Art photos are manipulations

[Alan Edward Klein]

Seriously, you dismiss digital because it is too easy to manipulate images?

Are there those who stick with film to avoid competing with those who are better with digital due to their superior skills with Photoshop?

 

[Billy Axeman]

Pentax LX, Pentax FA 43mm f/1.9 Lim.
Ilford FP4+, Ilford ID-11 1+1

Before

After

This one looks much better, isn't it?

 

[faberryman]

Are there those who stick with film to avoid competing with those who are better with digital due to their superior skills with Photoshop?

I have experienced both at my local community college: those who stick with film because Photoshop has such a steep learning curve, and those who switch to digital because they get better results with digital processing and printing. You also can't overlook the issue of access to a darkroom. In other words they make practical rather than religious choices. That is for the older students. The young are all digital. They may take the introductory film and darkroom course to see what it is all about, but they generally don't sign up for another film course. They are interested in making a living, not that you can't add film as an option for weddings, but then you are not going to be doing the processing and printing, except to the extent you work on the scans in Photoshop.

 

[warden]

Pentax LX, Pentax FA 43mm f/1.9 Lim.
Ilford FP4+, Ilford ID-11 1+1
Before

After

This one looks much better, isn't it?

Impressive!

Now see that little addition on the front of the building with the trash dumpster in front of it? And the bricked over window behind it? It's just not right. Can you fix that please?

;-)

 

[Vaughn]

And some of us make artistic choices...unless you are equating artistic choices with religious choices, in which case you have a good point.

 

[Billy Axeman]

The problem with fundamentalists is that you can't argue with them, their principles are carved in stone.

 

[Vaughn]

This one looks much better, isn't it?

Hey, who stole my car?

 

[Billy Axeman]

Hey, who stole my car?

I hate cars in my photo's and I avoid them as much as possible but sometimes I need to crop them away. In our overcrowded country cars and containers are everywhere (the one in front of the building survived).

 

[Vaughn]

Like your cars, I don't crop people out, but I will certainly avoid them in most images. I am interested in working with the light as it reflects off the landscape. We are too social of a species; toss a person in the image and the image becomes about the person. Toss a building or icon into the image, it becomes a bloody travel show. I'll include them if I can weave them in as part of the image.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Scott why are you so hung up on manipulations? There is a big difference between common darkroom procedures and swapping parts of photographs. Are you trying to justify some types of darkroom procedure or is this just a discussion?

It's a point of philosophy. You're the one who is insisting that you don't manipulate, and that your unmanipulated images are somehow "True", but images that have had an errant twig removed from them are "false". My point is that when dealing with art photography, it's irrelevant, and to cast shade in the direction of Photoshop as a source of the problem is disingenuous and ahistorical.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Like your cars, I don't crop people out, but I will certainly avoid them in most images. I am interested in working with the light as it reflects off the landscape. We are too social of a species; toss a person in the image and the image becomes about the person. Toss a building or icon into the image, it becomes a bloody travel show. I'll include them if I can weave them in as part of the image.

I usually leave people out of landscape pictures. But once in a while, the human elements can give scale and make the picture more awesome.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/41959578421/in/album-72157694819890421/

 

[Vaughn]

Fun image, Alan. A friend calls that the "Calling the Mothership" pose.

I have a little over a decade of these...

Attempts to equally combine my boys, the light and the landscape/environment. 8x10 pt/pd

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Nice shot.

 

[darkosaric]

Can you show us an example of one of yours or post a link to one on the web?

Here is one example: city of Mostar, same street - same place, B&W is my photo.

 

[MattKing]

Steven Shore was happy to include a car:

 

[removed account4]

Pentax LX, Pentax FA 43mm f/1.9 Lim.
Ilford FP4+, Ilford ID-11 1+1

Before

After

This one looks much better, isn't it?

IDK it does, maybe ? if that is the kind image you like . im someone who photographs buildings in their context for federal and state archives and I love seeing how buildings are situated/their context. I'd have left the car too

The problem with fundamentalists is that you can't argue with them, their principles are carved in stone.

IDK. some folks are reformed, like me, im reformed. started using a digital camera, ps/scanner in the 90s, but had gotten my first film camera in 1970 or so. I didn't really like the digital aspect of photography and was more annoyed than seeing red. eventually I decided in the end none of it really matters, and being annoyed took too much energy. I'd rather be making photographic images than worrying how they were made and if it fits into some orthodoxy.
especially when the orthodoxy makes no sense like burning and dodging isn't manipulation. or photoshop is too easy.

 

[Vaughn]

Steven Shore was happy to include a car:

That's not a car...that's the van I learned to drive in!

But I think he shoulda photoshopped a red bug onto that roof of the big building way in the back!

 

[Sirius Glass]

I usually leave people out of landscape pictures. But once in a while, the human elements can give scale and make the picture more awesome.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/41959578421/in/album-72157694819890421/

Me too. People date photographs so if I can, especially from landscapes. If the people are in far away, such as in post #187, they add to the scale.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I see photographic work as several parts:

• Composition: the photographer chooses what is in and what is left out, the focus, the exposure, the lens, the perspective. None of that is manipulation to me, it is about composing and what the photographer wants portray.
  
• Darkroom: Cropping, dodging, burning, bleaching, enhanced developing, contrast and split contrast, toning ... the standard darkroom practices.

Neither of those I consider manipulations. That to me is the purview of the photographer. If one wants to eliminate or add something that is not there or cannot be photographed, then that person should pick up a paint brush or glue cutouts in a collage instead of using a camera. To do otherwise without notice is unfair to the viewer. To do otherwise breaks trust and without trust there is nothing.

 

[removed account4]

I see photographic work as several parts:

• Composition: the photographer chooses what is in and what is left out, the focus, the exposure, the lens, the perspective. None of that is manipulation to me, it is about composing and what the photographer wants portray.
  
• Darkroom: Cropping, dodging, burning, bleaching, enhanced developing, contrast and split contrast, toning ... the standard darkroom practices.

Neither of those I consider manipulations. That to me is the purview of the photographer. If one wants to eliminate or add something that is not there or cannot be photographed, then that person should pick up a paint brush or glue cutouts in a collage instead of using a camera. To do otherwise without notice is unfair to the viewer. To do otherwise breaks trust and without trust there is nothing.

Interesting you consider none of your manipulations, manipulations... SG.
Because ( to me at least ) for the first one you are manipulating the scene to look the way you want in the viewfinder or back / ground glass of the camera, every aspect of framing is manipulation as is every aspect of choosing how to expose the image ( and filtration ). Lets say you photographed a landscape or tractor pull with something like Velvia Film, or Kodachrome... were those color palettes part of the scene, were the colors super saturated and gaudy or muted and cyan?

for the 2nd one you are manipulating / interpreting the negative. it has nothing to do with cut outs and glue or removing putting things in the frame that can not be photographed . Are Jerry Ulsemann's photographs manipulations? What about Karsh's portrait of Hemmingway? What if you burn down someone's flesh and make their skin darker or dodge and make it lighter, ( famous time magazine cover of OJ Simpson his complexion was made darker and the printer got in trouble for it .. done on film ) .. not manipulation? Nothing added or taken away... its all in the negative ready for the person printing it, the idea that it only has todo with digital image-making or collage to me at least is kind of strange to say the least. Its like suggesting the only way to cook an egg is sunny side up.

photographs submitted or archives as record images are even manipulated. Shot on 8x10 film showing a 3/4 view of a standing structure from a certain POV removes the building from its context for example not showing the toxic waste dump next to or behind the garage, or the graffiti covered wall, or propaganda painted on the other wall . Everything shot f22, tmax100 film, developed in d76 and contact printed on AZO paper, still a fabrication and half truth. photographers are often told to photograph the "best side". "hide xyz in the frame" &c ... Has that betrayed the trust of the viewer?

I think Alan is an example of someone who is comfortable in a world where the literal is the norm - and he is far from alone.
Sirius too.
John (jnantz) spends lots of time there, but I think he is happier where the literal isn't the goal

IDK Matt. Maybe the photographs I make are more literal than one may think. I don't typically add or remove anything from the scene I just use darkroom magic/trickery ( not manipulation).

 

[faberryman]

To do otherwise without notice is unfair to the viewer. To do otherwise breaks trust and without trust there is nothing.

How is a manipulation unfair to the viewer? What is this trust you speak of?

It sounds like to me you have set up a sort of code that you follow when you make photographs, which of course is fine if you want to do so. Not sure why a code, either more or less restrictive, some other photographer sets up for himself wouldn’t be equally valid though.

Frankly, I’m surprised you allow cropping in the darkroom. I gathered from a previous post you wouldn’t give the time of day to a photographer who couldn’t get the composition right in camera.

 

[Pieter12]

I see photographic work as several parts:

• Composition: the photographer chooses what is in and what is left out, the focus, the exposure, the lens, the perspective. None of that is manipulation to me, it is about composing and what the photographer wants portray.
  
• Darkroom: Cropping, dodging, burning, bleaching, enhanced developing, contrast and split contrast, toning ... the standard darkroom practices.

Neither of those I consider manipulations. That to me is the purview of the photographer. If one wants to eliminate or add something that is not there or cannot be photographed, then that person should pick up a paint brush or glue cutouts in a collage instead of using a camera. To do otherwise without notice is unfair to the viewer. To do otherwise breaks trust and without trust there is nothing.

If a photographer were to make an image of a street intersection, waiting for it to be clear of traffic, and another photographer makes a similar image with a portion of a car or a pedestrian present, then retouches out the car/pedestrian, why is one any more valid than the other? If I ask someone to take off a hat or move out of frame, have I manipulated the scene and therefore the image, making it less trustworthy? Asking someone to smile who does not have a reason to smile, is that misrepresenting that person, and the resulting image dishonest and not trustworthy?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If a photographer were to make an image of a street intersection, waiting for it to be clear of traffic, and another photographer makes a similar image with a portion of a car or a pedestrian present, then retouches out the car/pedestrian, why is one any more valid than the other? If I ask someone to take off a hat or move out of frame, have I manipulated the scene and therefore the image, making it less trustworthy? Asking someone to smile who does not have a reason to smile, is that misrepresenting that person, and the resulting image dishonest and not trustworthy?

All the pictures you mentioned are trustworthy because they depicted the scene as it was photographed. Of course, you can interpret the scene differently. But that's different discussion.

Now if a cop cloned your car into the intersection while the light was red, would that be the same as the kind of manipulation of changing exposure values or saturation?

 

[Pieter12]

All the pictures you mentioned are trustworthy because they depicted the scene as it was photographed. Of course, you can interpret the scene differently. But that's different discussion.

Now if a cop cloned your car into the intersection while the light was red, would that be the same as the kind of manipulation of changing exposure values or saturation?

I the cop was presenting the photo as art, it is valid ad far as I am concerned. As evidence, obviously not.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

What's going to happen to photography when computer advances a little more? Then, you'll be able to pick subjects and background and lighting from multiple choice check boxes and the program will assemble the photo into beautifully cloned pictures. We won't have to leave the house or even buy a camera.