Originally posted by y0chang On how much post-processing is done, everyone has a different taste on how much editing needs to be done, and where ever that line is that takes a picture from well developed to overdone. But this argument has been since the days of the dark room.
Some photographers back in the day felt Ansel Adams photos were overedited and unrealistic. Look at the difference between the contact print and the final print.
I got to see a huge print of "Moonrise over Hernandez" at a shop in Santa Fe, NM thirty years ago. Stunning photograph. The finished image has so much depth to it.
That was Adams, for sure: I expect he had visualized what he wanted to do with that scene, that negative before he even developed it. Printing was a whole other art for Adams.
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Originally posted by arnold So it seems that we now have Post Processing Art competitions where the photo serves as a scaffolding only. I know that with digital, processing is a given, but am I the only one who finds himself reminded of "velvet paintings" in the more extreme cases?
At least with film one was limited in what one could alter, particularly with B&W, and the effects were no so obvious.Yes I know, it's personal taste.[COLOR="Silver"]
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Yes, the black sky is dramatic, but I would have preferred to see the clouds of the original.
I really don't understand why some find these images so annoyingly post-processed. Limitations in B&W? One look at that Adams print reveals otherwise. Film photographers were limited by their skills, imagination, and choices. I suppose some were limited by which drug store they dropped their film off at for developing and printing, and those same photographers would be limited by other factors in the digital realm. Luckily, Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, Minor White, Wynn Bullock, and a host of other great photographers apparently didn't live anywhere near a drug store. You can bet they wouldn't set a DSLR to shoot JPGs, either.
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Originally posted by pschlute Extreme pp will always be well, extreme and can be judged as such.
Film was no different just more cumbersome. Choosing a different film had an effect on contrast; grain; and colour. The same with paper. The great b+w photographers would spend as much time in the darkroom as they did out in the field, or would have a staff member do it for them. Film was no more a "true" medium than digital is today.
Thanks, pschlute, for a voice of reason.
I'd be tempted to say, though, that many of the great B&W photographers spent considerably more time in the darkroom than in the field. Looking at a dodge-and-burn road map or blueprint for negatives of some of the great photographs, it's easy to see how they spent so much time in the darkroom. The great ones knew what they wanted, and they knew what they had to do to get it, and many of them created extensive guidelines for others to print those negatives. That may not be the only way to achieve breath-taking art, but it's certainly a valid way--at least for photographers who know what they're doing.