holmes Posted September 1, 2006 Share #1 Posted September 1, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) Finally had a chance to read my latest LFI ( English ). The editors column discussed the work of this year's Oscar Barnark award. Very nice layout. The winner was on an assignment for AP and using digital. He, the winner, went on to say he next wanted to do a story with his Leica 'M.'Instead of cash he opted for a Leica M digital when released. Further down was mentioned a discussion that took place on the Leica forum (German) in which Leica took part. It was reference the B & W darkroom in your digital camera or Photoshop, etc. It was at that point I remembered from just a couple of weeks ago that a freelancer in Beirut, working for the BBC decided his photos needed extra umph. I wonder how many photos do we see that have had a little, or a lot, of extra umph to make them more attractive to photo editors? That is one of the lures of digital. Most of my shooting has been color positive in both 35 mm and medium format. That film is very unforgiving. Ever since digital appeared on the scene, my first thought was about image manipulation or image enhancement. I should also have thought of 'integrity'. An excellent article in the same issue in the making of paladium prints in a real darkroom. Just my thoughts on digital and its problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 1, 2006 Posted September 1, 2006 Hi holmes, Take a look here Digital vs Film, Integrity. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
vic vic Posted September 1, 2006 Share #2 Posted September 1, 2006 dave - take a look at my thread - "m8 or technorama 612". im just "getting mad" with this "dilema". i love the film much more. but from the other hand the speed and convinience of digital for pro work is tempting as well. manipulation???? do u think it is a big problem to scan your slide and then starting manipulating??? film is just different photography - u have to work with it to realize how much. i have tasted a little the high end digital stuff too, well - cool, really cool at what it can get. the new backs - 22 and 39 and even the imacon 16 are simply amazing. within the size limit, they can compete with film quality technically (i mean medium format not large). but film has a very different character to it. even the slides, not to mention the true black and white, full darkroom process. my heart clearly goes with film, i wil see soon what will be my conclusion. one thing is for sure... no meanings at all to abendom the traditional black and white. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicapfile Posted September 1, 2006 Share #3 Posted September 1, 2006 No different than CDs vs. Wax in the audio world. Can you spot the digital versus film movies at the theater?. Digital will continue to improve. But match film in the way it looks? Someday perhaps, but not yet. Jerry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
reddawn Posted September 1, 2006 Share #4 Posted September 1, 2006 That depends on what u mean by manipulation. This is a never ending argument and debate best solved by declaring and sticking to one's convictions, and accepting the fact that others may have a different opinion. All great black and white photographers have been "manipulating" their photos for that extra "ommph". Ansel Adams is probably the greatest manipulator of them all. For that extra "ommph", he was willing to invest time and energy in his darkroom to get the best possible print. If I pick up a digital camera today, shot the exact same scene, go back to Photoshop, convert the image to black and white, and perform the necessary curves, dodging and burning, unsharp masking etc etc to achieve the same look, why am I then considered a "liar", when Ansel Adams would probably be the greatest "liar" of them all? The fact that digital allows me to do it easily compared to actual darkroom processes doesn't count in this argument. A manipulation is a manipulation. So what exactly is "manipulation"? Do simple dodge and burn, curves, levels, unsharp masking, sharpening etc count as legitimate processes? In my opinion, yes, because these same processes are also available in the traditional darkroom. Am I then lying to the viewer of the photograph? This is a more difficult question to answer. Since the viewer, if he / she goes to the actual landscape, will never see the landscape in black and white, let alone in so many glorious shades. So my picture is never an actual representation of reality, whatever "reality" is. A fine art photographer will claim such a work to be a piece of art, invoking deep emotions in the viewer. More bragging rights if shot with film, AND Leica A photojournalist might run into problems with his editor back at the paper. So who is right? Again, I feel that as long as one is not adding extra stuff or taking away objects from the original captured image, one is not considered "manipulating". (That is admittedly a simplistic view ignoring the issue of cropping AFTER picture taking...) In the reuters story, the Lebanese photographer is obviously guilty to me because he ADDED things that were NOT in the original scene, eg extra smoke, extra buildings. So that's a very clear case of "manipulation", with a possible intent to change the emotions invoked in viewers for political gain... Seen from this angle, then digital photography is as valid a medium for photojournalism (or any other forms of photography) as film photography. It all boils down to integrity of the photographer. It has nothing to do with the medium. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandokan Posted September 1, 2006 Share #5 Posted September 1, 2006 Actually the photographer and editor in question should have been fired for stupidity not for manipulating the image - his changes were so obvious they should have been picked up before publication! I agree that manipulation has always and will always take place (even pre-digital I remember a UK newspaper getting into trouble for adding things that were not there) - but the changes should not change the original scene (I take out the word "fact" as there is no such thing). Enhancement to use technology to show what was visible to a person there, is IMHO acceptable Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vic vic Posted September 1, 2006 Share #6 Posted September 1, 2006 im very much with the opinion of reddawn and bindrar about the integrity of photographer. i do have my clear opinion about this, but i save it to my own works. talking in general about manipulation is rather more complex as u all know. from one hand, ansel adams work is artistsism, or craftmenship rather laying. so is irving penns platinum printts etc etc, and so is cartier-brresson (no manipulated photos by anyway, unlike penn's executive stylism). so lets take fashion for example... why call dreamy, stylized photos artistsism and the photos with extra retouchments call lie???? we can say that a photographer dreams and wishes this kind of woman wether we like it or not. so arguments can go in either direction, indeed. in practice, the philosophical argumentations stop in the place where something becomes a norm. today it is quite a norm that in majority of fashion shots there are extra retouchments. i am on the oposed side here, in my works for example no retouchments or very minor if at all. but im not in the realm of norm partly becasue of this. but one thing is clear, we do find something wrong in extra retouchments - with arguments or without - we just feel, and intuition, that something is wrong about it. for me i call it, dignity of photography. will this or any similar approach to photography will become a norm in broad sense - it depends on how many people in key position will follow those different norms. that includes photographers, editors, managers, and almost all creative stuff. with lebanon case, well the story is a little eassier than with fashion example. it is simply wrong and nproffessional. not because im israely, and israely airforces become bad gyus here, but because of basic journalistic values. it is not that u tell the story artistically as if u r oskar wile or o'henry or jack london, it is simply lei by the matter of fact. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stnami Posted September 1, 2006 Share #7 Posted September 1, 2006 Advertisement (gone after registration) You gotta be kidding or a head full of rocks to open the Film/Digital and Integrity caper. I would have thought most people have got over with it by now. ,,maybe it is just a childish prank...... my dog's more real than your dog as mine looks like a wolf....shhheeeeeeshk Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
waileong Posted September 1, 2006 Share #8 Posted September 1, 2006 Didn't the Supreme Court have something to say about porn, to the effect that you know it when you see it? Manipulation is like that too. There is a fine line between dodging and burning and hiding or changing key subject matter or background info, but you ought to know when you've crossed the line. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
frc Posted September 1, 2006 Share #9 Posted September 1, 2006 The ethical discussion again. Kramer vs Kramer. Digital vs tunafish. Tool vs user. Person one drives a Porsche 911. Person two drives a Lada. Both persons obey the trafficrules. Person one uses a dslr. Person two uses an M3. Person one loads his file onto the computer and goes straight to the printmenu. Person two dodges, burns, crops and more. Who is the manipulator? Albert Einstein said: Make things as simple as possible but not more simple than they are. Ethics in photography isn't on a similar level of difficulty as quantum physics. The tools vast possibilities should not distract the user from his goal. Going to visit your old mother is done by making use of the worldwide web of asphalt. Leaving home you can end up in Timbuktu. ( OK some mothers live there ) Still, except people strugling with an acute midlifecrisis, nobody complains about the multitude of directions possible. ,,Hi mom, here we are.'' On the other hand if you planed to travel the world and do not live in or near Timbuktu it may well be a nice place to visit. A photographer must know his photographic goal equally well as the road leading to his mothers home. Limiting yourself to the essentials for your application is only a problem if you're consumentaristicaly lured by the abundance of gadgeds ( to call tools for the just use ) your Photo-shopwindow displays you. Like a Porsche driver with decency an selfdicipine you, still calling yourself a photographer, can open PS2 and choose to use or neglect any tool of your choice. Why does this trivial item keeps on popping up, it's all so clear. Or am I seeing things to simple. Fr. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haris Posted September 1, 2006 Share #10 Posted September 1, 2006 When this question appears from time to time I am allways surprised. Sooner or later this question turn out in another difital/film debate, and what surprise me mostly is that in this question most important thing is allways forgotten. Or intentionally nobody wants to admit it. And that is human nature. Digital didn't invented image manipulation but made it much more easier than film. And human nature is like: "I can do it, so I will" We can discuss about it, but, at the end, majority is like that. So, during the time "consensus": what is allowed amount of manipulation will change (first it will be allowed to enhance colours, then add some smoke or like in scenes of burning for example, then to distort or remove or add small and insignificant part of scene, then more significant, etc...). That would be driven by market, more "striking" photos will sell papers, and manipulation will produce those "more striking photos". Integrity will be question untill sale results be presented. Than money will buy integrity. It is inevitable. Proof that I am right is human nature. I mean, if it is allowed to have 14 years girls to work in factories for 16 hours per day for half a dollar, if human nature allowe that kind of slavery, why image manipulation is less evil? It is not. And since we all know that companies who use those teenagers are companies from free and democratic world, and biggest world newspapers or agencies are also companies in free and democratic world, there is no doubt that image manipulation wll be more and more used to make profit. During time allowed amount of manipulation will be bigger... Digital made image manipulation widely avaliable and extremely easy to do, and as human nature is such that it will do what is easy and make profit, that is why digital decrease integrity. Oh, and if someone say that digital is just a tool and people don't have to use it for manipulation, integrity is with people not with technology. Just see in your life how many things you do because technology lets you to, not because you must to do them. Or, another example: Smoking is bad, using drugs is bad, drinking is bad, but millions, billions of people do that. Just because they can. So, please, human nature, integrity, it is a joke. Cynically yours. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
frc Posted September 1, 2006 Share #11 Posted September 1, 2006 Striving for a state of civilisation is a deed of integrety. My daubt about reaching this state for the masses as beeing utopian i'm afraid is justifiable. Besides i'd rather see my son manipulating images than working 14 hours a day in a factory. A reporter though changing his pictures for the sake of massmanipulation of our minds should be expelled. Best he'd find a harmless job in a factory. Working hard for 8 hours a day. Come on Haris, i'm pessimistic to. But let us be critical not cinical. Best, Fr. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
haris Posted September 1, 2006 Share #12 Posted September 1, 2006 But let us be critical not cinical. Well... People who had 20 or so years at 1968/9, raising revolution, raising ecology questions, fought for female rights (to vote for example), etc... those people are now CEO (of Nike for example (you know company for which Indonesian 14 years old girls working 16 hours per day for half dollar per day))... There is saying: "F..k man who wasn't revolutionar when had 20 years and f..k man who stayed revolutionar when he has 50 years"... I have 37 years, and all I can have seeing world today and how revolutionars of 1968/9 become CEOs of multinational companies in 1990es or 2000ths with main goal to have extraprofit and destroying people for that goal, and today population (people, workers, youth, etc..) agree with that (because I don't see significant reaction against) is cinism. Regards Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
frc Posted September 2, 2006 Share #13 Posted September 2, 2006 This is a thread abouy integrity. About photography. Lighthearted as I am ( my bike has just been stolen, it was after midnight, had to walk an hour back home, yes I know this has nothing to do with the subject ) I still beleave the analog vs digital is a mere innocent item. Bombs on Lebanon, complete devastation. Some fool thinks its nessecery to ad even more smoke. I'll light an other one. Vic's an Israely and still has nuance while looking through the middle east smokescreen. A hundredthousand megapixels ahead of us lays a world were photoshopped smoke'll make us laugh. I'm on my way, who's with me. ( take the camera along ) sincerely yours, Fr. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brucemcl Posted September 2, 2006 Share #14 Posted September 2, 2006 Most of my shooting has been color positive in both 35 mm and medium format. That film is very unforgiving. I understand what you are saying, but I'm not sure I agree completely. The choice of film can add or remove "oomph" to every exposure. Velvia comes to mind. Then there are filters that can be added as well. There are programs such as the following that try to give the "look" of various kinds of film to digital images. http://www.alienskin.com/exposure/exposure_examples.html By the way there is a free "digital velvia" photoshop action located here. Scroll up a bit on the page to find it. http://www.atncentral.com/download.htm#Sketch Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_x2004 Posted September 2, 2006 Share #15 Posted September 2, 2006 You guys have been drinking melencholy. So film moves to art. When was the last time you held sable in your fingers. It used to be just record. And you cant say it hasn't lasted the millenia Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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