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oh no, not another Digital Art debate-
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as far as competitions, my understanding of the IPF competitions is that manipulation is allowed if its discrete.
Have a look at the overall image. No one disagreed with the result and the image presented by Gabriel O’Shaughnessy…but the sky was brown and the sand was blue/black.
“Photography is still a very new medium and everything must
be tried and dared . . . Photography has no rules. It is not sport.
It is the result that counts, no matter how it is achieved”Bill Brandt 1904-1983
Here’s an interesting one.
Did you all see the shot that Jon Gibbs took to win last years Landscape Photographer of the Year competition?
It’s much better in the book but you get a rough idea here
http://www.take-a-view.co.uk/2007_winners.htmIt is a twilight shot of offshore wind turbines with a crack of lightning behind. It is a terrific image with deeper messages about energy and the power of nature.
Now what if Jon revealed that the lightning was thrown in from another image and it was in fact a composite? I tell you it would rock the landscape community to it’s core. People would think it was scandalous I can assure you.
This was the biggest landscape competition ever organised in the UK and I agree with the rules it adopted. These seem very fair and are in keeping with my idea of “celebration of the landscape”. It does indeed reject composites but allows HDR.
Digital adjustments, including High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging techniques, are allowed. The integrity of the image must be maintained and the making of physical changes to the landscape is not permitted (removing fences, moving trees, stripping in sky from another image etc). The organisers reserve the right to disqualify any image that they feel lacks authenticity due to over-manipulation.
Yes rules are rules and I’m sure it would be huge if the rules were broken in the winning shot. For me though it wouldn’t take from the image. It is still the same image with the same winning qualities. To me a good image is a good image and an overworked fake image will always stand out.
In those rules I think they are spot on with the line “The organisers reserve the right to disqualify any image that they feel lacks authenticity due to over-manipulation.” This should always be the case and it doesn’t help to just say you can or can’t use certain processing or capture techniques. The judges should just have the final say if it doesn’t look authentic.
Just to summarise then,
Do what you like
Don’t expect everyone else to like it, even if you do it well
The judges word is finalIs this the eye of the storm in a teacup or has it passed?
Do what you like
Don’t expect everyone else to like it, even if you do it well
The judges word is finalI think we’re more or less back at my original post now… and I agree.
Its not always as easy as it seems either. I know of a nature competition where the winning shot was a stuffed bird in a display case. The image did not show that at all, and i believe it was a national type competition.
I am all for sticking to the rules, as breaking them just doesnt work for me. BUT I have no problem with manipulation to create a more stunning piece.
when it comes down to it, i dont think there is a definite line between art and photography particularly.
Interesting thread.
And I’m late with an opinion as usual.I do like Andy’s choice of word – celebration – with regard to landscapes.
You can see it in his work, and in that of others.However, what ‘celebrating’ the natural landscape means varies between people.
I’d have no qualms about removing telegraph poles, fences, people, cars or litter – man made unnatural intrusions – if I felt the need, but I would draw the line at moving bits of the natural landscape about or overcooked HDR techniques. I’d also have no qualms about making massive colours adjustments – infra-red, lens filters, cross processing, colour shifts using the enlarger or years out of date film all facilitate this.As someone who went through a phase of post-processing the hell out of my own images I can see where others are coming from.
If I feel the urge to cringe I can simply open up a few images from a couple of years ago.
Most, and I stress ‘most’, of the way I process now is based on whether or not I think I could achieve a similar look using traditional (chemical, as Rob puts it) methods.
But even then, as Rob points out, traditional methods are capable of doing a hell of a lot that people today automatically assume to be photoshop techniques.
As a result anything that looks like it doesn’t ‘fit’ within a standardised set of techniques is frowned upon; I’ve seen the term ‘digital purist’ used here on this forum and laughed out loud. That attitude is snobbish, condescending and, worst of all, stifles experimentation – which existed in photography long before digital came along – by imposing the views of one set of people on another.All that is, of course, only relevant when it comes down to a photographer’s personal view of what constitutes their own rules about photography – well, that and arguing the toss with someone who has a different set of rules. Each to their own, can’t expect everyone to agree, arguments and discussions and storms in teacups will naturally follow. I doubt anyone who has strong beliefs about what is and isn’t photography will have their point of view changed by a forum discussion. Though those who are new to it or unsure might learn from the arguments and make up their own minds, which is where the real value lies.
As far as latchiko’s image is concerned: could it have been done without the aid of photoshop? Absolutely. Photomontage is a photographic technique which has existed since the mid 1800s (older than the earliest colour photograph by James Maxwell by a number of years – which in itself in three seperate images merged into one), and if that’s not traditional I don’t know what is. Labeling it ‘fantasy’ is unfair, it wasn’t imagined out of nothing as would be the case if a programme was used to create a landscape. Certainly it’s more in the ‘artistic’ than ‘documentary’ side of photography but for me it’s no less of a photograph for that. getting into an argument about where individuals draw the line between representative photography and artistic photography is as futile as arguing over where the land ends and the sea begins – there’s obvious examples of each but where they merge is often open to interpretation.
But, yes, I’d agree with JBse7en, their are areas where photographic credibility needs to be preserved.
Certainly in news photography – though there’s been a fair few scandals in the last few years – and forensic photography.
Here the truth should be as unvarnished as possible and raw (RAW?) in the extreme.The other is competitions.
Personal rules are one thing, but the rules of a competition (if you enter) are the rules you should abide by.
You might not agree with them, but if you can’t stick by them then you shouldn’t enter or, if you do, feel wronged if found out and disqualified.The beach, that’s where the land ends and the sea begins Mick. You knew that though – Right?
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