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Exactly what constitutes a photograph is one of the big discussions that permeates photography. On one end of the scale there are the purists who claim that nothing should be done to a photograph after the exposure and then there are those who believe that any amount of alteration after the fact is fair game. The majority of photographers probably fall somewhere between these two extremes; I do not know many photographers who raise objections to sharpening, color adjustments or altering contrast or, on the other hand, who would call a collage of different images assembled in a software application a photograph. Personally, I don’t care that much but I am interested in the reasons as to why many photographers, especially the ones that I admire, do care passionately. Allied to this I am very interested in the history of this particular debate which seems to get little coverage despite the fact that it has defined photography aesthetics.
Artistic movements tend to be extensions of or reactions to both previous movements and/or society at large and photography is no different. Originally photography tried to imitate the appearance of paintings at the time with various tricks and processes being used to soften backgrounds and generally sentimentalize or romanticize the image. The reaction to this aesthetic, known as Pictorialism, was something known as “Straight Photography” among other things. The idea here was to aspire to an end result that was as close to reality as possible. The blurry backgrounds and sentimental poses were out and sharp, in focus, warts and all photography was in.
One group to emerge at this changeover was something that went by the name of f.64. The name itself is a technical thing, it represents a very small aperture, or hole, through which an image is shot. The smaller the aperture the greater the depth that appears sharp. The straight photography idea represented the belated (compared to painting) introduction of modernism into photography. The group was initiated by Ansell Adams and included among its members Edward Weston and around nine others. In a nutshell the groups manifesto was to produce photographs that were as ‘true’ as possible but that still allowed for the individuals to express there own vision within that parameter.
It might be assumed that this group, if around today, would eschew Photoshop and other editing tools but I am not so sure. Adam’s own position is in fact contradictory. He claimed to want photography in its purest form yet is famous for inventing something called the zone system which pushes the darkest tone to black, the lightest tone to white regardless of whether these opposites appear in the scene or not. This effect does give a photograph a lot of impact but does seem in direct opposition to the ethos behind straight photography. I am in a minority but I suspect that I’ll always regard Adams as a pictorialist at heart but that is another story.
After modernism along came post modernism which, apart from anything else, turned the camera around and pointed it at the photographer. All bets were now off, the aestheticism and purity of modernism were swept away and everything was permitted. This, coupled with the recent introduction of digital technology made photography both cheap and instant. A perfectly capable camera can now be had for around $100 and results can now be viewed and corrected in real time. The upshot of this is that many people now take photographs who wouldn’t have in previous times, and this means that the aesthetic is now being driven by just about everyone and not by a small clique with a shared and agreed history. Photography is no longer owned by the photographers it is owned by both the much bigger visual arts community, and more importantly, just about everyone else and this makes discussion about what actually constitutes a photograph all but moot.
As you have probably gathered I have no issues with photo-manipulation. As a rule I do not do composite work or use layers to create photoshopped pieces but will use just about any global type command e.g. changing overall contrast, color balance, sharpness, noise, grain etc. This is purely a matter of preference and has no basis in any aesthetic philosophy. Here, just for fun and only very tangentially related to this piece are some photos that I have altered a lot.
9 Comments
Thanks, Steve. Of course, recent notorious photos do raise a question about enhancement…
The funny thing about the so called purists in any type of art, is that they are only showing off for their peers.
Take a guitar solo for example. The average listener has no idea how to play a guitar. So all those sweeps, Arpeggios, taping etc. are lost on them.
its the same in photography. Sure its amazing that someone can get the clarity of wall paint to come out on macro. But to the average person observing the photo they just say wtf?
Purists are are more interested in bragging rights.
I am an photographer and I get the best reactions from the content of the photo not the composition. No matter if I pulled off an amazing field of view clarity. If I wasnt taking a photo of something someone wanted to look at no one cares but other photographers.
But I do love photoshop. It doesnt make much difference whether I processed an HDR photo in the camera or on my PC. And with other more aggressive manipulations it takes great skill and knowledge to pull it off, without it looking like computer graphics from a video game.
Considering certain tools in Photoshop which alters the tonality of individual colors, AA would have, imo, embraced Photoshop. Particularly for b&w.
What is a photograph? It is a 2D presentation of a 3D world, having aesthetic considerations of it’s own, exactly like any other visual art form. My essential rule in producing a print, whether it was my previous work in the darkroom or current work in digital is that the image is to be truly looked at, and as such, has to have some sensibility that draws the viewer in as music does with sound. I once sat down at a Steinway that had been just tuned (exquisitely, I might add)and simply placed scales then runs, to test the tuning. I soon had listeners who commented on how beautifully I played them!
That’s the point. Whether I show a subject of interest or not to a viewer, I struggle to achieve that sometimes elusive quality in the print itself. An object unto itself.
Painters well understand it. Witness Picasso’s “Guernica” Highly political (which would make it offensive to a big portion of viewers) but who cannot, nevertheless, stop looking at it.
So, that’s a photograph as separate from photography, which is a process, not an object.
f64 did it’s share of trashing non-believers such as Henry Peach Robinson. Weston himself eschewed pictorialism, which comprised the early part of his career by scraping the emulsion off the early glass plates and using the glass for a window pane! (Weston wasn’t a rich man.) I used to cringe at such trashing, even as I tended to side with the f64 group. (Minor White was one of my teachers).I sided with them because I saw such manipulations destructive of the unique information gathering with which a camera is supremely capable. It takes Chuck Close hours to hand create a photo like image. Takes a photographer well less than a second. (To be honest, it obviously doesn’t stop there, even with digital. I’ve spent literally days in the darkroom over one negative.)
Not many of us probably have had the experience of seeing the series of platinum prints by Irving Penn of cigarette butts. I never knew butts picked up off the street, brought into the studio and lovingly photographed then printed on his own version of platinum could be so commanding, but there it was. Again, my perspective was confirmed. Cigarette butts, politics musical scales = beauty, in the right hands with the right tools and craft.
Photoshop is currently my tool.
Heh!
I paint from photos and I alter them any way I like. Why not? They’re just studies as far as I’m concerned. The purists are to anal about photography. The brain itself alters them. “Photoshop is currently my tool.” Ahem to that.
Photo forensics:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/farid-photography.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/hany-farid.html
Love your photos, Steve.
Photographs, movie frames, mental images and literary descriptions are all representations of bits of the world. These representations are not the objects represented. They are different, partial and finite whereas the object represented is a singular totality that permit an infinity of different representations.
It’s thus a matter of personal preference and artistic intent when a photographer uses Photoshop to alter the original information that makes up a photograph. That original information was a mere representation of an object or objects as captured by someone using a camera. A common photograph of an individual contains no greater or lesser truth content than an X-Ray or CAT scan of that individual.
When it comes to creating an art work, it may be the only thing we have control over, in our lives. For a beginner I advise looking at the blank canvas or the computer screen and trying everything, do what pleases YOU. Experiment, wallow in it like a drunk in a liquor cabinet. Forget the critics and the rules for a moment. Then come back and refine and critique your own work and when you are fairly satisfied, show it to your peers. Sooner or later, a pattern or style will develop but don’t be stuck with that either, if you want to take another track, go ahead. After more experience I believe we should go back to that space that we were in at the beginning, recapture that initial enthusiasm and combine it with all that we have learned.
As for manipulating photos I think the finished product tells the story. Some images cry out for enhancement, some for b/w, no colour. My son recently clicked auto-enhance in Aperture on all his images and his insructor could tell. Steve, your photos are individually processed according to the subject. I like them all. Your genre of urban grit is one of my favourites but beyond that I like how the different emphasis in each one.