Slightly OFF Topic..when does it stop becoming photography and become post processed 'art'?

Having bypassed film all together and entered the world of SLR into the very
contemporary 'digital' age, I have been looking at lots of people's work
posted on line, spectacular photos and amazing visuals.

I oftentimes wonder just how much post processing ( photoshop, etc, et al)
are responsible for making a good photograph into a jaw dropping work of
art? I reckon probably more often than not...

What are the attitudes of tradional 'film' photogaphers towards photos that
have been digitally enhanced and manipulated to the stage that the end photo
is a million miles away from the original photograph?

Do 'traditional' photographers frown upon such artifical asthetics and
measure a *good* photograph by more 'tradtional' metrics, such as effective
use of lighting, camera settings, compostion, etc?

Personally, I think that post processing is a wonderful way of enhancing a
photograph in terms of correcting any adjustable 'flaws', but I feel
somewhat retcinct to mutilating a photograph to the point where it

resembles nothing of the original exposure....and when i see some of the
outstanding photo's in people's online web galleries, i wonder if the photo
is a bona-fide photograph with the minimal adjustments

made in post processing or if it is a totally mutilated version of the
original...

I like the fact that post processing can genuinly help in making the photos
you take look like how you *want* them to look...

but some of the shots i see...well thats just plain old showing off how good
people are at post processing and perhaps not as good as photographers ;-)



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In article ,
"the_niner_nation" wrote:

I oftentimes wonder just how much post processing ( photoshop, etc, et al)
are responsible for making a good photograph into a jaw dropping work of
art? I reckon probably more often than not...

No more so then the dodging, burning, toning, manipulation that has been
part of darkroom work.

What is the difference to you if the manipulation is done in the
darkroom with film or in the computer with PS?

--
To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

the_niner_nation wrote:

What are the attitudes of tradional 'film' photogaphers towards photos that
have been digitally enhanced and manipulated to the stage that the end photo
is a million miles away from the original photograph?

While I have no problem with "digital art" as an art form, it's not what
I'm interested in doing -- and it bothers me a lot when it's passed off
as photography.

As for "when" it goes from one to the other, I think that happens at the
moment the image is no longer honest. Of course, there is no fine line
you can technically define for that, so there is a lot of room for debate.

Much of the usual processing we do, both with digital and with film in the
darkroom, is still honest -- and can actually be necessary to *make* the
final image honest. Of course, even things like color and contrast
manipulation can cross the line into dishonest, but there is a lot of
gray area there, too, and partly due to different peoples' visual
perceptions being different. But for me, the test is whether something
is an honest representation of the scene.

Of course, a representation can be both honest and biased, or honest and
completely out of context, or honest and any number of other things that
would be bad from a journalistic perspective, but that's a whole other
discussion.

Personally, I think that post processing is a wonderful way of enhancing a
photograph in terms of correcting any adjustable 'flaws', but I feel
somewhat retcinct to mutilating a photograph to the point where it
resembles nothing of the original exposure....and when i see some of the
outstanding photo's in people's online web galleries, i wonder if the photo
is a bona-fide photograph with the minimal adjustments
made in post processing or if it is a totally mutilated version of the
original...

That's what bothers me, personally. If it's not a real photograph, it
shouldn't be passed off as one -- doing so hurts photography as a whole.
It reduces the confidence people have in photographs, while simultaneously
increasing the expectations people have for them.

--
Jeremy | | http://www.flickr.com/photos/100mph/

"Bob Salomon" schreef in bericht
...
In article ,
"the_niner_nation" wrote:

I oftentimes wonder just how much post processing ( photoshop, etc, et
al)
are responsible for making a good photograph into a jaw dropping work of
art? I reckon probably more often than not...

No more so then the dodging, burning, toning, manipulation that has been
part of darkroom work.

What is the difference to you if the manipulation is done in the
darkroom with film or in the computer with PS?

The difference between the two is the amount. Nowadays,
most pictures in most glossy magazines have been shopped.

Allthough darkroom 'shopping' was possible and done, it wasn't done
to the extend that photo shopping is done. Why because it was hard
or impossible to do compared to digital shopping.

With film it was almost impossible to alter shapes, with photoshop
it's almost easy. Shaping is done a lot with pictures of especially
women.

ben



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To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

In article .net,
"Ben Brugman" wrote:

Allthough darkroom 'shopping' was possible and done, it wasn't done
to the extend that photo shopping is done. Why because it was hard
or impossible to do compared to digital shopping.

Then you should see what John Sexton or Jerry Ulesman, among lots of
others, can do in the darkroom.

--
To reply no_ HPMarketing Corp.

This is easy.

A photograph is what you take with any camera and then do a direct print,
this is a photograph.

Anything else is simply not a photography, it will be a digitally altered
image.

"Pete D" wrote in message
...
This is easy.

A photograph is what you take with any camera and then do a direct print,
this is a photograph.

Anything else is simply not a photography, it will be a digitally altered
image.


From a raw image?
In camera JPG have some processing done before being saved.

"N" wrote in message
...
"Pete D" wrote in message
...
This is easy.

A photograph is what you take with any camera and then do a direct print,
this is a photograph.

Anything else is simply not a photography, it will be a digitally altered
image.


From a raw image?
In camera JPG have some processing done before being saved.

Yes from jpeg. I guess that from RAW would qualify if all you did was use
defaults and maybe a bit of exposure adjustment then print it.

Pete D wrote:
This is easy.

A photograph is what you take with any camera and then do a direct print,
this is a photograph.

Anything else is simply not a photography, it will be a digitally altered
image.


Agree 100%.

BTW, what sharpening, white balance, and saturation settings should I
apply to best achieve this?

Would it be cheating to set the exposure time to freeze or allow motion
blur to be used as a feature, or use the aperture settings to control DOF?

Would shooting in monochrome be cheating?

Would correcting distortion be cheating? What about perspective - can I
use a PC lens? Should I use rectilinear corrected lenses or fish-eyes?
Can I even use different focal lengths?

I think that the only way to avoid cheating with a dslr is to fit it
with a standard prime lens, then glue your camera mode dial to "P",
smash the pop-up flash off if it has one, and thenceforth only ever use
the shutter button.

"frederick" wrote in message
news:1184893495.832792@ftpsrv1...
Pete D wrote:
This is easy.

A photograph is what you take with any camera and then do a direct print,
this is a photograph.

Anything else is simply not a photography, it will be a digitally altered
image.
Agree 100%.

BTW, what sharpening, white balance, and saturation settings should I
apply to best achieve this?

Would it be cheating to set the exposure time to freeze or allow motion
blur to be used as a feature, or use the aperture settings to control DOF?

Would shooting in monochrome be cheating?

Would correcting distortion be cheating? What about perspective - can I
use a PC lens? Should I use rectilinear corrected lenses or fish-eyes?
Can I even use different focal lengths?

I think that the only way to avoid cheating with a dslr is to fit it with
a standard prime lens, then glue your camera mode dial to "P", smash the
pop-up flash off if it has one, and thenceforth only ever use the shutter
button.

the changes you are referring to dont actually distract from the 'ethicical'
spirit of your photograph..it's not like you are pinching the sky from an
arizona desert landscape to make up for blown highlights you got from a
waterfall in the lake district ..



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