F#@%ing Fakes

[Mainecoonmaniac]

True. The sad thing is that some mistake watching it as the real thing. Same as the ink jet cyanotype.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

It reminds me of those Photoshop filters that imitate the Polaroid type 55 negative edges. I see those filters used on color images.

 

[patrickjames]

Those that can, do. Those that can't, fake.

I just ignore these things with a chuckle. This type of thing is occurring throughout society; it is not just photography. There is a great dumbing down of humanity on account of our reliance on technology's assistance. In photography, antique processes are being faked digitally with the goal of reproducing the look of the original, but it never quite works out that way. Many of these people have never even seen an original print of the process they are trying to fake.

 

[bsdunek]

Good discussion. I guess I just chalk it up to complete ignorance of what they are doing or looking at. At our art show last weekend I had at least four people ask me what kind of computer I use, and several more wanted to know what kind of camera I used. If it wasn't a Nikon or Canon, they didn't understand. If I told them no computer was used, they were mystified. And if I told them no camera was used (Lumen prints), it went right over their head.
I do wish those interested in photography today would learn the history, no matter what process they end up using.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Like an artificial flavor... It could give you an idea of what it's like,
but it isn't the real thing.

Like watching sex but not having it!

Sounds almost like the difference between drawing a scene...
and photographing it!

Curious thing though about filmmaking...
when you make a movie... you may pretend to kill someone or even die...
but when you kiss, there's no foolin' around!
It is the real thing!

 

[Vonder]

There are many ways to lie, to misrepresent. Human beings have been doing it for centuries without pause. What amazes me is that anyone, these days, would expect complete honesty from another human being. There is nothing wrong with a "digital cyanotype" being presented as such. In time even the "digital" part will be dropped and the qualifier will be "silver-based" or somesuch, just as "album" once meant pressed vinyl, or a digitized disc, and now means a bunch of songs downloaded from the internet.

 

[bblhed]

As for Digital fakery, I use it sometimes because my eye sucks and I need to look at what a subject may look like in another medium. when I see something I want to really do a nice photo set of I will shoot it digital then take the photos home and work them to death digitally until I know what shots I want to take, what filters want to use, and what film might work best. I have said this before, I believe that Digital is by far the fastest way to learn how to use a camera or produce a desired photo, but film is the way to get that photo. Still, I can shoot one hundred digital frames, and spend a few hours playing with them only to find out that I need to shoot a second roll of film because film is not digital and acts different.

I would never try to pass off a digital fake as anything other that a digital photo edited in whatever software, that is just wrong.

 

[jford]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Yes, it makes one angry, but the best thing would be to channel that anger into more creative work. Being honest is its own reward. There are very few people out there in the world who know about any kind of photographic processes. Consider yourself lucky if you get to educate a tiny handful of them into the mysteries of non-computer based image making. The rest will have no idea what you're up to, even if they do like the results.

John.

 

[fotch]

Bruce, you did use a computer, the most powerful one that ever existed. Human. No batteries or electric. It does seem like you were discussing this with some native tribe that has trouble comprehending what your saying. Please, I am not trying to insult native tribes, just kind of reminded me of what early explorers experienced.

Stay strong, be patient, keep going.

 

[Chazzy]

I must say, this thread has done more to raise my blood pressure than any thread I can remember. I hate digital photographs which are passed off as something they are not.

 

[Jim Fitzgerald]

Okay, as a carbon transfer printer I'd like to see photowhatever try to get the actual 3-D relief I get with my real carbon prints! As to the name overlap I'll show you my prints any day! I guess Vaughn and I will have to go back to calling them Jello prints. That is until they develop a plug in for photowhatever called the jello print plug in!!!

Jim

 

[Ian Leake]

I've got mixed feelings.

Some people are ignorant and deserve education. Perhaps the person who makes/buys cheap 'digital cyanotypes' today will want the real thing when their taste has matured.

Some people lack time and facilities, or perhaps they are just lazy. Cheaper, faster and easier will always have their adherents in every field of endeavour. Who here hasn't taken a shortcut and accepted 'good enough' when the circumstances merited it?

And some people are fraudsters. Fraudsters need to be exposed, whether they are copying a picture and claiming it as their own, making UFO pictures, or selling mis-labelled digital prints.

So I don't think digital brush strokes and suchlike are inherently wrong (although I'd argue that they are inherently bad art). Like a sharp knife they are just a tool. What matters is how they're used and the motive.


As an aside, I read recently that platinum-toned kallitypes were being passed off as genuine platinotypes in the late nineteenth / early twentieth century (much to the annoyance of authentic platinum printers). Just as in the great retouching debate, digital technology isn't the cause of the problem: it merely makes faking it easier.

 

[angrykitty]

ehhh let 'em make their knock offs. In the end it only makes us look better. No matter how hard they try they won't be able to duplicate a manually done process... no computer works like the human brain and therefore no computer is going to have the ability to duplicate that art completely. Not only is the technology not there yet, but even if it were, all you could ever come up with would be a really well done fake. Mp3s might be way more convenient but nothing ever beats a good vinyl record. Same for pictures.

 

[michael9793]

Get this, I was doing some carbon prints when I went to a photo show at our arts for the alliance. there on the wall was 6 color prints. very well done and I knew they were done on a printer. but the caption said they were carbon prints. how the hell do you get color out of carbon. well tell me. another stupid digital photographer who has no idea what anything is.
As for knowing anything, photography students are the most shallow minded and uninformed people when it comes to being a graduated photographer. they are there for 4 years. teach them all of photography not something I can learn in modern photography magazine. I read how some photographers that use to do film would go out and shoot maybe 50-75 shots. but with digital they now shoot 1200-1500 shots. this just proves that examining what you shoot before shooting isn't part of the routine. No thought about Comp. just shoot shoot shoot, i can figure it later. I enjoy looking at my image, work the shadows and lines. Make sure my corners are taken care of. I live for upside down and backwards. they will never have the luxury of that great experience. and seeing the great print after working it in the darkroom and mounting it properly. I love my coffee. It has to be ground fresh and strong.

thank you all for giving to this thread. I love you all for you are APUG.

 

[tony lockerbie]

This fake doo hickey has been going on for ages, I just ignore it and do my own thing. Each to his own, and some are done really well, but still just pixels and not lovingly hand formed, important to some, less to others.
I'm with Michael9793, got to be freshly ground and strong...sorry John, but it's all about the odour you see.

 

[chriscrawfordphoto]

If your work is good, you won't care what equipment or media that other photographers are using. I shoot film and scan the negs to print on an Epson because I have health problems that make darkroom work impossible. My work is straight photography, not alternative process stuff or imitations of that, but most of you would condemn that just because of the way my stuff's printed. I'm supporting myself selling my work; I don't give a damn what others do, its no threat to me because my work is good. If yours is too, you won't need to worry about people doing digital printing or fake cyanotypes (which I agree look bad, but the whining here makes most of you look like spoiled children). The market will generally sort out the good from the bad, even if a few fakers get through anyway.

 

[Loris Medici]

See this Jim...

Edit: Don't miss the article in the bottom...

Okay, as a carbon transfer printer I'd like to see photowhatever try to get the actual 3-D relief I get with my real carbon prints! As to the name overlap I'll show you my prints any day! I guess Vaughn and I will have to go back to calling them Jello prints. That is until they develop a plug in for photowhatever called the jello print plug in!!!

Jim

 

[magkelly]

I have a plugin that shows what a pic will look like if it was taken in such and such a film. Actually I find it quite interesting playing with it. What you have to realize is that most people say 30 and under have probably not even seen half of these different films. They have no experience with what they looked like any other way and a lot of them they never will due to the fact that many of these films are no longer available anyway. If they have had any experience with non-digital cameras at all? It was likely in their earliest childhood and it was with standard drugstore brand film.

Several of my friends are in their late 20's and they have literally NEVER shot analog, wouldn't know the difference between one brand of film or another. Kodak, Fuji, it's all the same to them. Honestly it's all the same to me. I only know drugstore film. I'm actually trying to learn but that plugin is the only thing I've ever seen that actually gives me some idea of what using particular films might look like versus the drugstore film I'm used to.

I would never try to pass a digital project off as analog, but I absolutely will use that plugin to create something that looks like old film if I want to. Saying that's cheating is like saying that people who used to hand color analog prints back in my great grandmother's day were cheating. They used the tools they had, period.

I would imagine that if say Ansel Adams were alive and sitting here today he'd be astonished at some of what can be done now with a computer and some decent digital imaging software. But what do you want to bet he'd also want to know "how" to do it and that given time he might even want to learn how to do it himself?

Photography isn't a static art form. It's always changed with the times. If it hadn't we'd all be sitting there still loading glass plates and all making our own chemicals. That's not to say you still can't and some might even enjoy doing that, but me, if I can reproduce a "look" I want sans the chemicals and tons of time? I'm likely to go there, sure. Why NOT?

I don't believe in passing off work that's done on a computer as analog work though. If a print is digitally done you should say so, but as far as I am concerned there's no shame in doing it either way. A computer, a plug in they're just tools. As a photographer you use what you are comfortable with and what fits your time frame. For many of us, even those who do still shoot analog, or who have like me come to it lately, that does mean using a computer WITH our analog cameras.

Me, I'm not much into chemicals, and for a very good reason, I'm highly allergic to a lot of the chemicals we all get exposed to every day. More chemical exposure, I don't need, period. I respect those who do choose to use them, but it's not for me. A computer is my favorite tool. I happen to like film too, but I see no reason why I can't have it BOTH ways, and no, I don't think it's "cheating" to develop my film at the lab, scan it and do whatever needs to be done thereafter with a computer rather than with a brush and chemicals.

It's just what works for me.

 

[2F/2F]

Sure, I think it's lame, but it's not really a big deal. If anything, it's their loss and your gain, not the other way around. I am sure that at least some of these people make much more interesting work than most of us here, so more power to them. Working 100% analog does not give one Thee Magic Key to Great Artistry.

 

[Adam Podstawczyński]

To me this thread is not about faking or not faking effects. It is about the purpose of photography to an individual. Contrary to popular belief, the ultimate goal of photography does not have to be a visual image. Photography, as art, is highly individualistic in a way that even the purpose of it differs from person to person. For some, the purpose is mastering the craft of processing; for others, defining and achieving precisely that defined image; for still others -- interacting with the model, with the final image being nothing more than a side effect. The "fake / not fake" thing may matter to some, may not matter to others, and both groups will include both mediocre and excellent photographers. The individual goal is what matters, I'd say.

 

[Steve Smith]

I don't drink coffee. Don't like the flavor, and sounds like too much work...at least compared to the ease of teas.

Me too.


Steve.

 

[fotch]

Ha ha, "interacting with the model, with the final image being nothing more than a side effect." I wonder what that means.

 

[lxdude]

Say magkelly,
Be wary of those film emulators. I tried one Kodachrome emulator and all it did was "make you think all the world's a smoggy day".

 

[AgentX]

I guarantee lots of people are making more interesting photographs with their computers than I'll ever make with any chemical photographic process. Just because there's a real cyanotype doesn't mean it's a great image, or even a well-executed example of its species. It is an anachronism, but that in and of itself doesn't make give it particular value.

There's a lot of crap out there, digital or otherwise.

 

[dwross]

Get this, I was doing some carbon prints when I went to a photo show at our arts for the alliance. there on the wall was 6 color prints. very well done and I knew they were done on a printer. but the caption said they were carbon prints. how the hell do you get color out of carbon.

I can't tell if your question is tongue-in-cheek, but just in case it's not: There is a 3-color carbon printing process. Yellow-, Magenta-, and Cyan-colored tissues are printed in registration, one after another. It's a marvelously beautiful process. It's hard to believe anyone could mistake an inkjet print for the real deal, but that's another issue.

On another point: I hope no one posting on this thread still thinks digital can't be beautiful or at least a legitimate photographic expression. Many of us just want the various processes fully and honestly described for the viewer. Let him or her decide whether or not process is part of the appeal of an image. To object to something that reasonable is like objecting to ingredient or country-of-origin labeling on food. Those that protest too much can't help but appear vaguely ashamed of their product.