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@RPC I have a huge respect for how you're doing it. It's the same principle to me: our satisfaction is tied to effort, and sticking to 100% manual pipeline is a great way to keep the effort at a desirable level.[/QUOTE
To be honest I did wet printing for some years when it was the only way. I had all the equipments to do it including a table top paper processor, densitometers and color analyzers. But I quickly switched to film scanning in early 2000's when film scanners appeared in the market. Good film scanners (Nikon and Minolta for example) reveals a whole new world to film photography. One may want to stick to the old way but why not keep an open mind toward the digital way of post processing?
I never allow myself to add or remove any thing from my shots, except removing dusts. That is not the art of photography. It is in my opinion only done by con artists.
. it shouldn't be allowed !Photoshop is just one of the tools in „the box“. I have also noticed people despising it. What is their stance on gradations, dodging and burning?
Dodging and burning are often used to simply compensate for the deficiencies of print materials, not to alter reality. For example, to bring in highlight and shadow detail that was recorded by the film but would not appear in the paper due to the dynamic range limitations of the print paper. Therefore, you are making the print reflect more the reality of the scene, not alterating away from it.Photoshop is just one of the tools in „the box“. I have also noticed people despising it. What is their stance on gradations, dodging and burning?
photography has nothing to do with reality.Dodging and burning are often used to simply compensate for the deficiencies of print materials, not to alter reality. For example, to bring in highlight and shadow detail that was recorded by the film but would not appear in the paper due to the dynamic range limitations of the print paper. Therefore, you are making the print reflect more the reality of the scene, not alterating away from it.
But of course, it can also be used to alter reality in any way the user wants.
I never allow myself to add or remove any thing from my shots, except removing dusts. That is not the art of photography. It is in my opinion only done by con artists.
photography has nothing to do with reality.
not really sure how that is true but OK if you say so ... my reality is not in black and white, grainy, or manipulated colors or in fractions of seconds, or variable depth of fields maybe yours is ?It does if you want it to.
you didn't really explain anything, you just called people names, not really sure how someone presented an image as "art" which means the hand of (wo)man intervened is fake art or a con artists work.Allow me to explain. I am talking about removing a tree, a car, an object then adding a cat, a dog or even a human to a picture and present it as a work of art. I don't do it. I regard that as fake art, a con artist's work. They mostly appear in social media by speculators of jokes or fake news. I stay far far away from such practices. But it's my opinion. You don't have to agree
How did you get such an idea? You have used too much of your imagination. If you take a shot of a city scene then add an Eiffel Town image to it. I will say that's a con artist's work. You won't do that, will you? But it's only my opinion. That's you right if you insist that's art.So you are suggesting Jerry Uelsmann, Yusuf Karsh, and even Fox Talbot are/were con artists???
is there a specific film and lens, camera ir scanner type, printer, paper, chemistry, enlarger head, light source burning and dodging tools that a non-con artist fake art maker uses ?
you suggested that adding and subtracting things from images ( car people &c ) is con artists work, I was just pointing out that since 1839 people have been doing just that. im not insisting anything. You on the other hand are calling people names because you don't like their photographs. if someone wants to make a collage or photo montage why should I care? if the person you just described was a photojournalist and was saying that was something he witnessed and was providing to us as honest evidence of what was allegedly reality, that is something different than "art". you seem to think there are rules in photography or making art. There aren't. As I said before reality and photography are 2 different things.How did you get such an idea? You have used too much of your imagination. If you take a shot of a city scene then add an Eiffel Town image to it. I will say that's a con artist's work. You won't do that, will you? But it's only my opinion. That's you right if you insist that's art.
its because its the same tired argument others on this website use to claim photography isn't "pure"I wonder why you could not see I was talking about cheap puzzling of object pieces into a picture for maybe a purpose of speculating some causes on the social media.
you suggested that adding and subtracting things from images ( car people &c ) is con artists work, I was just pointing out that since 1839 people have been doing just that. im not insisting anything. You on the other hand are calling people names because you don't like their photographs. if someone wants to make a collage or photo montage why should I care? if the person you just described was a photojournalist and was saying that was something he witnessed and was providing to us as honest evidence of what was allegedly reality, that is something different than "art". you seem to think there are rules in photography or making art. There aren't. As I said before reality and photography are 2 different things.
I was just pointing out that since 1839 people have been doing just that.
Alan,Matt, When I moved to NY from NYC with my projector and slide trays, I found that the projector broke. By that time I had been scanning film. So I decided to scan all my old slides that I wanted to keep and found that displaying them on a TV is just great. Now I have a 75" UHD 4K TV and the images are superb. I can't compare against a slide projector because I don't have it any longer. But I can tell you that the TV being back lit just makes the photos pop. Take a look yourself and let me know what you think. Here's my Yotube page. You'll have to be able to use a smart TV to connect to YouTube. The Scuba slide show are photo's from 35mm film scanned. The Scuba photos are not my best because they were the first ones I scanned. But you'll get the idea. The other "Shows" are from digital cameras.
(5) Alan Klein - YouTube or
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDzogShfhgCHh2rVvEsFOJQ
A photograph is itself an alteration of reality.As far as altering a photo goes, what is considered altering by this elite, esteemed group of experts? If a photographer burns part image to minimize or obliterate it, is that an adulteration of the photo? If I ask someone to move from their original position to one that I dictate, or ask them to move their hands, take off a hat or pick up or let go of an object, is that alteration?--this is no how they were until I altered their location to suit my purpose. If I replace the face of someone who's eyes closed during one of a multiple number of shots of a group of people, is that conning the viewer? The person was actually there along with the others, the reality of the photos is intact, just merged.
Even then, the photographer's choice of angle and what to include or exclude from the frame makes it subjective.If your purpose is to make an objective recording of something, for something like a news story
AndreExactly. Photographic images have been manipulated from the very start. Take, for instance, Richard Jones Calvert's Capuchin Friars (1846), where a person was bleached from the negative to enhance the composition.
But it is worth pointing out that photography has always had an uneasy relationship with manipulation. As a medium it lends itself to documentary/evidentiary practices, since it records images based on light reflecting from or shining through "what was actually there." This creates a certain expectation of realism on the part of the viewer, and that expectation affects their interpretation/reception/experience of the photograph. This understanding of photographic realism is why we tend to think of photographic evidence as more reliable than a sketch of a crime. I would argue that this belief in photographic realism carries over into the reception of photographic art as well -- I react differently to your (jnantz's) images because I believe that they are photographs. If I believed that they were water-colors or oil paintings I would have a different experience of them (even if they looked exactly identical). I "read" Roger Fenton's The Valley of the Shadow of Death very differently after being given reason to believe that he (or his assistant) moved the canon balls around to create the final composition, but I would read it very differently still if I believed that those canon balls had been painted on the negative with ink and bleach. In one case we have a staged photograph -- but still a photograph. On the other we have a work of mixed media -- photography and illustration. Knowledge that an image has been manipulated undermines that belief in photographic realism, and creates a kind of cognitive dissonance on the part of those viewers that associate photography with realism. I think mtjade2007's name calling is a result of that kind of cognitive dissonance. If one is given something they think is documentary in nature and find that it has been heavily manipulated, one feels cheated, or lied to.
Now, the fact that many of us have such beliefs in photographic realism (a belief I would bet is less prevalent in folks born after the rise of photoshop, which led to heavy manipulation becoming more widespread) does not mean that those beliefs are justified. I think that the physical and chemical processes of analogue photography support those beliefs for those who have a reasonable grasp of how film photography works, but the "black box" nature of digital photography (where one cannot know what changes have been made between the image sensor and the file recorded by the camera) does not support it (though if you knew precisely how the file was recorded -- i.e. had a competent understanding of the firmware/software in question -- it would once again support it).
In the end, does any of this matter? I would argue that it does, since the belief in photographic realism enriches the interpretation of the photo (in fact, this was a central argument in my doctoral dissertation -- read it at the risk of severe boredom!), even when it is a work of art and not primarily documentary in nature.
Incidentally, above I suggested Errol Morris' book, which is indeed quite good, but I think I was actually thinking of Faking It, the book companion to the Met Museum's exhibit by the same name. I think everyone in this thread would enjoy that book.
The Soviet regime and Stalin in particular, regularly had people removed and signs changed in photographs when they fell out of favor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_UnionThe idea that someone would care that much to think these things collage / photo montage work, or any sort of photographs to be the truth is strange.
Keep in mind that I was not supporting the name calling, only trying to explain where I think he was coming from!Andre
I understand and agree with most of what you are saying, but the way I see it is one should always look at photographs with a degree of skepticism. When I was teenager my grandmother told me to believe none of what I heard and 1/2 of what I saw, that was as true when she was a kid ( she was born in the 1890s ) as it was when I was a kid. Yes, as you noted they have been manipulated since the beginning, and just the fact that someone can change the lens/angle of view and create a mob scene out of 3 people manipulates a scene and in turn the viewer's relationship with the image. The problem with photography and people's interpretation with photography is they think because it is a photograph it has something to do with memory, truth or reality, when photography's only truths aren't in the final image but that maybe camera was there, that's about it. Lied to, cheated? conned? The idea that someone would care that much to think these things collage / photo montage work, or any sort of photographs to be the truth is strange. The instant a tripod is spread, a camera is put to someone's eye or shutter speed or f stop is decided upon the image is manipulated, and whether it is done then or with a knife, leads or photoshop with a mouse makes no difference. I mean does someone really think using a polarizing, red, yellow,, green or UV filter to enhance the sky or coloration of various things in a photograph is unmanipulated? There is no difference between those things and using photoshop other than an arbitrary line that was drawn to suggest some sort superiority. but this is not new either ... this superiority complex with photographers is as old as the medium itself.
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