Art photos are manipulations

[Vaughn]

...If the members of f/64 were not attempting to depict the reality of the scene, what is meant by their desire to depict "the world as it is"? Also the f/64 school clearly favored images that were in sharp focus. It would seem that that is going in the direction of hyper-realism as opposed to the dreamy, soft-focus approach of the pictorialists.

"the world as it is" -- to depict the scene with the light that was there.

And f64 focus is not hyper-realism, just closer to how we physically experience and mentally construct images...certainly does deserve the term "hyper"...it is still not up to reality.

 

[Maris]

All art photo images are manipulations. .......

An impassioned argument indeed but it can't cohere under the sort of critical analysis it might get in a first year Philosophy 101 class. A big hurdle right at the beginning is to define your terms. What is "art", "photo", "image", "manipulation" ? Not so easy.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Manipulation has a negative and deceptive meaning. I would prefer using the word adjustment. I think contrast, cropping, and exposure settings are regularly accepted adjustments, not manipulations. Manipulations would be cloning objects like the sky in or out which changes the truthfulness of the picture. If you crop a picture for better aesthetic considerations, that's adjustments. If you crop out an object to change the meaning of the photograph, that's manipulation and deceit. There is a difference.

 

[lecarp]

All photos are manipulations in the sense that they are not a perfect visual duplication of the original subject, at most they are an interpretation of the original.

There is no such thing as "a perfect visual duplication of the original subject". All things looked upon by a living being are subject to conditioning and the perceptions that result from that conditioning.
Nothing is seen the same by two individuals. Some would go so far as to say that what you perceive as reality is a mere construct of your expectations and conditioning.
What you perceive as manipulations may be my reality.

 

[Vaughn]

True, lecarp. I have a difficult time accessing some color work, because I have not experienced that color in the landscape before, and probably never will -- but the photographer, seeing the color of the world differently than I, is presenting their expression of the color s/he experienced. B&W has a little more latitude, so to speak, of what is acceptable. A very dark, almost black sky during the day (normally not seen), can actually represent something that is felt and otherwise cannot be represented in a straight forward manner in B&W...the intensity and richness of the color blue that was experienced.

Our eyes have lousy depth of field and are lousy at seeing into sunlit and dark areas at the same time. But our visual experience of a place is based on a gestalt, a collection of instantaneous images in our brain of shifting focus and exposure control to create a flow of mental images of the world in amazing sharp focus with detailed shadows and highlights (except in situations of extreme lighting). Everything being sharp and full detail is how we remember a place, not how we saw from instant to instant. Thus the classic F64 image (everything in focus, tones well-controlled with detail in shadows and highlights as desired) is capable of expressing the experience. A pictorial approach is also equally capable expressing one's experiences using tools and techniques best suited to do so.

 

[MattKing]

Manipulation has a negative and deceptive meaning. I would prefer using the word adjustment. I think contrast, cropping, and exposure settings are regularly accepted adjustments, not manipulations. Manipulations would be cloning objects like the sky in or out which changes the truthfulness of the picture. If you crop a picture for better aesthetic considerations, that's adjustments. If you crop out an object to change the meaning of the photograph, that's manipulation and deceit. There is a difference.

Photographs aren't truth and can't even be truthful.
They are simply depictions.
I don't think that manipulation has a negative connotation - certainly not a deceptive one.
You can manipulate something for bad or deceptive purposes, but you can also manipulate it for good and positive purposes. Deceit only happens when you use the manipulation to support a falsehood.
Is it truly bad to retouch out a pimple or two on a high school graduation portrait?

 

[Deleted member 88956]

It is not hard to make the argument that the aesthetic ideology of the f/64 school has dominated art photography the last 70 years. The f/64 school itself was party to the trend in art called Modernism, which is long forgotten in other art disciplines but has the remained the stagnant paradigm in photography. The f/64 school and the earlier Pictorialist School were attempting to make photography a legitimate art form, which is to say that photography has felt inadequate compared other art disciplines. The Pictorialist tried to make photos that seemed more like paintings and more artistic and less a mechanical process. The the f/64 group felt that photography had arrived as a discipline and not longer needed to mimic other art forms. Their view was the essential esthetic of photography was one of hyper-realism and that we ought embrace that and those that did not were heretics that did not grasp the the true potential of art photography. My point is the f/64 group was fundamentally wrong and we should no longer blindly act as slaves to the misguided precepts of their seventy plus year old ideology. So what has this to to do with what has happening today with Photrio? A great deal. Many of comments and evaluations of photos are based upon values systems derived from the f/64 school without acknowledgement or without examination of where they come from. There is also the possibility to embrace a greater diversity of aesthetics including those that were suppressed by the f/64 school. For example, Jim Galli has led a resurgence of in interest in soft focus images which the Pictorialists would have loved and the f/64 school would seen as work of the devil. Lest you think I am being hyperbolic Ansel Adam publicly denounced the man he considered the arch enemy to the f/64 school, William Mortensen, as "The Anti-Christ" You may say, "Who cares about that doctrinal struggle many years ago?", just as who cares about the War of the Roses in English or who knows who Red Rose and who was the White Rose. That is PRECISELY my point. Although consciously few know about the ideological battles of the f/64 school and ultimate conquest of its opponents, unconsciously in our values and actions we frequently act as though the war never ended and we need to defend to death the precepts of f/64 school without even knowing why. Diversity is good and we have not had as much diversity in photography as we might think the last seventy years because it has dominated by single ideology which itself was not logically coherent.

Got to say, you could really use some "carriage return" function to make your posts easier to read. As is I see it more like another post with main purpose of "muddying the water".

As for the apparent premise of this thread ... for one, "manipulation" can be interpreted in different ways. Two, by today with resurgence of traditional techniques, it is a moot point altogether.

Third ... f64 never meant by "straight photography" as one lacking "manipulation". If they did, it would have been a pure mechanical process with compositional component being the sole tool at photographer's disposal. We all know that was practically never the case. And how Adams "faked" up his "straight" photographs had been discussed openly by Adams himself.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Photographs aren't truth and can't even be truthful.
...
Is it truly bad to retouch out a pimple or two on a high school graduation portrait?

Not if you want to get paid.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Painting lies.

 

[nmp]

Got to say, you could really use some "carriage return" function to make your posts easier to read. As is I see it more like another post with main purpose of "muddying the water".

As for the apparent premise of this thread ... for one, "manipulation" can be interpreted in different ways. Two, by today with resurgence of traditional techniques, it is a moot point altogether.

Third ... f64 never meant by "straight photography" as one lacking "manipulation". If they did, it would have been a pure mechanical process with compositional component being the sole tool at photographer's disposal. We all know that was practically never the case. And how Adams "faked" up his "straight" photographs had been discussed openly by Adams himself.

+1...just what you said.

(I am too lazy.)

 

[removed account4]

Painting lies.

*EVERYTHING* is a lie, especially when it has to do with the ways humans ( or other animals ) represent what reality is.
there is no way a photograph or a painting or drawing or even a verbal description is anything but embellishment --- its truthiness is lost. even a robot camera on a telephone pole lies.

Well, you are wrong because at least one person does not manipulate the image shape to make an art photograph. Me. So now you can throw that argument in the trash as it has been proven false.

maybe that is your intent but manipulation is inherently part of the photographic process.

 

[MattKing]

Painting lies.

Nah:

 

[removed account4]

Nah:

exactly !

 

[Vaughn]

...maybe that is your intent but manipulation is inherently part of the photographic process.

I only occasionally use filtration over the taking lens, I contact print my negatives with no burning, dodging, or cropping. I make art. The scene in front of my camera has been inspected, abstracted, projected, detected, corrected, instigated, and confiscated...so yes, manipulated.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Well, you are wrong because at least one person does not manipulate the image shape to make an art photograph. Me. So now you can throw that argument in the trash as it has been proven false.

Oh really? So all the decisions you make leading up to the hanging of the finished print on the wall are not manipulations of reality in some way? Your decision to shoot square (human vision is definitely NOT square), to crop certain parts of the scene out and include others, the angle at which you shoot, the time of day and weather conditions in which you shoot, the film you choose (Portra vs Ektar vs Velvia vs Tri-X), the lens you use, the aperture and shutter speed you choose to use, the paper you print it on, how dark or light or contrasty or flat you choose to print it... none of those are manipulations? If you think they're not, then you lack either comprehension or imagination, and you're also highly arrogant to think you're exempt from a universal.

There seems to be this huge hang-up about 'manipulation' as if it were some kind of mortal sin when in fact every moment every one of us is alive we are actively and passively manipulating the world around us. Even the most mechano-documentary photograph of something like a crime scene is a manipulation - it may be showing objects in a volume as they relate to one another, and be able to provide evidence of where the body was found and in what condition, and where the blood spatter ended up, etc etc, but as an image, it is absolutely manipulated - nobody sees a three-dimensional scene in two dimensions, and nobody sees that scene in flat, direct, point-source light the way you photograph that crime scene for evidentiary purposes. But because we have a specific reason for it, we WANT to look at it that way. If you took a crime scene photograph with beautiful natural window light, it would look totally different, even if photographed from the same camera position, and the photograph would have no value as evidence. But it would be in the rawest sense the exact same photograph.

 

[MattKing]

In the current political, social, economic and cultural climate, it isn't the least bit surprising we would find differences between us as to what constitutes "manipulation" and as to whether it is good, bad or neutral.
I'd suggest that if you exercise control over something you are manipulating it.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

One of the problems with over manipulation is that we become jaded. Photographers good at computer art and photoshop can dress up a photo that a normal photograph recording the original scene cannot reach. After a while, like drugs, you need another hit. Pretty soon it has no effect and nothing will satisfy you. The skills required to take a good picture are lost. We try to get better at computer art which is a different craft than photography. You know you lost the battle when you show someone your photo proudly and they ask disparagingly, "Oh, did you Photoshop it?"

 

[removed account4]

One of the problems with over manipulation is that we become jaded. Photographers good at computer art and photoshop can dress up a photo that a normal photograph recording the original scene cannot reach. After a while, like drugs, you need another hit. Pretty soon it has no effect and nothing will satisfy you. The skills required to take a good picture are lost. We try to get better at computer art which is a different craft than photography. You know you lost the battle when you show someone your photo proudly and they ask disparagingly, "Oh, did you Photoshop it?"

what I find to be discouraging is that when someone sees a photograph or something that looks photographic he/she/they are unable to just look at the photographic images as an image and sadly the technique used to make it becomes as important or more important than the "work". I find it to be more and more difficult, so much that often times now I don't even really want to disclose how I made a photographic image because in the end I don't find it to be important or relevant to the image at all. not sure if it is photographers who always have to know these details, what camera, format, lens f-stop, what developer was used agitation techniques, how a specific grain structure was created, printing technique, or wet scan, flat bed, camera rephotographing the negative and what computer driven enhancements were used to created the final image. does it really matter or is it just another way to put one's nose to the print or find someone's tripod holes and photograph "el cap" for their living room wall.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Oh really? So all the decisions you make leading up to the hanging of the finished print on the wall are not manipulations of reality in some way? Your decision to shoot square (human vision is definitely NOT square), to crop certain parts of the scene out and include others, the angle at which you shoot, the time of day and weather conditions in which you shoot, the film you choose (Portra vs Ektar vs Velvia vs Tri-X), the lens you use, the aperture and shutter speed you choose to use, the paper you print it on, how dark or light or contrasty or flat you choose to print it... none of those are manipulations? If you think they're not, then you lack either comprehension or imagination, and you're also highly arrogant to think you're exempt from a universal.

There seems to be this huge hang-up about 'manipulation' as if it were some kind of mortal sin when in fact every moment every one of us is alive we are actively and passively manipulating the world around us. Even the most mechano-documentary photograph of something like a crime scene is a manipulation - it may be showing objects in a volume as they relate to one another, and be able to provide evidence of where the body was found and in what condition, and where the blood spatter ended up, etc etc, but as an image, it is absolutely manipulated - nobody sees a three-dimensional scene in two dimensions, and nobody sees that scene in flat, direct, point-source light the way you photograph that crime scene for evidentiary purposes. But because we have a specific reason for it, we WANT to look at it that way. If you took a crime scene photograph with beautiful natural window light, it would look totally different, even if photographed from the same camera position, and the photograph would have no value as evidence. But it would be in the rawest sense the exact same photograph.

I never cut tails off dogs nor do I delete other objects nor do I ever add objects into the composition. That is for wantabees using FauxTow$hop adding pixies into photographs, thinking that they are the first ones to think of that. That is for wusses.

 

[Maris]

*EVERYTHING* is a lie, ,,,,,,.

You have to be careful with an intellectual glitch like this. If everything is a lie then the statement "EVERYTHING" is a lie,.... (and statements are certainly part of everything) is itself a lie. This implies that everything is not a lie; a self contradiction. A treatise based on an initial premise that involves self-contradiction is doomed to be either wrong or meaningless. Similarly, assertions like "Everything is manipulation" can be used to imply that nothing can be trusted to be truthful. And again the argument is on the swampy ground of self-contradiction.

Basic logical reasoning is mildly interesting as far as it goes but discovering true things about photography is a much richer journey. For example, what true statements can be made about the relationship between illuminated subject matter and the real optical image that a lens will make from it? What about the interaction between the image and the light sensitive surface; what can be said to be true there? And so on through the entire chain of photographic production culminating in the viewer experience when confronted by the final photograph.

A guiding principle that informs traditional photography is that of indexicality, the obligatory one-to-one correspondence between elements of one step in the photographic process and the elements of the next step. Contrast this with picture making processes where indexicality does not apply: painting, drawing, and computer assembled images.

 

[removed account4]

You have to be careful with an intellectual glitch like this. If everything is a lie then the statement "EVERYTHING" is a lie,.... (and statements are certainly part of everything) is itself a lie. This implies that everything is not a lie; a self contradiction. A treatise based on an initial premise that involves self-contradiction is doomed to be either wrong or meaningless. Similarly, assertions like "Everything is manipulation" can be used to imply that nothing can be trusted to be truthful. And again the argument is on the swampy ground of self-contradiction.

Basic logical reasoning is mildly interesting as far as it goes but discovering true things about photography is a much richer journey. For example, what true statements can be made about the relationship between illuminated subject matter and the real optical image that a lens will make from it? What about the interaction between the image and the light sensitive surface; what can be said to be true there? And so on through the entire chain of photographic production culminating in the viewer experience when confronted by the final photograph.

A guiding principle that informs traditional photography is that of indexicality, the obligatory one-to-one correspondence between elements of one step in the photographic process and the elements of the next step. Contrast this with picture making processes where indexicality does not apply: painting, drawing, and computer assembled images.

yes I know exactly what I said Maris and how it would be interpreted. as I said, *EVERYTHING* is a lie. as eloquently stated by other people better than me in this thread, no matter what is said verbally, written or created as a form or art nothing is inherently true for everyone. 10 witnesses to the same event all interpret it differently, and their POV will be present in everything that they say, write or produce as visual or verbal work. certainly the chemical reactions between light and chemistry are not lies they are truths they are natural reactions, but it is the human factor the person who sets up the camera frames and exposes the light sensitive materials, develops the materials in chemistry which again does not lie, it just does what it does, then printing and interpretation of the negative. its the interpretation that is un-true to reality, whatever reality might or might not be.

but then again, about a year or 2 ago I made a long exposure of a building down the road from me. the building was going to be torn down by the city ( it was the water department I think ). and there was a giant green pine tree in front of the building. I made my exposure and exposed a 8x10 paper negative for IDK 10-15 seconds. the tree trunk never appeared in the photograph. the sun was on it, the sun reflected off of it and onto the paper, but the tree trunk of this 20foot tall tree was not there just the building behind it. the green part of the tree hovered over the ground and hovered over the building. I did not intend for the tree's trunk to vanish, and if I presented that as the truth, as reality, I would be wrong because we all know trees do not hover, they are firmly connected to a trunk which in turn has a root system that nourishes the tree. Last fall I made photographs of myself sitting on rocks on this island I spend time photographing at. I sat there for 45 - 60 seconds as the sunlight bathed me and the remains of the building I was sitting on and the woods behind me. yet when I developed the negatives and made prints I was nowhere in the frame, not even a ghost, even though I was there. certainly these photographs I have spoken about do not tell the truth, even the truths related to light reflecting off of the surfaces of objects and becoming latent images on light sensitive materials. ... they, like everything else are lies. you don't need to believe me because you might in turn think that I am lying to present my case.
YMMV

 

[Vaughn]

"Everything is a lie", including the statement. A perfect example of duality and reality.

"For example, what true statements can be made about the relationship between illuminated subject matter and the real optical image that a lens will make from it?"
1) The illuminated subject matter may not be the subject of the projected image.
2) It will appear upside down, but not backwards, on the ground glass of my view camera.
3) Generally, the image on the GG is a hell of a lot smaller.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I never cut tails off dogs nor do I delete other objects nor do I ever add objects into the composition. That is for wantabees using FauxTow$hop adding pixies into photographs, thinking that they are the first ones to think of that. That is for wusses.

Just because you don't structurally alter the scene as constructed by you at the time of exposure doesn't mean you don't manipulate it and that it is somehow "true". It may be a factual reproduction of the scene you encountered, but it is still your interpretation of the scene you encountered. Google Street View is closer to photographic truth than any single still photo because it has no depictional intent - and even then, it is a far from accurate representation.

Clever mistyping of words like Photoshop does not an intellectual argument make. While an image heavily modified via computer manipulation is arguably less factual than a piece of processed photographic film, it can also be argued as a work of art it is superior because the artist did not force their vision to be constrained by an artificial limitation of raw material. As with any media, there are good artists and there are bad artists, and the sheer relative volume of bad artists tends to drown out the good ones and give the medium a colored reputation. I don't know if Maggie Taylor still calls herself a photographer, but she uses photographic imagery and composites her selected components using digital tools because it allows her to achieve her vision. Her ex-husband Jerry Uelsmann heavily manipulates his images using wet darkroom techniques and multiple enlargers to produce purely analog flights of fantasy. Henry Peach Robinson was doing photomontage and manipulated images in 1855. I don't think you want to accuse him of not being a photographer...

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I think part of the problem is that there's a chasm of experience between younger photographers today who grew up with digital and us oldtimers who shot a lot of film, particularly slides. No average or prosumer camera buff edited slides back them. You put them in your projector and showed them as is. Likewise with prints. You sent them out or dropped them off at the local photo shop. They returned them to you with 4x6 prints that you stuck in your photo album or gave to family members. Again, without editing. So for us old guys, it seems that photography is basically out-of-the-camera. That's "truth".

Also, skill levels vary with post processing. Many older photographers just don't want to bother with it. Even younger photographers just shoot and post on the web as is with little processing or maybe "canned" editing.

In any case, when a photo gets to be so perfect beyond what you'll ever find in nature, many just suspect it's more processing then naturally caught. Leaving out "truth", it's also a matter of looking "normal" and "natural". I think if you look at travel magazines, or let's say cruise line brochures, the pictures are not over=processed. They look more realistic and truthful. I think the companies realize that people will think they;re being fooled if they try to present photos of places they cruise too that looks like Nirvana. Of course they oversaturate the colors, but try not to overdo them.

 

[Dali]

So for us old guys, it seems that photography is basically out-of-the-camera. That's "truth".

It is one "truth" amongst many and as such a manipulation of reality as it is represented. Read TheFlyingCamera posts for further explanation.