Remarkable - O'Reilly Digital Media Blog (by Harold Davis):
These file versions go a long way to confirm my contention that digital photography is an entirely new medium, one part photography and one part digital manipulation. Photographers who ignore the “digital painting” aspect of this new medium do so at their own peril, as do digital technicians who ignore the need to take great photos in the first place. Those who critique the new medium based on the aesthetic of the inviolate unmanipulated negative are truly lost in this brave new world.
All I can say is -- Amen.
Back when I was shooting film, in the days B.D. (before digital), one of the arguments going on among nature photographers was "real" wildlife photography versus shots taken under controlled circumstances (i.e. in zoos or preserves).
I think the argument (which, now that I think about it, is still going on today in some places) has relevance here, because it shows up part of the conflict that can happen between what's important to the photographer (vision, intent, technique) and what's important to the viewer of the photo. If you're Art Wolfe and you spend a week tracking a pack of wolves to get a shot, only to lose a cover sale to someone who flew to Washington and hired a wolf for an afternoon at a reserve to snarl on command -- I can understand being a bit miffed. But if you're the person buying the photo, does it really matter? (answer; maybe - the answer is very different if the publication is National Geographic, Discover or Time because of the assumptions -- or lack of them -- the readers bring to viewing the photo).
Now, we're moving that same philosophical argument over to the digital space. I was a bit surprised to see there are people on flickr talking about cropping -- and flagging their photos as cropped or not cropped. I mean, seriously, I crop pretty much everything, and I did back in high school when I was developing Tri-X and printing it out, and I always will. Cropping is a basic tool for helping to improve a photo and help a viewer see your intent and vision. Which version of this photo is better?
or this?
to me, it's a no-brainer.
But this is all a slippery slope. Where do you draw the lines? What's acceptable and what's not?
Personally, I look to the history of art and painting here. Think about it -- Renoir, Dali, Miro, Picasso. Every time a movement breaks ground, people who like the old ways, or who's career is based on it, is going ot hate the new stuff. Some movements succeed, some fade and don't survive the test of time. Those in the moment generally argue about it but don't know which side will win (many times, both do...)
What's acceptable? Brightness? contrast? cropping? sharpening? Dodging and burning or using masks? color correction? color replacement? All of these are standard techniques of a "classic" or "wet" darkroom. I mean, seriously, in my senior portrait for high school, I was wearing chromed frames and the photographer thought gold would be warmer and look better (he was right) -- so he fixed it. That was 30+ years ago. Nothing new under the sun, kids.
What about HDR? Isn't that really just an automated form of some of those techniques above? Is it okay to do HDR if you do it manually, but not if you tweak buttons? And if so, why don't we hold the same standard to sharpening?
Think back to that list of artists: Renoir, Dali, Miro, Picasso. It holds the answer here: an artist (and digital photographers are artists, as were film photographers; tools and techniques vary, but the intent is the same: to generate a response in the viewer and to properly display the vision of the artist). NONE of these techniques are invalid, they are, effectively, all different schools within the discipline, and different ways for artists to create the vision and statement they're trying to make. If they connect with their viewers, that artist and their school succeeds, no matter what the other schools of thought think.
Personally, I try to stay in the "my digital photos are still photos" school. Make them the best photo they can be, but they need to be photorealistic representation of what the photographer saw that transmits the vision and emotion the photographer is sharing.
This is a problem I have with a lot of HDR photos today -- well, I have two problems. First problem is that people are running around flagging things as HDR, in a "see what I can do?" way. Like cropping, I don't think it should matter, these are geeks speaking to geeks, not to their viewers. As a viewer, I don't care HOW the photo was processed, I care whether or not it's a good photo (as a geek, if as a viewer I am curious about the technique or location, I'll ask!) -- people are still lost in the technique, not in the result.
The other, more major one, is a problem we all suffer with new techniques or as new accolytes: the belief that if some use of something is good, more of it is better. Photos aren't being done to make them great photos, but to show off HDR, and here's a lot of "see how this looks when I turn the knob to 11!" going on. It's natural, its inevitable, but it makes for photos that look to me more like shots of mars than of landscapes from this reality, and I don't for a minute believe it looks like what the photographer really saw, it's almost a parody of what they see because everything is kicked up to extremes.
Don't take that to mean that I think HDR is an appropriate or useful technique; I don't currently use it, but I expect that to change at some point. But it's being used too often ("we can, so we will"), and to extreme (process for kowabunga, not quality). A lot of that is simply people figuring out how to use the tools well; it hearkens back to the early days of desktop publishing, and the "my god, I own 50 fonts and I'm going to use them all" enthusiasm -- it generated an amazing amount of crap, but it taught us how to use the technologies and adapt traditional typography for the digital age...
And I'm not immune from the "kowabunga" factor, either. Take, for example, this shot:
which at one point was something I thought was one of my best. I now look at it, and see an over-saturated mess ("the sky must be BLUER! The forest must be REALLY GREEN!"), where I simply kept turning the knobs not to maximize quality, but to maximize the saturation. I really need to create a new edition of that photo, it's core is solid, but the details aren't...
compare that to this, same location, same time. the colors are much more natural, but it still has challenges and deserves a re-edit, too, but -- it's a much better shot because I didn't try to hit people over the head with the saturation slider...
and compare both of those to this:
same location, a year later, and actually fairly similar weather conditions, but a year's practice at shooting better (and more patiently), and a year's improvement in post-processing practice.
For me, it's not about the technique, but the final result; hence, you don't see me talking about crops or HDR, since I think those things that really aren't important, except to the photographer and a few fellow geeks. If you think about it, my mom doesn't care if a program is written in C or Java or Perl; she cares that she can read her email easily and balance her checkbook. I don't mind telling people what I did if they care, but the process is not the reason for the photo; the photo is the reason for the photo.
So you won't see those kind of disclosures on my work. The one main exception -- since I do a lot of wildlife (or more correctly, semi-wildlife, since I'm not spending weeks out in the wild doing this *grin*) photography, and I also love shooting at zoos and wildlife facilities, I try to be careful to document my "captive" photos from my "natural" ones, because in some situations, that is significant to people. But beyond that, to me it's whether or not it's a good photo, and whether or not it's an honest representation of what I saw that matters.
And no, I don't think everyone needs to -- or should -- sign up to do things the way I am doing them. Everyone needs to find their own style and voice. In fact, I've become a huge fan of Davis's low light (or in many cases, "no light") photography and the results he gets; they in no way represent a scene as he saw it, and they are not scenes as they'd be seen on a film camera (it's really a new way to use digital to envision the un-seeable). they are, however, many times stunning photos with strong emotional impact that tell a powerful story about the scene, even if it's not a scene you'd see with your own eyes.
For instance, this shot. Or this one. Wow.
There are, ultimately, many ways to skin cats. The end result is what matters, not how you skin it, right?
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