My line from the height of the sharpness rage was....
There has never been any evidence that sharpness enhances the enjoyment of the viewer.
One of my favourite stories from that time.
At one point when Tess and I were in our craft sale booth, I could here her talking to a prospective customer. She was shooing a K-5 at that time I was shooting a K20. The guy picked $1,000 work of images and negotiate her down to $750. One of the images was a K20D sunset, that was very weak in the shadows. Tess was going on as tactfully as possible about how it wasn't our best image. At one point he just cut her off, and said in tone that left no room for argument. ""I want that one." He asked us to have the framing done and deliver them. He many had a huge black wall in his kitchen over looking a lake. It must ave be 20'x 20' and the wall that attached to the house was all photographs, Every local photographer was represented, some great work. He hung one of Tess' and one of mIne, for us while we were there.
This was definitely a collector. He had more in storage than he had hung, even though he probably had 20 hung. So what I take from it is, what the buying public wants is often at odds with what some photographers think is good.
There's nothin wrong with getting hung up on sharpness making photographs, or resolution etc. but the rest of the world just want what looks pleasing to them. Sharpness like anything else has to be used appropriately. The statement that a good picture that's a little soft is not as good as a sharper version of the same image is IMHO just wrong. There is no single element of photography that can be applied to guarantee a better image without reference to context and composition, sharpness is just another element, and too much sharpness can definitely ruin the mood of an image. I hate seeing people go down the "sharpness" road. It's a trap to pursue "sharpness", not "photographic excellence", and the two are not synonymous.
Sometimes I think sharpness is the crutch people who refuse to experiment with composition fall back on to try and justify how worthwhile their work is. " It has to be worth something, it's sharp." It's sad, but I can be razor sharp and worthless, or a little soft and gorgeous. This sharpness thing has gotten so out of hand, were I still teaching, I'd pick up a few old film camera and some soft glass, and make getting an acceptable image with less than stellar glass an assignment. People need to understand, it's not about buying great stuff and automatically getting great images. It's about using gear appropriate to the subject.
Last edited by normhead; 02-21-2021 at 07:47 PM.