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04/05/2005 02:28:10 PM · #51 |
Originally posted by jemison:
The point is that if one is sick and tired of B&D images...score them lower. Simple. |
That's always a great option but I hope that my lack of interest in heavy or even light post production won't make my style or output less desirable in other voters eyes because they may have become jaded(so to speak). Especially if I or anyone who took a straightforward, beautiful shot, that was overlooked due to these post prod shifts in taste. I sense that that might be happening. Sad, sad, sad.
There's absolutely no argument that the stuff looks gorgeous and it's easy to get lost in it but the digital darkroom might just be overpowering the real deal. I hope some purity will still shine through as being quality.
Or else we'll have nothing but N'Syncs, Dodge and Burn, Destiny's Child, USM and The Olive Garden. Well, ...you get the picture.
Message edited by author 2005-04-05 14:31:23. |
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04/05/2005 02:29:46 PM · #52 |
Originally posted by pawdrix:
Originally posted by jemison:
The point is that if one is sick and tired of B&D images...score them lower. Simple. |
That's always a great option but I hope that my lack of interest in heavy or even light post production won't make my style or output less desirable in other voters eyes because they may have become jaded(so to speak). Especially if I or anyone took a straightforward, beautiful shot, that was overlooked due to these shifts.
There's absolutely no argument that that stuff looks gorgeous and it's easy to get lost in it but the digital darkroom might just be overpowering the real deal. I hope some purity will still shine through.
Or else we'll have nothing but N'Syncs, Dodge and Burn, Destiny's Child, USM and The Olive Garden. Well, ...you get the picture. |
To thine own self be true.
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04/05/2005 02:33:16 PM · #53 |
Originally posted by crank2o:
The human eye sees one trillionth of a trillionth of the spectrum of light. When was the last time you saw radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, ultraviolet rays, x-rays, or gamma rays with your eyes? Capturing all of THAT would be the true essence of "objective" reality.
My friend, who is colorblind, shoots exclusively in black and white. Is he capturing what YOU would see and representing it as reality? Or does he choose black and white because that lines up with his own subjective experience? Some of the best photojournalists of this century took pictures only in b&w, but does *any* black and white photograph, no matter how well captured and how minimally post-processed, truly represent reality as you know it?
And that's my entire point. No matter what method you have used to capture a picture, before you even think about processing it in photoshop, you have already processed it in your brain. The tiny bit of the spectrum of light that you can experience, has already been filtered and percieved by you. But if what YOU see, is not what I, or my colorblind friend sees, who is to say what truly depicts reality? |
For your color blind friend, his/her b&w shots are an effort to represent reality, at least until they are altered in the pursuit of art. For the photojournalist b&w is often the best available technology to represent reality. But as tech improves photojournalism is rapidly switching to color to better represent reality. No one can say an image exactly depicts reality anymore than you can say an image is a perfect work of art. But you can strive toward one or the other, and use your goal to guide you in selecting the tools that you will use.
Originally posted by crank2o:
Reality is perception. Altered reality is still perception. |
Perception is in the eye of the beholder. Reality is never altered, only perception can be altered.
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04/05/2005 02:34:01 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by jemison:
To thine own self be true. |
Shake-Spear?
I can run but I can't hide. |
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04/05/2005 02:34:22 PM · #55 |
If I could just learn how to use it I wouldn't hate it so much. Maybe one day I will sit in front of the puter and learn.
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04/05/2005 03:19:55 PM · #56 |
Originally posted by ReallyColorBlind:
I believe the key statement in your questions is "don't even remotely resemble reality". It's obvious that when you are looking at a photo, you are looking for representation of the reality of the scene that was captured. While D&B can be useful in enhancing a scene, it can also be useful in altering a scene. The question then boils down to, what does the individual who pushed the button want to convey?
I'm a beginner photographer and I don't have the skills that a lot of you have when it comes down to setting up your camera to capture a scene. So I use D&B to bring out or subdue the areas of the picture that turned out bad because of my inabilities. Thank God for digital, because now I can correct my pictures somewhat. This is something I could never do with film.
My goal though, is to get to a point where I can limit my processing, and count more on my abilities, to capture a particular moment in time. Something that I can look at later and say "I remember that day, that vacation, that moment. . . That to me, is photography. To alter part of a picture where it no longer represents the scene, but instead represents the photographer, then that represents art.
Some like the art, some like the photograph. When you judge a challenge, are you going to judge the photograph . . . or the art? That is the decision you have to make. |
I agree with this pretty much but would point one thing that I am uncomfortable with. You can't "bring out or subdue ... areas" of an image with a camera no matter what your level of ability. The things that you can do with the camera affect the entire image, not just areas of it. For some like me, that is the threshold for entering the realm of photographic art. To draw the line at use of d&b avoids having to make the subjective judgement of what is overuse. Because we find that a convienient dividing line doesn't make it the only line, or the right line, for others to use. Nor does it imply that everyone needs to define the edge of photographic art, a somewhat more flexible boundary will serve most of the time.
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04/05/2005 03:22:14 PM · #57 |
I'd love to see a basic editing photo competition where we each had the same camera... Unrealistic, but a nice, egalitarian thought, isn't it? Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the fact that I have a second-hand camera and lenses, no special lights, and no photoshop. I think I'm spinning my wheels... like I can't really compete in these contests even though I have a digital camera and I'm out there shooting like crazy.
Hey, can we have a special contest for people who have never gotten above a certain score so we can feel like winners? Instead of "Master's Challenge" it can be the "Perpetual Loser's Challenge." :) |
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04/05/2005 03:29:51 PM · #58 |
I had almost entered an image titiel "Beauty Left Imperfect" or something close into the Free Study. This is something I have been thinking a lot about and the update I put on my profile sums it up:
April 2005: I think I finally understand why I sometimes get an attiitude about PS. I enjoy the idea of capturing a slice of beatuy or meaning out ouf my world or environmment and seeing what might have been missed. I don't feel compelled to clone out each "imperfection" of the reality - that is what creating a drawing or painting from scratch is for, to "create" a perfect representation of what you are seeing in your mind's eye. But I don't want each photograph to be a perfect piece of "clean" art, but rather, to convey the experience I initially wanted to capture. I don't want to draw or paint, I want to capture. Before I get nasty PM's, let me say again, this doesn't apply to all photography, just some for me.
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04/05/2005 03:41:24 PM · #59 |
There are several very fundamental reasons why a photo can't even begin to get close to replicating reality, and many of those have already been discussed.
The very act of taking a photo in the first place can never be divorced from the thorny topic of 'what is art'... why was the photo taken at THIS particular time? What was the person behind the camera thinking? Has the photographer exposed for the highlights or the shadows? Why? Where is our attention being drawn? What is the purpose of the photo? Why are the things in this particular photo of more 'value' than another photo that could have been taken?
And then, there is the issue of cropping... a photo is only a limited window into the world. Wide angle, or tele? What has been left out of the frame? Why? How is everything arranged in the frame? Composition? Is there a flow to all the elements in the photo? Is anything symbolic?
And most fundamentally, when we look at the world, we focus on one thing which is in focus, while everything in our periphery is out of focus. When we look at the photo, we can look at out-of-focus periphery elements which isn't possible in reality. Or we can look at a photo and see EVERYTHING in focus at once, which our eyes can't do.
There really is no such thing as representing reality closely with a photo, there's an old saying about confusing the map for the territory which applies here. |
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04/05/2005 04:13:13 PM · #60 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
I agree with this pretty much but would point one thing that I am uncomfortable with. You can't "bring out or subdue ... areas" of an image with a camera no matter what your level of ability. The things that you can do with the camera affect the entire image, not just areas of it. For some like me, that is the threshold for entering the realm of photographic art. To draw the line at use of d&b avoids having to make the subjective judgement of what is overuse. Because we find that a convienient dividing line doesn't make it the only line, or the right line, for others to use. Nor does it imply that everyone needs to define the edge of photographic art, a somewhat more flexible boundary will serve most of the time. |
Coolhar-
"You can't "bring out or subdue ... areas" of an image with a camera no matter what your level of ability."
In a literal sense you're right. The poetry of a great photo IMHO is when that certain magic happens when composition/angle, lighting choice(natural or otherwise)all combined with your camera settings that work harmoniously together and "bring out"(or "subdue")what you wish to offer the viewer.
I'm working my rocks off to learn how to do it, as best as I can with the camera alone. I honestly have no complaint about any of this discussion but simply wish to shine a light on what I think might be taking second place(literally)and that's the raw skills.
I'd like to thank everyone for the enlightening discussion.
Message edited by author 2005-04-05 16:19:54. |
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04/05/2005 04:38:38 PM · #61 |
Originally posted by virtuamike:
I agree. However I'm not sure if the bad examples you're seeing are a result of overdoing it or just poor technique. Post processing should be about restoring a photo to the image that the photography sees and nothing more. |
That's your opinion.
It doesn't make it less valid then the opinion of the person who feels that a photo they take is the same as a painter making an initial sketch that will later be obscured with their paint and brush strokes. |
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04/05/2005 04:48:47 PM · #62 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
You can't "bring out or subdue ... areas" of an image with a camera no matter what your level of ability. |
Unless you use a Lensbaby.
Or a spot filter.
Or maybe even a gradient filter.
I know what you mean really : )
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04/05/2005 05:14:38 PM · #63 |
Coolhar:
Here's what I said: "You've all seen this yourself, in situations in which you are standing in sunlight looking at a scene that contains deeply shadpwed areas in juxtaposition with brightly-lit ones, and you can perceive "full color" in both areas at once. Your out-of-camera image, on the other hand, always sacrifices one or the other area, and sometimes both. "Good" post-processing will adjust the balance between these areas while maintaining a distinction between sunlight and shadow. "Bad" post-processing will make both areas the same value, and will look fake as hell.
The funny thing is, you can accomplish the "bad" post-processing with no trouble at all straight out of camera by using fill-in flash of too great an intensity. So, for example, in shooting a portrait of someone against a sunset sky you can over-light the face to such a degree that it actually appears noticeably LIGHTER than the radiant sky behind it, and this usually doesn't look very good at all. "
Note that "good" and "bad" are in quotes, meaning that I realize the terms are subjective and possibly perjorative (in the case of "bad"). My point, and it seems to be the same point most everyone is making, is that when the techniques are used moderately in pursuit of "true" photography they are essentially "invisible". The context of this discussion seems to be, "when do these techniques take an image out of the realm of "photography" and into the realm of "art" or "digital art"?
For one thing, I don't think that with respect to doging.burning/contrast enhancement, it's meaningful to tack "digital" onto "art" as qualifier; these technicques have been used (and overused) as long as there has been photography; they far predate digital darkrooms.
The funny thing, to me, is that I consider myself essentially a purist when it comes to photography. I am not a fan of overtly manipulated images. If the post-processing, be it chemical or digital, makes itself too obvious it tends not to please me. Sometimes I PLAY with it, it's fun to do, but my best images are basically strongly reality-based. I'm NOT one of the peopel that's campaigning for wide-open, digital art on this site. If that's what I wanted, I'd be frequenting another site. So you and I are in alignment on this. We may disagree on what should be acceptable withint he given ruleset, but we're not in fundamental disagreement that the rulesets should exist in roughly the form they do now.
And, for what it's worth, I'm a passionate admirer of many photographers who worked almost entirely in the "realist" mode; some that come to mind are Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Eliot Porter (for color), Mary Ellen Mark, Walker Evans, and Dorothea Lange. When I see work in challenges that comes close to approaching this quality of "pure seeing", I always vote it highly. Sadly, we don't see much of it in here.
Robt.
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04/05/2005 05:19:26 PM · #64 |
Originally posted by saiphfire:
I'd love to see a basic editing photo competition where we each had the same camera... Unrealistic, but a nice, egalitarian thought, isn't it? Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the fact that I have a second-hand camera and lenses, no special lights, and no photoshop. I think I'm spinning my wheels... like I can't really compete in these contests even though I have a digital camera and I'm out there shooting like crazy.
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Sorry, no offense intended, but I am having trouble having sympathy for your situation in regards to your equipment. I would love to have your second-hand camera (Digital Rebel), many lights are cheap (I got some halogens at Home Base, very cheap), and many editing progams are totally free, like Gimp. However, none of these tools are a substitute for a photographer's creativity and vision.
I think what we are witnessing here on this site is man's natural tendendancy to push against whatever boundaries are set for them. For some reason we have a difficult time determining for ourselves how to work comfortably inside a boundaries. We, the SC members, have tried hard to work out the challenge rules so that this site remains more about photography than digital art but obviously that is difficult to do without imposing unreasonable limits on how you can edit a photo. We have allowed more flexibilty in values, hues, cropping, and borders but have remained a little more strict in regards to the structure or elements in a photo to try to maintain the photo integrity. As we have seen this still allows for plenty of creativity with our photos. We have even tried to convey what the spirit of the rules are but all these things still come down to individual interpretations or intentions. We all have to decide for ourslves how we want to play the game and what we want to gain from this site.
T
Message edited by author 2005-04-05 17:22:19. |
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04/05/2005 05:38:34 PM · #65 |
Originally posted by bod:
The cemetry challenge may aswell have had "you must dodge & burn" written into the description - the two go together so obviously. |
Am I really the only one seeing this? Am I so far off the mark? What am I missing?
Where are these legions of digital artists desperately trying to take over the site? Weren't they supposed to ruin the place after Brad P's fancy border? Did they get bored and go for a pizza instead, only to return using D&B as their trojan horse?
Dodge & burn were the main tools used to argue that the editing rules should be "advanced". Is it ironic that they're the ones causing all the trouble? : )
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04/05/2005 05:41:19 PM · #66 |
Originally posted by bod:
Dodge & burn were the main tools used to argue that the editing rules should be "advanced". Is it ironic that they're the ones causing all the trouble? : ) |
i thought clone stamping dust and scratches was the maing reason for advanced editing. that was mine, anyway....
i rarely use d&b myself.
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04/05/2005 05:49:16 PM · #67 |
Originally posted by BobsterLobster:
There are several very fundamental reasons why a photo can't even begin to get close to replicating reality, and many of those have already been discussed.
The very act of taking a photo in the first place can never be divorced from the thorny topic of 'what is art'... why was the photo taken at THIS particular time? What was the person behind the camera thinking? Has the photographer exposed for the highlights or the shadows? Why? Where is our attention being drawn? What is the purpose of the photo? Why are the things in this particular photo of more 'value' than another photo that could have been taken?
And then, there is the issue of cropping... a photo is only a limited window into the world. Wide angle, or tele? What has been left out of the frame? Why? How is everything arranged in the frame? Composition? Is there a flow to all the elements in the photo? Is anything symbolic?
And most fundamentally, when we look at the world, we focus on one thing which is in focus, while everything in our periphery is out of focus. When we look at the photo, we can look at out-of-focus periphery elements which isn't possible in reality. Or we can look at a photo and see EVERYTHING in focus at once, which our eyes can't do.
There really is no such thing as representing reality closely with a photo, there's an old saying about confusing the map for the territory which applies here. |
Of course a photo cannot actually and exactly replicate reallity. Reality is three dimensional to begin with. But can't you acknowledge that some photographs are taken specifically to try to portray what was seen as accurately as possible to the viewer who was not there to see it for himself, and with no intention to make it appear more or less pleasing than it actually was. Photojournalism is the most commonly used example. Must endeavors such as photojournalism be part of photographic art? And are such less valid if you allow them that freedom?
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04/05/2005 05:50:36 PM · #68 |
Originally posted by muckpond:
Originally posted by bod:
Dodge & burn were the main tools used to argue that the editing rules should be "advanced". Is it ironic that they're the ones causing all the trouble? : ) |
i thought clone stamping dust and scratches was the maing reason for advanced editing. that was mine, anyway.... |
Yup, that too. Good too see that the clone tool isn't causing any problems then : )
I'll downgrade that to "one of the main tools used to argue that the editing rules should be 'advanced'".
Message edited by author 2005-04-05 17:51:01.
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04/05/2005 05:54:58 PM · #69 |
| I don't think anybody has been arguing that D&B should be abolished. Just pointing out that it's getting a lot of use. It's like a funny commercial on TV. The first time you see it, you laugh. And the second time. But by the time you see it for the hundredth time in 3 days, it loses some (a lot?) of its appeal, and any other commercials which jump on that style bandwagon also suffer in their appeal. |
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04/05/2005 05:57:15 PM · #70 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
Originally posted by BobsterLobster:
There are several very fundamental reasons why a photo can't even begin to get close to replicating reality, and many of those have already been discussed.
The very act of taking a photo in the first place can never be divorced from the thorny topic of 'what is art'... why was the photo taken at THIS particular time? What was the person behind the camera thinking? Has the photographer exposed for the highlights or the shadows? Why? Where is our attention being drawn? What is the purpose of the photo? Why are the things in this particular photo of more 'value' than another photo that could have been taken?
And then, there is the issue of cropping... a photo is only a limited window into the world. Wide angle, or tele? What has been left out of the frame? Why? How is everything arranged in the frame? Composition? Is there a flow to all the elements in the photo? Is anything symbolic?
And most fundamentally, when we look at the world, we focus on one thing which is in focus, while everything in our periphery is out of focus. When we look at the photo, we can look at out-of-focus periphery elements which isn't possible in reality. Or we can look at a photo and see EVERYTHING in focus at once, which our eyes can't do.
There really is no such thing as representing reality closely with a photo, there's an old saying about confusing the map for the territory which applies here. |
Of course a photo cannot actually and exactly replicate reallity. Reality is three dimensional to begin with. But can't you acknowledge that some photographs are taken specifically to try to portray what was seen as accurately as possible to the viewer who was not there to see it for himself, and with no intention to make it appear more or less pleasing than it actually was. Photojournalism is the most commonly used example. Must endeavors such as photojournalism be part of photographic art? And are such less valid if you allow them that freedom? |
I think you missed the whole point of my post, which is that photography is a very poor medium to accurately portray something to a viewer. My point is that the photographer makes a whole series of enforced choices (consciously or subconsciously), which show a personal artistic and value bias. The photographer has to decide when to press the shutter, the depth of field, the focal length, how many photos to take, whether to show motion blur, what to emphasise in the composition, where to stand, how high to hold the camera, and thousands more choices. As I said, these can all be subconscious.
Perhaps watching several people's edits from many video cameras can come somewhat closer to representing the kind of reality you're talking about, especially as sound is included. This would be a much easier way to get an objective view of somewhere or something... as you can see, Photography by definition is a much more 'artistic' way of achieving this objective. |
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04/05/2005 06:18:20 PM · #71 |
I love how these posts always get so complicated. I think what the original message was is that there seems to be a trend to not only use this particular tool, but to D&B the ever-loving CRAP out of everything.
I love D&B, wish I could do it better, and think it saves some photos, enhances others, and in the hand of someone competent can create a really great work of art. But there comes a point, like everything else, when it can be over-done and the resulting photo looks just plane nuts. That's what the author of the thread was pointing out I think...just that it's not necessary to use that tool for 6 hours on every photo you take.
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04/05/2005 06:29:01 PM · #72 |
| Yeah anyway!! Thanks a lot Pedro! See what you've done with your excellent tutorial on Dodging and Burning? :) |
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04/05/2005 06:35:27 PM · #73 |
Originally posted by rscorp:
That's what the author of the thread was pointing out I think...just that it's not necessary to use that tool for 6 hours on every photo you take. |
Here we go again with some sort of restrictions. I think I, as the photographer, am the only one that can determine what my photos need and what amount of time is required to accomplish my goals. The length of time spent on editing, in no way, has to determine whether the final look is over the top or not. I have many photos that I go back to and try different editing techniques on in an attempt to make them better. If I totaled all those hours up they would be considerable in many cases but that doesn't mean that I have gone oveboard and created digital art with the image. If it takes a long time or a few seconds that is not relevant, how the photo is used and what the photo looks like is what I think matters most.
T
Message edited by author 2005-04-05 18:36:28. |
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04/05/2005 06:50:09 PM · #74 |
Try not to take things too literally. What I can do with D&B in 6 hours, Heida can do in 6 minutes. That wasn't the point. The point was, a true artist knows when to put the friggin' paintbrush down and say "It's DONE". And THAT is what the creator of the thread was saying....that in HIS OPINION which is shared by some others, that many people useing the D&B tool do not know when to stop.
If you want to spend the next 30 years working on 1 photo, by all means it's your right to do so and nobody cares as long as you're happy with it. I'm not putting restrictions on anyone, I just happen to agree with the author that some people are taking a particular PS technique past the point where it maybe needs to go to create a beautiful effect. |
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04/05/2005 06:59:59 PM · #75 |
Originally posted by rscorp:
Try not to take things too literally. What I can do with D&B in 6 hours, Heida can do in 6 minutes. That wasn't the point. The point was, a true artist knows when to put the friggin' paintbrush down and say "It's DONE". And THAT is what the creator of the thread was saying....that in HIS OPINION which is shared by some others, that many people useing the D&B tool do not know when to stop.
If you want to spend the next 30 years working on 1 photo, by all means it's your right to do so and nobody cares as long as you're happy with it. I'm not putting restrictions on anyone, I just happen to agree with the author that some people are taking a particular PS technique past the point where it maybe needs to go to create a beautiful effect. |
I do agree with the initial post and I have already said that. I think many images go too far or are done poorly but that is expected on a site like this where so many people are learning the best they can. My point is that it has nothing to do with the amount of time or how many editing tools were used, it is about the final image. I personally don't like to spend lots of time editing my photos but some require it and that is fine.
T |
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