“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams

[Gone for Good]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

 

[jrtrent]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

A person can appreciate Adams's contributions to photography without wanting to emulate him or even like his work. For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage. In the quote from Adams below, I would prefer Jackson's approach to that of either Adams or Weston; I prefer photos that are realistic, not imprints of the artist's visualization.

"Both William Henry Jackson and Edward Weston photographed the American West extensively. But in my opinion, only Weston’s photographs qualify as art. Jackson, for all his devotion to the subject, was recording the scene. Weston, on the other hand, was actually creating something new. In his work, subject is of secondary importance to the total photograph. Similarly, while the landscapes that I have photographed in Yosemite are recognized by most people and, of course, the subject is an important part of the pictures, they are not “realistic.” Instead, they are an imprint of my visualization."

That's not to say I disapprove of Photoshop or other image editing programs; sometimes, a bit of tweaking can help overcome a particular camera's weaknesses and provide an even more realistic final image than the camera can do on its own.

 

[Craig268]

Like most things, it depends. Editing an image like we do I'm sure, is very different then making a photo which implies more than editing. It's sorta like you can record a news event or you can create it (ala fake news).

Anyways, this topic has been absolutely beaten to death over the years i.e how much editing can you do before you recreate the image? Or using a fish eye lens or telephoto lens instead of a normal lens.

It pretty much comes down to debating how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. Life is short, take your camera, go out and shoot.

 

[lilBuddha]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

A person can appreciate Adams's contributions to photography without wanting to emulate him or even like his work. For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage.

In the quote from Adams below, I would prefer Jackson's approach to that of either Adams or Weston; I prefer photos that are realistic, not imprints of the artist's visualization.

"Both William Henry Jackson and Edward Weston photographed the American West extensively. But in my opinion, only Weston’s photographs qualify as art. Jackson, for all his devotion to the subject, was recording the scene. Weston, on the other hand, was actually creating something new. In his work, subject is of secondary importance to the total photograph. Similarly, while the landscapes that I have photographed in Yosemite are recognized by most people and, of course, the subject is an important part of the pictures, they are not “realistic.” Instead, they are an imprint of my visualization."

That's not to say I disapprove of Photoshop or other image editing programs; sometimes, a bit of tweaking can help overcome a particular camera's weaknesses and provide an even more realistic final image than the camera can do on its own.

Bloody Hell, a balanced post. Not sure how to comment. ;-)

Though, pedantically, I would emphasise that the capture is still making a photograph, even if one processes minimally.

 

[doady]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

I don't think Ansel Adams was implying that a composer doesn't create anything. I think you are misinterpreting his words. Even when you choose the day, the time, the location, the camera/film, the lens, the compositon, the exposure and then press shutter, you are already creating something. Photographs are not pre-existing things out there for photographers to find. Even without Photoshop or darkroom, the photographer is much more than a mere finder and taker.

 

[Mark_A]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

I do some processing on every image I use, first because I have to convert from raw and at that stage I can do levels and colour changes before getting it into elements where I can do more.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

What is often interesting is how much adjusting I anticipate when I take a photograph and the actual amount I then do when it comes to PP. More and more often when I am taking a picture I am thinking, this could be good as a letterbox, or I will have to lift the shadows in the ground on this etc ..

Mark_A

 

[robgendreau]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

"Pure" photographers?

Even those doing documentary photography (like Jackson in the quote above) or journalism might use Photoshop with even a shorter pole.

Slides might be the only medium where some processing isn't done, and even those are developed and can be pushed, eg. And besides, choice of lens, aperture and speed will all produce different effects even with the same camera on the same tripod pointed in the same direction.

What amount of processing and what settings you use just depends on what you're trying to accomplish. And note that old Ansel did lots of portraits, product photography, and commission photography as well, including color photos for Standard Oil he didn't even print himself. His concerns about color actually resonate more with me than the stuff about printing; even in the days of hard copy prints he worried about control, since people inevitably can perceive color differently. His head would probably explode with frustration seeing the range of devices someone might view a color shot on nowadays; I know mine does when I'm trying to adjust color for such viewing.

 

[Chris Wolfgram]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

A person can appreciate Adams's contributions to photography without wanting to emulate him or even like his work. For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage. In the quote from Adams below, I would prefer Jackson's approach to that of either Adams or Weston; I prefer photos that are realistic, not imprints of the artist's visualization.

"Both William Henry Jackson and Edward Weston photographed the American West extensively. But in my opinion, only Weston’s photographs qualify as art. Jackson, for all his devotion to the subject, was recording the scene. Weston, on the other hand, was actually creating something new. In his work, subject is of secondary importance to the total photograph. Similarly, while the landscapes that I have photographed in Yosemite are recognized by most people and, of course, the subject is an important part of the pictures, they are not “realistic.” Instead, they are an imprint of my visualization."

That's not to say I disapprove of Photoshop or other image editing programs; sometimes, a bit of tweaking can help overcome a particular camera's weaknesses and provide an even more realistic final image than the camera can do on its own.

Jr, I respect your opinion. But instead of hearing you describe what your photography is or isn't, I wish I could just go see a gallery of your work ?

Im not into Adams stuff. But I appreciate his contributions to photography and the natural environment.

 

[Turbguy1]

Slides might be the only medium where some processing isn't done, and even those are developed and can be pushed, eg. And besides, choice of lens, aperture and speed will all produce different effects even with the same camera on the same tripod pointed in the same direction.

I agree with color transparency film being the "least malleable" medium commonly used. Once you pressed the shutter, you were (effectively) done.

UNLESS...you scan that transparency and move it to the digital domain!

--
Wayne
See more at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/turbguy/

 

[FrankieJ]

For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage.

Do you use stereo or spherical 360° capture techniques?

 

[jrtrent]

Jr, I respect your opinion. But instead of hearing you describe what your photography is or isn't, I wish I could just go see a gallery of your work ?

Im not into Adams stuff. But I appreciate his contributions to photography and the natural environment.

"Work" is much too grandiose a term for the pictures I take. Mine are what author Brian Bower called memory jerkers--simple reminders of people, places, and events. They have no meaning for anyone else except, perhaps, a family member or friend who might have been along on the excursion or who has an interest in it from past association. Most of my pictures, and all of the most meaningful ones, include people who might not appreciate being included in a publicly accessible gallery.

Below is a link to the Adams interview I quoted before, and in it, he describes my use of a camera fairly well:

"People have always had the urge to keep a diary. We used to write reminiscences and letters. Now we take pictures. On Thanksgiving with Grandmother, on vacation in the mountains, the baby’s first steps. The pictures are a visual diary. They are reminders of the experience. That is how most people use their cameras. But when you are trying to make a statement that goes beyond the subject, it is another domain." https://www.davidsheff.com/ansel-adams

That other domain he calls art, an attempt at "capturing an inspired moment on film." My pictures are snapshots, at best capturing the "shallow qualities of mere scenery." Much as I enjoy them, I'm sure my pictures would be quite boring to others. To keep it as "real" as possible, I just use a normal focal length lens at eye level and tend to choose "natural" rather than "vivid" photo styles (just as I preferred Astia to Velvia when shooting slide film).

 

[lilBuddha]

For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage.

Do you use stereo or spherical 360° capture techniques?

I left that alone because the post acknowledges that processing might be necessary to achieve the fidelity. It was a balanced post so no need to nitpick.

Photography ≠ what one sees ≠ perfect reality

That said, this thread and that post reference Ansel Adams and he pushed well beyond pure representation. His images were not faithful to what the eye "sees".

Within that context, and the context of the whole post, the quoted statement is not unreasonable.

And, BTW, how the brain and the camera capture and record images has many more differences than stereo vision.

 

[Chris Wolfgram]

Jr, I respect your opinion. But instead of hearing you describe what your photography is or isn't, I wish I could just go see a gallery of your work ?

Im not into Adams stuff. But I appreciate his contributions to photography and the natural environment.

"Work" is much too grandiose a term for the pictures I take. Mine are what author Brian Bower called memory jerkers--simple reminders of people, places, and events. They have no meaning for anyone else except, perhaps, a family member or friend who might have been along on the excursion or who has an interest in it from past association. Most of my pictures, and all of the most meaningful ones, include people who might not appreciate being included in a publicly accessible gallery.

Below is a link to the Adams interview I quoted before, and in it, he describes my use of a camera fairly well:

"People have always had the urge to keep a diary. We used to write reminiscences and letters. Now we take pictures. On Thanksgiving with Grandmother, on vacation in the mountains, the baby’s first steps. The pictures are a visual diary. They are reminders of the experience. That is how most people use their cameras. But when you are trying to make a statement that goes beyond the subject, it is another domain." https://www.davidsheff.com/ansel-adams

That other domain he calls art, an attempt at "capturing an inspired moment on film." My pictures are snapshots, at best capturing the "shallow qualities of mere scenery." Much as I enjoy them, I'm sure my pictures would be quite boring to others. To keep it as "real" as possible, I just use a normal focal length lens at eye level and tend to choose "natural" rather than "vivid" photo styles (just as I preferred Astia to Velvia when shooting slide film).

Fair enough.

People tend to see things from there own perspective. And so I imagine that everybody is trying to create a masterpiece. But when you explain your photography, I can totally see you have completely different goals than I do and I can appreciate that

 

[Tom Axford]

For me, taking a picture is all about capturing what I see with as much fidelity to the real subject as I can manage. In the quote from Adams below, I would prefer Jackson's approach to that of either Adams or Weston; I prefer photos that are realistic, not imprints of the artist's visualization.

I like to make photos as realistic as I can get.

However, I find that I can rarely do that by taking images straight from the camera. My most realistic results are achieved by shooting in raw and processing the images. They end up not being very close to what came directly from the camera, but they are closer to reality in my judgement.

 

[Aaron801]

... whether or not you're doing post processing. Once can take a photo from a perspective that others don't usually get to, find a juxtaposition that isn't obvious, expose a certain way, capture some kind of light that isn't usually captured, etc in order to create a photo that isn't such an obvious document. Particularly with digital cameras these days, there are so many options to customize things in-camera that the idea of post processing to get a particular look is really a choice , not a necessity...


Furthermore, I wouldn't say that manipulation, either with in-camera controls or with software on a computer necessarily takes the image further from any kind of realistic, objective, documentary artifact. I think that the idea of "realism" with photography is somewhat problematic. If something is really manipulated part a certain level, then we tend to know it. Beyond that though there could be many interpretations with different treatments of colors, tones, in-focus areas, etc that are all equally as realistic seeming. Sometimes a lot of careful post processing work can make an image seem more, rather than less realistic...

--
my flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/128435329@N08/

 

[Qui Tam]

If there's one thing that has aged even less well than Adams' photography, it is his philosophies on photography.

 

[liopleurodon]

Jr, I respect your opinion. But instead of hearing you describe what your photography is or isn't, I wish I could just go see a gallery of your work ?

Im not into Adams stuff. But I appreciate his contributions to photography and the natural environment.

"Work" is much too grandiose a term for the pictures I take. Mine are what author Brian Bower called memory jerkers--simple reminders of people, places, and events. They have no meaning for anyone else except, perhaps, a family member or friend who might have been along on the excursion or who has an interest in it from past association. Most of my pictures, and all of the most meaningful ones, include people who might not appreciate being included in a publicly accessible gallery.

Below is a link to the Adams interview I quoted before, and in it, he describes my use of a camera fairly well:

"People have always had the urge to keep a diary. We used to write reminiscences and letters. Now we take pictures. On Thanksgiving with Grandmother, on vacation in the mountains, the baby’s first steps. The pictures are a visual diary. They are reminders of the experience. That is how most people use their cameras. But when you are trying to make a statement that goes beyond the subject, it is another domain." https://www.davidsheff.com/ansel-adams

That other domain he calls art, an attempt at "capturing an inspired moment on film." My pictures are snapshots, at best capturing the "shallow qualities of mere scenery." Much as I enjoy them, I'm sure my pictures would be quite boring to others. To keep it as "real" as possible, I just use a normal focal length lens at eye level and tend to choose "natural" rather than "vivid" photo styles (just as I preferred Astia to Velvia when shooting slide film).

Yep. That's what my photography/videography is to me as well. Documentary of my life and the lives of my loved ones. When I take a generic shot like a beach sunset I know other much better photographers have taken much better images on the same beach. But my image has something theirs doesn't; I was there when it was taken.

 

[Mackiesback]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

I think a lot of these "pure photographers" wouldn't touch Photoshop because they haven't the slightest clue how to use it.

Similar to how a lot of 'natural light' photographers haven't a clue about flash. Like me. I suck at flash. Everything I learn I forget in a day. Thank God for the new generation of low light sensors.

 

[wiredm]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was a genius printmaker and revolutionized the science of exposure. I'm grateful to him for all his work on that front. His technical legacy lives in every autoexposure system today.

But his photos are dreadfully boring. It's all just variations of rocks and trees and water.

 

[thinkinginimages]

For those of you "pure" photographers who wouldn't touch Photoshop with a ten foot pole, here is a great master with differing views.

“The negative is comparable to the composer’s score and the print to its performance. Each performance differs in subtle ways.” – Ansel Adams

I rarely use Photoshop now that Lightroom came out. I can edit in either but unless I need the higher level tools in Photoshop, it's Lightroom. I can always jump over to Photoshop as needed.

Unfortunately, Photoshop picked up a bit of a negative reputation because of its power. The ability to alter reality/truth was used inappropriately and there was a backlash.