So, let’s say you happen to be spending some time in a popular place doing photography and other things. In the course of your day you wander down to a spot that is very popular with tourists, and you discover an interesting and impressive-looking gallery of photographs. You go inside and read about the photographer – a self-described “purist” who says the photographs show the scenes as they were at the time of the exposures and don’t use fancy and artificial post-processing.
But all but a few of the photographs look like the saturation slider in Photoshop was pushed up to about 100. (OK, I exaggerate… a bit! :-) Highlights in clouds and such are blown out. Shadows are blocked. And colors are pushed in odd and impossible directions.
You understand why such an approach is appealing to folks unfamiliar with fine photographic work, especially when the presentation and pricing of the prints screams “This is Great Photography!” But you’ve seen really, really fine photographs that did not depend on heavy-handed post-processing. In fact, among the photographs in this collection you see a few that take the high road and don’t go over the top, and which remind you of some of those other fine and subtle and sophisticated prints – and which even inspire you a bit.
The artist’s statement keeps coming back to you – the business about being a “purist” and about not post-processing and about presenting in the photographs an unadulterated and real vision of the original subjects.
What do you do? Do you get mad? Do you laugh? Do you try not to think about it? Something else?
Just wondering…
BTW: A few things for the record:
- I am not criticizing any specific photographer, but rather thinking about an issue that we might all have to deal with.
- You do not know what photographer (or “popular place!”) I might be writing about – and since the specifics don’t matter I won’t confirm or deny anyone’s guesses.
- Consider the possibility that I might have just made up the whole story as a literary device for this post… :-)
Dan,
I enjoyed your observations regarding the “Purist.” As I read, I could not help recalling a certain place I visited recently, popular with tourists, where I too found an impressive gallery of images. I doubt it’s the same place :-) , but the photographer’s claims about no use of filters and no post-processing, left me shaking my head. I cannot claim to be an accomplished photographer, but I know enough to know when an image has been manipulated. Thank you for your thoughtful comments.
Sounds like we had a similar experience… :-)
To add one thing, there is one photographer whose work I respect and enjoy a great whose marketing materials tend to suggest this “I don’t manipulate” stuff. (Don’t worry, I’m positive that it is not a photographer who is a current friend of anyone reading this and I’m also positive that the photographer is not reading this – and I really do like this person’s photography a lot.) This person clearly made (wonderful and effective!) use of certain obvious filtering techniques to render (very beautiful and effective!) versions of scenes that are significantly altered by this, and this photographer’s film choices also had (a wonderful, in most cases) effect on the images that is essentially the same as that produced by manipulating color balance, saturation, and curves today in Photoshop.
One of things I wonder about when I read the “purist” and “I don’t manipulate” claims is why photographers who use these (perfectly normal and almost universally used) techniques feel the need to claim that they don’t? What is it about claiming that all you did was point the camera at the scene and record what was there – when we all know that there is much, much more to the process than that – that compels photographers to shy away from this truth?
Dan
(BTW: If any of my photographer friends are reading this and wondering, “Hey, is Dan writing about me?”… No, I’m not. ;-)
Angie, I like your concept of “photo artist” or “visual artist” – which is more all-encompassing. And thanks for reminding me about that in regard to John Paul Caponegro. There is a similar concept in certain kinds of modern “music,” in which the artist wisely skirts the divisive question of “is it really music?” by simply describing it as “sound art” or similar.
Take care,
Dan
Dear Dan,
I really don’t care who the photographer was, I just didn’t notice any quote or statement that you were actually reading a quote about their process, so that part was not clear…
If they did INDEED state that then they are being , IMHO, fraudulent and I would call it Photo Art
not True Photography in our Purist sense…
I know you know about the effects of different filters, films, whatever..
I was just making more of a point because like I said I hadn’t seen any quote or
seen a comment that you had spoken to them and inquired.
Sorry if I misread.. but I still feel my points are valid.
Like I said tho… I would call that Photo Art and NOT photography…
Even John Paul Caponegro calls himself a “Visual Artist” and not a photographer
even tho he uses photography to make his exposures prior to Post-processing…
*cheers*
As there are MANY Different photographic methods to achieve any given end product
The FIRST thing I do is to NOT “Assume” and ask if the photographer is present
OR has left any kind of hand-out explaining his process.
I have seen some REALLY Far-Out things done in the Wet Darkroom
so I know that to many, the lines of what they “think” a purist can do
can be totally stretched beyond what we think of as NORMAL.
It may not be your “normal average taste” but until I KNOW
what process the photographer “actually” used, I don’t judge.
I have seen many images with numerous items added separately that
I originally thought were PS’ed in after the fact, but after speaking with the
photog I found out that he used a 13 enlarger process and had negatives
in each and had the easels taped down and simply moved the paper
from easel to easel to expose the item he wanted to the paper and
then processed the paper…. it looked totally PS’ed to me if I had not asked him.
So ..”Beauty & Taste are in the “Eye of the Beholder”
but I with-hold any judgement about the Process until I read
what the photog wrote or I have a chance to speak with them.
You did NOT state what camera they used or mention that you
spoke to the photographer or read anything posted by them…
or quoted anything from them..
So in truth, I have NO idea what process they used.
if you left something out of your reporting method
I can not give an opinion on what facts have not been given.
Just my 2cents…for your consideration.
Angie, thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
I may not have made myself completely clear in that brief post, so let me clarify and respond a bit. I was actually responding to a dissonance between what the photographer’s posted “statement” on the wall at the gallery said and what I saw in the photographs. Part of that is in my post – the photographer in this case states that he captures what was actually there in the scene at the time the photograph was made (and here I refer not to the physical elements of the scene but to the light and color) and then does not alter this in post production. In other words this photographer made an explicit and big deal out of the claim that these photographs represented “reality.” However, I know enough about the actual locations and subjects (in many cases from personal experience shooting them) and about the effects of post-processing to know that, in fact, great alterations were made via photographic processes that “enhance” color saturation, contrast, and so forth.
Do I object to post-processing? Not at all! I almost always do it, and in few situations I do it to such an extent that the image departs significantly from “reality.” But when I do the latter I don’t then claim that I’m a purist or that “it really looked like this,” nor do I deny the use of these processes – I embrace them openly. (In fact, I have a small series of what I call “imaginary landscape” photographs in which I explore such post production techniques. Not a great example, but here is one of them. I have a series of them shot in Seattle that aren’t posted here.) So I’m perfectly OK with rather extensive post processing work – even to the point of constructing images almost entirely in post. My problem is with the obviously false claim by the artist that something entirely different took place.
Also, the particular case I’m thinking of is not exactly experimental or radical art. Quite the contrary! This work is perhaps more designed to appeal to what you referred to as the “normal average taste” than many other types of photography. In fact, I might argue that its ,primary appeal is to “normal average taste!”
I strongly agree that beauty is a relative thing, and I don’t believe I commented on the “beauty” of the work in question. (Much of it actually is rather appealing to a certain type of viewer.) To be clear, I did mention that some of the photographs were very appealing to me – you might note that I compared at least one to some of the most beautiful and subtle photographic work I’ve seen. So, this isn’t about “beauty.” It is about honesty. If an artist embraces extensive alterations to the image in the post-processing stage (which again, I don’t object to) it seems to me to be dishonest, at a minimum, to then make a big deal in your artist statement about being a purist who doesn’t engage in exactly that sort of thing – and, by the way, implying that other photographers who do are lesser artists…
Finally, you are indeed correct that I left something out of my blog post… intentionally. Since my point was not to critique a specific individual photographer, but rather to raise some questions about a common issue in photography in general, I chose to not identify the specific photographer. There is obviously no intent here on my part that you or any other reader have an opinion about the specific photographer whose work “inspired” me to write this short piece. I made a choice to not name the photographer and, in fact, I could probably have used a number of other visual artists as stand-ins for this post.
Take care,
Dan
Best thing to do is walk out. There will always be a market among the ignorati for poorly processed photography with lots of disposable income.
The best revenge is living well. I know how you feel. As I learn more about photographic prints, and how to spot good work, I see more and more crap; I’m often embarrassed by my former tastes!
Edie
Edie, your “walk out” advice is probably good. However, if I had I would have missed a chance to do a couple things worth doing:
I know what you mean about being “embarrassed by former tastes!” I think we all deal with that. It is a necessary and (almost) unavoidable side effect of doing a very good thing – continuing to grow as an artist.
Dan