6 ms·

There should be no issue with compositing - photography itself is Art, choosing a smaller or larger aperture or shutter speed changes the image just like Photos

by w0m 9y ago

There should be no issue with compositing - photography itself is Art, choosing a smaller or larger aperture or shutter speed changes the image just like Photoshop - no reason to draw arbitrary lines. Now, being clear about what* creative choices you made - that should be key and common sense as some publications/contests/etc have limits on what alterations they allow (Re: No compositing of a war photo on the cover of Time as an example). Simply forcing photographers to provide their XMP sidecar (or equivalent) should be enough for validation IMO, I'm surprised such a standard for submission doesn't exist yet. I can't think of a workflow that wouldn't be possible in outside of crappy iphonography, and even there it should be eminently traceable.

ghaff 9y ago
>some publications/contests/etc have limits on what alterations they allow In general, news outlets have very strict policies about manipulation of editorial photos. Some limited adjustment of exposure and contrast is OK but the removal of even irrelevant background detail to make the photo look better is pretty much verboten.
pmlnr 9y ago
Photography is taking a picture of a real thing. Art is whatever you want it to be. There were magnificent photographers, playing with light, distance, distortion, creating images in the camera, an image that was, at that point, a reality. This is what photography should be. Compositing, image manipulation, retouching - sure, do it, no problem. Just don't call it photography, and definitely don't deny it.
- rimliu 9y ago
  Why not call it photography if it is photography? Many paintings are also depictions of real things. Art is art, no matter the tools. Or are we not allowed to call black and white photograpy photography, because real things have colors? We all see the different reality anyway (think about color blind people, etc.). The aim of the photographer is not to show the world how it is (which is not really possible), but how they see it or want you to see it.
  - pmlnr 9y ago
    Reality is different - in the heads, for certain. What I'm saying, that in my read, photography is capturing something, that, for at least a brief second, existed in the physical reality, as it was.
    - igouy 9y ago
      > … in my read, photography is … Perhaps Photography has always included much more: "Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop" https://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22faking+it%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifvqa-rY_ZAhUKsFQKHSpBBCMQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%22faking%20it%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&printsec=fron...
- dingaling 9y ago
  > an image that was, at that point, a reality. Then they got to work in the darkroom. There were as many tricks in the darkroom as there are filters in Photoshop. Perhaps it's because the current generations of digital-only photographers don't realise so that they think old-school photography was absolutely 'honest'. For great example, search for the famous 'Concorde eclipse' photo. It was a 1974 composite of two original but separate photos.
- arbitrage 9y ago
  You really should take a history of photography course. Your view of the field is highly structuralist and cramped.
- foobarrio 9y ago
  How do you feel other manipulations other than compositing? What about Ansel Adam's photographs? His photographs have extensive manipulations in the dark room. He dedicated an entire book to such techniques equally important as the camera part. The "no retouching ever" seems to come from people who shoot color positive film. For this style of photography whether it 35mm fashion photography in the 80's or large format landscapes, the color positive slide is the final output. There are not many manipulations that can be done. The image is meant to be viewed projected directly from said slide. However the choice of film greatly changes the look of the image (eg Velvia vs Kodachrome). However extensive manipulation of B&W photos has been around for decades.
  - snowwrestler 9y ago
    I think part of the challenge is defining the words we're using. "Retouching" is not what Ansel Adams called his darkroom work. In my experience, retouching usually refers to removing or reshaping elements of a photograph (usually a portrait) to make the subject look more appealing. In a portrait this might be removing blemishes, smoothing out visible skin pores, removing blood vessels from the sclera of the eye, shifting outlines to make a person look thinner, etc. In a landscape it might mean removing telephone lines from a corner, flipping a mountain, adding or changing a moon, etc. I think these things are generally not OK, and definitely not OK to hide (pretending the photo was "out of the camera"). Granted, there are certain areas where it is so common (like fashion magazine covers) that complaining about it is like shouting at the tides. But there are other areas, like natural landscapes, where the fight is worth it IMO. Ansel Adams referred to his work as printing... the aesthetic choices were just part of the printing process. Occasionally they did stray into the realm of retouching; in one photo he burned a hillside unnaturally dark to hide graffiti from a local school. But in most cases he was adjusting tonality, not hiding or removing elements of the photos themselves. And it's important to recognize in Adams the challenge of capturing the negative in the first place. Perhaps his most famous print is "Moonrise, Hernandez, NM", and in Examples he talks about using his knowledge of luminance values to realize that he could retain detail in both the foreground and the moon in a single negative. Yes he liked to burn the sky when he printed that image, but it's certainly arguable that that was an interpretation of what he captured in a single negative. I think we would feel differently about that photograph if it came out later that he pasted the moon from a different negative into a boring shot of a cemetery. Finally, I agree with you that the film context matters. Personally, I am less tolerant of post-processing adjustments to color positive landscapes than I am to black and white landscapes, because of the practice and traditions of so many color-positive landscape masters to "finish the shot in the camera." Photoshopping the saturation of an average sunset into "WOW alpenglow" values is gross to me; there was a time when the only way to get those sunset colors was actually to be in the high alpine terrain at the right time. Those early photographers created the value of such an image by showing phenomena and places that most people had never seen. Late Photoshoppers are just riding that perception of value.
- igouy 9y ago
  > … a picture of a real thing … Here's what that's called -- http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/documentary-photography http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/documentary-photograp...
- w0m 9y ago
  Take your camera, set the shutter to 2 seconds on a tripod. After 1s, spin the camera. If you setup exposure correctly, you'll end up with a photograph with a sharp subject from the first 2s, and an ephemeral blur from the movement from the second second of the single photo. By your definition that's a photography, but doing anything in post production isn't 'photography'. The point is that photography in general is an art that the artist (photographer) massively controls, the photographers vision of the moment. Whether you do it fully in camera or in post production is somewhat irrelevant as it's the same thing. Restrictions on how that photograph is used should be clear though (no compositing in journalistic photography as an example).

by w0m 9y ago

ghaff 9y ago

>some publications/contests/etc have limits on what alterations they allow In general, news outlets have very strict policies about manipulation of editorial photos. Some limited adjustment of exposure and contrast is OK but the removal of even irrelevant background detail to make the photo look better is pretty much verboten.

pmlnr 9y ago

Photography is taking a picture of a real thing. Art is whatever you want it to be. There were magnificent photographers, playing with light, distance, distortion, creating images in the camera, an image that was, at that point, a reality. This is what photography should be. Compositing, image manipulation, retouching - sure, do it, no problem. Just don't call it photography, and definitely don't deny it.

rimliu 9y ago
Why not call it photography if it is photography? Many paintings are also depictions of real things. Art is art, no matter the tools. Or are we not allowed to call black and white photograpy photography, because real things have colors? We all see the different reality anyway (think about color blind people, etc.). The aim of the photographer is not to show the world how it is (which is not really possible), but how they see it or want you to see it.
- pmlnr 9y ago
  Reality is different - in the heads, for certain. What I'm saying, that in my read, photography is capturing something, that, for at least a brief second, existed in the physical reality, as it was.
  - igouy 9y ago
    > … in my read, photography is … Perhaps Photography has always included much more: "Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop" https://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22faking+it%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifvqa-rY_ZAhUKsFQKHSpBBCMQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=%22faking%20it%22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&printsec=fron...
dingaling 9y ago
> an image that was, at that point, a reality. Then they got to work in the darkroom. There were as many tricks in the darkroom as there are filters in Photoshop. Perhaps it's because the current generations of digital-only photographers don't realise so that they think old-school photography was absolutely 'honest'. For great example, search for the famous 'Concorde eclipse' photo. It was a 1974 composite of two original but separate photos.
arbitrage 9y ago
You really should take a history of photography course. Your view of the field is highly structuralist and cramped.
foobarrio 9y ago
How do you feel other manipulations other than compositing? What about Ansel Adam's photographs? His photographs have extensive manipulations in the dark room. He dedicated an entire book to such techniques equally important as the camera part. The "no retouching ever" seems to come from people who shoot color positive film. For this style of photography whether it 35mm fashion photography in the 80's or large format landscapes, the color positive slide is the final output. There are not many manipulations that can be done. The image is meant to be viewed projected directly from said slide. However the choice of film greatly changes the look of the image (eg Velvia vs Kodachrome). However extensive manipulation of B&W photos has been around for decades.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  I think part of the challenge is defining the words we're using. "Retouching" is not what Ansel Adams called his darkroom work. In my experience, retouching usually refers to removing or reshaping elements of a photograph (usually a portrait) to make the subject look more appealing. In a portrait this might be removing blemishes, smoothing out visible skin pores, removing blood vessels from the sclera of the eye, shifting outlines to make a person look thinner, etc. In a landscape it might mean removing telephone lines from a corner, flipping a mountain, adding or changing a moon, etc. I think these things are generally not OK, and definitely not OK to hide (pretending the photo was "out of the camera"). Granted, there are certain areas where it is so common (like fashion magazine covers) that complaining about it is like shouting at the tides. But there are other areas, like natural landscapes, where the fight is worth it IMO. Ansel Adams referred to his work as printing... the aesthetic choices were just part of the printing process. Occasionally they did stray into the realm of retouching; in one photo he burned a hillside unnaturally dark to hide graffiti from a local school. But in most cases he was adjusting tonality, not hiding or removing elements of the photos themselves. And it's important to recognize in Adams the challenge of capturing the negative in the first place. Perhaps his most famous print is "Moonrise, Hernandez, NM", and in Examples he talks about using his knowledge of luminance values to realize that he could retain detail in both the foreground and the moon in a single negative. Yes he liked to burn the sky when he printed that image, but it's certainly arguable that that was an interpretation of what he captured in a single negative. I think we would feel differently about that photograph if it came out later that he pasted the moon from a different negative into a boring shot of a cemetery. Finally, I agree with you that the film context matters. Personally, I am less tolerant of post-processing adjustments to color positive landscapes than I am to black and white landscapes, because of the practice and traditions of so many color-positive landscape masters to "finish the shot in the camera." Photoshopping the saturation of an average sunset into "WOW alpenglow" values is gross to me; there was a time when the only way to get those sunset colors was actually to be in the high alpine terrain at the right time. Those early photographers created the value of such an image by showing phenomena and places that most people had never seen. Late Photoshoppers are just riding that perception of value.
igouy 9y ago
> … a picture of a real thing … Here's what that's called -- http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/documentary-photography http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/documentary-photograp...
w0m 9y ago
Take your camera, set the shutter to 2 seconds on a tripod. After 1s, spin the camera. If you setup exposure correctly, you'll end up with a photograph with a sharp subject from the first 2s, and an ephemeral blur from the movement from the second second of the single photo. By your definition that's a photography, but doing anything in post production isn't 'photography'. The point is that photography in general is an art that the artist (photographer) massively controls, the photographers vision of the moment. Whether you do it fully in camera or in post production is somewhat irrelevant as it's the same thing. Restrictions on how that photograph is used should be clear though (no compositing in journalistic photography as an example).