Brooks Jensen on niches and APUG

[Black Dog]

So is McDonalds. But, I don't have to call it good food.

Agreed!Anyway I'm quite happy with the amount of control I have in the darkroom-if there's anything wrong with my results it's down to me not my equipment and materials .Oh yes, and IMNSHO I've noticed that a lot of digi people will claim that the technology gives them better results and then also claim that those better results are down to their own skill:rolleyes: . Well, you can't have it both ways:confused: . But I'm sure digital has it's place as another tool-and it's the image that counts isn't it?Can there be anything more tedious than a roomful of people going on and on about dpi and pixels?

 

[David H. Bebbington]

So is McDonalds. But, I don't have to call it good food.

Personally, I feel the photographic equivalent of McDonald's is a camera phone picture. I am not aware that McDonald's food is driving, say, organic food or high-end gourmet cuisine out of the market, if anything there is a backlash against McDonald's and towards these.

I feel the bigger issue here is that a forum like APUG should be emphasizing the true virtues of analog photography (which are still considerable) and not falling into the trap of making blanket condemnations of digital which are manifestly illogical and will if anything hasten the demise of analog processes.

 

[Sean]

Brooks,

You may want to discuss this in your next podcast. Photorealistic vs. Photography. The below image is completely CG (computer generated). It's not real but looks real and just imagine what these CG images will look like in 10yrs time. Is the below image a real photograph? If the image is all that matters then some may argue the below image IS a photograph. 10yrs down the road it may be the industry standard that photography is 'rendered' and not taken..

 

[David H. Bebbington]

Sean, could you explain what you mean here? Is this picture a composite of just two images (car and background) or more? Do you feel that comping images is immoral? Is there a moral distinction between advertising images and others? And is it more immoral to use digital techniques than traditional analog ones such as back projection, front projection (Transflex) or even back swing on a view camera to make a car look longer than it is (not to mention tricks such as using short models to ride in the car to make it look more spacious)?

Regards,

David

 

[SuzanneR]

I know, I know. This is one of those issues about which it is impossible to please everyone. We didn't include any camera information at all for the first 48 issues of LensWork! It was the number one complaint and we would regularly receive requests from readers to include this information. Finally, starting with issue #49, we decided to include just a one or two-line mention of the equipment used at the end of the bio. Now we get people complaining that we include it. Oh, well. Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that there will always be something that prevents you from achieving perfection-- :rolleyes: -- as though we artists need such reminders!

And thanks, bjorke! I'll take it as a compliment that you only have one suggestion.
Brooks

Getting back to the gear mentioned, if I may. I rather like knowing which camera photographers' are using for the portfolio's presented in Lenswork. I'm always curious about that, but I don't really need to know camera's manufacturer. I think the format of the gear used is more than enough information. I mean does it matter if it's a Nikon or a Canon SLR or DSLR? Or a Mamiya or Fuji 6x7 rangefinder?

Not really, but I like knowing whether they've used a 4x5 field camera, or a 6x6 tlr, or a 35mm rangefinder, slr or dslr. It satisfies my curiosity to know the format. The brand is irrelevant.

 

[Sean]

Sean, could you explain what you mean here? Is this picture a composite of just two images (car and background) or more? Do you feel that comping images is immoral? Is there a moral distinction between advertising images and others? And is it more immoral to use digital techniques than traditional analog ones such as back projection, front projection (Transflex) or even back swing on a view camera to make a car look longer than it is (not to mention tricks such as using short models to ride in the car to make it look more spacious)?

Regards,

David

The image is not a composite, it is 100% fabricated, there is nothing real there (the car is quite convincing). The car, background, everything was built using 3d graphics tools, wire frame, rendered etc (think Toy Story taken to the next level). So I'm not really talking about composite images I am talking about something that was never real and completely built from the ground up in a computer using no real photographic images and to be passed off as a real photograph..

 

[Joe Lipka]

Getting back to the gear mentioned, if I may. I rather like knowing which camera photographers' are using for the portfolio's presented in Lenswork. I'm always curious about that, but I don't really need to know camera's manufacturer. I think the format of the gear used is more than enough information. I mean does it matter if it's a Nikon or a Canon SLR or DSLR? Or a Mamiya or Fuji 6x7 rangefinder?

Not really, but I like knowing whether they've used a 4x5 field camera, or a 6x6 tlr, or a 35mm rangefinder, slr or dslr. It satisfies my curiosity to know the format. The brand is irrelevant.

This information has been included with the portfolios in the last few issues. Usually at the bottom of the artist's statement page.

 

[doughowk]

Sean's "photo" raises the conundrum we are in as to what is a photograph - just because it appears to be one does not mean it is. A rendered computer generated image may not have any relationship to reality but may yet appear to be real. To me, one of the most important aspects of the term photography is its representation of reality. Digital has broken that tie. It is a totally new & different media, and therefore should not be considered a part of photography.

 

[David H. Bebbington]

The image is not a composite, it is 100% fabricated, there is nothing real there (the car is quite convincing). The car, background, everything was built using 3d graphics tools, wire frame, rendered etc (think Toy Story taken to the next level). So I'm not really talking about composite images I am talking about something that was never real and completely built from the ground up in a computer using no real photographic images and to be passed off as a real photograph..

Thanks for the info Sean. I'm still wondering how the picture you posted stacks up against this kind of thing (for non-UK readers, I should mention that the Austin A35 was one of the smallest British cars ever built):

 

[SuzanneR]

This information has been included with the portfolios in the last few issues. Usually at the bottom of the artist's statement page.

I know, Joe, but it often includes the manufacturers of the cameras, and even the specific model. I'm sure Canon and Nikon are happy with the little bit of free advertising, but do you really need to know more than the format of the camera?

I like Lenswork because it's about images, and it's refreshing to see a magazine devoted solely to presenting portfolios of photographs and digital images. It's blessedly free from all those ads for specific gear that turn me off to many photo magazines. So why the little bit of free advertising for different brands of cameras or, say, specific inks with each portfolio?

 

[lenswork]

I'm curious Brooks. When was the last time you personally shot film?

Funny you should ask. I shot 4 rolls of 120 (645 format) just two weeks ago for a project in which I specifically wanted an extremely shallow depth of field -- one of the things I find digital cameras do very poorly.
Brooks

 

[lenswork]

Brooks,

You may want to discuss this in your next podcast. Photorealistic vs. Photography. The below image is completely CG (computer generated). It's not real but looks real and just imagine what these CG images will look like in 10yrs time. Is the below image a real photograph? If the image is all that matters then some may argue the below image IS a photograph. 10yrs down the road it may be the industry standard that photography is 'rendered' and not taken..

First, I am amazed at the technology. Wow. Very impressive.
Second, I am bored by the, um, image. Very advertisingish.

How do you feel about the school of Photo-Realist paintings?

It's an old canard, but "manipulated photographs" have been with us since the dawn of photography. That "photography" is perceived as truthful has been one of the greatest myths ever propagated by a technology.

Sean, you raise a very interesting sociological question. How do we deal, as a society, with misrepresentation?

• Women who wear makeup
• Colored contact lenses
• Plastic surgery
• Bait and switch advertising
• Politicians and their spin machines (both sides!)
• Steroids in baseball
• Were there WMDs in Iraq or not?
• Chat room stalkers posing as pre-teens on the Internet
• Enron

The list could to on -- but the one thing they (and Photoshop, I suppose) all have in common is misrepresentation of "truth" in order to manipulate public opinion or fool the naive.

If we use Photoshop to remove a dust spot, is that okay? Well, I suppose it is, because we use Spottone to remove dust spots in a gelatin silver print.

If we use Photoshop to remove (or insert) a person, is that okay? In a family photo, maybe. In a news photo, definitely not.

If we use Photoshop to create a car that doesn't exist, is that okay? When Ansel Adams created Moonrise Hernandez and darkened the sky so dramatically, is that okay?

These are not easy questions, but I do think -- at least for my way of thinking -- that it is easy to withhold criticism when the object of the image maker is personal art work rather than objective illustration. The problem with photography, of course, is that it often difficult to distinguish between the two. I wish I had an answer for this that was completely satisfactory, but I don't. I am open to suggestions! Where is bjorke when we need him?
Brooks

 

[jstraw]

Funny you should ask. I shot 4 rolls of 120 (645 format) just two weeks ago for a project in which I specifically wanted an extremely shallow depth of field -- one of the things I find digital cameras do very poorly.
Brooks

Funny, my lenses don't seem to know if they're passing light to a chip or a frame of film. You must have smarter glass than I do.

 

[evansol]

Images should be more important than the tools...

I'm sure Canon and Nikon are happy with the little bit of free advertising, but do you really need to know more than the format of the camera?

I agree wholeheartedly, Suzanne. I have been to dozens of art shows where photographers had their images on display to sell, or at the very least, to be viewed and appreciated. As artists, they all want to hear that the photograph the viewer (or potential customer) is looking at is wonderful, or expertly printed, or speaks moods or feelings to that person, or whatever. In other words, the IMAGE grabs someone and he/she is responding to it.

But then...

The most dreaded question asked of photographers in this kind of setting is, "...what CAMERA did you use? Which lens?".

Once that question is asked, the photograph becomes secondary to the equipment. Sometimes it helps the impression the viewer has toward the image, but mostly it detracts.

A Pentax K1000 with a normal lens, or a Holga or a Diana can produce an extraordinary image because of the vision of the photographer, the subject, composition, and the technical expertise of the printing, as well as all the other factors (sometimes unpredictable) that contribute to a final photograph. Even online, some images expand to perhaps only 5x7 on the screen, and I catch myself saying, "WOW! Amazing picture!"

A top-of-the-line 8x10 camera with a $2000 lens does not guarantee a wonderful picture, but if someone is displaying a so-so image at a show, and tells the customer that it was taken with that equipment, it will sound impressive, and suddenly, the image looks better than it deserves to be.

I have seen the beginnings of a sneer when mentioning that I might favor this particular lens over that one for one of my cameras, simply because there are a lot of people out there who are only interested in the tools, and get very closed-minded about how THIS lens would have given me a sharper picture than THAT lens that I used.

Looking at images published (such as in Lenswork, which is what this thread is mostly about), I want to react to the IMAGE, and then, if possible, find out about the size of the camera format used, and possibly the focal length of the lens. Expanded range of focus, depth-of-field, etc, can be stretched on a view camera, and the image presented would take on an entirely different look when done with a 6x9 folder, or 35mm, or whatever.

So, Brooks, count me in for including some BASIC information about the format of the camera and the lens, but I don't feel that the specific BRAND name and model number of the camera is necessary for the understanding of the visual impact of the image.

Evan

 

[rst]

... I mean does it matter if it's a Nikon or a Canon SLR or DSLR? Or a Mamiya or Fuji 6x7 rangefinder?

Not really, but I like knowing whether they've used a 4x5 field camera, or a 6x6 tlr, or a 35mm rangefinder, slr or dslr. It satisfies my curiosity to know the format. The brand is irrelevant.

I second that, I am not interested in brand, but in the format used. I usually look through the portfolios several times without looking at the camera info at all, because it does not matter. But then, just out of curiosity I look at a portfolio trying to find out which equipment might have been used. And it happens surprisingly often, that I can see if an image comes from digital capture or from film capture. It is also surprising, that you can distinguish between a 35mm and a LF image, thanks to the great print quality of the magazine. So removing the camera info would take away at least a bit of my fun with the magazine, so please keep it there. And one more word at the magazines print quality, which really increased over time, I have seen lots of photography monographs which have a print quality which is way under this little magazines print quality. So sorry, this was a bit OT from the original topic.

ciao
-- Ruediger

 

[bjorke]

The image is not a composite, it is 100% fabricated, there is nothing real there (the car is quite convincing). The car, background, everything was built using 3d graphics tools, wire frame, rendered etc (think Toy Story taken to the next level). So I'm not really talking about composite images I am talking about something that was never real and completely built from the ground up in a computer using no real photographic images and to be passed off as a real photograph..

This is not entirely true either. The BG is manipulated but derived from a high-res deep-pixel panorama made by a camera like the Spheron or a big Seitz (probably the Spheron). That (photographic) environment is also used to illuminate the 3D model.

The car is fake because it's much cheaper to use a Cg new car design for advertising than it is to have a pre-production car made ($100's of thousands per car, even for a low-cost car, and even if it's not actually driveable) and dedicated to photography and TV commercial-shooting. The model is precise because the model comes FIRST -- they create the model and THEN build the car to correspond to it! (This is part of my daily bread-and-butter "real job" work.)

Dead Link Removed
Real-time display as seen by designer - and this is the 'simple' version​

There was a write-up on this part of the business in PDN a few years back.

 

[lenswork]

Funny, my lenses don't seem to know if they're passing light to a chip or a frame of film. You must have smarter glass than I do.

Good one! LOL.

At the risk of taking this thread way off topic , decades ago when I was studying the mathematics of depth of field (WARNING, circle-of-confusion approaching at warp speed!) I seem to remember something about DOF being an equation between distance, aperture, and focal length of lens -- i.e., distance to the focal plane. Digital cameras have such short focal length lenses that the DOF tends to be quite large, something I often find quite bothersome. I am very quickly way over my head with all the math, but I think this is right in principle. Sometimes the best answer for the images I want -- those with a shallow depth of field -- is to use medium format. Maybe this is because I've used 6x9 for so many years that I'm just more comfortable with this size than any other, habits being what they are. Still, in the spirit of full disclosure, I do use a digicam when it's the right tool and like very much some of the images I've made with them. The only camera I've ever used that simply didn't fit my psyche was an 8x10 -- which I once owned for a week and was very glad to make that bad boy disappear. Oh, well. C’est la vie.
Brooks

 

[lenswork]

I am not interested in brand, but in the format used.

This may be a good compromise. I'll bring it up in our next staff meeting and see what the other LensWorkers think. Thanks for the suggestion.
Brooks

 

[Wayne]

First, I am amazed at the technology. Wow. Very impressive.
Second, I am bored by the, um, image. Very advertisingish.

How do you feel about the school of Photo-Realist paintings?

It's an old canard, but "manipulated photographs" have been with us since the dawn of photography. That "photography" is perceived as truthful has been one of the greatest myths ever propagated by a technology.

Strawman alert.

Methinks you missed the point, and if this wasn't Sean's point it should have been: No photography ever took place. It only looks like a photograph.

Arguments about traditional photography (aka photography) being more realistic than digital are (unfortunately) very common but fatally flawed from the outset. It simply isnt true as a general rule. The very real difference is in the process which most people on both sides of the coin simply avoid by dismissing the importance of process.

Sean's example proves the importance of process, as I'm willing to bet that even you do not consider it a photograph.



Wayne

 

[lenswork]

I'm willing to bet that even you do not consider it a photograph.

I understand your question and it is an interesting one. I'm not certain I'm on solid philosophical ground here, but I would lean toward saying it is not a photograph. But then, I find I don't know what to call it. I start asking what I mean by the term photograph -- which seems to be more of a semantic question than an artistic one.

Here is an example that is even closer to home for me. Is MAGNAChrome not a magazine because it isn't printed on paper? Should they be allowed to publish and threaten the established for-sale paper periodicals like LensWork or View Camera with their free PDF publication? Of course, they should! They do a nice job and it's a fine -- uh, whatever it is.

Where does one draw the line? I don't know -- or, perhaps I should say, I am simply not smart enough to figure this one out. Historically, I do know there were people who said enlargements weren't real photographs, because real photographs were contact prints. There were those who said Picasso didn't make real paintings because they didn't look like paintings. This is the kind of debate that is as old as human beings.

I reflexively think in analogies and parallels. Here are a few other questions that occurred to me:

• Do I consider Toy Story a movie?
• Is Duke Nukem (a video game) not a real game because it's not a board game like Monopoly?
• Is my Best of Billie Holiday not real music because it's on CD -- a technology that didn't exist when she recorded?
• Is a Stephen King novel (written with a word processor) not a real novel like Oliver Twist that was written with a pen?
• Is an image in the newspaper, made with a film camera but reproduced at 85 line-screen halftone, a photograph? If it is, then what about an image in the newspaper made from a digital camera? What about an Ansel Adams poster?
• Does the word photograph define a reproduction medium, a capture medium, or an image/aesthetic style?

At some point -- and I think I getting there pretty soon -- I have to just give up intellectualizing about such lofty issues. I find I just want to pick up the camera and go back to work. This is the kind of stuff they pay philosophers to figure out and I'm happy to let them do so.

I do see one very practical and pragmatic implication of the car photo discussed in this thread. If you are a commercial photographer, how does this kind of illustration threaten your livelihood? And what skills do you need to acquire -- and quickly! -- in order to keep your business and income thriving? What are you going to do to compete in a world where non-photographers (e.g., advertising agencies, art directors, wedding clients, etc.) don't give a hoot whether or not such an illustration is or is not photography? Now that is a scary set of questions.
Brooks

 

[bjorke]

What are you going to do to compete in a world where non-photographers (e.g., advertising agencies, art directors, wedding clients, etc.) don't give a hoot whether or not such an illustration is or is not photography?

They never cared about that. If that's a scary question, you shouldn't be working in advertising.

Leo Burnett used to say: "if you win a Clio, you're fired." Advertising (and, imo, fashion work) is to sell things, not to create Art that exists separate from the banal realities of existence. If you are worried about formal aesthetic issues, you are not paying attention to selling stuff. You should be fired.

KB
(who somehow avoided being fired even when he should have been)

PS: That applies equally well to wedding clients, calendar printers, and many others (even, at the end of the day, gallery owners). They all have real-world agendas which are served by pictures, not the other way 'round.

PPS: In enlightened Japan, the Tokyo Museum of Photography also dedicates galleries to 3D computer graphics. CHeck it out next time you're down in Ebisu -- Kawaguchi & Robert Capa on the same wall.

 

[removed account4]

I think you really are missing the point Brooks. A lot of people DO NOT CONSIDER digital good quality - that is the complaint.

robert

i find it kind of strange you would say this since all your color images, while they are not "captured" via d****, they are scanned and "outputted" using d**** technology. is it only the capture that you claim is junk, or is all of d***** ?

i like lenswork cause it is based on the image, not how it was made ...

-john

 

[jstraw]

Digital cameras have such short focal length lenses that the DOF tends to be quite large, something I often find quite bothersome.

The sensor on your digital large, medium or small format camera is either full frame or it's smaller than full frame. If it's full frame, then a mm of focal length is a mm of focal length. If it's smaller than full frame, the effective focal length of the lens is longer. If I understand correctly, that last is irrelevent because while angle of view is affected and my 200 effectively becomes a 280 when it moves from my EOS 1n to my EOS 1D, the focal length doesn't actually change. It's an 280 with a 200's DOF...so in that instance you're right, you do gain DOF that you might not want if you're thinking of the lens as a 280 and not a 200. Not so with a full frame camera.

 

[bjorke]

Actually for that example, when you move a lens from a 35mm to a subframe digi (or an old APS SLR, if you have one) you lose effective DOF even as you gain effective length -- the CoC is still the same absolute size, but now it will cover a larger percentage of the image.

Compacts gain DoF becuase they use shorter lenses. E.g., my wee Panaleica has a 6.3mm-25mm zoom.

Absolute DoF is greater for the same effective length because as you scale down the camera, you don't scale down the scene -- so 5 feet away for a celphone-cam might be the equivalent of 50 feet for a 35mm camera.

It works the other way, too -- 5 ft, to a 6x6 with an 80mm lens, is effectively CLOSER than 5 feet is to a 35mm mounted with a 50mm lens. The camera and focal length has grown in relationship to the scene.

If this is hard to grasp, just imagine the whole little lens/imagePlane/focusing triangle as scaling up and down as a unit, and consider the world's size relative to that.

 

[jstraw]

No, I get it and you're right.

Brooks is still losing me about digis having shorter lenses though. All things being equal they're the same or longer...depending on the sensor.

It does get a bit confusing....and off topic!