Is straight photography dead?

[ic-racer]

“Straight Photography” has always been an illusion.

 

[madNbad]

Isn’t all photography manipulated in some way? From adding a filter or adjusting development times to the full Photoshop effect. Is the final image something viewers will enjoy or make them curious about the subject or even the process? Most of the members are on this site because we enjoy the traditional film process and want to learn how to be better and achieve our desired results. Even the most traditional of famous photos have been manipulated or added to.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Isn’t all photography manipulated in some way? From adding a filter or adjusting development times to the full Photoshop effect. Is the final image something viewers will enjoy or make them curious about the subject or even the process? Most of the members are on this site because we enjoy the traditional film process and want to learn how to be better and achieve our desired results. Even the most traditional of famous photos have been manipulated or added to.

There are degrees of manipulation. Just because something was done in the past does not mean that it should be done today. Examples: fat shaming, racism, black face make up or slavery.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Who cares about juried anything? I certainly didn't back when I was doing shows right down the street from there, and getting compliments from some of the best known photographers who ever lived. I simply took and printed images which felt right to me, and not with any pat on the back in mind, though even the print sales went well. The most important critic to please is yourself. Forget all the stereotypes and silly catchall labels about "straight photography" versus alternative forms. Life is too short to be tied down to that kind of nonsense.

Like Photoshoppy effects? - No problem. Just move the discussion of it to the other half of the forum, not here.

 

[AnselMortensen]

OP,
I think I understand your initial point.
I received the postcard announcing that show, said "Meh..." and into the recycling bin the card went.
My appreciation for overtly HDR/ Photoshop/Lightroomed, etc. images has been worn out.
I can look at images created by Brett Weston, Richard Garrod, John Sexton, Ryujie, Robert Werling, et al for days...quiet images.
I don't like being bombarded with loud/busy/"fake" images.
Carmel is/was the epicenter of classic "West Coast" photography.
I attended the Bill Owens exhibit last year and really enjoyed it.

 

[Tel]

There's a clue in the name of the gallery: they call themselves a "center for photographic art" rather than a gallery of photography. In some minds "photographic art" might buy a little flexibility--i.e., art that resembles photography rather than art that is photography.

 

[logan2z]

Isn’t all photography manipulated in some way? From adding a filter or adjusting development times to the full Photoshop effect. Is the final image something viewers will enjoy or make them curious about the subject or even the process? Most of the members are on this site because we enjoy the traditional film process and want to learn how to be better and achieve our desired results. Even the most traditional of famous photos have been manipulated or added to.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about tweaking contrast using a yellow filter or dodging/burning. I'm talking about the sort of manipulations that resulted in images like these:

 

[DREW WILEY]

They've shown all kinds of things over the years, including annual member exhibitions. Our own shop, where I worked for 40 yrs, supplied them with standardized picture mounting components, a full pallet load or two at a time.

Carmel held onto a strong reputation both for excellent photography galleries, and alas, for miserable and even fraudulent painting galleries. At one time a full-time FBI agent was stationed there detecting art fraud. In one instance a prominent gallery featuring an allegedly famous French seascape painter turned out to be an assembly line in Mexico, with no such French painter in existence.

Logan - your lower example is basically a photogram, with actual vegetation contact printed onto paper, then colored. But there are even ways to get actual natural colors transferred to paper. Whole exhibitions of this kind of thing have transpired in SF. The problem with the latter variety is that the colors tend to be fugitive and fade quickly.

 

[Don_ih]

Setting a scene up to take a photo of it is not manipulating the photo - it's directing the photo. What you're describing is not straight photography but documentary photography. Street photography is a kind of documentary photography. Plain portraiture is basically documentary, also. When creative elements enter into it, the photography becomes more directed (and plenty of documentary photography is at least somewhat directed). But all of these can be straight or not straight. If you introduce elements to the print that are the result of some kind of distortion, addition, or subtraction, then your print is no longer straight -- i.e., straight from the negative. Nothing comes straight from the world - at least nothing photographic.

 

[logan2z]

I attended the Bill Owens exhibit last year and really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately I missed it, but I like his work and have several of his books.

 

[Dali]

“Straight Photography” has always been an illusion.

Only the viewer is real.

 

[madNbad]

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about tweaking contrast using a yellow filter or dodging/burning. I'm talking about the sort of manipulations that resulted in images like these:

Images like these have been part of the photographic process since the 19th century and generated the same type of discussion. When my spouse was getting her degree in Art History, much of it was about the artist that pushed the boundaries as much as the ones who continued with traditional imagery. There is plenty of room for both. Often, the artist who is experimenting is skilled at the traditional technique but wants to branch out.

 

[snusmumriken]

Does Lartigue’s famous photo of a racing car count as reality or manipulation?

My point is that from the very invention of photography there have been people eager to play with the medium and see what it could do. Fox Talbot made photograms, countless portrait photographers put their sitters in front of fake backdrops. People captured movement, photographed themselves twice in one shot, made collages, made the world look more picturesque than it really was, used viewpoint to emphasise scale, photographed abstract arrangements of cutlery, managed to make flowers look erotic, played with the distorting effects of different lenses, photographed photographs and mirrors and mirror-like puddles. There’s nothing new about it.

 

[madNbad]

If you want to be sure if straight photography is alive, click on the Gallery link and page through the images members have posted.

 

[logan2z]

Nothing comes straight from the world - at least nothing photographic.

I apologize in advance if I'm misunderstanding you, but the photos I've included below came straight from the world. I was walking around with my camera, noticed something interesting (to me, at least), framed it up and tripped the shutter. From there it was a scan/wet print right from the negative. Nobody posed or was directed, nothing was staged.

I don't mean to suggest that this sort of photography is the only valid style or that the particular photos I included below are anything special, but they are examples of 'straight photography' to my mind, and I see less and less of it all of the time in books/exhibitions (not including books/exhibitions of 'vintage' photos). That's what leads me to believe that this sort of photography is no longer in fashion. As another example, i was showing some landscape photographs at a critique last year - stuff that you might say is in the Robert Adams vein - and the person leading the critique called them 'old fashioned'. Perhaps he was right...

 

[logan2z]

If you want to be sure if straight photography is alive, click on the Gallery link and page through the images members have posted.

That's like saying 'If you want to determine if film is the dominant format, visit the Photrio forums' Things are rather skewed to the past here, which is probably why I like it so much

I'm talking about what you see being produced by contemporary photographers. I might be wrong, but I don't think too many people on Photrio (myself included) fall into that category.

 

[Sirius Glass]

“Straight Photography” has always been an illusion.

No, you are confused about what is straight photography. What the lens records regardless of position, lens, focus exposure is straight photography. Adding or deleting major object is not straight photography. Please stop weasel wording just to get your way.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Images like these have been part of the photographic process since the 19th century and generated the same type of discussion. When my spouse was getting her degree in Art History, much of it was about the artist that pushed the boundaries as much as the ones who continued with traditional imagery. There is plenty of room for both. Often, the artist who is experimenting is skilled at the traditional technique but wants to branch out.

See post #28. Just because something was done in the past, does not justify doing it today.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Does Lartigue’s famous photo of a racing car count as reality or manipulation?
View attachment 334190
My point is that from the very invention of photography there have been people eager to play with the medium and see what it could do. Fox Talbot made photograms, countless portrait photographers put their sitters in front of fake backdrops. People captured movement, photographed themselves twice in one shot, made collages, made the world look more picturesque than it really was, used viewpoint to emphasise scale, photographed abstract arrangements of cutlery, managed to make flowers look erotic, played with the distorting effects of different lenses, photographed photographs and mirrors and mirror-like puddles. There’s nothing new about it.

It is a photography. The image is on the negative. There was not FauxTow$hopping here, just the mechanics of the shutter in the camera.

 

[madNbad]

That's like saying 'If you want to determine if film is the dominant format, visit the Photrio forums' Things are rather skewed to the past here, which is probably why I like it so much

I'm talking about what you see being produced by contemporary photographers. I might be wrong, but I don't think too many people on Photrio (myself included) fall into that category.

There are a lot of contemporary photographers whose work may be long forgotten in a few years, too. The basic qualities that build a good image haven’t changed, perhaps the appreciation for them has. Good art is timeless and can be appreciated across generations. Curators are looking for the new and edgy to get customers in the door. Galleries have to compete with the internet and every one with a phone is a photographer. For the last decade, my wife was a volunteer for the Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery which features artists from around the northwest. There were a lot of pieces by artists trying new things but it was the traditional work that were the steady sellers. Don’t worry about old fashion, fashions have a way of looping back around.

 

[Don_ih]

the photos I've included below came straight from the world. I was walking around with my camera, noticed something interesting (to me, at least), framed it up and tripped the shutter

"noticing something" and "framing it up" are completely sufficient to demonstrate that what you have there is not "straight from the world" but mediated by your choices. We get to see what you choose to take a picture of. In that way, it's no different from setting up a scene and photographing it.

As another example, i was showing some landscape photographs at a critique last year - stuff that you might say is in the Robert Adams vein - and the person leading the critique called them 'old fashioned'.

Such photos, at this point, are "old fashioned". However, what isn't? Anything that purports to be a direct or idealized representation of reality is going to remind people of something they're seen before. That doesn't devalue it. However,it is difficult to make a genuinely interesting landscape photo. Almost all of them seem quaint - and meaningless. Ending up with a photo that is interesting and potentially significant is very difficult.

Anyway, the resultant photo is a product of the imagination and effort of the photographer. I don't know why you want to stagnate the field by suggesting basic documentary is the proper way to make photos. You aren't going out and taking pictures of the sidewalk. You're not taking pictures of your phone. You're not taking pictures of your steering wheel. You are talking pictures of things you think will be interesting as photos. You have to realize that that alone is enough to remove what you produce from the reality of the world.

 

[logan2z]

We get to see what you choose to take a picture of. In that way, it's no different from setting up a scene and photographing it.

Are you suggesting that this:

Is the same as this?

I think they're entirely different.

I don't know why you want to stagnate the field by suggesting basic documentary is the proper way to make photos.

I didn't suggest that at all - if I somehow implied it that wasn't my intention. I was simply pointing out that I don't see much in the way of straight photography in books/competitions/galleries from contemporary photographers so my thesis was that it is dead/dying - or at least temporarily out of fashion.

 

[madNbad]

Are you suggesting that this:

Is the same as this?

I think they're entirely different.



I didn't suggest that at all - if I somehow implied it that wasn't my intention. I was simply pointing out that I don't see much in the way of straight photography in books/competitions/galleries from contemporary photographers so my thesis was that it is dead/dying - or at least temporarily out of fashion.

Try this site: https://www.andredwagner.com

 

[madsox]

I don't think "straight photography" is dead at all, and I also don't think there's anything wrong with "manipulated photography" or "photo-based art" either. I tend to prefer simpler photography, where the final image is pretty much just what's captured on the negative, that's what I've always wanted to create in my own work. But that's just me.

I absolutely appreciate the art (and the craftsmanship) involved in more elaborate work, whether it's made by compositing multiple negatives or pieces of them in the darkroom and playing with filtration and colors and chemistry, or through current digital methods. If the person making it has an idea, a vision, and finds a way to express that, I think that's what's important in "photography-as-art".

I don't have a sophisticated vocabulary for this, I just absorbed a lot from my parents over the years (they were trained artists, dad a painter/photographer, mom a jeweler and art prof), enough to see that there's a spectrum in photography from purely documentary craft to completely visionary art, and none of it is inherently bad. Just different, really.

My tuppence worth...

 

[madsox]

I didn't suggest that at all - if I somehow implied it that wasn't my intention. I was simply pointing out that I don't see much in the way of straight photography in books/competitions/galleries from contemporary photographers so my thesis was that it is dead/dying - or at least temporarily out of fashion.

Ah, this I would agree with. I think the current trend is away from more straight, documentary-style photography, and more in favor of manipulated scenes and more highly modified images. At local art shows and in publications or on web exhibits, that is what I see featured more often.

It's cyclical, it will swing back the other way at some point. And we'll still be here debating it on Photrio and having a good time doing so!