Digital power?

athos · August 24, 2006

it looks like in both recent blur/motion challenges - photoshop blur effects are the winners rather than effects performed in camera - by a fair-sized margin as well (it seems so far for this one as well).

is this the future of artistic photography? can traditional ways of creating art become that boring to the masses? or maybe we just haven't had good enough shots that do not rely on manipulation to get their point across? or perhaps manipulation along with a good idea is the creme de la creme?

thoughts?

photodoug · August 24, 2006

do not resist...the power of post is strong

AfterImage · August 24, 2006

My feeling is that photography has always about capturing a moment, an emotion, something pleasing, distasteful or thought provoking to the eye. The purest in me will always give the nob of approval and recognition for a photograph that brings these elements forwad naturally and without maniputation. However to deny these tools and deny that they can certianly enchance a point is folly. Everything evolves with technology. Photography is not immune to progress and to the contrary has often been on the cutting edge of it. Personally a good photography is a good photograph even if it is more art than science.

-AI

B:// · August 24, 2006

athos wrote:

it looks like in both recent blur/motion challenges - photoshop blur effects are the winners rather than effects performed in camera - by a fair-sized margin as well (it seems so far for this one as well).

is this the future of artistic photography? can traditional ways of creating art become that boring to the masses? or maybe we just haven't had good enough shots that do not rely on manipulation to get their point across? or perhaps manipulation along with a good idea is the creme de la creme?

thoughts?

Art... such a subjective term. How do you conceptualize art? pretty hard isn't? Some people see it as the place of liberty, kingdom where practical life's laws don't reign. The freedom that provides power to imagination, and makes all its essence, pleasant to the soul.
But what happens to photography? That[SIZE=-1] etymologically speaking[/SIZE] means writting with light. well I think that photography was created not thinking about art in a first place, maybe I'm wrong, but I think they did it to keep and save some good memories in paper. Whatever was the meaning behind its creation let us thank God for it.
But let us think about that from another perspective, if it was created to print memories or ideas as well, then those concepts or ideas come from what we perceived from reality. Even though our ideas and concepts come from a more abstract media, our mind.
I think that the perfect combination would be the manipulation of the visual concept with the concept itself, and it doesn't involve aesthetical levels of reception.

I talk too much

and it's all crap, but I wanted to post my thoughts.

Byron M.

B:// · August 24, 2006

By the way... you're a TERRIFIC photographer!!!

Nikolai · August 24, 2006

Athos,
I also do not like the situation when a photographic challenge turns into CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator competition.

However, I personally am very much satisfied with the status quo in this area on dgrin (compared, for instance, to dpreview challenges, where the amount of PS usually is over the top and a "plain" picture does not stand a chance).

E.g. in the recently closed Challenge 71 only one entry out of ten finalists featured an "artificial" object (that didn't exist in-camera). And even that was done in a rather subtle and totally appropriate (IMHO) manner.

:
In many, many challenges before it there was none at all.

So I really don't see any reason to be concerned about it..

Just my 0.0002 of the f/stop..

Awais Yaqub · August 24, 2006

i swear i do not do any effects in photoshop for challenges if i do i let people know

athos · August 24, 2006

im not concerned about it

just enjoy the subject matter as digital vs. non-digital and manip vs non-manip is the subject of many photography forums - including about art photography.

Awais Yaqub · August 24, 2006

question
Ok i didn't knew i can add something extensive in photoshop
what i want to do with next entry
i have to drag everything on Untitle document in photoshop so there will be no exif

or i want to overlap atleast 5 photos shot in same date and it wont look like candy

whose exif ? or this is not allowed

Alaska shutterbug · August 24, 2006

Nikolai wrote:

E.g. in the recently closed Challenge 71 only one entry out of ten finalists featured an "artificial" object (that didn't exist in-camera). And even that was done in a rather subtle and totally appropriate (IMHO) manner. :
In many, many challenges before it there was none at all.

Agree. I didn't see an overwhelming "manipulation" of photos for challenge 71. And the one obvious one was very appropriate.

nalvarez · August 25, 2006

I couldn't tell what was natural blur versus post-edit, but maybe that's because I don't really do any manipulation besides adding borders occassionally or color saturation. My personal preference is to do as much with the camera and learn to be a better "photographer" and not in front of a computer being a software expert.

douglas · August 25, 2006

I like all out photo manipulation, warping, bluring, zooming ect. But for competitions were motion or blur ect is the theme, I think that criteria should be comming from the camera. By all means adjust colors, saturation contrast ect to your own personal taste though.
Just my opinion.

DJ-S1 · August 25, 2006

Arnold Newman died recently - there's a thread in here somewhere about it. I was reading a short bio of him and saw this quote, which I thought was great:

A great photographer who set me free from restrictions and labels was Stieglitz. I once asked him if I should retouch a picture and he said, "I don't care what you do with that negative. You want to spit on it, retouch it, grind it underfoot, whatever... the only thing that really matters is the finished picture. If it's honest, it will look honest. If it's dishonest, you and everybody else can tell." - Arnold Newman

Nikolai · August 25, 2006

Awesome quote!

DJ-S1 wrote:

Arnold Newman died recently - there's a thread in here somewhere about it. I was reading a short bio of him and saw this quote, which I thought was great:

Thanks for sharing!

saurora · August 25, 2006

DJ-S1 wrote:

Arnold Newman died recently - there's a thread in here somewhere about it. I was reading a short bio of him and saw this quote, which I thought was great:

That's an awesome quote! I was just about to add that photography has been manipulated from the beginning. It was the "arist's" way of expressing his/her vision. After reading your comment, I viewed the Dgrin gallery of winners and there are far more un-manipulated photos (I believe) than those that have been digitally altered, if you discount toning and black and white conversions. I feel this forum is a group of people who love photography and the skills to be learned and mastered to shoot all kinds of photographs. I don't believe we have a bunch of people who are really into heavy artistic expression with Photoshop. However, since going digital we all have had to learn more Photoshop than we probably would have ever cared to know! We are constantly bombarded through the advertising media with phenomenal images all of which are created more through software than through a camera lens. I highly doubt there is very much advertising done anymore that doesn't utilize those avenues. The competition is too fierce to not follow suit. So for us to ignore the trend (not future trend, but current!!) would be silly. We should be open to and willing to explore and accept all forms of expression in photography, as we should be in any art form. By the way, in the past there have been challenges held where NO photoshop manipulation is allowed. I think our themes have been a little "blah" lately and perhaps that in itself encourages people to resort to PS to "spice" up their entry? When an outstanding photo comes along, that meets the theme in a creative way, I believe most of the forum will vote for it because they will appreciate how difficult it can be to achieve that level of inspiration and skill. Much of what we see, although technically good, has been done before. Just for the record, my own entry was obviously altered and was done so intentionally not to deceive! It actually was an "accident" while I was cloning out some spots. I never enter to win, I only enter to participate and challenge myself. I have to admit, I was uncomfortable using an altered image, but felt it had no chance of winning and entered it entirely in fun as it reminded me of the television series I use to watch in the 70's. I had to wonder though....is cloning "in" more digitally altering than cloning "out"????? Where do we draw the line in what is acceptable Photoshopping?

athos · August 25, 2006

i do think that in art photography, not photojournalism, pretty much any digital manipulation is ok. the main judgement is whether or not it benefits the photo or not, not whether it was done or not. of course in art photography, if one was getting across a series of honest and candid portraits, but yet you performed a ton of manip, then there would be one area in art photography where i could see that manip was overdone.

of course at some point the photograph becomes digital art and not even a photograph - but i have not seen this in the challenges.

my query was more do have a discussion - as well as to explore the fact that in 2 of the recent challenges since i have been here, digital manip has been the primary factor in creating the part of the image that fits the theme itself - and winning with the masses. i was curious as to what, if anything, people felt this affected photography, theirs or in general.

Richard · August 25, 2006

athos wrote:

is this the future of artistic photography? can traditional ways of creating art become that boring to the masses? or maybe we just haven't had good enough shots that do not rely on manipulation to get their point across? or perhaps manipulation along with a good idea is the creme de la creme?

thoughts?

Seems to me art has always been a moving target. Impressionism emerged in painting partly as a reaction to the invention of photography. And that was during a period in which photography was not considered an art form at all. That took decades. Digital technology has made immensely broadened the possibilites of manipulating (and synthesizing) images and made all that available to the masses. That doesn't mean that we have all become artists. Ultimately, art must touch the viewer in a way that makes the world look different forever after. Not easily done, either with a camera or with Photoshop. Or with pigment and canvas.

Regards,

Richard · August 25, 2006

douglas wrote:

I like all out photo manipulation, warping, bluring, zooming ect. But for competitions were motion or blur ect is the theme, I think that criteria should be comming from the camera. By all means adjust colors, saturation contrast ect to your own personal taste though.
Just my opinion.

I guess your point is that manipulation in certain cases is cheating, and I agree. On the other hand, my admiration for your recent jawbone shot is partly based on the knowledge that it was manipulated so skillfully. Perhaps it just depends on the context.

saurora · August 25, 2006

athos wrote:

.... i was curious as to what, if anything, people felt this affected photography, theirs or in general.

For my own photography there isn't a time when I sit down to work in RAW and move the sliders and adjust the light temp and correct the exposure that I don't feel like I'm cheating in a way. It's like magic! I can take a poorly exposed shot and salvage it. I can take a good shot and make it even better. Do I use it? You betcha! Has it had an effect on my photography? Absolutely not. I still yearn to take perfectly exposed photographs every time and not spend any time at all in the digital darkroom. Same goes for any other processing. I would much rather have the skills to do it right without the software. At the same time, it's exciting to work with. It pacifies me and keeps me from chucking my gear out the window until I can achieve the level of expertise that I'm working towards!

athos · August 25, 2006

saurora wrote:

For my own photography there isn't a time when I sit down to work in RAW and move the sliders and adjust the light temp and correct the exposure that I don't feel like I'm cheating in a way. It's like magic! I can take a poorly exposed shot and salvage it. I can take a good shot and make it even better. Do I use it? You betcha! Has it had an effect on my photography? Absolutely not. I still yearn to take perfectly exposed photographs every time and not spend any time at all in the digital darkroom. Same goes for any other processing. I would much rather have the skills to do it right without the software. At the same time, it's exciting to work with. It pacifies me and keeps me from chucking my gear out the window until I can achieve the level of expertise that I'm working towards!

of course. the digital darkroom has taken the place of the wet darkroom. it is beyond reason to expect photographs to be straight out of camera more often than not, especially from us growing amateurs. i shoot raw on purpose even though i know it will be more soft than a processed jpeg so i can have more leeway on the computer later on.

i am talking more about noticeable manipulation besides the basics.

adrian_k · August 26, 2006

is this PS'd or not?

saurora wrote:

That's an awesome quote!
Where do we draw the line in what is acceptable Photoshopping?

totally agree. We've got a good group of photographers here who naturally tend towards camera skills than using software. There are sites better suited to artists like retouch pro and worth1000 both awesome quality and skill but don't light my fire.

If altering images went too far in the DGrin challenges I'm sure there would be more calls for "no PS" challenges.

I am firmly in the pure camera skills camp and enjoy the "no PS" challenges becuase it makes me concentrate harder on the shot.

I took this shot in the ½ hour I had free but it didn't come out how I hoped, so I changed it to match my vision.
I did fleetingly consider entering it. But didn't, not because I thought it was cheating, but because it's so obviously PS'd and therefore not a test of my photography skills. But someone else may think it's a really cool shot

and vote for it! and then I'd feel deceitful.

Digital power?

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