How much editing is justified?

@runswithsizzers : yes... although someti,mes the "rules" adopted from others are simply suggestive influences. That describes how I cook more than how I photograph (although it happens). I sometimes wake up and plan a menu but a lot of times I nnotice something others have done and that gives me the incentive to try or adapt. To me the challenge in this interesting discussion is that many people seem to understand the issue yet don't really need/want to think/worry what runs beneath the surface. Navel gazing (omphaloskepsis) isn't for everyone.

runswithsizzers said:

Are you sure?

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Look, anything can be framed as a problem. As said, I don't experience this as one (let alone a crisis).

Being faced with a plethora of options with no pressure to pick any particular one doesn't seem much of a problem to me. You proposed two frameworks or sets of rules - I've tried countless things, I personally don't feel any need to stick to one particular, fixed framework and I consider what I do at any given moment as just one dot on a continuous (but meandering) line. All the approaches I've followed worked in the sense that I took something from them, they helped me place the next step in my journey, they were essential gates I had to pass through in order to understand what would come next, and I had fun in finding my way around them. Looking back at the resulting images, of course with the facility of hindsight, most of them suck by what my standards are right now. But that's OK; I remember the pleasure of making them. So

insofar as there's a problem, it's not really one for which there's a lack of a solution. And at that point, it kind of ceases to be a problem. Which was the situation before I started this thread, so yeah..I think I've got that bit covered.

Moreover, if we were to frame this as a problem, people would respond to it by offering solutions to try on for size, just like you did. I acknowledge that as very helpful and well-intended, but it sidesteps the question and perhaps makes it even harder to answer. The question is ultimately about how all of us as separate individuals feel about this continuum of possibilities and where we prefer to position ourselves on it. That's several steps away from any kind of problem-solution thinking. It's nothing more but taking stock of the diversity of insights in a group.

Insofar as there's a problem, it's evidently in getting a question across that in my view is fairly simple - but as all seemingly simple things, once you confront them with reality, they turn out to be more complex. Which is kind of what I had been hoping for, so paradoxically, your attempt to frame this as a problem is kind of interesting exactly because it's not what I intended.

Twice, I thought I knew what this thread was about, and twice I was wrong, so I'll just butt out now.

Carry on.

runswithsizzers said:

Twice, I thought I knew what this thread was about, and twice I was wrong

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If stated like that, it makes it seem like you think that's my fault. I tried my best to explain. Some people got what this was about. I'm sorry I couldn't explain it in a way that worked for you. Thanks nonetheless for sharing your views.

koraks said:

I think it's a very answerable question because (1) the person I'm asking is you and (2) it's not about a specific image. So please go ahead and tell me how much editing you generally prefer.

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I have to disagree with your assessment. What is good for one may not be good for another. Each person decides what they want or change it to be what they want and that also may not please anyone. There are so may comments the image they are asked to look at may be to contrasty, over sharpened, not enough contrast so on and so forth. There are more variables than there are fish in the sea and not everyone likes everything. It may be technically superb, let us call that the starting point but they may start to think that they are not seeing what the photographer set out to show because of over editing (in their view but not others). Is there a base line where we can say that it is over edited - I don't think there is. It is largely a personal preference.

BMbikerider said:

It is largely a personal preference.

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Good, now that we're on the same page on this, please tell me yours. That's what I was trying to ask all the time.

I don’t have any photographic projects happening at the moment, but when I do I always have some ground rules in play before heading out to make images. For instance, I completed a large collection of pictures of litter a few years back and I decided all images would be:

• 6x6 Hasselblad black and white
• Every image must show the film border so no cropping (what a pain in the ass)
• Minor curve adjustment and dodge/burn as would be common darkroom practice
• No digital adding or subtracting of details

I made those choices because I wanted the resulting images to satisfy my desire for a faithful depiction of what I found, nothing more or less, and to have a consistent presentation. That was a fairly rigid approach, and normally I’m not so strict with myself. Anyway here are a few resulting images:

---

It’s easy in the world of digital processing to step over the imaginary line from photography to photo-illustration though, as I intentionally do in the example below in my opinion. I started with this originally color photo (not mine) for an unrelated project and I needed a lot of extra room around the subjects to explore graphic design options that would be layered on top, so I used AI to add a slew of steps that are not actually at the site, and more sky. I’m fine with this for photo illustration but wouldn’t be fine with it for personal photographic projects because it's not truthful.




So I guess I’m saying my approach and attitude differs depending on the project. I could have just said that at the start. ;-)

koraks said:

...
Arguably, yes. So perhaps we start out with an assumption that the chain needs to be broken in some way if we want to get started in the first place. While on that basis I think there's merit to your argument, at the same time it also illustrates how quickly our thoughts can spiral into tautological meaninglessness. When I mention the 'chain', I mean the links in the process that lead from an original scene and end up with the image as presented/consumed. If we take the position that the chain is broken as soon as we start building it...well, what meaning is left, at all?...

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I think rather than spiraling into tautological meaninglessness, he is demonstrating the limitations of the metaphor. There is no chain to be broken, if one accepts the concept of visualization. Nothing is linked together to break, as there is only the flow of the visualization carried through to the print (or other endpoint). Editing is just the use of tools -- it is not a link in a chain of the main event.

The first step of photography is breaking a chosen chunk of reality off and making a mark on film (or sensor) with it. That is how we find the meaning...not in the edits. We revel the meaning to others thru the use of edits (image manipulation).

Vaughn said:

Editing is just the use of tools -- it is not a link in a chain of the main event.

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I think we understand the 'chain' differently. For me, the 'chain' is the sequence of transformations that the image goes through. The edits are very much links in the chain, and certain choices affect the structure of the chain. For instance, recording on film, then digitizing and ultimately printing back onto paper feels like a different chain to me than recording on negative and then optically printing. Hard & fast science? Not quite, but perhaps as a carbon printer, you catch my drift.

That the metaphor has limitations is in itself tautological, of course.

Don_ih said:

You need to practise shadow puppets. Rabbits and birds and dinosaurs.

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Actually, that is a good idea.

I understand your mental image of the process, I just find it limiting. It is no wonder you find that the process can get kinked and constipated.

That the metaphor has limitations is in itself tautological, of course.

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My, that is quite the tautological statement itself!

However my point is that if editing is needed to match ones visualization, then the editing is part of that image's making process and cannot be broken and/or removed without also breaking the vision.

wiltw said:

Why not edit, doing what you did?! After all, no one seems to be carping about Ansel Adams prints, which were known to be inclusive of considerable darkroom antics, by him or later by darkroom technicians based upon his markups of prints or his own notes. This is proven, in this video (at about 6 min.) interviewing his son.

This is further illustrated in the variants over the years of Adams' Moon Over Hernandez photo, illustrated in this article https://www.timagesgallery.com/blog-2/did-ansel-adams-photoshop-his-images

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Well actually, I find that in my later years I sometimes prefer his less manipulated versions. Of course, I didn't know about them years ago.

koraks said:

If stated like that, it makes it seem like you think that's my fault. I tried my best to explain. Some people got what this was about. I'm sorry I couldn't explain it in a way that worked for you. Thanks nonetheless for sharing your views.

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I plainly said I was wrong; how is that an accusation? No fault of yours, brother. Compared to trying to communicate in keyboard English, photography is simple. ;-)

Vaughn said:

I understand your mental image of the process, I just find it limiting.

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It would have been if it was the only way of looking at the matter. It isn't, of course. I suppose that you were referring to the chain in a more metaphysical sense. That's also a way of looking at it, with its own possibilities and limitations.
You can consider the temperature of a bowl of soup and decide whether you like it, or it's on the hot or the cold side for the type of soup and the weather etc. At the same time, you can consider flavor, texture...It's not limiting to consider temperature. It's just one of many options.

Vaughn said:

However my point is that if editing is needed to match ones visualization, then the editing is part of that image's making process and cannot be broken and/or removed without also breaking the vision.

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Very much so, and the interesting notion it brings is that in some cases (but not all), there's a tradeoff between, let's say, the 'chain' and the 'visualization process'. Some images may only be feasible to construct by a process that does involve a kinked or constipated (needs more fiber!) image-making chain. Mind you, I don't think that's a problem. It's a neutral observation, and it's this kind of turning the subject around in front of my mental eye that I find pleasing in an exchange like this.

runswithsizzers said:

I plainly said I was wrong; how is that an accusation? No fault of yours, brother. Compared to trying to communicate in keyboard English, photography is simple. ;-)

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Ok, sorry about my misunderstanding!

warden said:

I don’t have any photographic projects happening at the moment, but when I do I always have some ground rules in play before heading out to make images.

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Thanks for bringing this notion to the table as well; I think it's worthwhile highlighting these two questions:

1: If you think in terms of rule sets or frameworks (as suggested also by @runswithsizzers), to what unit do they apply? For instance, @runswithsizzers suggested applying them to digital vs. analog captures. You, @warden, propose here the possibility of a project-based approach. I guess we could extend this with a couple of other obvious possibilities, like one approach for all of one's work, vs. the other extreme: a new approach for every single image.

2: You bring up the matter of consistency, which we hadn't touched upon before. I suppose there's a set of tradeoffs involved here as well. For instance, I could argue that every image in principle could demand its own, unique process of visualization (thanks @Vaughn). But consistency would suffer. Then again, the relevant unit of analysis for evaluating the final outcome may not be the individual image. I admit that I generally don't really think in terms of series or projects, but lean towards an n=1 approach: one image at a time.

3: There's the matter of time or order: deciding on an approach beforehand, vs. post-hoc. Provided you can decide beforehand what the process will/should look like, how does it affect the outcome? Does it make any difference compared to the situation where you end up deciding on the exact same process only after you've captured the images?

More food for thought; I like that. It's a woolen sweater with a lot of loose ends sticking out that we can pull.

Vaughn said:

if one accepts the concept of visualization.

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You mean pre visualisation I presume ? Then how much is a pre visualisation a abstract Idea ? A feeling, a attitude. Or is it the final print, size, paper surface, toning and so on. If it's the later how do you deal with new ideas, experiment with finding new ways.

gary mulder said:

You mean pre visualisation I presume ? Then how much is a pre visualisation a abstract Idea ? A feeling, a attitude. Or is it the final print, size, paper surface, toning and so on. If it's the later how do you deal with new ideas, experiment with finding new ways.

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I believe that "pre-visualization" is the word choice that Minor White preferred.
Whereas Ansel Adams liked "visualization" .

Photography is a bit like a travel journey.

• Sometimes we can take a number of different routes, and get to the same end destination.
• Sometimes we can very similar routes, yet end up (by intention) in getting to different end destinations.

The route of our journey might deviate because of circumstances changing (traffic accidents) or simply because we need not get to the end point within the same scheduling contraints. And very often we simply do not need to end up at the same place, but our end destination is somewhere close to where we ordinarily would go, or vastly different in end destination.

Our start in photography is simply with composition: choice of camera viewpoint, FL, even subject matter.
...but our route taken is the use of after-shooting techniques: cropping, dodging/burning, amount of exposure and choice of contrast grade, and other things like toning, local development control
....and our end point -- the final print -- can be very different, based upon the purpose of the print or even a change in mood that dictates a different 'interpretation' of the same image shot in the camera.

'Pre-visualization' implies only a single final goal in mind.
'Visualization' echoes the reality that a single in-camera image may have different purposes (art vs. commercial use) or have a different end user (e.g. different art director with different advertising approach)

gary mulder said:

You mean pre visualisation I presume ? Then how much is a pre visualisation a abstract Idea ? A feeling, a attitude. Or is it the final print, size, paper surface, toning and so on. If it's the later how do you deal with new ideas, experiment with finding new ways.

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Pre-visualisation is done in the morning with tea or coffee before one heads out to photograph..."I can see myself doing that today."

I take visualization and pre-visualization as being the exact same thing..White just added a "pre" for his own reasons, I suppose.

My take on visualization is that if AA had not brought up the term, I probably would never have considered it. He did not invent visualization...he just folded it into his description of the photographic process. Most human activities contain some visualization of an end point or goal before one starts...AA was just reminding us to do it and to take advantage of one's knowledge of light, chemistry, and material to acheive that vision.

Visualization deals with a single image and does not block creativity. New ideas and experimenting is where you get the ideas to visualize.

Vaughn said:

Pre-visualisation is done in the morning with tea or coffee before one heads out to photograph..."I can see myself doing that today."

I take visualization and pre-visualization as being the exact same thing..White just added a "pre" for his own reasons, I suppose.

My take on visualization is that if AA had not brought up the term, I probably would never have considered it. He did not invent visualization...he just folded it into his description of the photographic process. Most human activities contain some visualization of an end point or goal before one starts...AA was just reminding us to do it and to take advantage of one's knowledge of light, chemistry, and material to acheive that vision.

Visualization deals with a single image and does not block creativity. New ideas and experimenting is where you get the ideas to visualize.

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Sorry you lost me. For me it’s not foreseeable that you can know how potatoes taste before(=prior to) you ever eaten one.

gary mulder said:

Sorry you lost me. For me it’s not foreseeable that you can know how potatoes taste before(=prior to) you ever eaten one.

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Reminds me of an old joke:
"Who was the bravest human being ever?
The first person to drink milk from a cow".

gary mulder said:

Sorry you lost me. For me it’s not foreseeable that you can know how potatoes taste before(=prior to) you ever eaten one.

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Potatoes aside, printing a negative many ways to see the differences (how they taste, so to speak) is a common experiment that can feed one's visualization and make it more useful in one's work. But it is hard to beat experience. AA's Zone System is merely a way to help one's visualization by teaching the controls, tools, and material one can use to make photographs, and how each one will affect the end result...to know what the possibilities are, and how to possibly go beyond them. All experiments start with an unknown. I have and am still 'wasting' film and time on scenes and materials that push my limits.

Secondary experiences are good too -- looking at a lot of photographs by a lot of artists (and art in general). Again, seeing what is possible, not necessarily what to copy.

Visualization is not something I think about in the field. It is just a label for the thought process I go through when I am looking at the light in front of me. Working with a view camera, I find that spontaneity exists in that moment one decides "I'm setting up the camera here." While it might change as I work with the image, first impressions quickly lead me to the decision to make a carbon or a platinum print*, and how I would like to work with the light. Many factors such as the quality of light, SBR, the spread of tonalities, would raised relief benefit or detract, do I want to take advantage of Pt's highlight's, and all my learned knowledge, experiementing, and experience come into play.

It's no big deal...thanks, it was fun writing that out.

* I expose and develop slightly different for each process Also important is that the carbon single-transfer process flips the final image, so the composition needs to work reversed for carbon prints...sometimes I'll take two and have negs for both printing method.

Irregardless of what people think, visualization is pre. Adding pre is redundant.

Alan Edward Klein said:

Irregardless of what people think, visualization is pre. Adding pre is redundant.

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“Irregardless” is perhaps the most redundant “word” in the English language.

Pre-visualization is different from visualization, which is different from post-visualization. The part of the phrase(s) I find challenging is “visualization” since it mostly happens in the mind’s eye. I wish Minor and Ansel used “conceptualization” instead. But, regardless, my opinion really doesn’t matter as the term has been coined.

Alan Edward Klein said:

Irregardless of what people think, visualization is pre. Adding pre is redundant.

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adding the "ir" is equally redundant....