Why so many photographers are anxious about sharpness?

removed account4 · Mar 3, 2010

Dali said:
2F/2F, I agree but some people are much more inclined to talk about the "container" than the "content"...

dali

i think you pretty much said it.
people don't know how to talk about "art" or "photography" ...
it is much easier to talk about how or what
made the image than it is to talk about "the image" itself.

MattKing · Mar 3, 2010

If your artistic vision calls for sharpness in a particular situation, it is nice to know that your tools can deliver.

Sharpness (resolution plus contrast) also tends to create an impression of depth, and therefore can help make up for the fact that photographs represent a two dimensional attempt to reproduce a three dimensional world.

Matt

Dali · Mar 3, 2010

Thanks John. I have to browse your site one day. I expect an interesting experience!

Galah · Mar 3, 2010

Dali said:
Hello all,

I don't want to open a can of worms but... I noticed so many threads in various photo forums on picture and lens sharpness topic that I asked myself: why so many people are anxious about sharpness?
Any constructive comment is welcome.

Thanks.

You make a very good point.

If you want to see how people agonize over sharpness, visit some of the Leica and Canon/Nikon lens forums.

I find some of the most "artistic" and evocative images I have seen have been made using Callotype or pin-hole techniques: "sharp" is not a word that would apply to them.

df cardwell · Mar 3, 2010

Most photographers like to make pictures, but aren't really sure if it is OK to make pictures that please themselves.
As they begin to try to learn about photography, they encounter the folks who need to FOLLOW rules, and the folks who need to MAKE the rules.

These co-dependent photographers, pundits , experts, followers, disciples (while generally well meaning) spread havoc and confusion,
and infect the innocent photographers. Nothing new, although the Internet has made it possible for anxiety and distraction to spread with terrible efficiency.

Those that survive their infection with rules and dogma (like sharpness) generally are immune after their recovery, until they are exposed to another cult trolling for acolytes.

The 'great' photographers were seldom dogmatic, nor were the great teachers. The former, fully interested in making good pictures; the latter, fully interested in helping their students make the pictures the students want to make.

It IS good to know how to make sharp pictures, in the same way it is good to know how to brush your teeth and make a good cup of coffee. Technique IS important, but, as Baudelaire said, long ago, "Technique Is Impotent to Create ANYTHING." Keep your can of sharpness in your camera bag until you need it; you don't have to drink it.

There has never been a greater photographer, nor more profound influence on Photography than PH Emerson, who maintained that a picture be sharp enough, but too sharp. To the Victorian rule makers, this was a horrible, horrible thing. The idea that a photographer could decide for himself what constituted a good picture and how to make it, challenged their very existence.

Not much has changed in 110 years.

erikg · Mar 3, 2010

HCB quote anyone? It's easy to get hung up on sharpness, you want to make better pictures and going through a series of technical options seems like a good way to go: better lenses, larger format etc, and then it dawns on you when you find that ordinary folks don't care much for boring pictures, sharp or not.

Tom Nutter · Mar 3, 2010

I was just at a show in New Jersey that featured many large prints. I prayed for sharpness to lend a little quality and justification to the large size of the images. All I saw was softness, which showed me amateurism and a lack of quality control. In some prints, even the grain was soft. Lets not confuse a lack of attention to technical details with a deliberate creative decision.

Joachim_I · Mar 3, 2010

Sharpness a dogma? I am in the wrong thread. You may call me "co-dependent photographer, pundit , expert, follower, disciple" whatever.

df cardwell said:
There has never been a greater photographer ...

This sounds more like a dogma to me.

pgomena · Mar 3, 2010

One of the things I love about photography is its ability to render detail. I like my pictures sharp and in focus. I don't object to a bit of judicious softening in portraits, and the ability of some of the folks on this and other forums to use an old sharp/soft focus portrait lens is something I admire. In other people's work, and in some contemporary work, I like the way limited depth of field and softened backgrounds are used to enhance the image. In my work, I lean toward an f/64 look. I grew up on Weston and Adams and the other masters of that time. I find it hard to argue with the quality of their images, and I want my work to be of similar quality without being an AA or EW clone.

Peter Gomena

Dali · Mar 3, 2010

Peter, EW or AA certainly made interesting pictures but it might not be the only way to create interesting images. What do you think?

Now, it is true that everybody has a reference in mind when releasing the shutter. This is part of our experience.

erikg · Mar 3, 2010

Joachim_I said:
Originally Posted by df cardwell
There has never been a greater photographer ...

This sounds more like a dogma to me.

No, it is an opinion. No one is being told to follow along.

Allen Friday · Mar 3, 2010

I am not the least bit "anxious" about sharpness in my photographs. If I want it, I know how to achieve it. If I want soft, I know how to achieve that. If I want a certain part of the image bitingly sharp and the rest soft, I know how to do that. No anxiety at all.

removed account4 · Mar 3, 2010

Tom Nutter said:
I was just at a show in New Jersey that featured many large prints. I prayed for sharpness to lend a little quality and justification to the large size of the images. All I saw was softness, which showed me amateurism and a lack of quality control. In some prints, even the grain was soft. Lets not confuse a lack of attention to technical details with a deliberate creative decision.

hi tom

what does sharpness have to do with justification of large size or quality control, amateurism or attention to technical details ?

i don't really see any connection, except for people who wish there was a connection.

Tom Nutter · Mar 3, 2010

jnanian said:
hi tom

what does sharpness have to do with justification of large size or quality control, amateurism or attention to technical details ?

i don't really see any connection, except for people who wish there was a connection.

I think anybody on this forum can tell if something like soft focus was intentional or not, or even if it was not intentional, but a conscious decision to go ahead with the image. People have to have some standards for themselves and their work.

I realize standards are subjective and if a person wants to perpetrate a lack of skill as an artistic merit, than so be it. Who am I to argue.

Any photographer I know however, and I know quite a few, will have a problem if an image is distracting because of some obvious useless flaw or bad editing, and they will move on to something more interesting.

Photography is an exercise in control over a variety of factors. Most photographers who are creative will not be so easily fooled if another photographer does not demonstrate at least an honest attempt to control those factors in their imagery. This would include choosing the most pleasing combination of sharpness, image size, camera format, film grain, print contrast, etc., etc., to maximize what it is they are trying to say and to make whatever statement in the clearest of ways without dumb distractions like technical flaws that are out of place. Decisions are less effective if they are arbitrary.

This is not an argument of amateur photographer vs pro photographer, but one of first-rate imagery vs. some that is not so much.

This not to say every image has to be any certain way, but every image should be interesting. Distractions make them much less interesting. It's kind of like the idea of suspension of disbelief in movies...if the story is unbelievable, or the movie is poorly edited, or the film breaks.... the film is doomed to failure.

Arvee · Mar 3, 2010

David Vestal:

"For example, 8X10 inch contact prints from 8X10 negatives by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams give such a strong sense of sharp exactness that they have become classic examples of photographic sharpness. Yet an analytical look at some of these prints shows soft edges and mushy textures of which any good 35mm photographer might be ashamed. Nevertheless, the pictures feel miraculously sharp because the *seeing* of these photographers is clear and unconfused, overcoming all the technical deficiencies. Part of this clarity is in contrast: Weston and Adams hardly ever let matching tones meet edge-to-edge in their pictures. The separation may be subtle, but it is almost always extremely clear.
*The sharpness that counts most* is more in the eye and mind than in the negative."

The Craft of Photography, pp. 56

That about says it all.

jimgalli · Mar 3, 2010

One of the first books I read on photography was Image Clarity: High-Resolution Photography by John B. Williams. It still holds a reverenced spot on my shelf. Sharpness is a tool that I get out of my box if and when I feel it is the expedient one. If you wade through my site, you'll see I haven't felt I need it often lately. At the moment we're bombarded with over-sharp over-saturated pictures until our brains can't take any more. Most of us start there don't we. Like babies, we learn to walk, then we think running is pretty cool. Sharpness is something for the beginners to achieve on their journeys. Who'll admit they never thought it was important. Now it's just a matter of money and pixels. Ooops.

Tom Nutter · Mar 3, 2010

Here's another thing, and I am guilty of this as well: sometimes we get fixated on technical things like "sharpness" to distract ourselves from the real matter at hand, which is creating or finishing a body of work.

Tom Nutter · Mar 3, 2010

Fred Aspen said:
David Vestal:

"For example, 8X10 inch contact prints from 8X10 negatives by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams give such a strong sense of sharp exactness that they have become classic examples of photographic sharpness. Yet an analytical look at some of these prints shows soft edges and mushy textures of which any good 35mm photographer might be ashamed. Nevertheless, the pictures feel miraculously sharp because the *seeing* of these photographers is clear and unconfused, overcoming all the technical deficiencies. Part of this clarity is in contrast: Weston and Adams hardly ever let matching tones meet edge-to-edge in their pictures. The separation may be subtle, but it is almost always extremely clear.
*The sharpness that counts most* is more in the eye and mind than in the negative."

The Craft of Photography, pp. 56

That about says it all.

I can go with that.

Thomas Bertilsson · Mar 3, 2010

Make your pictures the way you want them to look. If you want them to be sharp, make them sharp! If not, find what works. It really is that simple.

I shoot pinhole because I like how the absence of sharpness and detail emphasizes form and gesture. I do that because it works for me.

Good luck.

Ed Sukach · Mar 3, 2010

Tom Nutter said:
I think anybody on this forum can tell if something like soft focus was intentional or not, or even if it was not intentional, but a conscious decision to go ahead with the image. People have to have some standards for themselves and their work.
I realize standards are subjective and if a person wants to perpetrate a lack of skill as an artistic merit, than so be it. Who am I to argue.
Any photographer I know however, and I know quite a few, will have a problem if an image is distracting because of some obvious useless flaw or bad editing, and they will move on to something more interesting.

Apologies for the extensive quote.

I for one, have never found that "easy way" to determine whether ANY characteristic was intentional, or a deliberate attempt at covering a lack of technical skill.

"Sharpness", in itself might NOT desirble in portraiture, where we are trying to show an image as the client would like be seen, rather than excrucitaing reproduction of every flaw... Check out the many "softenting" supplementary lenses.

Photography is an exercise in control over a variety of factors. Most photographers who are creative will not be so easily fooled if another photographer does not demonstrate at least an honest attempt to control those factors in their imagery.

Uh ... there are those who view this "fooling" as he single most vital element in art. Picasso: "Art is the lie that leads us to the truth".

.. to make whatever statement in the clearest of ways without dumb distractions like technical flaws that are out of place. Decisions are less effective if they are arbitrary.

Then the task is simple: Decide which is which. I've been at this for some time, now, and I think I am am further from that goal than when I started. In the meantime, I'll remain a "Stranger in Paradise, all lost in a wonderland of all that I hunger for..."

Tom Nutter · Mar 4, 2010

Ed: Picasso was a master of his craft...not all photographers are.

I'm just simply saying that people should be honest with themselves, and getting back to the jist of this entire thread, if the picture isn't sharp, and everything tells them it should be, maybe they should make a print that is smaller than three feet by four feet, or no print at all. It is a mark of a craftsman to know his limits.
And also about Picasso: I'm sure this quote you shared has nothing to do with craft, only with concept, because only a true artist and craftsman can distract the viewer so completely from his craft, that his intended concept rings true, lie or not. And about the first part, I'm sorry, but I can tell when somebody's work is just plain sloppy. And no, sloppy has nothing to do with sharpness. It may however have to do with lack of experience or lack of enthusiasm for craft.
I would never tell another photographer their work is crap, even if I thought it was, but I would not hesitate to help one who is truly interested in becoming good at what they are doing, to become better at their craft and their art.

2F/2F · Mar 4, 2010

jnanian said:
people don't know how to talk about "art" or "photography" ...
it is much easier to talk about how or what
made the image than it is to talk about "the image" itself.

We are in agreement. It is exactly what my first post in the thread said, in other words (though I think you seem nicer ):

"Because human beings tend to be vapid, technically-driven idiots in most areas of interest. It takes a rare person to have anything of substance to say in photography (or any area), but anyone can learn to babble and argue about technique and other minutiae. In short, they do it because it is easy, and usually because it is all they can do. That's my take on it."

This does not mean that I think the importance of technique's affect on the final effect of images is something to be disregarded...but it is no way to seriously talk about or judge a photograph in depth.

Tom Nutter · Mar 4, 2010

2F/2F said:
This does not mean that I think the importance of technique's affect on the final effect of images is something to be disregarded...but it is no way to seriously talk about or judge a photograph in depth.

I hate to say it, but I have rarely come across a photographer that doesn't talk tech, except a girl I knew years ago, and she moved to California. I have been at this for about 25 years, and when people hit me with that "What kinda camera..." stuff, I run for the hills.

It's my view though, that in this particular thread, the argument has become more conceptual than technical, but then again, maybe I'm fooling myself. Good night!:rolleyes:

2F/2F · Mar 4, 2010

As I said, talking technique is important...just don't use technical matters to entirely and/or directly judge a picture.

The fine art world is actually quite arrogant in general about their refusal to talk about technique. I have been to openings where people in the crowd have been booed for asking a technical question of the photographer. Galleries try to fool people into believing that images occur by some secret consisting of magic and brilliant artistry, in order to increase the value of their products. If you talk about technical details, it seems as if anyone can do it (which they can, because photography is relatively easy in the technical sense).

PVia · Mar 4, 2010

Thomas...once again I am in total agreement with you (not surprised)...

For Erik in post #31 looking for the HCB quote: "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept."

Why so many photographers are anxious about sharpness?

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