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03-22-2009, 01:15 PM   #1
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Photography Philosophy?

I have been thinking about what I want from my photographs a lot lately. As I look at different photography sites, I see a lot of fairly intense photoshopping. Whether it is bumping up the saturation vigorously on landscape photos, adding significant glow to portraits, or just air brushing all of the texture off a child's skin.

It seems to me that there are two philosophies of photography. One is to capture a glimpse of reality -- basically as it is. The other is to try to make your photograph into some "ideal" version of reality -- even if it looks like nothing earthly.

I do some mild photoshopping to the pics of my kids -- take out blemishes, fix snotty noses, but I really want to remember them as they are and in the same way, I want to see places as they really existed.

So, what is your philosophy of photography?

03-22-2009, 01:37 PM   #2
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I tend to think that the only type of photography that should NOT be altered is journalistic photography. Everything else is fair game. But that's not to say I prefer highly altered, unnatural images. I'm mainly a landscape photographer and I guess I'd say my overall philosophy is to find natural wonders, not digital wonders. Of course I want to have images that make people say "wow," but I want that sentence to be finished with something along the lines of "I didn't know such beauty existed in real life." To me that just seems so much more powerful than "what software did you use to make that?"

With that in mind, I will alter images, but only the basics. Contrast, saturation, exposure, some dodging and burning. If there happens to be something distracting (and usually man-made) in the shot I might clone it out (say if there's a piece of trash in the foreground), but that's about as far as I'll go. I'm not a big fan of people cloning IN objects, like adding dramatic clouds from a different photo into another photo with a bland sky. Granted it's all still natural, but it takes away the wonder of nature in some way. For me at least.
03-22-2009, 01:57 PM   #3
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
I have been thinking about what I want from my photographs a lot lately. As I look at different photography sites, I see a lot of fairly intense photoshopping. Whether it is bumping up the saturation vigorously on landscape photos, adding significant glow to portraits, or just air brushing all of the texture off a child's skin.

It seems to me that there are two philosophies of photography. One is to capture a glimpse of reality -- basically as it is. The other is to try to make your photograph into some "ideal" version of reality -- even if it looks like nothing earthly.

I do some mild photoshopping to the pics of my kids -- take out blemishes, fix snotty noses, but I really want to remember them as they are and in the same way, I want to see places as they really existed.

So, what is your philosophy of photography?
Photoshop is just an electronic darkroom.

From what I read and what my daughter tells me, lots of film photographers alter their images in the developing and printing process in order to print the artistic image they envisioned - she says frequently intentionally planned in advance.

I suppose Photoshop allows us to be a bit sloppy, since we can "fix that later in PS," but I'd bet photographers did the same thing in wet-photography days.
03-22-2009, 01:57 PM   #4
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Sometimes, I look at pictures and ask myself: Is he a good photographer or a good photoshopper? I think there are a lot more good photoshoppers than good photographers. When I see a good photo that hasn't been photoshopped to death, then I know the guy who took the picture is a good photographer. It doesn't mean photoshop doesn't have a place in photography, but I think I'm a photographer, not a photoshopper.

03-22-2009, 02:01 PM   #5
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Record the moment with or without PP, they go hand in hand imo especially if you're going to post them online for show.
03-22-2009, 02:03 PM   #6
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When I take what I think is a really fantastic shot, sometimes I'll leave it alone and sometimes I'll PS it just to see what weird stuff can come about through filters and effects. I'll always leave the original alone regardless of whether it's good or not. If it really stinks, PS may help. I like to look at failures and analyze them to become better (ie what could I have done to improve this shot).
03-22-2009, 02:08 PM   #7
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See below.

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03-22-2009, 04:27 PM   #8
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I do as little post processing as I can. I really do believe that digital photography and Photoshop is leading to an overall lowering of photographic skills.
It is too easy to just "fix it in Photoshop" and too many pictures are being taken with little or no thought to the end result.
What I find really disturbing is the number of people who will spend a half hour or more in post processing to fix something that would have taken a half minute to correct at the time the picture was taken.
Penny wise, Pound foolish.

There is of course, the school of Photoshop as art, and I have no problems with highly manipulated images if the intent was to impose a particular look on the image after the fact.
The extremely tone mapped HDR images are an example.
I actually quite like them.
But they aren't photography anymore, they are digital graphic arts.

Photoshop is far more than an electronic darkroom. The big practical difference is that the wet darkroom doesn't have a history tool, so mistakes are time consuming and costly.
The wet darkroom worker is pretty much limited to contrast control, and dodging and burning unless he or she is a very advanced worker.

Fixing images in the darkroom is much more limited than what can be done in the computer.

Good photographers envision what the finished print will look like before they push the button and will plan their image accordingly.
This is a far different approach from opening a failure in Photoshop and trying to salvage something from it, generally with less than successful results.
03-22-2009, 05:06 PM   #9
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QuoteOriginally posted by flyer Quote
When I see a good photo that hasn't been photoshopped to death, then I know the guy who took the picture is a good photographer.
...or you're seeing a REALLY good photoshopper...
03-22-2009, 05:48 PM   #10
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Say what you will about Ansel Adams but I think he summed things up nicely when he said:
QuoteQuote:
A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.
Also:
QuoteQuote:
In my mind's eye, I visualize how a particular... sight and feeling will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.
I "see" a shot through my view finder as I'm taking it. Post processing is often required to acheive that vision. Other times I'm surprised at what turns out. For me, that's the magic of photography.
03-22-2009, 05:55 PM   #11
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Why sweat what other photographers/artists do?

Do or don't do post-processing as you desire and don't worry about what others do.

Also, as Sean pointed out, if the guy is good then you'll never know and when you can tell it's been shopped then either he wasn't very good at it or he intended it to be obvious.

Mike
03-22-2009, 06:38 PM   #12
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Cool, you gave me a reason to post this:-).
I was farting around shooting out my backdoor when this guy snuck under the fence. He'll walk all over the car leaving his dirty footprints up the hood. He poops in my yard, something Spike considers a delicacy (why, I mean WHY?). The original pic is underexposed down where he's at and has nothing going for it........except that I SHOT the durn cat, lol. So I cropped the heck out of it and played with the adjustment brushes in Lightroom 2 and came up with this masterpiece!



My aunt was a gorgeous woman and when she'd come to visit us when I was a little kid she wouldn't go out of the house till she was looking good. I know what you mean about over processing but if you're gonna show your picture it deserves to look good when it leaves the house:-).
03-22-2009, 06:56 PM   #13
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I didn't really mention HDR in my initial post, but it certainly can fit the bill. There is subtle HDR that is designed to bring out the dynamic range of a photo and then there is the kind that hits you over the head -- almost looks like something out of an animated flick. There is something in me that doesn't like those photos.

I'm not meaning to be critical. There are photos on PPG that I love and others that just make say "huh?" But, those ones that I don't connect with, the next ten guys may love. I guess that's why there are as many styles of art as there are.
03-22-2009, 06:57 PM   #14
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QuoteOriginally posted by Rondec Quote
I have been thinking about what I want from my photographs a lot lately. As I look at different photography sites, I see a lot of fairly intense photoshopping. Whether it is bumping up the saturation vigorously on landscape photos, adding significant glow to portraits, or just air brushing all of the texture off a child's skin.

It seems to me that there are two philosophies of photography. One is to capture a glimpse of reality -- basically as it is. The other is to try to make your photograph into some "ideal" version of reality -- even if it looks like nothing earthly.

I do some mild photoshopping to the pics of my kids -- take out blemishes, fix snotty noses, but I really want to remember them as they are and in the same way, I want to see places as they really existed.

So, what is your philosophy of photography?
There is no such thing as an absolute "reality" only the vision you see and the vision you want to convey through the photograph. Cameras have severe limitations when trying to capture high dynamic ranges, they distort perspective, they desaturate colours in flat light, they do all sorts of things that our brains dont so, hence its nearly always impossible to reproduce a scene effectively with a camera alone.

Ansell Adams had a similar view. He exposed for shadows and developed for highlights, and used a lot of sharpening, dodging, burning and other techniques to recreate what he wanted to convey. His exposure technique made sure that the negative contained as much information as it could before he started on the second part of his creative process. But the point was, he knew what he wanted to achieve before he even pressed the shutter and he regarded the exposure, developing and printing as integral parts of the process.

If you know what a camera will do with a given scene, you can deliberately expose with a view to overcoming the cameras limitations in photoshop, provided they are within the bounds of your ability. In fact I would go as far as saying you cannot produce a convincing landscape picture (especially in hard or flat light) unless you understand how to do this. With digital, you have to expose for the highlights because under-developing is not an option but the principle is the same.

True, there are people who take this further to deliberately create fantasy scapes and this is fine, if you like that sort of thing - though its more graphic art than photography to me and its not really my thing.

However I do take exception to the practice of "faking it" in other words adding in a fake sky or superimposing something into a scene that wasnt there and trying to pass it of as reality. It seldom looks all that convincing.

Nor do I believe you can actually rescue a bad shot from a poor raw file or JPG. A bad shot will still look bad, and probably look manipulated too. By the same token you can ruin a perfectly good shot by overdoing the PP or simply not understanding how to achieve a realistic result.
03-22-2009, 07:04 PM   #15
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I never understand the purists. Photography is an art form, and being able to alter reality is part of that artistic magic. But I come from a fashion background and am required to have a "style" to my photography so that it "pops". At the end of the day, if we can make it more beautiful it will sell better haha. I guess I just carry that mentality over to most of my images.
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