Unwanted Elements - Real vs What We Wish it Was

photomc · Dec 6, 2008

As many here know, I am part of the Texas Church Project and of course that means photographing churches - where ever they happen to be. Have been struggling a bit recently, because of the clutter cause by unwelcome elements such as utility poles, power lines, etc.

So, what are everyones thoughts on this...I try to keep them out, but this is not always possible and to be honest a part of me says these are the elements that are part of the scene and that is what is documented..

Thanks in advance...I think I may be just aggravated by them and need to get over it. (yes I know there is one way to get rid of them...just not my way of thinking there).

rusty_tripod · Dec 6, 2008

My personal philosophy is that it is dishonest to remove them. While it does not alter the beauty or significance of the church or image, the alteration leaves me uncertain as to what else may have been altered as well in order to present a well-intentioned but contrived image.

Recently, my sister-in-law shared that she hired a photographer to take an extended family portrait because she knew he could replace heads of the grandchildren who were not looking the right direction or those of individuals who were caught in the middle of a blink. It meant that he did not have to keep shooting or trying to get everyone with an acceptable expression in a single shot. My thinking is that it would be easier just to have individual head shots taken and organized in a collage or honest arrangements.

Perhaps, I am too great a purist in a world where implied perfection is chosen over the truths of a real existence.

df cardwell · Dec 6, 2008

Jeremiah should be one of the Patrons of Photographers,
for he cautioned (in but a slightly different context, "You have eyes, but you cannot see".

The ONLY choice a photographer has is to shoot the church as it sits. Today. Now.
Paint peeling, dirty sidewalk, galvanized steel power poles, electrical and power lines.

Get straight what you want. If you want an idealized, sanitized, bowdlerized representation of what you want the churches to look like, you can either hire a painter, use digital and Photoshop, or (my preference) paint the building, clean the sidewalk, bury the overhead lines, and clean the place up.

If you want to show the reality, then use a camera. Use it well.

Cool project.

removed account4 · Dec 6, 2008

mike

i know what you mean ..
as the world grows up around the church the context
( external and internal ) sometimes change.

i struggle with the same issues when i do a habs or haer documentation.
unlike your images, the images i sometimes take are more like "last rites" images.
like your's they are portraits of the site / structure, they show how the building / place
is ... NOW. sometimes one may hope for an idealized situation, but often it is a structure
in its faded glory, sad but true. beautiful light and a photographer for an eye for
a pleasing composition are the only friend of such places.

while a building may hold importance / significance, sometimes its relation to the environment
that surrounds it is just as important as the building itself. it shows how the community grew
around the structure an creates a sense of place as well as space.

great project btw!

john

removed account4 · Dec 6, 2008

rusty_tripod said:
My personal philosophy is that it is dishonest to remove them. While it does not alter the beauty or significance of the church or image, the alteration leaves me uncertain as to what else may have been altered as well in order to present a well-intentioned but contrived image.

Recently, my sister-in-law shared that she hired a photographer to take an extended family portrait because she knew he could replace heads of the grandchildren who were not looking the right direction or those of individuals who were caught in the middle of a blink. It meant that he did not have to keep shooting or trying to get everyone with an acceptable expression in a single shot. My thinking is that it would be easier just to have individual head shots taken and organized in a collage or honest arrangements.

Perhaps, I am too great a purist in a world where implied perfection is chosen over the truths of a real existence.

rusty:

people have been making images as you describe for 100+ years.
one such photographer was the central figure of a movie
called: photographering fairies .. its just much less time consuming these days ...

john

Mike Kennedy · Dec 6, 2008

I would incorporate the clutter and use selected focus or depth of field to minimize their impact.

photomc · Dec 6, 2008

Thanks for the input guys (and the kind words). When you say - "The ONLY choice a photographer has is to shoot the church as it sits. Today. Now.
Paint peeling, dirty sidewalk, galvanized steel power poles, electrical and power lines.", I agree completely. It's one of those times, when I have gotten a bit frustrated - the interiors are easy to photograph - the exterior has been more problematic.

The fact that "it is what it is" - scootermm and I have discussed this at length before. And I have no problem with that, it is just sometimes the best 'side' to photograph is the one with all the 'warts'. At the end of a printing session right now, and I know that work is good...now to tell the other part of my brain it's OK. That not every church , or building or even landscape will be perfect. It looked nice enough for me to stop and expose a sheet or 2 of film, so I need to permit myself to not dwell on them.

John, Thanks for the reminder about your habs/haer work. I should read up on the projects, as much of what we are doing is not unlike that work. The reference material I have and use is a good indicator of what these places looked like when they were much younger - at least we do not have to deal with all the power lines and other distractions that the photographers of previous times did. Man, those were lines and poles..

Thanks again guys!!

MurrayMinchin · Dec 7, 2008

I would also avoid the inclusion of distracting elements. It's not lying as some seem to think, but about eliminating things that detract from what you want to dominate in your photograph by careful choice of camera position, lens, etc.

I have a photograph of a glacier topped mountain and high level wispy clouds in the Rockies taken at sunset. The camera had to be moved back a few yards so the power poles of a house trailer park I was standing in weren't in the bottom of the frame. Some people would have included the dumpy house trailers, the gravel parking lot, and the power poles, but not me. Everybody who's seen the print comments on the mountain or the clouds, which is what I wanted them to see. I don't ever mention what was in the foreground because even without them seeing the house trailers, just knowing they were there would change the way they looked at the mountain.

Some people may want to show the old churches in their current context, others may want to emphasize them independent of todays modern intrusions. To each their own

Murray

Chuck_P · Dec 7, 2008

photomc said:
...I try to keep them out, but this is not always possible and to be honest a part of me says these are the elements that are part of the scene and that is what is documented..

I think you answered your own concerns----this is the straight poop on it. I'm like you on this one, I would seek to eliminate unwanted elements where I could, that's part of photography.

df cardwell · Dec 7, 2008

Controlling distracting elements ?

If the project is about a glacier, well, OK, but architecture is about people,
and a picture of a building must show the relationship between people and the building, over time.
When we remove 'distracting elements', we are usually talking about erasing the intrusion of people,
the very thing that we are really recording.

Ecclesiastical architecture must especially talk about people. Those who built it,
those who maintained it, those who ignored it. And the changing of the greater community in which it is set.

There is a post-modern notion that Truth is The Objective, but it cannot be known, it cannot ever be attained.
Photography demonstrates the point of view of a less cynical era, the Truth is the Method; not only is Truth discernible, but that it is the tool we use to describe our world.

The great irony of NeoPictorialism has become the emphatic Photographic response to Post Modernism,
the creation of romanticized and idealized images of an imaginary world, sentimentalizing the hard truths of the time in which we live. Even greater irony, to me at least, is the devotion to Ultra Large Format to sell these romantic images, as if the inherent difficulty of making the pictures somehow justifies their use to create fiction, instead of the ready redrafting of the world possible in Photoshop. It bothers me that we sell these fantasies by saying that a ULF negative can record infinite detail, even though it is being used to be selective with the truth.

Telling a lie with a view camera is no different than telling a lie with digital camera,
except you have worked harder to make the lie convincing. And that makes it worse.

Use the big cameras to look straight at your subjects. You may find there is an inherent beauty you were missing when you afraid show the ugly, distracting bits.

photomc · Dec 7, 2008

Well after a good nights rest, it's amazing how much clear one can 'see'. Maybe it was just the action of venting the furstration or maybe the good thoughts you all have shared. This morning my thoughts are a bit more clear.

As has been stated, the photograph will be what it will be, a recording of what is there 'now' and NO reason to be furstrated by that. My job, as the photographer - and this is a self imposed project - is to record what is there to the best of my ability. That is what I need to do. If a location is found that has a nice clean environment, when all the elements come together, then consider it a gift. It will happen, just not that often, after all these locations were built by people for people, and they represent that people (hopefully anyhow) still visit these place and treasure them.

Part of the project is to pay respect to the people that built them that can only be done by sharing the work that was done, and by letting the viewer know what state the place is in. If in need of help, then perhaps it will remind the viewer that they could do that. As Mr. Cardwell mention earlier, if in need of paint, paint it; if the trees and shurbs need trimming, do that.

Just as our friends across the pond have managed to maintain some of their churches for several hundred years, the project is a small way to say this place has lasted 100 years, now let's keep that going for another 100 years, and another.

Thanks again for the input - as always, good stuff.

removed account4 · Dec 7, 2008

photomc said:
John, Thanks for the reminder about your habs/haer work. I should read up on the projects, as much of what we are doing is not unlike that work. The reference material I have and use is a good indicator of what these places looked like when they were much younger - at least we do not have to deal with all the power lines and other distractions that the photographers of previous times did. Man, those were lines and poles..

Thanks again guys!!

HABS guidelines ..

about the power lines, and peeling paint, and shrubs ..
all those things make the building what it is today.
they are a testament to how the building evolved and should be included
no matter how one may think they are a distraction to the structure.
in reality, they aren't a distraction but add an important context
a context that can't really be glossed over / omitted or removed.

the way a habs works is from general to specific ...
there are context shots which show the building in its enviornment
so one gets a sense of place. all the distractions --- street furniture
mailboxes, telephone and electrical poles,
phone booths, cellphone towers + monopoles &C add to the "place"
since a community of people ( or other buildings )
may grow around the site being documented ...
after establishing how the building communicates with its surroundings,
the photographer gets closer to the building with 3/4 views ( 2 elevations )
or single elevations and then details that show how the building might have been constructed
windows, doorways, or features on-site that may be overlooked -like property markers
or landscape features that still add into the building as a whole and make it "work" ..
granted with a ULF camera it is quite expensive to make 2 or 3 or 6 views of a building's exterior
like a typical habs documentation ... so i guess it is one of those things that
you have to come to grips with how you want to present these churches,
in an romantic state, or ... in a way that people down the road can learn
how the churches were, and how they reacted to and with their environment.

after it is all said and done, sometimes the "distractions" tell more about the subject, than the subject.

good luck!

john

f/stopblues · Dec 7, 2008

"With photography, I create fiction out of reality." - Martin Parr

This is such a subjective question you've posed. I hope you stay true to the vision of your project and are not swayed by what "should" be photographed. If your vision changes, great! Make sure you're capturing the churches with your photographic philosophy in mind, though, and not someone else's.

Just remember, all faced with the same church, Robert Adams would photograph it differently than Edward Weston, who would photograph it differently than Dorothea Lange, who would photograph it differently than Johnny Bighonkindigijunk. So you should photograph it like, well, you. If we were all after the most "real" scene, we'd all have super-wide lenses so as to capture the most unbiased and inclusive scene. If your impulse is to regard the extra elements as a distraction, then treat them as so. If you include them and feel it adds, then keep doing it. Just don't ask yourself which "should" be right.. only one way is right for you!

<as a caveat, I'm not talking about altering photos in post. I mean to frame a photo according to a photog's own vision>

MurrayMinchin · Dec 7, 2008

f/stopblues said:
So you should photograph it like, well, you. If we were all after the most "real" scene, we'd all have super-wide lenses so as to capture the most unbiased and inclusive scene. If your impulse is to regard the extra elements as a distraction, then treat them as so. If you include them and feel it adds, then keep doing it. Just don't ask yourself which "should" be right.. only one way is right for you!

Good points. Since this is a group project, it frees each person to seek their own vision knowing 'the whole' of the subject will be covered by the different approaches of the group. I'd be scratching my particular itch, not someone else's.

Murray

David Brown · Dec 7, 2008

photomc said:
Just as our friends across the pond have managed to maintain some of their churches for several hundred years, the project is a small way to say this place has lasted 100 years, now let's keep that going for another 100 years, and another.

OK, as I told Mike in a PM, I wanted to let this thread develop a bit before I chimed in. It was funny that Mike had these thoughts at almost the same time I was printing a negative in which the churchs façade was almost hidden by trees. However, this is the view everyone has of the church when they turn off the main street of the small town and drive the block or 2 down a residential area to the front of the old building. I was lucky in one respect it was late winter and the leaves were all off the trees.

rusty_tripod said: My personal philosophy is that it is dishonest to remove them.

Rusty: I dont think removing them (the distracting elements) has ever been considered by any of us. I believe Mike was talking about framing the photo to avoid the distracting elements. Mike and Matt make contact prints. I enlarge from roll film, so I occasionally crop. If there was a pole next to a building (as opposed to in front of it), I might be inclined to crop it out if the resulting image worked. But we do no retouching.

df cardwell said: Get straight what you want. If you want an idealized, sanitized, bowdlerized representation of what you want the churches to look like, you can either hire a painter, use digital and Photoshop, or (my preference) paint the building, clean the sidewalk, bury the overhead lines, and clean the place up.

Thanks df. I think were pretty straight on what we want.

And then df said: Ecclesiastical architecture must especially talk about people. Those who built it, those who maintained it, those who ignored it. And the changing of the greater community in which it is set.

Ah, youve read our mission statement.*

MurrayMinchin said: Some people may want to show the old churches in their current context, others may want to emphasize them independent of todays modern intrusions. To each their own.

Well, thats pretty much it right there. We have had a number of philosophical discussions in the last 3 years, and weve pretty much hammered out what were trying to do. We do want to show these churches in context as it were, especially where the context tells part of the story. We started the project in part because we had found some rather pristine rural examples of these historic buildings without much, if any, intrusions. As the project has moved on, we are finding that churches such as those are rare. Also, we have moved in town a bit, from concentrating strictly on the rural buildings, to those that have survived in small towns. It is in the towns that we have mostly encountered all the distractions.

In my own work, I am finding a subset of the churches that I like to think of as recycled. These are churches that are not serving their original purpose, or the denomination of their builders. Some have changed brands (denominations), some have been retained by a congregation that has outgrown them as chapels or other secondary buildings, but several have been turned into community centers or other uses. In these cases, I try to show the context if at all possible. Ironically, this is often more difficult in a photograph than this discussion might suggest.

We will eventually move into larger cities. There are a number of 19th century churches in San Antonio and Galveston, for instance. Even here in Dallas, I have plans to shoot the late 19thC Cathedral Guadalupe from an angle that will have the taller glass and steel office buildings framing the steeple.

Were just trying to do this thing justice. Well getr done!

*the best explanation of our purpose comes out in the video IMHO. See the link on our website to the "Texas Country Reporter"

Dead Link Removed

DanielOB · Dec 7, 2008

Photomc
I think you have a problem with what photography is, otherwise you will not ask a such question. I think you will be better off with some digital gizmo and photshop. Or might be you alredy use it and think that just any shaded image showing on paper is a photograph. Go to Nikonians.org digital section and ask there. They will aprove you as a very smart "photographer".

Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com

df cardwell · Dec 7, 2008

PHOTOMC & DAVID

Have a good time with this. Stick to your inspiration,
and run with it. It's cool.

d

removed account4 · Dec 7, 2008

David Brown;718720Even here in Dallas said:
now THAT'S what i am talking about!

great stuff!

john

photomc · Dec 7, 2008

DanielOB said:
Photomc
I think you have a problem with what photography is, otherwise you will not ask a such question. I think you will be better off with some digital gizmo and photshop. Or might be you alredy use it and think that just any shaded image showing on paper is a photograph. Go to Nikonians.org digital section and ask there. They will aprove you as a very smart "photographer".

Daniel OB
www.Leica-R.com

Thanks for you thoughts Daniel, but I think I DO have a pretty good idea what my photography is. Yours, of course could be different. If you read all of this thread you would have noted it was more of a rant about how things are, not that I want a pristine scene - there is nothing wrong sharing arant among friends. And you never know when you can learn something from others that one has never consider.

Joe Lipka · Dec 8, 2008

Ted Orland told a story about going to a photographer's estate sale. There was a lot of photographic gear, but in the back Ted saw a 12 gauge shotgun. Ted asked the widow if her husband was a hunter. She replied he wasn't, but the 12 gauge was used to remove "unphotogenic" branches from scenes.

12 gauge probably wouldn't be enough for a phone pole, but a chainsaw might be of some use.

photomc · Dec 8, 2008

Joe Lipka said:
12 gauge probably wouldn't be enough for a phone pole, but a chainsaw might be of some use.

LOL, Joe - Thanks, that is priceless.

Unwanted Elements - Real vs What We Wish it Was

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