Imperfection in a digital age

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 12, 2015

Now after you've cleaned your digital camera's lens, perfectly retouched every pore and removed every wrinkle, use this new software.

http://petapixel.com/2015/03/12/len...-focus-glass-to-your-photographs/#more-160723

Isn't it ironic?

DREW WILEY · Mar 12, 2015

I certainly hope they included an app to simulate mold between the lens elements, along with one for greasy fingerprints on the final image.
Maybe they should also include one which simulates the silhouette of a mosquito landing on the film, so they could say they visited Denali,
when they never left Tuscon.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

That's hilarious. I'm reminded of those people back in the day who would spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade their desktop computers with new sound cards, speakers, modems, and audio software, just so they could...

...listen to the radio.

Ken

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 12, 2015

This is the real cause.
http://www.vevo.com/watch/weird-al-yankovic/First-World-Problems/USRV81400345

MartinCrabtree · Mar 12, 2015

UV filter and a little vaseline is a whole lot cheaper. And it stays with my whole "get it right in the camera" philosophy too.

DREW WILEY · Mar 12, 2015

Somebody will spend a few thousand bucks to simulate the look of a three dollar disposable cardboard wedding camera with mayonnaise
smeared on the lens. That's progress! And then they'll call that creative. Not long ago NG published some digital shots modified by one of those wannabee-cheapo-film apps. They delivered the "look", but so what? My own mother did that with here little box Brownie shot after shot ... and every single image was tilted a bit sideways! She'd look down in the viewfinder, then look at us and say, "smile", and inadvertently twist the camera a bit crooked every single time she pushed the button. Fortunately, PS already have a feature to skew the angle of the image. But it comes with a program that costs a helluva lot more than a box Brownie. Are we having fun yet? Gotta spend way too much money to have fun nowadays. If you don't give your kid a $2000 electronic robot-bulldozer for Christmas, social services shows
up and takes your kid away. I was perfectly happy getting a free kitten or puppy.

snapguy · Mar 12, 2015

D. M.

I am waiting for the Decisive Moment app. Everything else is bullfeathers.

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

It does seem ridiculous but when I shot Hasselblad for 30 years doing portraits I always had a cheap plastic filter over the lens to degrade the sharpness of the lens. This wasn't for soft focus but just for knocking down the sharpness a little.

The interesting/strange thing about photography is we often give great acclaim to tinted, stressed edges, and damaged looking pictures as being somehow art, or arty, but if the exact same picture didn't have those elements it would perhaps be just another mundane shot.

In our minds, somehow, we give credence to the "damaged" print as being special, where the more perfect one of the same shot would be deemed ordinary.

Obviously now with Photoshop and plugins this phenomena is pervasive, and overused and a perfect setup for ridicule.

But go out and take a great picture, make 2 identical exposures and go back to the darkroom and do your best print. Then take the other neg and put it on the floor and grind it with your foot. Then print it, distress it, tint it and show it to your friends. I bet they will rave over the distressed one.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

blansky said:
In our minds, somehow, we give credence to the "damaged" print as being special, where the more perfect one of the shame shot would be deemed ordinary.

It's the perceived Mark of the Maker. Even if today that too can now be digitally simulated.

Ken

David Lyga · Mar 12, 2015

snapguy said:
I am waiting for the Decisive Moment app. Everything else is bullfeathers.

Snapguy, your comment achieved the order of an extreme, perfected humor (and was also very, very funny). It is not so much because of what you said, but, rather, the inferred implication that there actually will be twenty-somethings who act to embrace such nonsense as real and valid in an artistic sense. Sometimes, yes sometimes, a paper and pencil work just as well. There really are occasions where this is so.

Perhaps we should collectively ask ourselves 'What do we really want?" Do we 'seek out' imperfection because that adds to the effect, or do we 'put up with' imperfection and accept, indeed promote, the unavoidable consequence as sublimation, a new definition of 'art'? Blansky, you hit the nail on the head: "I bet they will rave over the distressed one."

With the 'Decisive Moment' app will Henri Cartier-Bresson merely be included in the tutorial or will he actually be snapping the picture (on a preprogrammed cue)? - David Lyga

Mainecoonmaniac · Mar 12, 2015

I think there's a hunger for flaws due to high quality mass production of consumer items. Every Iphone is made perfectly. Photography and video production is no different with high quality mass produced images. Software to produce these flaws are probably from some algorithm while real flaws are serendipitous. It's a sad thing when a filmmaker and photographer don't want to play the music of chance and have everything calculated to the Nth degree. Art to me is about taking chances. Computers and digital photography allows us to be safe in taking risks because there's always the undo button. For filmmakers, there are readymade scratches and fake film fogs for your digital video. Orson Wells while shooting Citizen Cane used sand to scratch his film for the film reel sequence. Now that's taking a risk.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Software to produce these flaws are probably from some algorithm while real flaws are serendipitous.

Not "probably." Definitely. Nothing happens in software in a serendipitous way. It's all highly calculated. Even the errors. That's what design envelopes are all about. Reducing the risk of serendipitous events from ever occurring in unexpected ways by staying inside that envelope.

Put another way, lots and lots and lots of time, effort, and resources go into making those "flaw" features as standardized and non-accidental (and thus as reliably repeatable) as is humanly possible. And those features won't have made it into the feature set without first having been examined every way possible by design teams, implementation teams, test teams, marketing teams, sales teams, customer service teams, etc., etc.

"All your flaws are belong to us..."

Ken

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I think there's a hunger for flaws due to high quality mass production of consumer items. Every Iphone is made perfectly. Photography and video production is no different with high quality mass produced images. Software to produce these flaws are probably from some algorithm while real flaws are serendipitous. It's a sad thing when a filmmaker and photographer don't want to play the music of chance and have everything calculated to the Nth degree. Art to me is about taking chances. Computers and digital photography allows us to be safe in taking risks because there's always the undo button. For filmmakers, there are readymade scratches and fake film fogs for your digital video. Orson Wells while shooting Citizen Cane used sand to scratch his film for the film reel sequence. Now that's taking a risk.

Probably true but I observed the acclaimed distressed phenomena long before digital.

Actually we could also do it in reverse.

Take an old tin type or other "antique" process print, scan it, digitally clean it up to look new as it looked when it was shot and show it to some photography types, and they'd want the distressed one every time. Even through the enhanced one looks like it did when the photographer shot it.

The reason is we like stuff with mileage on it. Even if as in my previous post, the mileage was fudged.

removed account4 · Mar 12, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
Now after you've cleaned your digital camera's lens, perfectly retouched every pore and removed every wrinkle, use this new software.

http://petapixel.com/2015/03/12/len...-focus-glass-to-your-photographs/#more-160723

Isn't it ironic?

thanks for this post,
its nice to know this product exists.

nice sharp lenses are too clinical
i typically shoot through a plastic bag
nice and inexpensive, and no time infront of a screen

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
Not "probably." Definitely. Nothing happens in software in a serendipitous way. It's all highly calculated. Even the errors. That's what design envelopes are all about. Reducing the risk of serendipitous events from ever occurring in unexpected ways by staying inside that envelope.

Put another way, lots and lots and lots of time, effort, and resources go into making those "flaw" features as standardized and non-accidental (and thus as reliably repeatable) as is humanly possible. And those features won't have made it into the feature set without first having been examined every way possible by design teams, implementation teams, test teams, marketing teams, sales teams, customer service teams, etc., etc.

"All your flaws are belong to us..."

Ken

It's like paying more for distressed jeans.

A few years ago I had a bunch of cargo shorts, that were showing wear and looking haggy, so I went to the same store to buy some more. Only what they were selling were the exact shorts only distressed. Frayed edges, worn looking.

I thought how weird. They look just like the ones I had at home. So I went home without buying any but with the wonderful knowledge that I was now trendy, instead of haggy. What a relief.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

blansky said:
It's like paying more for distressed jeans.

Exactly.

And the distress marks—the Marks of the Maker—are all identical.

Ken

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

Of course, this sort of brings us to the pictorialist vs realist debate.

Are we after clinical perfection and sharpness or more romantic perhaps handmade fantasy/surrealism look.

Obviously digital with it's original desire for the clinical perfection, has people trying to backtrack to get to the snapshot look in some cases, which by the way is very trendy in portraiture these days.

I have never found sharpness and perfection interesting, and much prefer "flaws" and some realism. Sort of like the wabi-sabi Japanese ethic.

Or maybe all this is just the pendulum of trends.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

blansky said:
Are we after clinical perfection and sharpness or more romantic perhaps handmade fantasy/surrealism look.

Whatever look best expresses the message one is seeking to communicate, I would think. My problem is not with any particular style or presentation. Or even photographic technology. It's with a lack of anything significant to say—a message—before creating the work.

In other words, first I'll make a photograph. Then after seeing it I'll decide what it is I wanted to say with it.

If you know beforehand what you are trying to say, your message carries credibility. If you make all it up after the fact to suit the resulting image, then not so much. The delivery style, or look, is just a means to an end.

One should always be able to directly answer the question beforehand: "Why are you going to make that?"

Ken

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

O

Ken Nadvornick said:
Whatever look best expresses the message one is seeking to communicate, I would think. My problem is not with any particular style or presentation. Or even photographic technology. It's with a lack of anything significant to say—a message—before creating the work.

In other words, first I'll make a photograph. Then after seeing it I'll decide what it is I wanted to say with it.

If you know beforehand what you are trying to say, your message carries credibility. If you make all it up after the fact to suit the resulting image, then not so much. The delivery style, or look, is just a means to an end.

One should always be able to directly answer the question beforehand: "Why are you going to make that?"

Ken

I agree somewhat, but I've never been shy about cropping in the darkroom/computer and also finding wonderful surprises in some shots that I was originally ho hum about. Partly because the camera does create magic at times, that is unavailable to the eye.

But since I shoot way more people than scenes, I know what I'm after going in. But would never discount the magic factor in cropping, happy accidents or hundreds of a second expression changes.

Because without the magic, I'd be pretty bored. I get Christmas every day, before with contact sheets and now with Lightroom.

I also have no qualms with any kind of enhancement in the computer or with the negative, as long as I love the results. I just consider it part of the creative toolbox.

Truzi · Mar 12, 2015

The fake imperfections on that page really didn't look like anything I've seen come out of a camera, or even bad development. They looked... well... fake.

I wonder if the desire for this kind of software is not, at it's root, to create artificial imperfections, but more a desire to replicate some character of film that is not found in digital (which, of course, has it's own, different, character).

The assumption that film has flaws relative to digital (which merely has different flaws) may lead people to believe the "look" or "ambiance" of a film photo - it's character - is because of imperfection, and not because it is a different technology.

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

I find the imperfections of this particular plug in not to be really an analog vs digital thing but more of a "here mom, take my picture."

"Oh shit, you got your finger in the shot".

More of an incompetent amateur plug in.

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 12, 2015

blansky said:
I agree somewhat...

If the answer to the question: "Why are you going to make that?"

is: "I want to see what serendipity might give me."

then you have successfully answered the question beforehand. Wasn't it Mr. Winogrand who said "I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed." He knew in advance exactly what he was after without having any clue as to what he was actually going to get.

As far as post-processing goes, it's all good if it helps communicate your message. Just be aware that not all audiences are equal, and some enhancements, or levels of enhancement, may turn some audiences off. Even when applied in good faith. Everybody is different.

For example, someone I know still prints their emails to read. The messages are the same, but the enhancement of direct on-screen reading turns this person off. Were it not for paper as an alternative mode of presentation, those messages would remain unread.

And when that happens the message is lost just as effectively as if no message was present from the beginning.

Ken

Truzi · Mar 12, 2015

blansky said:
I find the imperfections of this particular plug in not to be really an analog vs digital thing but more of a "here mom, take my picture."

"Oh shit, you got your finger in the shot".

More of an incompetent amateur plug in.

True, but sometimes actually putting your finger in front of the lens is too much effort. For only $99 we can save those precious calories, not to mention unnecessary wear-and-tear on our bodies, lol

Moopheus · Mar 12, 2015

Mainecoonmaniac said:
I think there's a hunger for flaws due to high quality mass production of consumer items. Every Iphone is made perfectly. Photography and video production is no different with high quality mass produced images. Software to produce these flaws are probably from some algorithm while real flaws are serendipitous. It's a sad thing when a filmmaker and photographer don't want to play the music of chance and have everything calculated to the Nth degree.

Yeah, when you use a cheap plastic toy camera or expired film, you're deliberately choosing to let some aspect of the image be entirely out of your control; there will be an element of surprise. Maybe it will be good, maybe it won't. You won't know until you see it. Just picking the effect out of a palette seems to take all the fun out of it.

Not to mention, in this instance, the effects aren't even very good (the comments in the link are pretty funny).

blansky · Mar 12, 2015

Ken Nadvornick said:
If the answer to the question:

As far as post-processing goes, it's all good if it helps communicate your message. Just be aware that not all audiences are equal, and some enhancements, or levels of enhancement, may turn some audiences off. Even when applied in good faith. Everybody is different.

Ken

Perhaps. But I'm not overly interested in what my audience thinks.

Imperfection in a digital age

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