You thinking you know what my views are is more tripe. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but you’ve been called out multiple times for leveling this same insult at people. It’s childish and stupid.
Both of which are not the thing you see when you look at it.
JMHO of course, but i appreciate you sharing your Thoughts/Experience and see nothing wrong with your doing so.
But this end (propaganda) can be readily achieved without a single manipulated pixel. The Russians have been doing this against Ukraine of late trying to pass off old photos of things that happened elsewhere in the past as if they were happening right now in Ukraine. They're getting caught and called out for it, but the only thing they altered was the caption.
You are worse that that flyboy "Stone" that used to low ride here, whenever answers were given to posts he changed them so he could tell everybody they were an idiot. So where in the OP's presentation was there language about labeling of photographs to prove they were legitimate for your specific tastes. You should really pick up a history of photography book and read it, maybe you would stop writing such nonsensical posts.
While I agree that accurate labeling of prints is important ( I would not buy an inkjet print when looking for a platinum, for example, and be righteously pissed off if someone tried to pass an inkjet off as a platinum ), you are confusing meaning with methodology yet again. The method of making the print is quite secondary to the content of the image, 99% of the time. I don't respond to a photograph and want to look at it for hours, or want to part with my hard-earned cash to hang it on my wall, simply because it is a (type x) print. I'm not going to part with my cash to own a fine-art-silver-gelatin-landscape-print-by-an-ansel-adams-wannabe just because it's a fine art silver gelatin print. It can be the most well-executed print in the world with the highest degree of craft possible, but if the image content hits the snooze button, the craft behind it (and the accurate labeling of that craft, which is the primary marketing position of said photograph) is irrelevant.
Just to clarify for others what is the back story on this photo. Some people have claimed that Capa staged the photo. That the soldier never got shot. He just acted that way. The photo was published that he actually got shot.
Removing scratches might be in the same order as when I remove dust spots in Lightroom left on the film when I scan them. But adding the caboose to the picture or replacing the sky from another picture would be of a different order. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.While I agree that accurate labeling of prints is important ( I would not buy an inkjet print when looking for a platinum, for example, and be righteously pissed off if someone tried to pass an inkjet off as a platinum ), you are confusing meaning with methodology yet again. The method of making the print is quite secondary to the content of the image, 99% of the time. I don't respond to a photograph and want to look at it for hours, or want to part with my hard-earned cash to hang it on my wall, simply because it is a (type x) print. I'm not going to part with my cash to own a fine-art-silver-gelatin-landscape-print-by-an-ansel-adams-wannabe just because it's a fine art silver gelatin print. It can be the most well-executed print in the world with the highest degree of craft possible, but if the image content hits the snooze button, the craft behind it (and the accurate labeling of that craft, which is the primary marketing position of said photograph) is irrelevant.
Accurate labeling of the materials used to make the print IS relevant to the owner of the print insofar as that determines how to frame, mount, or store the print.
Going back to the other "truth" notion we've been tossing around here, IN CONTEXT, declaring the degree of manipulation in an image is either critically important or utterly unimportant except for marketing purposes. Where do you draw the line as to what is too much? Helicopter shark is incredibly obvious in the "too much" department, as is the photo I've used before of a T-Rex, a man, and a flying great white shark that's bigger than the T-Rex, looking over the edge of a cliff.
On the flip side, though, if I had cloned out the scratches on the side of the caboose in this image
(the ones beside the side window of the caboose, closer to the viewer) would it have made ANY difference at all in the "truth" of this photo, or your enjoyment thereof? No. The only time it would have mattered is if I were selling the caboose and represented it as having a perfect paint job. So context matters, infinitely more than some ideologically pure standard.
Where I feel like you're getting lost is the insistence on craft over content.
I do feel craft is important.
I do think people should place greater value on craft in their own work - craftsmanship is something to be proud of and exhibiting good craftsmanship is its own form of marketing.
I also think that we, as an analog-focused community, get entirely too caught up here in conversations around gear and technique to the detriment of image content.
In that particular instance, I was referring not to damage to the film stock itself but rather "imperfections" in the caboose that may or may not be aesthetically unappealing. Yes, it is very much a question of degree, and a question of intent, and I understand your perspective on adding the caboose entirely (note: I did not). And if someone were to add the caboose entirely, I would argue that what you are looking at is in fact an illustration composed from photographs, rather than a photograph. I'm not trying to throw out the baby with the bathwater here, I'm just saying that drawing a hard line based on some kind of purity standard and saying "no manipulation ever!" is just as wrong-headed as saying "you should be able to call it a photograph when you splice in a T-Rex and a flying shark". I think we need to do more looking at art as just art, that resonates emotionally, and be less concerned about purity gatekeeping IN ART. In photojournalism or criminal court cases, where the intent of image-making is radically different and carries potential legal and/or political consequences, that's an entirely different animal. But that's not what we're talking about here.
Pretty much how I feel about it these days. It seems this is the way it has to be now, considering the exponential advancements in AI or other imaging systems we are being bombarded with. I am seeing AI systems create "super-resolution" where a fuzzy image is rebuilt by the AI to look how it should look at a high resolution (based on what it has learned said image should look like).
You could use that same type of AI, teach it on film, and have it extract and increase contrast on very low contrast detail and suppress/remove grain.
Truth be told, this is like automated "chat bot" that has replaced "customer service" agents and fake Linkedin profiles recently exposed in the news. AI based humanoids have been on the internet for ever as part of Catfishing campaigns run by underworld organizations.
I don't and am impressed with the outcome, want to learn some more. It'd be fun to feed it something underexposed and poorly scanned to see what it does. Then I could have my shitty original and something interesting/usable on the side.Is the image on the right a truth? It was re-built by an AI algorithm. Would most people even care? Apply the same technique to landscapes etc.
There's nothing wrong with morphing photography into graphic art if that's what we want. But we'll have to expect that the public will lose trust in photography as a source of capturing reality.
It is like Plastic Surgery. Sometimes it is done for love most other times to chase the dragon. I suggest if you do this to your film you do it for love.
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