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Faking Reality


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I know there are a few arguments around why post processing needs to be done or is just fun when you get some time off. Minor tweaks don't change the characteristic of the photo at all. But sometimes the photographer just wants to let his creativity off the leash. This happens to me every now and then. Sliders are easy to slide, they are paitent and they never moan about the results. The idea struck me when I edited the attached photo.
The first one is straight out of the M10 (DNG and just resized and saved as jpg). The second photo is heaviliy post processed ((local)contrast, sharpness, saturation, etc). I admit it looks slightly fresher and more pleasing to my eyes. But this was definitely not the reality when I shot the photo standing on a bridge yesterday at around 5.30pm. So, all fake?
I noticed recently that lots of photos with a high contrast and saturated colours get more likes than others. Not a scientific research - just an subjective perception. So, it means to me that photos without or with minor tweaks do not meet certain aesthetics of the viewers, no?
The photo was taken with my lovely Summicron 50mm Type 4 ~@f5.6

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2nd

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Have you seen what "Moonrise over Hernandez" looked like when it came out of Ansel Adams's camera versus the result we all know? Adams saw the first with his eyes and the second with his imagination. Either can be defended as not fake. My vote would go for your second image. Superb.

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vor 21 Minuten schrieb ansteyp:

Have you seen what "Moonrise over Hernandez" looked like when it came out of Ansel Adams's camera versus the result we all know?

No, I need to google it.

 

vor 1 Minute schrieb LocalHero1953:

Do you want (a) an exact record of the scene or (b) a image that people want to look at?

According to the boolean algebra it is not an OR-Gate (a OR b) rather than an 2-Input-NAND-Gate means: I want both! ;--)

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21 minutes ago, 01maciel said:

No, I need to google it.

 

According to the boolean algebra it is not an OR-Gate (a OR b) rather than an 2-Input-NAND-Gate means: I want both! ;--)

I have no problem with your choice, and I know that many people see it the same way. I am content to differ.

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Photography cannot replicate reality. The choices we make in portraying what we 'saw' are hardly about 'faking' if we are adjusting a photograph but not adding or deleting content. We are merely interpreting the image. Assuming that the image 'a it comes out of the camera' represents reality is actually very unreasonable in itself.

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3 hours ago, 01maciel said:

No, I need to google it.

 

 

Adams reinterpreted the printing, as shown here over a 34 year period, continually introducing more contrast and drama.

https://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/anseladams/arrington/arrington_adams.html

I prefer the earlier renderings.  The latter versions are generally preferred by the average viewer.
 

Jeff

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Although I try not to post process much, my goal is nearly always to try to recreate what a scene or subject felt like. The emotional impact of the scene should come through in the photograph, for me. When I used to paint from life, it was wonderful to look from the scene, to the painting, and back and forth and try to get the painting to recreate the visual impact of the scene, in depth, in emotion, in focus... but do it without thought, rather through intuition and observation. When looking at either the scene or the painting, I would try to still my thoughts and "listen" to what was happening inside of me.

With photography it is a little different, because post processing takes place back at home. Also, and you should agree, I think, a photograph is not really about reality... think of your love of shallow depth of field!!! The photograph changes and interprets reality, and shows the viewer something you saw as worthy of seeing. So perhaps a photograph is best when it truly shows some aspect of reality... AND YOU THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

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44 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

Adams reinterpreted the printing, as shown here over a 34 year period, continually introducing more contrast and drama...

Coincidentally I was going to mention the "Ansel Adams at 100" exhibition (and book) which I was fortunate enough to see (and buy) when it was shown in London in 2002(?). On show were many examples of original prints made from the very same negative but which - as mentioned in the link you posted - were printed in various decades and the differences were remarkable and I, too, in general preferred the earlier prints.

If we were of a mind to continue Adams' musical theme (about the score c/f the performance) it was sort of like the early prints were that of a perfomance by a chamber group; very personal, intimate and subtle whilst the later prints were more akin to a performance by a symphony orchestra; very 'large-scale', full of bravado and with a heavy accent on the 'WOW!' factor.

In terms of the original post; What is 'Reality' in terms of a photograph? The ability of a particular type of camera / lens / film / sensor (and so on) to capture what this assembled kit, used by a human, thinks what they are seeing is 'Reality'? If Maciel was being guided by the TTL metering (or the camera he was using was set to aperture priority) and his angle of view had been turned by, perhaps, 10 degrees more to the left before making the exposure the dark area at the left would have been recorded completely differently - yet it would have been the very same 'Reality' at the time.

I, like Adams, always assume that the neg / DNG is merely a starting-point. It is rare (unheard-of?) that I will ever print a file sooc.

Philip.

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In the first place, photographs are never "reality." Except in regards to things like - there really were two guys in a boat on this river at this time, or the trees did have leaves on them, and so on. Content, in other words.

And even then, what you end up with is a 2-dimensional crop of a tiny piece of a 3D universe - which is the only reality. The picture is not the thing, just as René Magritte pointed out 91 years ago (linked via wikimedia) in The Treachery of Images.

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And as the late Paul Fusco said (and I paraphrase, not having a reference immediately to hand), "Cameras and film are not very smart. They don't know what the h*ll you are taking a picture of. You have to do work in the darkroom in order to get the picture that was there."

Ther is no such thing as an "unprocessed image." If it is a jpg, the camera processed it. If it is a .DNG, the camera processed it to some extent - and it will be processed further even if you yourself do nothing at all (it will get default processing as chosen by the C1 or Adobe engineers - which is still processing.) The question is not whether the image is processed - but who has the final say in how it is processed: a camera engineer, a software engineer - or the photographer

Cloning things to change the content and physical reality is fakery. Such as changing the picture to show 4 people in two boats. Or renaming the large boat something other than "Christian Muller." Or adding clouds that were not there when the shutter was fired.

But so long as one maintains the physical content as it existed in front of the lens, so as not to mislead people, restoring what the camera and lens alone could not capture adequately is generally fine.

With film, unless one shoots color slides, one is producing a negative image with the camera (and possibly one with all the color removed, with B&W film). And unless one is willing to simply show prints with the negative tones or orange backgrounds that came out of the film processor - they are being manipulated even to get a "straight" print.

Again, to overcome an artifact of the tools and materials used.

Which is all that you did, 01maciel.

 

Edited by adan
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4 hours ago, zeitz said:

I bet Ansel Adams used red filters now and then.

"...it came to Adams that the finished print might more closely match his sense of the emotional power of the experience if he revised the tonal relationships of the picture by exposing his negative through a red filter, which would deepen the sky almost to black. Adams remembered the occasion because he had, for the first time, consciously applied a specific technical solution to an aesthetic problem. He used the red filter not by rote, or because dark skies were good, but because a dark sky was neccessary for the picture he envisioned.".

Discussing Adams' thought process as he was about to capture the scene now known as "Monolith; the Face of Half Dome"; transcribed by John Szarkowski - from p76 in Adams' autobiography - in the text of the aforementioned "Ansel Adams at 100".

Philip.

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Philip, last year I had the privilege of taking a workshop in Santa Fe with Alan Ross who is mentioned in Adams' autobiography and has been printing Adams' negatives for years.  He still does the Adams' special edition prints, using masks so that every print he makes has the same dodging and burning.  Alan is a Photoshop expert and the dodge/burn tool is still a main tool for him.  Alan is quite a gentleman and is always available to help teach.

I wish when I'm quoted the whole quote would be used.  I don't like being edited.  I was not speculating whether Adams' used red filters or not.  I was trying to point out that Adams' used tools to create the image that he had in his mind "through his mental glasses" as opposed to what a simple negative exposure at base ISO and with the developer manufacturer's published development times would achieve.

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34 minutes ago, zeitz said:

Philip, last year I had the privilege of taking a workshop in Santa Fe with Alan Ross who is mentioned in Adams' autobiography and has been printing Adams' negatives for years.  He still does the Adams' special edition prints, using masks so that every print he makes has the same dodging and burning.  Alan is a Photoshop expert and the dodge/burn tool is still a main tool for him.  Alan is quite a gentleman and is always available to help teach.

I wish when I'm quoted the whole quote would be used.  I don't like being edited.  I was not speculating whether Adams' used red filters or not.  I was trying to point out that Adams' used tools to create the image that he had in his mind "through his mental glasses" as opposed to what a simple negative exposure at base ISO and with the developer manufacturer's published development times would achieve.

In which case I would very much like to offer you an apology for editing-out part of your post, zeitz, and assure you that no offence was intended. My desire was more to underline the truth regarding what you had written and certainly not to undermine your comments. I merely wished to make an apposite reply to the question asked in the OP.

To put some flesh on the bones of my earlier post I've just pulled out my copy of 'Ansel Adams : An Autobiography' and the experience described by Mr. Szarkowski is related in far more detail in the original text (as one might imagine). For anyone here who might be interested but who don't have a copy of the appropriate volume to hand here's the gist; Adams made two exposures when he was at the spot; one made with a K2 yellow filter and the other - the 'famous' one - with a deep red "#Wratten 29(F)". Plates on pages 76 and 77 show prints made from each negative. Whereas the sky in the well-known image is, effectively near-black in the main, the sky in the first plate exposed is, perhaps, 18% - 25% grey at most. Interesting to see them both published side-by-side.

Philip.

 

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57 minutes ago, pippy said:

In which case I would very much like to offer you an apology for editing-out part of your post, zeitz, and assure you that no offence was intended. My desire was more to underline the truth regarding what you had written and certainly not to undermine your comments. I merely wished to make an apposite reply to the question asked in the OP.

To put some flesh on the bones of my earlier post I've just pulled out my copy of 'Ansel Adams : An Autobiography' and the experience described by Mr. Szarkowski is related in far more detail in the original text (as one might imagine). For anyone here who might be interested but who don't have a copy of the appropriate volume to hand here's the gist; Adams made two exposures when he was at the spot; one made with a K2 yellow filter and the other - the 'famous' one - with a deep red "#Wratten 29(F)". Plates on pages 76 and 77 show prints made from each negative. Whereas the sky in the well-known image is, effectively near-black in the main, the sky in the first plate exposed is, perhaps, 18% - 25% grey at most. Interesting to see them both published side-by-side.

Philip.

 

Adams wrote and spoke freely about techniques employed and circumstances involved in the making of his photos.  The book, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, is but one and includes this and other well known works.

https://www.amazon.com/Examples-Making-Photographs-Ansel-Adams/dp/082121750X

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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3 hours ago, Jeff S said:

Adams reinterpreted the printing, as shown here over a 34 year period, continually introducing more contrast and drama.

https://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/exhibitions/anseladams/arrington/arrington_adams.html

I prefer the earlier renderings.  The latter versions are generally preferred by the average viewer.
 

Jeff

In a interview Ansel Adams was excited of the future of photography and how his negatives would be reinterpreted in the darkroom (digitally)

https://youtu.be/rdCq-1MJmHw

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