No problem with photos that have obviously been rearranged for whatever reasons. Those changes are obvious to the viewer. It's the so-called straight shots that have been manipulated secretly that are a problem to me.
Is straight photography dead?
-
- Thread starter logan2z
- Start date
Recent Classifieds
-
For Sale Ilford 4x6 Post Card Paper
- Started by Rick A
-
Want to Buy WTB Olympus MotorDrive 2 with Control Pack and Charger
- Started by nbagno
-
Want to Buy WTB - Canon 110ED
- Started by cptrios
-
Sold NIKON D800 (read)
- Started by Acere
-
Want to Buy WTB Konica Hexar RF
- Started by axestrata
Forum statistics
No problem with photos that have obviously been rearranged for whatever reasons. Those changes are obvious to the viewer. It's the so-called straight shots that have been manipulated secretly that are a problem to me.
How about removing a telephone pole, wire or trash?
I have a problem with removing that. Change the framing, move the shooting location, move closer or use a different lens.
Sometimes those are not possible. So sh*t-can the photo?
That would make a photo subtractively manipulated, but it wouldn't necessarily be deceptive. Say you like a particular view but there happens to be a pole there that you don't like - yet it is inevitably in the view you really prefer (as in, you can't move around it). Your idealized view doesn't include it, so removing it from the final print (through computers or darkroom magicianship) should be something you really need not worry about. Your print is to please you.
That's different from documentary photography, where an important element is removed. And of course it's just not allowed in photos to be used as evidence of something.
There are a billion facets to photography, each giving a different glint.
One does the best that they can. The trash can may be offended by that characterization.
I'd call that extreme photo manipulation.
I photograph the light reflecting off the landscape (and/or direct from the sky) It is my main subject (images can have multiple subjects on multiple levels). I manipulate the heck out of subject via the negative -- composition, filters (sometimes), exposure, contrast, densities. And then again in the print -- color, tonality, exposure, contrast, amt of raised relief, paper type/surface. No burning, dodging, nor cropping the print, though. Those and composition were all worked on and completed in the first step (making the negative).
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
- Messages
- 13,702
- Format
- 8x10 Format
No, Alan. I was with the other four guys who comprised our cumulative purchasing dept; and one of the standard amenities on these business trips was no limit to meal expense, although those were sometime paid for by mfg reps we were key clients of.
So we'd pick the best places. My sister-in-law had a food catering career in Vegas, so knew all the best places. We could also pick whatever shows we wanted; and the last instance, decided it would be more fun to have front row seats to three authentic Motown bands (one of the performers was 95), rather than back row seats to a more current venue. But Vegas has its issues.
When one of the guys - a younger fifth one, not of our office - didn't show up on time the next morning, and when an $800 charge on the company credit card appeared at the end of the month for something like Sadie's Ranch, that was nearly the last straw to his career. I won't mention the very last straw; it was analogous, only worse. Some people should simply never go there. But none of us gambled, even a dime.
But every day we had to walk a long indoor corridor between the Hotel and Convention center, past three different Starbucks, and alas, past Peter Lik's gallery each time. Once I briefly walked in and almost threw up, literally. Talk about Faux-nee manipulation so egregious and kitchy that I can't figure out why a camera was even employed. The Vegas Strip...where everything is faux and in bad taste. I think he used the LSD-laced, rocket-launched ashes of Timothy Leary in his inkjet pigments. A shock encounter like that will steer you straight, photography-wise, the rest of your life.
So we'd pick the best places. My sister-in-law had a food catering career in Vegas, so knew all the best places. We could also pick whatever shows we wanted; and the last instance, decided it would be more fun to have front row seats to three authentic Motown bands (one of the performers was 95), rather than back row seats to a more current venue. But Vegas has its issues.
When one of the guys - a younger fifth one, not of our office - didn't show up on time the next morning, and when an $800 charge on the company credit card appeared at the end of the month for something like Sadie's Ranch, that was nearly the last straw to his career. I won't mention the very last straw; it was analogous, only worse. Some people should simply never go there. But none of us gambled, even a dime.
But every day we had to walk a long indoor corridor between the Hotel and Convention center, past three different Starbucks, and alas, past Peter Lik's gallery each time. Once I briefly walked in and almost threw up, literally. Talk about Faux-nee manipulation so egregious and kitchy that I can't figure out why a camera was even employed. The Vegas Strip...where everything is faux and in bad taste. I think he used the LSD-laced, rocket-launched ashes of Timothy Leary in his inkjet pigments. A shock encounter like that will steer you straight, photography-wise, the rest of your life.
Last edited:
Good for you. I don't have the skills, experience or patience for such at this point.
Last edited:
Pieter12 might be referring to the famous Kent State Massacre photo, taken on May 4, 1970, by Kent State photojournalism student John Paul Filo:
Before:
As published in Life, Time, People, and others:
The fence pole was airbrushed out in the early 70s, nobody knows by whom.
Before:
As published in Life, Time, People, and others:
The fence pole was airbrushed out in the early 70s, nobody knows by whom.
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2015
- Messages
- 638
- Format
- 35mm
We now have three possible "deads" on Photrio: 1. film craze; 2. digital photos and 3. straight photography We must be getting as close to a pandemic as I have seen since we abolished the Covid 19 thread but sadly not Covid 19 itself yet
pentaxuser
Maybe your comments are all a joke and not to be taken seriously. If not, I don't understand why a conversation about the relevance of Straight Photography is said to be "dead".
From the title of the thread: "Is straight photography dead?"
Which followed on from another thread "Is the film craze dead?"
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2015
- Messages
- 638
- Format
- 35mm
Okay, a sadly trivial explanation.
Maybe we should have an “Is the stop bath thread dead?” thread.
If it gets carried over to travel magazines and ads, then it's false advertising. No one wants to buy a ticket in a stadium or theatre and get stuck sitting behind a beam.
Pieter12 might be referring to the famous Kent State Massacre photo, taken on May 4, 1970, by Kent State photojournalism student John Paul Filo:
Before:
As published in Life, Time, People, and others:
The fence pole was airbrushed out in the early 70s, nobody knows by whom.
Is that a handgun on the ground near his head in the first picture?
From an .EDU web site
The two bolded (by me) parts have in my view a hidden contradiction.
Is the second same as the first? Both record "straight" image. It's not like a water level with both ends balancing out, if water is added or removed, or is it?
The two bolded (by me) parts have in my view a hidden contradiction.
- First seems to say: whatever there was in front of the camera
- Second appears to give room for photographer's interpretation of what he sees through the lens, as in: well, this is what I have, but I'm gonna move this here, that over there, get this girl to shout, that man to laugh and I get what I want to show.
Is the second same as the first? Both record "straight" image. It's not like a water level with both ends balancing out, if water is added or removed, or is it?
If I ask you stand over there in front of the statue so I can get a shot, that's a straight picture. The camera recorded what was there. IF I clone you into a shot of just the statue, that's not a straight shot.
We can go on, I was always referring to a staged photos that deceive viewer about an event, not what you are proposing.
Pieter12 might be referring to the famous Kent State Massacre photo, taken on May 4, 1970, by Kent State photojournalism student John Paul Filo:
Before:
As published in Life, Time, People, and others:
The fence pole was airbrushed out in the early 70s, nobody knows by whom.
Now that you show it, I've seen it before. There was justification for removing the pole, whoever did it, because it's sticking directly out of the centre of her head. It's not an important element - it may actually confuse some people who see the photo, who might think she has that expression because she has been impaled by that pole. So the pole detracts from the photo's ability to convey the situation. Like Matt said, there was no intention to misrepresent anything, so it's not a dishonest manipulation.
There's a bit too much equating "straight" with "good, honest, true" and "manipulated" with "bad, deceptive, false".
If a photo is used to imply something that's not true in and advertisement, then the ad is false. The photo, however, could be completely true. I could make an ad with a photo of the Statue of Liberty and a line saying, "Visit Niagara Falls! See The Statue of Liberty!" -- that implies something that just isn't true. But the photo is just a photo.
False advertising is advertising - not a photo.
MY example covers what you're referring to. If I ask my wife to stand in front of a statue to show others at home that we visited Paris and actually saw the statue, that's not deception. But if I cloned her into a picture of the statue and never visited Paris, that would be deception. Most people can figure out the difference between truth and deception. It's not very hard.
I respectfully disagree and believe the publication of the Kent State photo without the pole centered to her head was a dishonest and misleading manipulation. The pole was there, too bad for the student photographer, and too bad for the image - journalism lost a fact w such manipulation. Yes, it’s only a pole.
Everyone including the caveman understands these are series fence posts, knows the reason for her anguish, that it was taken at a minutely less-than-ideal angle, and wouldn’t confuse or criticise the publishing of a scene for it-as-it-appeared through the lens. So why not remove some blood. Why not add some pooled blood. If one student shown had been smiling, for any reason, ought the smile be changed, blended out of focus, or the man himself be entirely disappeared from the image? Maybe that pole was important for some indeterminate reason involving something to do with the event itself. Did it hinder the view of a National Guard soldier seeing the handkerchef rag believing it was a gun? Why not remove all poles. Why not enhance the handkerchef rag or revolver or what is it on the ground to help the viewer immediately understand what it is? Or just remove the handkerchef rag completely? If to publish for fact I wouldn’t agree to wholesale remove or add any element to prettify the image. What else was removed - who now really knows. So what can you trust... a sliding the slope to bias and lie. I understand there are shades to everything (I.e., crop) but removing something constrained within the image is too much.
As an exercise, I apologize to Don Heisz above with his quote. It’s re-quoted above in my post. Go ahead, read his quote in my post. See any difference? But you see, I changed a very small insignificant element to his writing by altering and manipulating it - I replaced Don’s portion “because she has been impaled by that pole” because I found it a little too shocking and jarring to consider the very idea someone may have been impaled by a pole. So I replaced it with “because she has been growing that pole out from her head since her early childhood.” I find my selection just a bit easier on the mind, it‘s cleaned up a little, sterilized, less messy so now a less distracting to my editorial sensibility, and I hope that’s okay to the public and Mr. Heisz who might believe it‘s an inconsequential manipulation. Would the moderator please remove any recordation of Mr. Heisz’ post to replace his with mine forevermore? My manipulation is inconsequential and I’m not trying to misrepresent anything of any significance.
My point is too bad for the ugly truth the pole stuck out of her head w the photo. We can all live with it vs the alternative crisis to now question everything published for news/fact may have been manipulated.
Last edited:
| Photrio.com contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. To read our full affiliate disclosure statement please click Here. |
PHOTRIO PARTNERS EQUALLY FUNDING OUR COMMUNITY:  |