Is it not about the original image anymore?

[Mark1]

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A lot of pictures these days have been dodged and burned in Photoshop. So does it not matter anymore that these are not the real images captured in the camera?

Is it all about who can produce the best worked on image in post?

[swamiji]

Well that question has always been there. Darkroom technique has always played a part.

 

But it comes down to the ideals of the photographer. The audience has rarely cared.

 

Near where I live there a outdoor art gallery put on by the city. They are all photoshopped badly. Colors off, over saturated, etc.. But people love them, thinking that they represent the real place. Argh!

[Hank Taylor]

A lot of pictures these days have been dodged and burned in Photoshop. So does it not matter anymore that these are not the real images captured in the camera?

Is it all about who can produce the best worked on image in post?

 

Hi Mark good question. I have enjoyed working in the darkroom where I learned my craft as a Marine Corps Photography in the early 50's. With the modern darkroom programs like LR it has become easier and I have taken full advantage. Its not that I'm lazy when out shooting pictures but often what my mind vision is not always what I had captured.

 

Using these techniques make me a more accomplished photographer. Adams defined photography as a pure art form rather than a derivative of other art forms. The great American artist's darkroom techniques-through dodging and burning-allowed him to see the image in his mind's eye as a final print. "That's the drama, the expertise of what he could accomplish that no one else was able to do," said Michael Adams, Ansel's son who is a retired physician of Carmel, California. His father, he added, would have embraced today's easily manipulated photo techniques: "I think that he would have loved digital."

Best regards

hank

[likalar]

Hi, Mark. That's a fair question. A good image captured in the camera is an important starting point, as interpreted by the digital sensor or a piece of film. Then, you have opportunities, using software or classic darkroom techniques, to enhance/massage the image to your liking. Some people refuse any manipulation, and would never even think of altering or cropping what was captured when the shutter clicked. Others may use moderate amounts of manipulation (tonality, color shifting, desaturation, etc), but refuse to alter the design elements of the image. Still others might remove a light pole from behind the subject, add a fire hydrant, and sprinkle some grain around. It's all fine in my book, unless the photograph is presented as reportage or is a commercial image that falsifies truths. Yes, my wife knows the skin cream model's photo has been photoshopped in order to sell more skin cream, but don't show her a sales brochure picture of a hotel room with an ocean view that doesn't exist.

Do your best to get a great shot. Only you can decide to either enjoy it untouched, as captured, or massage it until you are satisfied. I've done both, but excluding color slides projected onto a screen, I can't remember the last time I left an image intact. Good luck.

Larry

[250swb]

Other than the rudiments of film and paper processing the very first thing I was taught in the darkroom was dodging and burning. Dodging and burning has always been a part of making the photograph since photography was invented nearly 200 years ago.

 

On a simple level it reflects that film does not necessarily record tones in the same sort of harmony that is seen in life, so adjustments are made by dodging and burning. On the higher level it reflects the vision of the photographer who may want to accentuate or subdue areas of the picture to make their own point about the subject matter. In any traditional fine print something has been done to perfect it. So there was never previously any period of photography that was 'about the original image'.

 

So you are dreaming of something that never existed, except perhaps in the realms of rank amateurs who never got beyond the excitement of doing a bit of processing and printing. And to be honest, that is where the digital photographer is at if they aspire to 'the original image'. First lets get out of the way the first falsehood, you've pointed your camera at something and you've edited the view, you've cropped the world, so it's not an un-manipulated image anymore. Second, somebody programmed your camera, somebody with an opinion, it may be hidden inside the firmware, but it is an opinion about how the photographs look. So, where is the 'original image'? Would you rather have your own opinion about the image you made, adjusting tones and colour and contrast, or rely on somebody you never met on the assumption that what they see is exactly what you want to see? Because photography is about having an opinion, deciding what you want other people to see, making them have the same emotional response to an image as you do. And for this you make the image your own beyond the initial exposure.

 

Admittedly a lot of post processing you see is clumsy and over the top, but people are making the image their own, they are having an opinion. On a simple level, corrections can make the image just more comfortable to look at. So the old trick of slightly burning the edges of the picture stops the visual effect of the print getting lighter towards the edges when placed against a white background. It is nothing overtly seen, it just rebalances the picture to compensate for the human eye. Colour balance is another thing the camera may not get right, and if you saw one colour and the camera gives another, or too much vibrancy etc. aren't you going to adjust it? Again its one of those subjects where the list goes on.

 

But there are no 'real' images captured by the camera, there is nothing real about photography, and even for the hard nosed photojournalist the idea that 'the camera never lies' is hokum, they all rely on photographing one thing at the exclusion of others which may tell a different story. So a bit of dodging and burning is expressing some creativity, not abandoning any illusory rule about an original image.

 

Steve

[wattsy]

So you are dreaming of something that never existed, except perhaps in the realms of rank amateurs

 

Not really, I cut my teeth assisting in editorial and pre-internet stock photography where the transparency was king. Of course, this didn't mean that the photographs couldn't be photoshopped (or equivalent) at some point down the line but the photographer's vision (and what he/she was being paid for) was what was captured in camera and the only post-shooting adjustment available was a global exposure adjustment via a clip test. The expectation then was that the transparencies represented the finished result – you couldn't say to the editor "don't worry about the crappy light, the pre-press guys can dodge and burn it a bit to make it look better".

 

That said, I don't disagree at all with the general point you make about dodging and burning, etc.

[stuny]

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Mark -

 

Welcome to the Forum. This section of the Forum is for posting photos. therefroe, I'm moving your thread to the Digital section, but leaving a link to it here.

[sanyasi]

My first job after college was with a bank holding company with 27 subsidiaries. I prepared the consolidated financial reports. We used paper spreadsheets with 35 or so columns, an adding machine, and pencils. I went to law school the next year, but I assume 35 years later all the records are on a computer and someone pushes a button to do the consolidation. I view that as a vast improvement. It was a boring job and between quarters, we didn't have much to do.

 

So why so much angst ( not just the original poster), over technological improvements that give us more power and precision, but reduce the time of production? If you are hobbyist, the main question is whether what you are doing satisfies you. If you are a professional, the main question is whether the client is satisfied. Other than that, nothing else matters. A photograph is always a contrivance, as was pointed out in an earlier post.

[Paul J]

Hi Mark,

 

Welcome to the forum!

 

Dodging and burning is as old as photography itself. Fashion magazines were retouching negatives before computers even existed.

 

I would actually argue it's an essential part of the vision and communication process. It's a way for the photographer to describe their encounter, their emotive response, or anything else they wish. I don't think it's a case of who can produce the best image in post, but who can best communicate with their images.

 

However, as always, there is good manipulation and bad manipulation. It's pretty obvious when it's used to cover up a boring photo.

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[satijntje]

Indeed:

 

 

:D

 

John

[pico]

The dodge and burn instructions could stand on their own as an art statement.

[jaapv]

Two identical threads have been merged

[Echo63]

when i was young i shot film, and the photos were whatever came back from the lab.

i did a little bit of printing at in high school, and at college, but basically i struggled with anything more advanced than producing a print.

 

I now work for a newspaper, and we are bound by a code of ethics, cropping, toning, dodging and burning are ok - other manipulations are not - especially adding or removing things from the image.

my personal work kinda reflects this, there isn't anything added or removed, but i do tend to push the adjustments a lot further than i would if the images were for publication.

 

manipulating images has always been done, but it used to require a lot of skill, these days it can all be done with a few clicks of the mouse (although it is frequently done badly) and a lot more can be done these days too

 

photoshopping does sometimes go too far - as this video shows (its well worth a watch, just for the comedy value)

 

[kdriceman]

Since neither film or digital can replicate the dynamic range of the human eye, what is produced by the camera cannot, in most cases, even be considered a real representation of the scene anyway. Combine that with things like the subjective variation between people in the interpretation of color and tonality and the "image reality" becomes even more elusive. And, finally, does one person's decision to include or exclude subject matter from a scene at the time of capture make his/her image any more real or "original" than a photographer who has chosen a different composition of the same scene?

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[tookaphotoof]

A lot of pictures these days have been dodged and burned in Photoshop. So does it not matter anymore that these are not the real images captured in the camera?

Is it all about who can produce the best worked on image in post?

 

I only have a problem with photos that don't look like photos any more. For instance the 'over the top' HDR stuff.

Personally I wouldn't mind if someone uses his magic to hide a blemish.

[Louis]

A lot of pictures these days have been dodged and burned in Photoshop. So does it not matter anymore that these are not the real images captured in the camera?

Is it all about who can produce the best worked on image in post?

 

Do you prefer the camera and the software inside the camera decide how your shot should look???...

 

If 10 people shoot the same subject from the same place and with the same camera; they would all get the same phot! Is that creation? ... But by processing them, each photographer would create his own vision!... Was it Ensel Adams who said: "I don't shoot pictures; I make pictures", or something like that?

[likalar]

<<....Was it Ensel Adams who said: "I don't shoot pictures; I make pictures", or something like that? >>

 

Not sure. I do know it was Ron Partridge, photographer son of Imogen Cunningham, who said, when asked for a copy of a photograph he had just made: " I don't give pictures. I take them" or something like that.

 

Larry

[pico]

I only have a problem with photos that don't look like photos any more. For instance the 'over the top' HDR stuff.

 

 

For a recent contest National Geographic warned competitors of that kind of work saying, "The world is full of artifice and our intension is to not add more."

 

 

Sent from my Etcha-sketch.

[jaapv]

I only have a problem with photos that don't look like photos any more. For instance the 'over the top' HDR stuff.

Personally I wouldn't mind if someone uses his magic to hide a blemish.

Even with those I don’t have a problem at all. I just don’t regard them as photographs but as photograph-based Photoshop art - which I sometimes really like too

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[fotoism]

A while back there was a big discussion on whether one show even crop. To each his/her own, I guess.