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Is Photography Dead? [Newsweek Article]

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u2wedge

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My ideas alike with the writer here. I am also very much concerned with concoction of the pictures now-a-days.

"... photographs are now essentially no different from paintings concocted entirely from an artist's imagination...".

"... [hard] to capture beauty and truth in the same photograph. The next great photographers—if there are to be any—will have to find a way to reclaim photography's special link to reality."

So, are there any great photographers amongst us, or are we all getting carried away with the "new technology of manipulation"?

--
Raghu Kadava
Looking at the world at 0.75x.
http://picasaweb.google.com/dee70s
 
Like much of what gets published in Newsweek, this author doesn’t know what he is writing about. Trick photography dates back to the 1800’s. William H. Martin made a fortune with tricked photos around 1908 ( http://www.photographymuseum.com/talltale.html ).

Filmmakers were using all sorts of tricks in the early 1900’s long before the wildly popular 1933 movie King Kong.

While it is true that Ansel Adams’ photos were of actual places, the amount of time he spent in the darkroom “perfecting” his pictures is legendary. He once stated that “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop” and he spent the entire summer of 1936, getting ready for a fall exhibit, in his darkroom working on photos. If you go stand where he stood to take his famous pictures you won’t see what you see when you view his photo, because as he said, “Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.”

My Dad won a fair number of photography awards in the 1930’s and he thought that the act of actually taking the picture was the easy part and amounted to about 20% of the work, the rest was the hard part and it was what separated the award winners from the also rans – the 80% of the work that was done in the darkroom. Even though he owned some of the finest German camera and lens of the time, he didn’t think a camera was capable of producing an award-winning photograph. The fact that so many of his so called competitors did, pleased him.

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Brooks
http://bmiddleton.smugmug.com/
 
I agree with parts of what you say Brooks. So, is it God's mistake that you did not find a bird in the sky when there is an almost perfect sunset? Or would you rather think to yourself that you should wait for the birds instead of adding a bird to your photograph?

My concerns is never about adjusting the tones or burning some highlights. It is the thin line of "perfection" that is leading a lot of very good photographers get carried away with additions, subtractions, etc. The use of digital SLR itself is not capturing the actual light - the fact that there is image "processor" in the camera means that it is manipulated to take effect of your settings. Why contaminate the picture even more? Don't you think that it should be called "manipulated-and-post-processed-creation-of-whatever-looked-good-to-me" photography instead of calling it "creative photography"?

--
Raghu Kadava
Looking at the world at 0.75x.
http://picasaweb.google.com/dee70s
Brooks P said:
While it is true that Ansel Adams’ photos were of actual places, the
amount of time he spent in the darkroom “perfecting” his pictures is
legendary.
--
Brooks
http://bmiddleton.smugmug.com/
Click to expand...
 
Very interesting article and I do agree with writer pretty much.

Brooks you said about your father and Ansel Adams spending much time in the darkroom perfecting the shot and that's what made them stand out and be noticed. When I read the article it seemed to be talking more about the lack of truth in photographs now. Such as the well circulated picture of someone standing on top of the towers as they were collapsing and the story of how they survived-photoshopped no truth in content.

Adjusting the tones and contrast to enhance the photo is totally different. The photograph is truth presented perhaps enhaced colors or a pimple removed, where as this article speaks of miniscule amounts of truth. Can we tell anymore?

How can the true photographer compete with manipulation as far as a statement when one cannot tell is the statement is the truth or fabricated for their own amusement?
--
Happy hunting,

C J
 
OK, I have to chime in on this one. As someone familiar with the graphic industry, what you guys are talking about, and what the article says, is indeed part of an old practice. The only difference is that before "pixels", we call it "airbrush".

It might have been the sweat on a beer bottle that was added, or:



... but whichever the case, this was done MOSTLY for commercial use.

In the art world, as far as I know, there is no one rule that says that RC paper cannot be used and it is only an art print if it uses at the very least silver. I've seen (film photography) art exhibits in which several prints where attached to each other with Scotch tape, and sold for small fortunes.

Now, when National Geographics published a cover with the pyramids of Egypt in the wrong geographic location so that they would fit on the frame, OK, there I may have a problem, but that is not art, or at least it was not meant to be.

--
Lito
D80 + Mac :)

 
"... photographs are now essentially no different from paintings concocted entirely from an artist's imagination...".

Wonderful! I am now in the "potential" league of Picaso, Rembrandt, or perhaps Vincent Willem van Gogh.

Oh well, I guess I just love doing it ... so I do it!

We need to spend less time in deep pondering, and more time taking pictures.

Dale
--
Living the dream ... cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.
 
In photography and and always been thus, is how the photographer sees it. The camera choice, the lens choice, the focal length choice, the exposure choice, the compositional choice and the timing choice are the multiples of what makes a picture. Change any one one of those variables and you have a different photograph and often dramatically so. That's before you 'process' the image. The author of the article would have us believe that in order to for photography to be art it has to be grounded in reality. I disagree. There have been, and likely always will be, debates as to how much digital or chemical based manipulation constitutes 'enough'. Fact is there has always been a manipulation of reality in every photo, and for me what counts is the skill and talent of the photographer who takes and process the photo. I'm not always a fan of the concocted photoshopped image, but not because of the manipulation; usually it's because the photographer did a poor job of it or in service of a bad or cliche'd concept. Photography as art isn't threatened by digital manipulation, but might be by an avalanche of poorly composed, exposed and executed images that mediocre photographers pass off as 'art'. Truth and beauty in photography is alive and well, you simply have to look harder for it.
Cheers, Pete
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/petenator
 
Photography has been democracized. The tools which once were restricted to either the fanatics or the professionals have been given to the masses. Not everyone can use them with skill and vision. There are still great photos being both taken and created and tons of lousy or mediocre ones too. I don't think photography has really changed that much- except the technology used and that it is readily availible to everyone.

To quote the Beatles:

There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy

There's nothing you can make that can't me made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy

There's nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
No where you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy

--



I would like to invite you to visit my photo gallery here:
http://www.pbase.com/jeffryz/galleries
 
The author has a point. The use of Photoshop to make "digital images" (no longer really photographs, in my opinion) really makes people question any digital photograph that looks good. Instead of "Great photograph" you hear "No way that can be real" or "Wow, you're really good with Photoshop". Even the standard color adjustments, burning, dodging, and the like are questioned for the simple reason that they are done in a program that is also used to add skies from one photo to another, place people where they never were, and the like. People no longer trust digital photos to be true photographs, just on a different medium. I do think this is a problem, which is why I don't present anything manipulated in a "non-traditional" way as a photograph.

My $0.01 (not really long enough to be my full $0.02)

--Brendan

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcmlxxxvi/collections/ :: 1cor13.1
 
The problem isn't with the medium, it's with the artist/photographer. It isn't what is digitized but the intent of the digitizer.

As a photographer (term used loosely) I take many pictures that are documentaries of family, friends, events, etc. But as an artist (boy do I use that term loosely) I also take many pictures that are meant to convey a feeling or idea that sometimes cannot be conveyed without changing the realities encountered.

I think it is only wrong if you present an image to intentionally mislead or deceive. Editing out a car from a panaroma to eliminate an undesirable focal point is functionally the same as adding a building, but can have a totally different impact if presented as reality.

Time never moves backward and I, for one, am glad.

Steve

Oh, to be young again……

 
RKadava said:
My concerns is never about adjusting the tones or burning some
highlights. It is the thin line of "perfection" that is leading a lot
of very good photographers get carried away with additions,
subtractions, etc. The use of digital SLR itself is not capturing the
actual light - the fact that there is image "processor" in the camera
means that it is manipulated to take effect of your settings. Why
contaminate the picture even more? Don't you think that it should be
called

"manipulated-and-post-processed-creation-of-whatever-looked-good-to-me" photography instead of calling it "creative photography"?
Click to expand...
I have to say that I agree with you premise in my own work. If a highly altered piece is presented as such and is truly artistic, then I can recognize the creators efforts. I would take offense to a highly altered photograph that was presented as non-fiction. I have many examples where I have severely changed the tone of a photograph to make a feel (such as the 70s print look, or grainy B&W film from the 60s) and wonder if I am pushing my own self-imposed limits?

When it comes to make large additions/subtractions to a photo, or even blending multiple photos into one, I think that the fear may be larger than the reality. Although there are some very skilled "photoshoppers", I believe the vast majority of efforts turn out to be sub par. I also believe in the the philosophy of taking multiple photos of a subject or place, much like Ansel Adams. While he is remembered for great photos such as Moon over Half Dome, I am certain that he did not take that photo only once. I would rater take 10 photos of the beautiful sunset and throw 9 completely away, than only have 1 that need something "photoshopped" in/out of it.
 
I kind of agree with the article. It seems like every top rated photo I see over on PhotoNet any more is a lot more graphic art than photography. Some look good, but in the same way as a rock art poster looks good, not because it's good photography. And you are seeing more and more of that, whether it be phony looking HDR manipulated images or super saturated scenes that have no basis in reality. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but to me photography is art in the way it reflects reality, not in the way it distorts it. In a lot of ways, because of digital and how easily images can now be manipulated, I think something that was once pure with photography has been lost.
--
Mike
 
As I read the article ,it was about photo art and the lack of truth in photo art.

I think, I might be a little different from most of the post here , cause I find it silly to ever assume that their is any truth to art. Regardless of the form the art comes in

Look at a painter, sitting on the side on the grand cayon. As he sits their painting the eagle flying over the cayon , was it really their ? or did he think his painting needed a eagle in it ?

Never assume their is any truth to art , after all , it is art. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Where the problem comes in , is with the daily news photographer, or edits on the nightly news , which shrinks everything to a sound bite and allow them to have statments taken out of context and such but what is new with that ? Its been going on forever. Problem here is that one assumes that he is hearing the context and getting the truth
That is much different from art , it is not ?

Art isnt aboout truth , it is about vision, art is about the eye of the beholder.

I was watching pbs one times a while back and they were talking to a old news man and he was telling stories about how he paid striking workers to fight so that he could film it and have his story. No truth their but that isnt art is it? It was the nightly news . It's all been going on longer then we can count.

But when it comes to art the only truth required to be told is the truth the artist chooses to tell, the emotion he/she intends to inflict, the story he/she intends to tell. He/she only allows us to see what suits his/her purpose.

Most art forms do not tell the truth, rather it be music, photography, movie making, painting , etc. I know since I said this someone will ask me how does the art of glass blowing lie , lol

Remember it is about art, since when does the truth become more important than the vision of the artist

--
Tom
Photography is the hobby that you can legally shoot people and blown them up
see my ugly pics at :
http://www.pbase.com/tom1468
 
The article title -- Is Photography Dead? -- is an obvious hook when more photographs are taken every day than at any other time in its history. Perhaps the nature and ease of Digital Photography makes the majority of pictures taken mindless records of where the camera is pointed. The vast majority of these photographs see very little if any manipulation and it is my contention that the very manipulation of photographs in today’s digital world is what has saved the art form. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator as well as Coral Draw plus a host of lesser-known computer programs have made the digital palette available to many and gives opportunity for creative expression.

Just as with conventional art you will find good and bad examples and with the number of people trying to satisfy their creative urges you are bound to find many poor efforts. Everyone has to start somewhere so don’t condemn the person or the art form just because you don’t like what you see. Those that knock it are either unable to compete in the digital arena or are jealous of the apparent ease of creation. Good digital art for the most part still has to follow the rules of composition and be pleasing to the eye. Originality also helps but after so many years of art in all forms it is becoming more difficult to achieve this.

Reportage, Scientific and Crime Scene photography requires photographs that are virtually straight out of the camera and there is a definite school of photographers that wish to show what comes out of the camera but neither they nor the ‘Photoshopers’ should downplay what other achieves with their art.
Claude Felbert
 
I think the author makes a good point and valid one at that. What's so bad about making a assembled image?

Doesn't the image rule?

I think a better use of the energy's arguing this point would be better used in calling out the public acceptance of poor image quality.

CNN & others are soliciting & using amateur video and newspapers are having reporters shoot with P&S cameras (calling them photo journalists).

We on the other hand, judge each other like each of us is submitting to a glossy mag.

I'm not making judgments, just an observation
 
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