the great schism of photography

removed account4 · May 27, 2015

the not so great schism of photography

if you have been here for longer than a few minutes you realize
that there are all sorts of people here who use a camera.
some are technicians, some are not, and some are both

it doesn't all boils down to 2 sorts of photographers ...

technical photography ( seeking perfection, seeking to master the tools, knowing the limits, test charts, exactness, devices to test density, resolution, film tests, limitations &c )

and its converse ( not worried so much about perfection, not sweating the small stuff, not worrying about test charts, film curves, film resolution, limitations &c )

there is a lot of middle ground ...

frank · May 27, 2015

There's probably more middle ground than you envision. You identify the extremes, but then there's the bell curve distribution between them.

Granted, the extremists are the most vocal.

It's a continuum, so I don't see it as a schism at all. For me, if there is a schism in photography at all, it's film/digital.

Just my opinion.

I.G.I. · May 27, 2015

In my very subjective opinion photography as an artistic pursuit has been hijacked, and as a result fatally compromised, by commercial interests. From there comes the immense pull for technical perfection as the holy grail since it is salable; on the contrary, artistic vision and fine sensitivity are difficult to tame and employ to sell goods.

wiltw · May 27, 2015

I.G.I. said:
In my very subjective opinion photography as an artistic pursuit has been hijacked, and as a result fatally compromised, by commercial interests. From there comes the immense pull for technical perfection as the holy grail since it is salable; on the contrary, artistic vision and fine sensitivity are difficult to tame and employ to sell goods.

uuhhhh...

Whaddabout the technical perfectionism of Ansel Adams' work in photography, which was a requirement for him (whether he did it, or he hired someone to do it for him, in the darkroom) --

in COMBINATION with the artistry of him having a vision of the scene to be shot and finally the right set of circumstances to shoot that vision,

along with the technical skills of large format camera adjustments, and then the technical skills of adjusted film development in combination with print making technical skills to recreate the artistic vision seen just before the moment of shooting?!

MartinCrabtree · May 27, 2015

These either/or threads are getting tedious. Please stop.

removed account4 · May 27, 2015

MartinCrabtree said:
These either/or threads are getting tedious. Please stop.

sorry martin

there is an enormous middle ground .. it isn't an either or but a both ..
the post about ansel adams is pretty much a both sort of thing ...

there really is no way it can be an only one not the other thing because
if it was just technical the folks mastering technique wouldn't ever make photographs
and if it was just creativity/artistic side of things the folks doing that would only be able
to direct people what to do because they couldn't be bothered with learning how to use a camera or make a print ...
well, i kind of fibbed ... my old college room mate was the asstant of someone who is world renown ..
and she had no idea how to use a camera ... she had the ideas, set up the photographic subjects, directed, stylized everything,
and someone else depressed the shutter ...

Old-N-Feeble · May 27, 2015

MartinCrabtree said:
These either/or threads are getting tedious. Please stop.

No need to keep viewing and posting in threads you don't like.

I'm one of the middle-ground people. I want the best I can get given particular circumstances but I'm not going to spend a ton of time fiddling around with extreme testing.

I.G.I. · May 27, 2015

wiltw said:
uuhhhh...

Whaddabout the technical perfectionism of Ansel Adams' work in photography, which was a requirement for him (whether he did it, or he hired someone to do it for him, in the darkroom) --

in COMBINATION with the artistry of him having a vision of the scene to be shot and finally the right set of circumstances to shoot that vision,

along with the technical skills of large format camera adjustments, and then the technical skills of adjusted film development in combination with print making technical skills to recreate the artistic vision seen just before the moment of shooting?!

Having sufficient command of the craft to get where you want is one thing, obsessing about the craftsmanship, or worse, about petty details, as the end in themselves is something completely different. Technically accomplished negatives or prints won't be salvaged if devoid of vision, there is nothing worse than mediocrity expensively and elaborately presented. And on the contrary, poorly printed image, violating the "rules" of the craft could have a great emotional impact.

Btw you could have spared me the emphasis in bold, I don't need helpers to get a simple message.

blansky · May 27, 2015

Photography is just a manifestation or reflection of our brains.

Some people use it as an expression of what they see and feel. They are not technical people. They are emotional and artistic people.

Some people use it as an expression of their analytical mathematical selves. They love the technical, the structure and the precision of it. They are not overly artistic or emotional.

Some people are right brained and some are left brained.

Some people think it's a competition and have a need to choose sides on what equipment to use.

Some people just think it's a tool to express yourself and use whatever they feel like at the time.

Some people think the process is more important than the outcome.

Some people think the outcome is more important than the process.

And some people use photography as a way to get away from the old lady and get some peace and quiet.

I think it's all good.

mr rusty · May 27, 2015

I'm one of the middle-ground people. I want the best I can get given particular circumstances but I'm not going to spend a ton of time fiddling around with extreme testing.

+1

Isn't this the case in every single hobby-related activity? Take old cars - some people obsess with concours standard, polishing even the underside and not daring to drive through a puddle. Me, I like "nice, tidy, and used". Same in photography. I will never get obsessed with extreme testing, but like to know enough to get a pleasing result that i'm happy with.

TheFlyingCamera · May 27, 2015

wiltw said:
uuhhhh...

Whaddabout the technical perfectionism of Ansel Adams' work in photography, which was a requirement for him (whether he did it, or he hired someone to do it for him, in the darkroom) --

in combination with the artistry of him having a vision of the scene to be shot and finally the right set of circumstances to shoot that vision,

along with the technical skills of large format camera adjustments, and then the technical skills of adjusted film development in combination with print making technical skills to recreate the artistic vision seen just before the moment of shooting?!

Ansel Adams is one of the rare individuals whose artistic vision was great and whose artistic vision included a very high degree of technical precision. I would say in the chicken/egg case that the artistic vision came first - he had something he wanted to say, and then found that the way he wanted to say it was through technical precision. I am impacted when I look at an Ansel Adams print; I am equally impacted when I look at an F. Holland Day print or a Gertrude Kasebier print, for different reasons. And same with William Henry Jackson or Carleton Watkins or Timothy O'Sullivan. Timothy O'Sullivan, for example, couldn't be worried about technical precision because he was shooting mammoth plate wet plate images in the field. Each plate was hand-poured, and they were washed in the water of whatever body of water was available. There were no light meters, and no mechanical shutters. You gave the plate "enough" exposure. But to argue that his landscapes of the American west are any less than Ansel's because of some technical issue is to fail, utterly and completely, at seeing the image in the first place (not that anyone in this conversation is specifically doing so).

Saint Ansel was a perfect storm of artistic vision, technical mastery and commercial exploitation. In fact, there isn't a whole lot separating him as an artist from Thomas Kinkade beyond a sense of aesthetics. As a person, there are oceans between them.

Bill Burk · May 27, 2015

blansky said:
Photography is just a manifestation or reflection of our brains.

Some people use it as an expression of what they see and feel. They are not technical people. They are emotional and artistic people.

Some people use it as an expression of their analytical mathematical selves. They love the technical, the structure and the precision of it. They are not overly artistic or emotional.

Some people are right brained and some are left brained.

I especially appreciate the way photography takes advantage of both sides of the brain, and I try to give each side its turn.

Ko.Fe. · May 27, 2015

Interesting observation, maybe nothing knew, but I like how exactly OP puts it in writing.

My standing ground is in using of focusing targets and test shots on cheap films to find if alignment is right.
It saves me from writing something stupid like "Lybitel-2 is only sharp at f8, only Rolleiflex is good at 5.6." or "Jupiter-8 is soft wide open, you must have Summicron for sharp images".
But I'm finding grain less films as boring as digital images.

blansky · May 27, 2015

These examples are all "ya buts".

Well what about this guy and that guy. Obviously some people have the traits, and luck to reach the pinnacle.

It really has little to do with us or the "schism" of us.

We do what we do for our own reasons, and some get really good, and some get really happy, and some don't.

Some just enjoy doing it for it's own sake.

We are like a bunch of unhappy comedians.

frank · May 27, 2015

Sad clowns.

pdeeh · May 27, 2015

MartinCrabtree said:
These either/or threads are getting tedious. Please stop.

but is is explicitly NOT an "either/or" thread -- the OP says that clearly and even mentions that "there is a lot of middle ground".

frank · May 27, 2015

So why focus on/bother with the extremes?

pdeeh · May 27, 2015

The invitation is to consider that "either/or" is not so useful as "and" ... one can hardly make the invitation to consider alternatives without mentioning the alternatives ...

Stereotypically, if someone asks about or makes a statement in a thread about technical excellence (or about not caring about technical excellence perhaps) the general tenor of replies tends to be "oh you have to master your materials/be an expert/know your curves/use the zs/whatever before you can express yourself artistically" (or "oh you can do whatever the hell you like as it's not the camera/lens/film/developer/paper/enlarger/(scanner) it's the photographer that makes the picture")

It seems to escape many people of both persuasions that one can do slapdash throw-it-all-in-the-pot-and-hope work some of the time and be anally retentive about photography some of the time and be somewhere in between the rest of the time.

So I keep a notebook and record every film I develop with times and temps and outcomes ... so for instance I know that when I shoot Acros at 200, I will use Caffenol (reduced soda) starting at 20C for 10:30, and I can produce negatives in a quite consistent enough way for me.

On the other hand, I'll quite happily shoot a £1 roll of colour film and then do a reversal development on it using whatever dregs of odd developer I've got hanging about under the sink turning brown and guesstimating what the temperature is, and being happy with whatever weird sh!t comes out of the wash at the end of it all.

Yet it seems that some people believe there is a "correct" or maybe "serious" way of doing photography - and then there is a stupid/pointless/dilettante way. It's as if somehow there is a way of doing photography that is handed down by a Great Spirit, and not to do it that way will end in the seventh circle of Hell or, at the very least, condemn the dilettante practitioner to being considered a cretin wit or other form of moronic subhuman.

Or, to put it less verbosely, what Michael R said

Old-N-Feeble · May 27, 2015

frank said:
So why focus on/bother with the extremes?

Because some folks like extremes. Just not me.

MattKing · May 27, 2015

I thought the Grand Canyon was the great schism of Photography

Old-N-Feeble · May 27, 2015

pdeeh said:
The invitation is to consider that "either/or" is not so useful as "and" ... one can hardly make the invitation to consider alternatives without mentioning the alternatives ...

Stereotypically, if someone asks about or makes a statement in a thread about technical excellence (or about not caring about technical excellence perhaps) the general tenor of replies tends to be "oh you have to master your materials/be an expert/know your curves/use the zs/whatever before you can express yourself artistically" (or "oh you can do whatever the hell you like as it's not the camera/lens/film/developer/paper/enlarger/(scanner) it's the photographer that makes the picture")

It seems to escape many people of both persuasions that one can do slapdash throw-it-all-in-the-pot-and-hope work some of the time and be anally retentive about photography some of the time and be somewhere in between the rest of the time.

So I keep a notebook and record every film I develop with times and temps and outcomes ... so for instance I know that when I shoot Acros at 200, I will use Caffenol (reduced soda) starting at 20C for 10:30, and I can produce negatives in a quite consistent enough way for me.

On the other hand, I'll quite happily shoot a £1 roll of colour film and then do a reversal development on it using whatever dregs of odd developer I've got hanging about under the sink turning brown and guesstimating what the temperature is, and being happy with whatever weird sh!t comes out of the wash at the end of it all.

Yet it seems that some people believe there is a "correct" or maybe "serious" way of doing photography - and then there is a stupid/pointless/dilettante way. It's as if somehow there is a way of doing photography that is handed down by a Great Spirit, and not to do it that way will end in the seventh circle of Hell or, at the very least, condemn the dilettante practitioner to being considered a cretin wit or other form of moronic subhuman.

Or, to put it less verbosely, what Michael R said

What did Michael say? He deleted his post.

pdeeh · May 27, 2015

No he didn't - well, not the post I was referrring to, which is post #11

Old-N-Feeble · May 27, 2015

MattKing said:
I thought the Grand Canyon was the great schism of Photography

Schism... chasm... both great divides.

frank · May 27, 2015

I like the word: sarchasm.

removed account4 · May 27, 2015

frank said:
So why focus on/bother with the extremes?

hi frank

i mentioned the extremes because they are the boundaries ..
and while it might be easy to imagine they are way off on the sides like a bell curve
it ( to me at least ) is more like a venn diagram of 2 circles almost overlapping as 1 circle, with the extreme edges
where they don't overlap the wicked extremes and everything else overlapping in the middle ...

this wasn't really meant to be a contentious thread just something to see where people were at
do they worry about technique more than artistic endeavors, or the other way around ... some say
composiiton is the ultimate melding of technique and art, there are rules but they bend like lead ..

the great schism of photography

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