Brooks Jensen on niches and APUG

roteague · Apr 8, 2007

David H. Bebbington said:
When you consider the rigors of "conventional" automobile photography (carrying extensive car cleaning materials in a support vehicle, removing every speck of dirt from the vehicle to be photographed (including its tires) before every shot), it is hardly surprising that people creating car images for advertising have gratefully seized on every electronic trick they can get their hands on, even to the point of generating images entirely from CAD data if this is cost-effective. Here as elsewhere, digital imaging offers nothing really new, it simply makes (much) easier what has been possible for decades with vastly greater effort. I could imagine any transparency retoucher drooling with envy at the way the building in the back of the picture Sean posted is reflected distorted in the curves of the car's hood in a totally convincing way!

Yes, all true. I guess that we should really distinguish between commercial and fine art photography.

Digital photography has made commercial photography much easier. The unfortunate by-product however, is that images are no longer believed or taken at face value. I can't tell you how many forum topics I've seen rage on the auto forums over whether an image is photoshopped or not. Sure, commercial photographers used different techniques in the past to achieve the same results, like transparency retouching, but those were often discernable, while digital a lot of times isn't.

One of the things I lament is that photography used to be a medium of social or environmental change. Photography no longer seems to have the same credibility, and can now be much more easily dismissed.

reub2000 · Apr 8, 2007

One of the things I lament is that photography used to be a medium of social or environmental change. Photography no longer seems to have the same credibility, and can now be much more easily dismissed.

Now you see him:

And now you don't:

The fact that people no longer trust photography is probably the best thing to have come out of digital photography.

David H. Bebbington · Apr 8, 2007

jovo said:
String players would be just as obsessed if their gear didn't sell for the price of two of their limbs, and their first born child .... Even so, most players I know have too many bows....gear is inevitable, and sooooo cool to acquire!

As a slight counterpoint (and one which has saved me money lately), I find that guitars somehow tend to become "lifeless" if left unplayed (even if stored under perfect conditions in a case) and really need to be played often, which is of course all the more difficult, the more instruments you have. I for one have passed through the point of thinking that I must have a truckload of guitars and have reached the point where I feel that, at least for me, one guitar (in my case a Fender Telecaster) can do it all, with just a good acoustic as an alternative, since it seems inevitable that the presence of any electronic components detracts from acoustic tone.

Regards,

David

roteague · Apr 8, 2007

reub2000 said:
The fact that people no longer trust photography is probably the best thing to have come out of digital photography.

Think so? Take a look at this image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rock_island_bend.jpg

This location would now be under water, behind a massive dam if it wasn't for this image. This single image caused massive protests and eventually and saved it. That was only possible because ordinary people believed this was a factual image.

Frankly, the image you posted and referred to didn't stand up to scrutiny. That may have not been the case had it been a digital image.

reub2000 · Apr 8, 2007

I don't think that the threat of digital manipulation poses much of a risk to the power of photography.

Frankly, the image you posted and referred to didn't stand up to scrutiny. That may have not been the case had it been a digital image.

Really? Nothing looks unusual to me about the spot where Nikolai Yezhov had been standing.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 9, 2007

roteague said:
Sean,

I follow several automobile forums on the Internet, and it is assumed that every image posted is a "photochop" image. That is what I mean about images no longer being believable.

The funny conclusion of this, is that the Conceptualists have won: it's not the picture itself that is fundamentally different, it's how you came to make it.

It used to be a thought experiment to say "Let us suppose we have two objects, absolutely identical in all respects, but one was produced by way of X and the other one by way of Y." Now we have an actual case.

What determinates truthfulness is not in fact reproducing perspective, light, volume, and so on and so forth, but rather the result of a contract between creators and audience.

There is a common misconception that photography can be more true than drawing or painting because it is "unmediated." Balderdash: what would be the use of a composite picture in police investigation if it did not have "truth" in it?

jstraw · Apr 9, 2007

mhv said:
The funny conclusion of this, is that the Conceptualists have won: it's not the picture itself that is fundamentally different, it's how you came to make it.

It used to be a thought experiment to say "Let us suppose we have two objects, absolutely identical in all respects, but one was produced by way of X and the other one by way of Y." Now we have an actual case.

What determinates truthfulness is not in fact reproducing perspective, light, volume, and so on and so forth, but rather the result of a contract between creators and audience.

There is a common misconception that photography can be more true than drawing or painting because it is "unmediated." Balderdash: what would be the use of a composite picture in police investigation if it did not have "truth" in it?

I would argue, that in the case of the Beemer, the distinction here is not between analog and digital, it's between recording and construct. This is not photography because it's not a recording of the light reflected or produced by an object, by any means.

bjorke · Apr 9, 2007

jstraw said:
This is not photography because it's not a recording of the light reflected or produced by an object, by any means.

'taint so, the background and reflections are reprojections of (distorted printing from) a panoramic photo.

I think mhv's "contract" notion is correct. Usually viewers are not consciously aware of that contract. Playing loose with the boundaries of these contracts is a significant aspect of a lot of photographic practice, with or without a computer or sinister political motives: consider, say, Jeff Wall (not always obviously staged) or Liu Zheng (obviously staged) or Kerry Skarabakka (somewhere in the middle?) or indeed vast portions of the photo-as-conceptual-art landscape.

"Office" - Kerry Skarbakka

The photos are both "true" -- light has been recorded from surfaces in front of the camera -- and "false" -- no animals were harmed.

jstraw · Apr 9, 2007

bjorke said:
'taint so, the background and reflections are reprojections of (distorted printing from) a panoramic photo.

In the Beemer picture?

bjorke · Apr 9, 2007

yes. A photo reprocessed into a "studio background" of a new sort.

In fact I suspect that the tower reflected in the windscreen would reveal the location, for someone more familiar than I with European architecture (Italy? Germany?)

As the inverse of the above coin, the BMW picture is "true" -- it represents the real car for sale -- and "false" in that parts of it were synthesized.

The only reason I can see for people being upset about this is that they have placed faith in the notion that photographic (and photographic-looking) images are somehow inherently "true." Tsk. Of all people, photographers should know better.

Baron von Stillfried, 1875

Sean · Apr 9, 2007

The site the BMW image came from claimed it was all CG and I thought the fence pickets gave it away but maybe there are a few pieces of real composites in there. I would think that using composites is a shortcut that will not be needed eventually?

jstraw · Apr 9, 2007

bjorke, as far as we are led to believe, the image was entirely painted with pixels so I proceed on that basis. If that's the case, it's not a photograph. I don't say that to mean it's "true" or "untrue," "good" or "bad." It's something other than a photograph that could easily be taken for a photograph. Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of that. I have made no judgements.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 9, 2007

Binary opposites...

To recap the parameters of the BMW problem, it might be good to list the pairs of concepts that were used so far:

true/false
nonfictional/fictional
captured/drawn
photographic/nonphotographic
analog/digital
taken/staged

I think it would be safe to start from the hypothesis that none of these concepts entail any other. You can have a True Nonphotographic Digital Drawing, and that's a composite portrait for police investigation. You can have a False Captured Photographic Taken shot, which would be a dishonest news photography. Etc.

And it is important to make fine distinctions, like the difference between "false" and "fictional"; "nonphotographic" and "drawn." You can draw on photographic material, cf. the light drawing shots in my gallery, or Picasso's centaur in Gjon Mili's photo.

The two most common errors in discussions about photography are often 1) merging together fine concepts (like fiction and falsehood) and 2) assuming relationships of logical entailment between some of these concepts (e.g. that drawing entails falsehood).

In my view, all of the parameters I have listed above are first of all independent from each other. They're "dimensions" of a photograph. It is also important to realize that each of these dimensions are not decided in the same manner. Analog/digital is pretty much a physical fact (particles vs. strings of numbers); but fictional/nonfictional, like true/false, is mostly decided on the grounds of conventionality and practice, agreement between artist and audience.

reub2000 · Apr 9, 2007

mhv said:
To recap the parameters of the BMW problem, it might be good to list the pairs of concepts that were used so far:

true/false
nonfictional/fictional
captured/drawn
photographic/nonphotographic
analog/digital
taken/staged

I think it would be safe to start from the hypothesis that none of these concepts entail any other. You can have a True Nonphotographic Digital Drawing, and that's a composite portrait for police investigation. You can have a False Captured Photographic Taken shot, which would be a dishonest news photography. Etc.

And it is important to make fine distinctions, like the difference between "false" and "fictional"; "nonphotographic" and "drawn." You can draw on photographic material, cf. the light drawing shots in my gallery, or Picasso's centaur in Gjon Mili's photo.

The two most common errors in discussions about photography are often 1) merging together fine concepts (like fiction and falsehood) and 2) assuming relationships of logical entailment between some of these concepts (e.g. that drawing entails falsehood).

In my view, all of the parameters I have listed above are first of all independent from each other. They're "dimensions" of a photograph. It is also important to realize that each of these dimensions are not decided in the same manner. Analog/digital is pretty much a physical fact (particles vs. strings of numbers); but fictional/nonfictional, like true/false, is mostly decided on the grounds of conventionality and practice, agreement between artist and audience.

It's not quite that simple. There are a lot of degrees to this. For example between taken and staged there is the intermediate of posed. The photographer didn't create the scene but modified it. Or a strip of film can be scanned, making it both analog and digital.

Also, if you watch the interview of Garry Winogrand, he explains why he believes that all photographs are lies.

Michel Hardy-Vallée · Apr 9, 2007

reub2000 said:
It's not quite that simple. There are a lot of degrees to this. For example between taken and staged there is the intermediate of posed. The photographer didn't create the scene but modified it. Or a strip of film can be scanned, making it both analog and digital.

Also, if you watch the interview of Garry Winogrand, he explains why he believes that all photographs are lies.

Sure there are degrees, but I am trying to make some basic distinctions first before they are used in a specific context.

I don't think it makes a big difference whether Garry Winogrand believes that blue puppies can fly or that all photographs lie.

jstraw · Apr 9, 2007

reub2000 said:
It's not quite that simple. There are a lot of degrees to this. For example between taken and staged there is the intermediate of posed. The photographer didn't create the scene but modified it. Or a strip of film can be scanned, making it both analog and digital.

Also, if you watch the interview of Garry Winogrand, he explains why he believes that all photographs are lies.

Do you have a pointer to the interview?

copake_ham · Apr 9, 2007

Winogrand's claim that all photos are "lies" says more about how he defines "lie" as in "untruthful".

Very esoteric and very much too much.

Most photographs are representations of what occurred at the time they were taken within the view of the lens.

If one chooses to then manipulate that representation, whether in the darkroom or via PS, that is what creates the "lie".

Assuming some level of honesty if a archeologist takes photos at various points in a "dig" - are those inherently "lies"? What about an honest police photog shooting the scene of a crime?

I think it's time to dismount folks - this thread is "played out".

reub2000 · Apr 9, 2007

jstraw said:
Do you have a pointer to the interview?

Pick your format:
http://www.jimarnold.org/downloads/winogrand/

bjorke · Apr 10, 2007

Richard Avedon said:
The camera lies all the time. It's all it does is lie, because when you choose this moment instead of this moment, when you... the moment you've made a choice, you're lying about something larger. Lying is an ugly word. I don't mean lying. But any artist picks and chooses what they want to paint or write about or say. Photographers are the same.

Personally, I find it one of the most useful and valuable things about photography: that this device that seems to be all about recording an objective "truth" is actually such an adroit maker of fiction. Sometimes you know what it will be, and sometimes you only realize what the fiction is after you are looking at the picture. That's cool too.

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