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Misunderstanding with the word "MANIPULATED IMAGE"
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just add another side of the discussion.
http://www.juzaphoto.com/eng/articles-photo_essays/0025-cattle_egrets-processing.htmin this article it’s well explained the processing involved to create a “natural” image. but different from the original.
Not HDR, equally tricky (not for beginners, as Andy said) but I would not accept this as “naturalistic photography”…Andy, when you talk about “representation of reality”, you mean a real representation, or an arbitrary one (subject to the artist’s mood)????
Gizzo,
I talk about representations of reality in relation to any photograph. The eye and the camera work in such different ways that I think it is dangerous to equate human vision with photographic recording. That is why I think this whole debate about manipulation is flawed.
The eye is a scanning device with a variable iris and feeds data to the processing system of the brain. The camera meanwhile “sees” the whole scene at a constant aperture and is viewed later by us using our eye/brain scanning mechanism again. But this time the area to be scanned (the photograph) is tonally flat and small in our field of view such that our iris does not need to adjust.
And all this is before we even start to consider the differences between our 3D world and our highly selective 2D view of that reality.
In essence, landscape photography has never been a purely documentary medium and never will be. Manipulation has just opened peoples eyes to the white lie that photography has always been, from its very birth.
Cian: love that you are pointing on the two opposite views!
Cian wrote:
Because photography is assumed to be capable of accurate representation, there is an extra consideration for photographers that artists in other mediums don’t need to think about.
I think that there is a big mistake involved that potograpy is an accurate representation. Compared to the older medium of Painting….yes, compared to the basics of the real location (independent of the emotional interpretaion) no. I remember, seeing so many landscape photographs with white burned out skies and confirming, that this is reality because “it is a photograph”. And i remember seeing some first images of arte wolfe with many details in the sky, detailed shadows and thinking: that doesn’t look like a photograph/reality, is that real?! strange how the brain works. we were used to the limited but impressiv reflection of reality with a camera and THOUGHT, that is reality…not sure if i explained the idea good. anyway hdr can make it more real or convert it into something different
Cian wrote:
The big problem I see with the latest technology and processing is that people forget what their goals are
Indeed….every use of a tool needs the direction of a concept. Without it, you go lost in it or you get by accident some great and unexpected result and will use them with a goal next time to express something
andy mcinroy wrote:
In good hands (e.g Ansels dodging and burning) they can lift a photograph from one representation of reality into another equally valid one.
Wonderful expressed Andy! you really took the words out of my mouth…. to transform the reality of a camera into my own! The responds can be “thats fake”, “that inspires me”, “i hate sunsets”, “why is my world so grey”, ” i should give more attention to the beauty”, “jesus i miss the sea”, ” i cant stop staring at it”…..whatever….the message/effect is not under control and not judgeable….Romantic image realities are not “faked”, they live beyond the normed landscape beauty…thanks god! When you hate it, then say “fake”. when you love it, then travel above it! Every Photograph is an individual invitation for timeless observation for a special picked view on life…
My question is: There seems to be an expectation in connection to photograpy that it represents truth. I wonder why and how this could happen?
Your four images get to the very heart of this debate. A great illustration.
I agree with you completely that each of your 4 examples is a valid representation of reality which also accomadates your own view and your artistic interpretation of your world.
I also agree with you that none of them is truth. Photography has never been about truth. But they are still honest representations of the truth, as much as a photograph ever can be.
Here’s another interesting example to get you all thinking about the honesty of photography.
Here is an unmanipulated image from a series of exposures which I processed into one my my cave shots. This one was exposed correctly for the surf highlights at the cave mouth. It is not underexposed.
Here’s my point. This image is unmanipulated. Yet it in no way reflects the reality of the scene. Although the cave was dark, there was still plenty of light for me to look around the cave without a torch. You would not believe me by looking at the pure blackness of this image. Therefore my unmanipulated image has tricked you into believing the cave is much darker than it actually was. Is my unmanipulated image honest? No. It actually needs processed to make it more honest.
I’ve followed this one with interest and it is starting to take on a philosophical turn….. reminds me of this…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images
As for my own views, and I’ll keep this short – I do like images to be ‘believibly natural in my eyes’. I am not against processing to change the ‘reality’ my camera saw to the ‘reality’ I saw (or thought I saw). Or even processed to a different version of the image … so long as it is still believibly natural.
Your 4 images illustrate this well Madeleine.
Of course I try to apply this philosophy to my images, but sometimes fall into the unnatural look through lack of finishing skills. As for everyone else…. it has been said already there are no right answers here … so do whatever you feel appropriate for your image.
Gary
I think we’re going back to confusion again! Believable images vs interpretative images. There is a fuzzy border for sure but I think we should understand the difference. We’re thinking like photographers, not ordinary viewers.
As a thought experiment that takes us out of the equation, consider you are Joe Public bringing your latest 35mm slide film to the local Fuji store a few years ago. There the film is developed and printed and you go to pick them up. So you open the pack and lo! Green skies, purple grass and violet people! Gah!
Now, you dont particularly care what process is used, it’s not a great concern if they literally added 10 million dots of colour on paper using a microscope and needle or got uncle voodoo to make a ghostly apparition based on his dreams the night after holding the slides in his left palm for 29 minutes. The process they used isn’t of primary concern to you, as long as what’s on the paper matches your slides. If the colours were wierd, your sister looks a dashing shade of blue with neon green teeth, you’d read the lab the riot act. You expect that the result will look like what you saw on your slides. If the lab techinican says, ‘well I just saw this image on the lightbox but when I printed them it I felt they didn’t match the impression I got when I first viewed them’.
The technician could bore you for 20 minutes with a talk on how scanning and printing can never match exactly the original slides, but you know there’s a fair approximation that’s pretty much indistinguishable unless you know what exactly to look for. We all know photography can do the same. If a scene has a limited dynamic range then there’s no inherent reason the camera can’t capture it almost exactly as it appeared, as close certainly as your memory allows. So, if there was a Kodak lab next door that did their utmost to make the print look like the slide, you would tell your friends that the Fuji lab manipulates slides but the Kodak store doesn’t, even if the Kodak lab spends painstaking hours adjusting the prints to get them to match when the Fuji store spends 2 mins sliding the hue bar. You wouldn’t really agree that both labs produce prints that are just ‘equally valid reality’.You have to accept that viewers will categorize your photos in the same way based on what they percieve the ‘trueness’ of your photos are regardless of what you do to acheive the end result.
Similarly, it’s not really a big concern if you used HDR Andy to increase the dynamic range of the cave shot, it’s no more outlandish than processing photons into 1’s and 0’s then converting these to coloured dots on a screen then to dots of ink on a page. The question is, does it look like something you could see in real life? Maybe it does with careful use of the software.
All I’m saying is that creating an image that looks alien to our eyes or has elements that seem to break our intuitive knowledge about light and surfaces (we’ve been using them all our lives so we have a fair idea whether what we are seeing is likely to be ‘true’ or not) is fair use of artistic creativity but this is a seperate type of activity to what people may reasonably expect from a ‘straight’ photographic record. My only point is that we should know the distinction and not claim there is no difference, you wouldn’t accept that from our lab buddy above. To get back to the original point of the thread, there are distinctions people make between a ‘manipulated’ image versus a ‘straight’ image regardless of what was done to achieve the end result. People just intuitively know it and will not trust photos that go against their intuitions for very long even if, especially if, we try to argue otherwise. Arguing about the merits of HDR or darkroom practices is besides the point.
I think anything is acceptable when mastery of technique meets clarity of vision-
Shot mostly on film, hardly any ones or zeros-
http://www.modernbook.com/JerryUelsmann/images.htm
I dont think the discussion is about what is ultimately ‘acceptable’, the post was asking why people call some images ‘manipulated’. All I am trying to say is that if it looks too good/bad to be true then people won’t believe it and call it ‘manipulated’. If someone is doing heavy, obvious work on photos then they can’t expect people to believe that it’s a record of reality and most photographers, me included, are fine with that. Some of my photos have lots of processing and I’m not insecure about it. Others might want to protest that what they have created is just as believable as a record shot, that’s the problem as I see it. It’s not about what’s good or bad.
CianMcLiam wrote:
I dont think the discussion is about what is ultimately ‘acceptable’, the post was asking why people call some images ‘manipulated’. All I am trying to say is that if it looks too good/bad to be true then people won’t believe it and call it ‘manipulated’.
True to a sense. I’ve no problem with people driving an image to hell and back and declaring that it has been done so. I loathe those that don’t. There is one notable individual here who does this…why??? But if an image is obviously “manipulated”, which all are to an extent, and people like it, then who cares?
Alan
andy mcinroy wrote:
. I also agree with you that none of them is truth.
the top left one is the raw file without any set ups …. it seems unbelievable but true (most shared basic reality, not based on emotional interpretations). (: Maybe the first artist in the row …is the camera or should i say “surprising Nature”?
andy mcinroy wrote:
No. It actually needs processed to make it more honest.
Great example, but also an extrem one. I am focusing on the “easier” lightconditions with the same essence
Mr. H: “The painting is not a pipe, but rather an image of a pipe”. I took this out of your attached link. Landscape Photography never claims to be Nature, it is an image of nature in past. Yes. i guess the discussion is all about: “which one is the most real image/reflexion of it and which one is missguided on the way to archieve that “real” light-interpreation.”
Cian wrote:
All I am trying to say is that if it looks too good/bad to be true then people won’t believe it and call it ‘manipulated’.
Yes I agree. My excitment started with this idea. And my wish is, that people overcome the “true camera image” and to be open for 1. processed images whose are more close to the real nature event and 2. not to mix this with an art interpretation which is standing for itself.
Alan wrote:
True to a sense. I’ve no problem with people driving an image to hell and back and declaring that it has been done so. I loathe those that don’t. There is one notable individual here who does this…why
I have this idea, that there is something mixed (tell me if i am wrong). There is a difference between declaring “This is my see experience” (not in a artistical way) and “This is coming straigt from the camera”. This shouldn’t be based on a kind of “confession” for using tools and i think that every photographer will see immediatly that additional software or filters are used. I am against the idea, that it is “manipulation” (with a bitter taste between the letters) as soon as you touch a neutral set up raw file or using hdr. somehow people seems to put the mainfocus on judging “real” “unreal” because they are used to the “old” reality of cameras. Of course i am not talking about artinterpreations or forcing what to see…. What is its origin.
© Madeleine Weber1. Image: Camera Limitation (“yeah that looks real”)
2. Image: PS Adjustment (“my camera never takes those images, why”)
3. Image: HDR (“that is fake, totally unreal”)in my eyes the HDR is the closest to reality, but unusual in the photographic world. Hardly we see “white” in nature! The image “stormy day archievment” is an artistical interpretation, this one here is a try to catch a realistic one!
If ye guys are only focusing on the digital side of photography, you might want to consider the days of film photography where darkroom techniques such as burning dodging cropping were common things to do to improve the visual quality of an image.
ive always said – when you go beyond few simple steps in photoshop where you spend hours fixing a photo you failed at taking in the first place, you are just manipulating it.
less is more.
And the masters of film did not spend similar hours in the darkroom?
It’s a nice soundbite, but less is frequently less.
Kevin this doesn’t make sense to me! 15 min means “improving the visual quality of an image” and more then 1 hour means “manipulating”? Used time can’t be the category although i understand your point, that you can/will go lost in too many ps adjustments and end up in a freaky image. Darkroom and virtual lightroom can’T be compared regarding efficiency of results. Just to figure out the right contrast filter in B&W takes a long time.
To take care of loved and important pixelgroups needs attention and time. Every bending of an adjustment curve sends pixel to hell or creates pixelmutants. Take it easy and slow and favorite the key combination “alt, apple and zero” to be aware of the kidz (;
andy mcinroy wrote:
And the masters of film did not spend similar hours in the darkroom?
It’s a nice soundbite, but less is frequently less.
I think you and i both know there is a great difference in spending hours in a darkroom than hours on the computer on one photo. The darkroom is clearly more time consuming in what has to be done to see the results and rethinking it to what you want it to be.
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