almost always tell the difference between someone taking a good 'photograph' and someone trying to express a vision through photography. I believe the latter is art, the former is just knowing when to press a button and usually does not invoke emotion or connection upon viewing.

Yes.

[inissila]

His statement is probably pointed towards some that use digital manipulation to place wildlife into an image, not the capture medium.

Precisely. There are books by artists who duplicate animals in the shots to create a larger herd etc. This is what Mangelsen is opposed to,

Mapping a slide onto paper requires some adjustments to look good, that's a whole separate issue.

[TaoMaas]

Given that most photographers are desperate to consider their work an art form, why on earth would they limit it within boundries non existent in any other creation of art?

But other art forms DO place such restrictions upon themselves.  That's why some actors prefer live theater, while others prefer working in movies or television.  Or why some musicians' recordings are better than their live shows.  That's how I view this "straight vs processed" discussion.  One is not automatically better than the other.  They're just different.

[dalethorn]

'capture' describes the full essence of what my camera does.

Thought I'd quote myself to make a better example.  My camera can capture a person's mood, but it never makes a person's mood.  It makes data bytes from pixels on the sensor.  The light is captured on the sensor pixels, but the light is not made.  Someone can say that the image is made, but that's just someone's imagination.  The light is converted to pixels, and then to computer data bytes.  If the image (data bytes) were truly made by the camera, we would never know
what we're capturing.  A large part of what the photographic industry is dedicated to is similar to what the high-end audio industry was dedicated to in the 1970's - reproduction of a scene.  The more closely or "accurately" the recording machine can capture the scene, the more consistent will be the results, and that's what pro photographers are looking for on the capture (camera) end - more consistency, more faithfulness to the original scene.

Nobody I know wants their camera to make "artistic" decisions on capture - they want those decisions to be made in the lab.  In the 1970's, many critics and manufacturers argued for audio hardware to "interpret" sound, to be like a fine musical instrument.  That notion was universally rejected by better thinking people.  I don't see any difference with cameras.  Cameras should get out of the way as much as possible, and pass the original light straight to the data file with as faithful a capture as possible.  Fortunately, that's the direction we are actually going.

[inissila]

I don't consider a person not involved in production of the the final image a "photographer,"

One might consider the process of making the image with a camera on slide film photography, and the reproducing the image on a magazine or in a poster  the act of making copies. There may be artistic judgment involved in the latter part (since the media are different, some judgment is involved) but only if its made with light in the darkroom is the making of the print photography; if it is done in photoshop it is digital image editing - no light is involved so it can't be photography.

If you paint with finger colors on a photograph, is it still a photograph? I call it a mixture of a photograph and a painting. If you do the same finger painting in photoshop instead of doing it to the physical print, is it photography, painting, or digital image processing? It is digital image processing, of course, not photography or painting. Call it what it is and don't try to falsify what you're doing by labeling it with the name of a different process.

[JohnKoerner]

Wow, those last two posts by Dalethorn and Inissila hit the bullseye.

Thank you for articulating what I myself couldn't quite put into words ...




.

[jjj]

So John what about the fact that the 'master' photographer that started you on this nonsense about 'pure' photography was actually talking marketing BS about his purity?

Well said.  To return to the original point of this thread --that "Mangelsen's photographs are digitally unmanipulated"-- I happen to know personally 2 of Mangelsen printers (Mangelsen does not print his work himself).  The first is a friend of mine who is now retired but printed for Mangelsen for years (his lab was in Wyoming if I recall properly), and the second is Hance Partners, operated by Richard Jackson, in Flagstaff, AZ.  Jackson printed for me for many years and I saw prints and original transparencies of Mangelsen's images on each of my visits to their lab (I live in Arizona).  I can say that the prints are quite different from the transparencies, as can be expected.  The usual problems have to be fixed: contrast, color balance, saturation, local and global density adjustments, spotting, retouching, etc.  

Therefore, Mangelsen's statement that his images are unmanipulated is a marketing approach.  This approach has been used by many photographers in the past, and it continues to be used today, although it is fading due to the growing awareness by photography enthusiasts and investors that there is no such thing as a straight fine print.  Whether these changes are done in the darkroom or in the computer is irrelevant since these changes can be made either way. The computer provides an easier,  more reliable and more comprehensive approach,  that's all.  Hance Partners now features digital processing, so Mangelsen's work, at least some of it, is now digitally processed as well.  Mangelsen's prints continues to be done chemically.  The combination of digital processing and chemical printing is popular among photographers using this type of marketing approach.