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Re: Spring 2007 Photo Competition Winners by KenWilliams on Tuesday, 01 May 2007
(User Info | Send a Message) | While I agree with much of what you have posted and have argued this many times before (http://www.headheritage.co.uk/headtohead/tma/topic/24664/threaded/282704/) this is not the beginning and end of the story as far as photography is concerned.
What you have to remember also are the last two critical criteria that every photographer must consider, due purely to the unique ability of photography to present an image so close to reality to be almost indistinguishable. The two criteria I would consider are context and expectation.
They are both sides of the one whole, if someone is browsing the web and happen across my website then they have no expectations that 'Ken Williams presents photographs as produced by a camera totally unaltered or corrected' and this is not a manifesto blazed across my homepage. If I did have this across my homepage then yes, in this case it would be dishonest not to disclose what had been done to a particular image. If I dont have that across my...
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Re: Spring 2007 Photo Competition Winners by wayland on Thursday, 03 May 2007
(User Info | Send a Message) | You are quite right of course that a news photograph is viewed with different expectations to that of an art photograph.
Anyone following a link to my photographic web site would quickly notice the description "Fine Art Landscape" used on every page title.
If I took an easel and started painting a dawn and finished at sunset I would produce an image that was the distillation of many different moments. No one would question the integrity of the artist.
However the moment I produces a photograph that may or may not be such a distillation there arises a multitude that say that can not be real and therefor I am a cheat.
I am quite happy to state on my web site that some of my images are manipulations. That includes high dynamic range, panoramic stitches, visible / invisible light composites, long exposures, composite images and a host of other petty alterations.
I have done such things for years in the darkroom and no one ever questioned it.
Recently I have moved most of my work into digital media and everyone suddenly starts getting a fur ball in their throat about it.
What is most annoying is that if I tell people the work that went into a traditional wet print it seems to add some perceived value to the picture, but if I tell people the work that goes on in the computer it is just dismissed as trickery!
In the face of such abuse I have now taken the position of the most famous tricksters of all...... Stage magicians.
When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, everyone knows it is a trick, they just don’t know how it is done. Sometimes it’s misdirection, sometimes it’s mechanical, sometimes there is not a trick at all but it still looks like magic.
The point is that a magician never reveals how a trick is done because it will destroy the illusion.
I choose not to reveal how a picture is created for the same reason. |
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Re: Spring 2007 Photo Competition Winners by KenWilliams on Thursday, 03 May 2007
(User Info | Send a Message) | I've certainly got no problem with that, there's a perception problem for photographers in the digital age that makes old traditional dark room techniques that were once a craft of the skilled into a convenience of the many. The logic somehow goes 'Therefore if anyone can do photoshop the truly talented must be doing something else, something more skilled and crafted'. This is obviously not the case.
That's a problem just about anyone who loves photography recognises and has to approach in their own way. I would simply suggest that if we say 'this photograph was taken on date x at Fx and 1/x seconds' when details like shadows falling in an opposite direction from where the sun is actually shining betray that that cannot be the case or is only half true, then we would be going down the road of bringing photography into disrepute. Not by other peoples misconceptions though but by being 'liberal' with the facts.
As I said earlier, context is important and the stated rules of the competition though a little vague, did lay out a context that I felt was not taken as seriously as it should have been. |
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Re: Spring 2007 Photo Competition Winners by wayland on Thursday, 03 May 2007
(User Info | Send a Message) | Snip> when details like shadows falling in an opposite direction from where the sun is actually shining
It's interesting that you should pick that as an example as it perfectly demonstrates my point.
There is no sun shining on the stones at all. The sun was shining in the valley beyond as you can clearly see from the ground it is illuminating.
The light on the stones is all diffused light from the cloud cover.
Any perceived shadow irregularities are probably due to the undulating ground that any visitor to the site would quickly notice.
All the elements in the picture were there in the scene. There are some elements that were in the scene that are not in the picture. I make no apologies for that at all.
It seems to comfort some people to believe that a picture that exceeds thier expectations must be fake in some way but as I have said before "sometimes there is not a trick at all but it still looks like magic."
I'm not going to tell you how it is done, but I can tell you that you are looking in the wrong direction.
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Re: Spring 2007 Photo Competition Winners by SirLawrenceTheVain on Friday, 04 May 2007
(User Info | Send a Message) | I reply to the letter by "Wayland"....
I have just been through exactly the same situation. My two photographic heroes are Olages Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis.
These two guys both lost their lives doing what they lived for. Photographing the Wilderness in Tasmania.
If they hadn't done what you have mentioned in your letter, then Peter Dombrovskis would not have been placed into the American Photographic Hall Of Fame. ( the only Australian to ever have that privelage )
This letter is the best that I have ever seen, which explains the art of Photography. ( and it is an art )
I support you 101 percent. |
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