Moonrise was not honest, looking for drama, I like some infrared, but that is the same.
Galleries will do what they feel is needed to fill the need to amuse. Hard sell to see straight.
Replace the word "straight" with "honest" and it all will become clear.
Not so.The reflection in the second photograph is an obvious manipulation because as a reflection the letters would be backwards. "Fakin' it, but not makin' it"
Replace the word "straight" with "honest" and it all will become clear.
Replace the word "straight" with "honest" and it all will become clear.
And "straight", with regard to photography, means that going from negative to print doesn't receive any heavy alteration or addition. The camera takes a picture and that's it.
Is it that simple, though? W. Eugene Smith added, from another negative, the hand and saw handle at the bottom right of this photo because he felt it made for better composition and added depth and meaning, does that mean that the photo is no longer "straight"? After all, it is, essentially, a fabricated photo, corresponding not to what was seen but to what the photographer wants to show, and the story he wants to tell.
...
Also shows that composites have been possible for quite a while.
To me, your comment amounts to such a degree of frog hair splitting and philosophizing as to be simply nonsensical
There is no "that's it" after the shutter is pressed.
"Straight Photography" is a term invented by ignorant viewers with a naive concept of photography. I'm surprised the term would be used by anyone with even the most basic understanding of the photographic process.
I'm an idiot when it comes to painting so I think I'll invent "Straight Painting" where the image is painted "Just As The Painter Viewed It" based on my fantasy understanding of how one paints...
And why is that a problem?The problem is with "normal" photos of normal scenes that are edited in ways that change what they originally captured in the camera.
Of course they can. It's done all the time in court. Photos are presented as potential evidence and questions are asked about how they were processed. If there is editing going on beyond standard adjustments to exposure, color and lighting, the judge won't allow the photos to be used as evidence.Everyone is splitting hairs to fit their own views of honest or straight(forward) photography. But photography itself is not honest. Time doe not stop and freeze a moment, people don't hang mid-air while jumping, things don't blur with speed. Grain is an artifice of the recording process, not natural to observation. Obviously, the world is not black and white or out of focus, distorted like a super wide-angle lens or objects isolated like a telephoto wide open. There is no reality in still photography, nobody can draw the line between honest or not.
Photos used as evidence are to illustrate an event or situation. But the fact remains that photos are approximations of reality, not reality itself. The angle that the camera captured the evidence will always leave something out. Just the fact that a judge can throw out photographic evidence proves that it is not all decisive or all-inclusive. The most honest witness can be wrong.Of course they can. It's done all the time in court. Photos are presented as potential evidence and questions are asked about how they were processed. If there is editing going on beyond standard adjustments to exposure, color and lighting, the judge won't allow the photos to be used as evidence.
People aren't stupid. They know what's real and what isn't.
There was a recent murder case where the prosecutor presented a video t the jury that was reduced in resolution from the original. You couldn't clearly see that the defendant legally defended himself when he shot the victim. You could clearly see this in the original higher resolution video. When the judge found out the persecutor submitted a video with less resolution, he nearly sent the prosecutor to jail for contempt of court and almost threw out the whole case against the defendant. He let is go when the defendant was found innocent by the jury in any case. Had the jury found him guilty, I believe the judge would have reversed their decision. So the idea you can play with and edit video and photos and they're all "real" is just not accurate.
Heterosexual?I've never really understood the term "straight" photography...
And why is that a problem?
I explained it in my post but you deliberately deleted my explanation. Let me present the whole explanation again for you and others:
Quote: "A painting is understood by the viewer to come from the artists mind and brush. So the viewer understands there's an interpretation of reality going on and makes an allowance for that. But with a photograph, the viewer usually has a different consideration, one of expecting to see what the photographer saw. Sure there are edits to correct for camera and film limitations for the loss of lighting, color, and contrast. These may have to be "normalized". But the original subjects remain in more or less their same position and depiction of what they looked like.
Of course, some edits so distort the photo, it;s understood that it was changed substantially. Those are like paintings and understood to be an interpretation. The problem is with "normal" photos of normal scenes that are edited in ways that change what they originally captured in the camera."
The problem as I see it is the viewer’s expectations, especially in this day and age. And the lack of critical thinking overall.
It's hard to believe anything anymore. Most journalists are giving their opinions rather than the news. Photos are edited to match the biased text. Advertisers distort their product views. How can anyone believe anything they see? It creates mistrust of one another. We are all losing something. Imagine what AI will do?
I always find arguments about definitions to be so much fun!
The only photograph that I can think of as being essentially "honest" or "true" or even "straight" is a copy photo of a two dimensional object - such as a document.
Otherwise, every photograph is an allegory - it hints at what might have been in front of a camera, rather than being an exact representation of it. Sometimes the "hint" is really clear. Other times it is really murky.
Among other things, that is why, absent legislative intervention (e.g. traffic cameras), photographs alone can't usually be used as evidence in court. They require corroboration from other evidence.
The OP really likes books of photography. And if you spend a lot of time with those, or at galleries, or reading photographic Art websites, you will get a sense of what sort of photographic trends are current and popular and attracting higher prices in the Art world, and showing up on gallery walls - both real and virtual.
Photographs of things found in the world, presented simply without much technical manipulation, don't seem to be trending. Any trend toward that type of photography is certainly quite quiet. But being less popular doesn't mean death.
FWIW, I wouldn't use "straight" as a definition here. If I was going to look for a description, I would probably do so using negatives - photographs that don't have certain things in them. This is the sort of definition that Sirius seems comfortable with.
IF someone cut a paragraph from one legal document and pasted into another to create a single documents picture, you would consider it dishonest. Why is pasting a sky from one photo into another photo more honest?
Back to the original post, the point was about the predominance of deliberately manipulated images in galleries. So-called "straight" photography is still being practiced in droves, but the galleries (and by extension, the critics and collectors) seem to be uninterested unless it is by a blue-chip name. Photoshopped images are old hat and mainstream now. In the quest to interest new collectors or to broaden a collection, galleries are expanding their offerings, showing more artwork that features or is based on photography but doesn't stop there. You can't download or have AI create a 3-dimensional, hand-colored, multi-media (such as the addition of other materials like sewing thread or metal) artwork. So these pieces become more unique and collectable for some.
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