How much editing is justified?

[Pieter12]

But sometimes I pre-edit my pre-visualization posthaste and not push the shutter button... .

And the would be editing, too.

 

[Vaughn]

And the would be editing, too.

My successful images have around 75% (totally guessing) of their editing done before I expose the film, though not 75% of the work. Unsuccessful images are edited out 100% except I can't throw negatives away, so they stay around to haunt me.

 

[koraks]

"The funk is in the holes."

I like that one; that's a nice parallel!
I understand what you say about control vs. intentionality, although that already starts shifting the sands. Whether your criteria is about one or the other - either could be the case. But they're different things!

I personally still consider the image by @cliveh a proper photograph, with clear immediacy (!)

There's two issues here I'd like to highlight before making a point which I think is crucial to understanding my reflection on @cliveh's earlier statement.

The first is that you speak of a 'proper photograph'. The adjective 'proper' implies a normative judgement. I have no problem with that; you can think of anything being better or lesser than something else if you please. But I do want to signal that this kind of normative-hierarchical thinking easily creeps into the line of reasoning without being acknowledged. Let's at least acknowledge it. It's interesting and can inform further discussion. Just putting it there and pretending like it doesn't exist, doesn't get us very far.

Then there's the 'clear immediacy'. I think that word group is inherently problematic. If one were to pick apart my earlier argument and also the statement of @cliveh about 'immediacy' being a relevant criterion, I think the inescapable step would be to discuss what that term means. It's not clearly defined. It's fuzzy and probably highly subjective. Hence, speaking of 'clear immediacy' brings to mind the saying 'clear as mud'. We'd have to sift the mud first. I suspect that immediacy means something else to you than it does to me.

This is one of the definitions that I can scrape off of the internet (apparently Wikipedia) for 'immediacy':

the quality of being immediate or the direct experience of an event without any intervening medium. It can also relate to how we perceive time and reality, emphasizing a sense of urgency or importance in the present moment.

So 'direct experience', 'without intervening medium', 'perception of time and reality', 'urgency or importance in the present moment.
Let's have a look at those elements:
Direct experience: well, inherently not. It's a photograph. So that one's out.
Intervening medium: that one is very dominant in the presentation in the way the tonal relationships are twisted by the medium. We're looking as much at the medium as at the original scene.
Perception of time and reality: reality is visible in shape, but the same could be said for my colorful photograph/image (it just happens to be a very abstract shape - it's still real). Then again, the color is constructed artificially and most certainly not real. This affects the overall impression the image makes. Time is perhaps a little more forgiving here - referring back to @cliveh's mention of the transient nature of the light, and the dominant role it plays in this image, there's a kind of time-specificity in the image.
Urgency or importance of the present moment: it's not the present moment, of course. There's that. Importance is probably subjective and could be tied to being familiar with the person and the moment depicted, but I'd refer to an image that expresses something I would associate with activities such as reflection, pondering or perhaps daydreaming as the opposite of 'urgent'.
Would I attribute a high degree of 'immediacy' to this image? I guess not. It doesn't add up. But...perhaps the 'immediacy' of a photograph is inherently limited if we critically look at this definition. We can compromise, of course, and argue that immediacy is not a binary quality. It can be attributed to an extent. Still, I would state that this photograph has a limited immediacy, and that more importantly the choice in editing (sabattier) has reduced its degree of immediacy significantly. That's of course subjective. You may disagree. But at least, given the above unraveling of the fuzzy subject, we can make the disagreement more concrete than a blunt 'yay or nay'.

Now for the one point I'd like to stress: in the above, I try to (1) make any normative judgement explicit and (2) make it more tangible by unraveling one of the fickle concepts involved. This makes it possible to reason about things that evidently still have a clear emotional and subjective dimension. This will always be there, but I think that in some cases, even emotional and subjective matters can follow some sort of logic. I find that interesting, because this logic may not always answer to the kind of mathematical logic that the term strictly refers to. What I spotted in @cliveh's statement about editing affecting immediacy in photographs is a logic that seems clear enough to me - but at the same time, I'm confronted with a recent example published by the same person that in my view goes against that same logic. I don't deny that both can exist next to each other: Clive can have this conviction, and at the same time he may not always act on it. I find that interesting and I wanted to highlight the discrepancy. Apparently, the normative frameworks we build for ourselves, and present to others, are not as strict or robust as suggested by the way they're positioned.

My criticism of what @cliveh said is not about whether or not I find immediacy a relevant criterion. I'm interested in the inconsistency between what he says and what he does, which suggests that what he really thinks or feels is a lot more nuanced (and therefore more interesting) than he lets on. There's breathing room in the nuance he refuses to talk about, leaving just the anoxic environment of some blunt, axiomatic statements.

All this analysis is a bit beyond me, I just press the shutter.

It's a pity, though. There's a conceptual richness underlying what we do. When all the shop talk about stop baths and whatnot has been addressed, that's the base layer that remains so fascinating.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

We can compromise, of course, and argue that immediacy is not a binary quality. It can be attributed to an extent.

Thanks @koraks

I agree on the point above. Again, to contribute to your initial question in post #1: the image by @cliveh above still has some degree of immediacy. Your abstract image you posted above, has very little immediacy left in it, if any. Perhaps that was intentional, But that is not relevant to me. I guess this is the conundrum for me: if editing ends up destroying "too much" of what is left of immediacy when the shutter has closed, then the image stops feeling like a photograph, to me. For me, heavy-editing destroys immediacy, and I note this fact. This is not good or bad per se: I am just relaying my feelings with respect to heavy editing, which is what you asked about

Just to clarify: I personally do not particularly like either image, but that is mainly a matter of taste, and is not necessarily or directly related to the amount of immediacy that remains in those images. What is contained in either image after the editing has made its part, is not to my taste, in either case. I cannot say if I would have liked the "originals" or any intermediate steps better, because the photographers made the decision to present those versions to me.

OneEyedPainter

 

[koraks]

One thing is whether we like or dislike an image, regardless of who made it or why. Another matter is what we like or dislike to do with our own images. For me, these are different things, but I notice that for some, they blend into each other. Whether they like an image is informed by how the maker approached the process. I can understand that tendency, but I think it's more productive to separate these matters. More productive - and more fun. Btw, I'm not saying that's you @oneeyedpainter. Also, I'm fine with your not liking that photo of mine; I don't mind. I do like it, but for now mostly as a point from which to explore further. Perhaps if I'm a little further down that path I won't like that image anymore. I don't know; time will tell.

 

[oneeyedpainter]

Whether they like an image is informed by how the maker approached the process. I can understand that tendency, but I think it's more productive to separate these matters

I have tried hard to separate those two aspects in all of my comments, and I hope that has come across clearly

However, I think that among photographers there is a tendency to like stuff that "looks like a photograph". That is, again, a subjective matter, but perhaps it has much to do with your initial question, which us what picked my interest.

Perhaps editing becomes "too heavy" or "goes too far" for a person when it contributes to push an image far from what they believe a photograph should/could look like. There is lots and lots of culture and language and mannerism in that, of course.

In the end, "our" feelings are not entirely and uniquely "ours"....

OneEyedPainter