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Post Processing
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As a matter of interest – how would you define a ‘proper photograph’ ?
I.E. what level of unreality do you consider acceptable.
FrankC wrote:
As a matter of interest – how would you define a ‘proper photograph’ ?
Ditto that.
I wonder are either of these a proper photograph, one of which was created in camera and the other one created with a degree of digital manipulation
Proper Photograph? or Proper Photograph?
Apologies to anyone who’s seen these before and commented on them, but I think they illustrate this argument quite well, even if they are not of themselves excellent images.
I think that the question of post processing depends on what type of photographs you create.
If you are in documentary, newspaper, technical photogarphy (photograph of facts), you should only make changes of light related stuff.
If you are artist using photography as media, everything is allowed.
All others are between.Roberto wrote:
I think that the question of post processing depends on what type of photographs you create.
If you are in documentary, newspaper, technical photogarphy (photograph of facts), you should only make changes of light related stuff.
If you are artist using photography as media, everything is allowed.
All others are between.I think that about says it all.
If you are in documentary, newspaper, technical photogarphy (photograph of facts), you should only make changes of light related stuff.
So, on that basis, an architectural photographer should not ‘correct’ converging verticals ? (just one example)
gavin wrote:
Is the one on the right PS
Is that a guess or is there a definite reason behind your selection? I ask because I’m trying to tease out what it is that people look for in a ‘shopped image.
FrankC wrote:
If you are in documentary, newspaper, technical photogarphy (photograph of facts), you should only make changes of light related stuff.
So, on that basis, an architectural photographer should not ‘correct’ converging verticals ? (just one example)
The question then arises – are converging verticals fact or fiction :D I suppose it could be argued that if you fix converging verticals using software, you’re really only fixing something that the camera broke and are restoring reality. Conversely,if you use a camera capable of shifts and swings and correct the converging verticals before taking the shot, is that not cheating?
Thorsten wrote:
FrankC wrote:
As a matter of interest – how would you define a ‘proper photograph’ ?
Ditto that.
I wonder are either of these a proper photograph, one of which was created in camera and the other one created with a degree of digital manipulation
Proper Photograph? or Proper Photograph?
Apologies to anyone who’s seen these before and commented on them, but I think they illustrate this argument quite well, even if they are not of themselves excellent images.
The link on the left takes you to an image that was created using a digital camera and Photoshop. The link on the right is of an image created entirely in camera on film. So which one then is a proper photograph?
Thorsten wrote:
gavin wrote:
Is the one on the right PS
Is that a guess or is there a definite reason behind your selection? I ask because I’m trying to tease out what it is that people look for in a ‘shopped image.
I suppose its an educated guess Im using PS since 2.5 so its hard to say why I would pick it, the reason i think it may that image that has been PS’ed is that it has the look of an image thats been through the filters. Although the one on the right could just as easyily have been done in PS.
if I was looking for anything to give an image away it would be repeating patterns through use of the clone tool (not necessarily obvious but background nearly beneath the image) or filters and lighting that doesn?t match.
Wow would really have gone with the one on the right.
The question then arises – are converging verticals fact or fiction I suppose it could be argued that if you fix converging verticals using software, you’re really only fixing something that the camera broke and are restoring reality. Conversely,if you use a camera capable of shifts and swings and correct the converging verticals before taking the shot, is that not cheating?
Well, I would argue that converging verticals are what you see – even though you ‘know’ they are parallel. Therefore, from a purist point of view, they should not be ‘fixed’. However, I don’t see anything wrong in doing so – especially in technical architectural photography.
My real point echoes one I made earlier – all photographs are just a 2-dimensional (and hence unreal) representation of a 4-dimensional (time definitely plays a part) world. What degree of unreality you consider acceptable is largely a personal preference, with NO hard & fast universal rules.
So which one then is a proper photograph?
I woulda picked the one on the left as being digital simply because of the artifacting the motion blur tool leaves behind at the edges – it’s never as smooth there and best to crop in when you do this. That said, I would also have guessed the one on the right as being digital if you hadn’t said to choose one or t’other and implied that one was only taken on film.
I agree wholeheartedly with Frank, there are no hard and fast rules as to what constitutes a photograph.
Every advance in technology sees a clique cling to the old ways and consider themselves ‘purists’. This snobbishness began with fine artists looking down their nosi at Daguerreotypes, and earlier techniques (the Daguerreotype was the first commercially viable process), and persists to this day with photography being seen by many as a lesser art form and not , IMHO, helped by photographers themselves being snobbish about
a/ using colour film
b/ using digital cameras (some hold fast to film as being purer than digital)
c/ using post processing (photoshop or otherwise)
d/ any other exclusionary device bickered over to make someone feel a lesser photographer at the expense of someone else’s ego.Every photograph you take goes through a system of processing and is in some sense artificial…for the sake of argument, artificial being anything other than what how we see things naturally.
Pre-processing:
What lens you choose:
if you use a long lens you shorten perspective and depth of field…unpure.
if you use a wide angle lens you can cause or barrel distortion…unpure
if you use a zoom effect…unpure
if you use a marco…I can barely read the small type on perscription medicine bottles these days, let alone see the facets of a bug’s eye.What shutter speed you choose:
anything other than 1/25th of a second is unnatural, the eye/brain processes images at this speed so using a fast shutterspeed will show you things you couldn’t possibly see with the naked eye, and the blurring of images using slow shutter speeds in wholly unnatural…unpure.What film you choose:
Kodak and Fuji, amongst others have vastly different colour absorption rates and choosing one over the other defines how you want to interpret colour…unpure
B&W, unless you’re a cat or have a rare vision disorder is unnatural too…unpure. I always find it peculiar that some people hold B&W as the purist form of photography when it’s so obviously not, except in a historical and/or artistic sense; funnily enough it’s cherished mostly by people who work at ‘documenting’ a world rich in colour. Utterly bizzare.
Then there’s film speed and grain, the faster the film the bigger the grain and the less accurate the colour rendition and detail. What film speed you choose greatly affects the final image…unpure.
That’s all aside from manually processing B&W or colour film (a chemical stinky process with its own variables, least of which is getting distracted and forgetting a step).
If you shoot digital you can choose between RAW and camera processed, either way manipulation is needed to come to a final image…unpure.As you can see, even before we’ve clicked the button a wide range of interpretive choices have been made and not one of them can be called pure, or lead to a ‘pure photograph’. The idea of a ‘pure photograph’ is laughable given the amount of variables involved only some of which are technical. I haven’t even touched on framing or cropping, let alone post processing of film or digital. Never mind the so called rules of composition some photographers and artists would follow slavishly to produce technically perfect but emotionally unengaging fare.
If you meet anyone who calls themselves a purist, or hints that a photographic technique (pre or post process) is any way lesser simply ask them to define the parameters by which a photograph can be judged as pure. Every single criteria they come up with can easily be rebuffed as an absolute rule of purity and all that remains will be the flustered ego of a snob.
So what remains to be judged as a photograph?
The camera as a starting point is pretty much it as far as I’m concerned, whether its a pinhole in a sweet tin or the latest Nikannon doohickey you can’t take a photograph without one…leaving aside the argument of using an enalrger lens and objects placed on photographic paper to create ‘photographic prints’. How broad your scope of acceptance is for the resulting image defines your view of photography, but only your view which is no more valid, or in any way less valid, than someone else’s. Photofascists who claim to be purists are rarely so.Interesting discussion, but all in all it’s pretty pointless unless someone can come up with a definition for what a pure photograph is supposed to be.
Far as I’m concerned the thing that interests me the most is if the image shows me something I can connect with on an emotional level. Any amount of photographic methodolgies can do this, from the throw away happy snappy to the considered portrait to the post processed to hell and back image. I can’t be arsed to judge others on choices of technique, life’s too bloody short to get hung up on someone elses dispositions.
Cant say I’d consider the likes of the below a photograph
I feel that when you get into splicing multiple photos together your in the realm of image manipulation and not photography.
gavin wrote:
I feel that when you get into splicing multiple photos together your in the realm of image manipulation and not photography.
Does that include panoramas produced by stitching multiple images together to replicate the view that one might get if one used a panorama camera, or if one cut the top and bottom off a regular print to produce a panorama print (which I would also class as manipulation!)?
Mick – pity you weren’t around when I tried to make much the same point at a certain camera club I used to be a member of – having someone with the same line of thinking on this issue sure would have helped. When I pointed out that Ansel Adams and other well known photographers manipulated their images way back when, I was frowned upon for even daring to suggest such a thing. They could not grasp the fact that a photograph is one persons interpretation of the scene they captured and that really all that mattered was the final image.
I do think there is a distinction to be made between a photograph and an illustration (where that illustration originates from a photograph, for example, an image turned into a line drawing or a piece of pop-art using PS techniques). But at what point does a photograph become an illustration? I think everyone is going to have a different take on this and there is no definitive answer, which, as far as I’m concerned, is OK too. So to the film luddite’s out there, it’s time to move with the times and realise that there is more to photography than a light induced chemical reaction on a piece of gelatine. To those that believe digital is superior to film – it’s not – it’s neither better not worse – just different! There, I’ve said my piece! :D
Thorsten wrote:
Does that include panoramas produced by stitching multiple images together to replicate the view that one might get if one used a panorama camera, or if one cut the top and bottom off a regular print to produce a panorama print (which I would also class as manipulation!)?
I don’t see either the cropping of a photograph to make it panoramic as manipulation. I personally have no issue with stitching images together either.
I don’t that this is changing what the photographer saw.In the absence of a panoramic digitial camera (is there one ?) you got to be inventive.
Mark
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