f/22, 10.0 sec, ISO 100
#1
I wasn’t going to enter Project 365, but during the last minutes of 20100101 I decided to give it a shoot and quickly took this, using a lighter in a pitch black bathroom. I don’t expect to finish the 365 challenge, so make a bet for how long I’ll keep it up in the comments!
f/10, 1/60, ISO 320
#2
A palindrome picture for a palindrome date, 201001020100102.
Everything in my last post withstanding, I do process my images myself and I do post edit, I also like to consider myself somewhat of a purist.
If you’ve read my last two posts, it becomes clear that I’m not a purist in the sense that I’m against all editing, cropping and what not. I’m not. I say: Bring it on! I’m a purist in the sense that I more often prefer photographs that look natural to me. I’ll get back to what that actually means in bit.
The traditional way of looking at pure photography poses an issue right way for me:
Founded in 1932 by Group F/64 (awesome name, by the way!) described it as a type of photography defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. Now it’s more typically described as an attempt to depict a sconce as realistically and objectively as permitted by the medium, renouncing the use of manipulation.
This introduces many questions for me, many of which I’ve dealt with in this entry. Being a formalist, it isn’t in my nature to ever consider a photograph as completely objective, which doesn’t necessarily mean everything is some type of propaganda either, I don’t think it is. I do, like previously stated believe that there’s an element of choice in every picture frame, whether coincidental or not. This basically mean that to take an objective photograph one most posses the capacity to recognize perfect objectivity. I’ll bluntly throw out this statement: I don’t find that possible. Ranging into the world of philosophy here, just as perfect justice or even a perfect circle never can exist (Plato’s Phaedo, if I’m not mistaken), neither can perfect objectivity. As the definition states it aims for an attempt for objectivity, not stating perfect objectivity, I still find my feeling towards it justified, because who to say what’s objective or not. The feeling will always depend on the person’s past knowledge or things to various to mention. Like so many things in life, it will always be subject to the eye and/or mind of the beholder.
Anyway, we’re getting off track here. People rejecting image software such as Photoshop usually refer themselves to purists whereas I believe I’m a purist without feeling the need to reject postproduction in my work. And why is that? Basically I assume both purest like me and anti-Photoshop purists crave the same outcome: A photograph that looks realistic. Key word here being look. Just as I don’t believe random snap shots embodies this trait just as I don’t necessarily believe unpostprocessed images does either.
This is why I’ve come to see myself as: A different kind of purist.
What the world looks like to my cameras sensor is completely irrelevant to my actual perception of reality, and I feel that the snap shots as well as extremely well composed unedited photographs alike depend on me to alter my perception of reality, whereas the picture I consider purist doesn’t necessarily need to look natural or realistic at all to be conceived as realistic or natural in my mind. Although as a general rule, the two usual coincides more often than not, by far.
When watch something, or even just rest my eyes without thought, my brain will automatically sort through my information, steering my focus to something, or catching more details here rather than there. This is what’s natural and should in my opinion pervade into photography.
Exemplifying what ordinary naturalistic/realistic photos looks like seems rather pointless so I won’t, I will however give a few examples of pictures which are rather highly edited to actually live up to the perceived image in my mind.
I’ll exemplify this using pictures’ from Auschwitz and Auschwitz II. They make good examples because the experience was out of the ordinary. Having seen so many photographs from these two locations before, visiting gave a very apparent sense of déjà vu, and knowing the history of the place colored the experience profusely.
#1:
(Image exported without any editing (by me!) from raw to jpeg using a preset in Aperture)
(Post processed and cropped in Lightroom)
Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t consider the post processed image rather natural at all. For one, the colors are much too saturated for my taste having upped the hue of yellow and he saturation of both aqua and blue. Grass just about never looks that green and the sky is seldom that blue. Except when I was there, this is exactly how I perceived it. The colors very so incredibly vivid maybe because you usually see the site photographed in foggy gray weather or in B&W. Being there made the actual colors so real, especially this bright spring day.
The unedited photograph however is too warm at 5474 K compared to the edited at 5300 K, it’s composition also draws attention to the building on the far left, which I in reality never paid attention to (had I, I wouldn’t have unintentionally included it in picture!). The color is also very of, I’d say just as off from reality as the edited picture. The vignette on the unedited picture also looks more unrealistic in the unedited one compared to the edited, (neither has a postproduction added vignette though).
In the edited photograph the color red is just about eliminated, making the brick colored more brick colors as opposed to weird fluorescent. Clearly in this case my sensor did not see the color like human eyes at all.
#2:
This example is even less obvious, perhaps, but the second image still shows what I saw much better than the first. I actually starred at the rose so intensively that the details and colors around it faded. When I look at it now I don’t notice the heavily desiderated background, the cropping of the fence keeps my eyes from wandering of the rose.
To the unedited picture, I want to add that I don’t think anyone has seen that color on grass before, but it’s straight out of the camera. Realistic, isn’t it?
I’d say these images at least slightly point to the existence of an “unrealistic realism”. Or perception purism, if you will. What these will look like will of course depend greatly on so much more than just you sight, but on all senses, and most likely an experience outside the frames of the photograph.
Just like the mind is arbitrary so is my sense for these photographs. Here is an example of a photo I took, which I don’t find realistic at all:
I can only speculate as to why, but I think it’s because it was taken to capture something purely visual as opposed to something that I put more senses into.
If you made it this far, go you! Feel free to share your views of this matter in the comments.
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Facts:
Film negatives are processed using chemicals.
Digital negatives are processed using computers.
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I’ll start by admitting to never having shot and processed using film and chemicals myself. My first SLR was a digital one. I did, however, grow up with a father who ran his own little dark room in the guest toilet. So the concepts of what is needed and used in film processing is not entirely alien to me after all.
Right now, I only shot digital and I digitally process all my real photos.
Digital photography has been around for year and years now and it amazes me how people STILL think that post-editing is somehow cheating and proves that you’re a bad photographer. I highly disagree with this and here’s why:
If you think that people, before the days of digital processing and post editing, didn’t process their photos, think again. Strictly logical, there would only be rolls of negatives sitting around and no actual photographs at all.
If you think photographers just used to press the shutter in a moment in time and space, having no say in the result other than the focus. This is absolutely WRONG. I could even argue that this is impossible using a film camera, but more so in digital photography. *
Color adjustments, contrast, even dodging, and some much more were not introduced with Photoshop, but photographers have been doing just this for eons. This is not new!
My claim is this: Digital images makes post editing more important and this has mainly to do with the camera’s sensor. When using a film, there are lots of different films to choose from (remember, the sensor in you DSLR, is basically what the film is in a SLR), and these different choices can yield different results, of course. However, with DSLR the sensor you have is well, the sensor you have.
The difference between digital and analogue capturing, which I won’t get into, also contributes, as digital images usually comes out more flat compared to film which usually gives a more 3D feel, especially in B&W. The flat, linearly captured digital images in my opinion almost always need more postproduction to even come close to the depth of an analogue photograph.
Oh, and one more thing, technical aspects of photography has been a subject for debate since day one. I believe I dealt with what’s art and what’s not in my previous post. Photography has always been very driven by technology, and some people always have and always will struggle with adapting and/or embracing, whereas others like being in the front and help photography evolve.
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* With film you always pick the film, no matter how this choice is made, but also have to process it somehow. With a digital camera, all setting can usually be set to auto, letting the camera completely process a picture as it pleases (when it comes to jpg) or you could let an image program do the same, as you convert the RAW file in the software. This is fine by me, if that’s what people want, but one shouldn’t confuse it with a more purist type of photography. Just because you’re not doing it yourself, doesn’t mean someone or something else is not doing it either.
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Earlier today I came across an aspiring photographer in one of the photography communities I belong to. While this particular community rarely feature really good photos his set were particularly… thoughtless and thus extremely badly composed. Questioning his thought on a crocked subject and a very distracting background he replied:
“That’s kinda my intent.
Just simple snap shot type style with not much thought if any.
Sometimes I prefer to do that so that I can also capture everyday life in ways that people see it.”
His reply got me thinking: He want to capture the world just as it is and the way we see it everyday, is a snap shot really the way to go? How can you best capture the world just as we see it?
My answer is no, not even close, and this is my take on it all:
In the history of cinema studies formalist and realists have long debated whether cinema is art or strictly a technological process. My personal take on this is film is always art, even if there is no apparent thought behind the images they always consist of different choices. When framing a shoot you not only chose what they contain but also, obvious, but easy to over look, what to leave out. The same must be true for photography.
The camera’s lens is not equal to the human eye and its sensor does not equal our perception. This changes the rules for composing a picture to look as naturalistic as possible. The photographer previously mentioned stated that his goal is to capture everyday life in the way people see it. He claimed to do so by snap shots without thought or sense of composition. However, this is not the way humans see the world or in this case, that particular subject.
The human mind is arbitrary to say the least, this is why, just to mention one example, police witnesses’ memories aren’t entirely reliable. The mind see what it wants to see, every second of everyday it’s constantly selecting sensory information needed to create an entirety. What it sees is not in anyway the universal truth, a yellow car driving by can in hindsight turn blue, four passenger can easily be confused with two, no problem. Your mind simply did not think the other two were important enough to register and remember. The camera captures everything and does not in any way sort or highlight specific information. That’s the photographer’s job. Many great photographers work hard to capture everyday life just as we see it. It is not the same as point and shoot without thought or sense of composition. If fact it’s the complete opposite. Tricking the human perception to see a subject in a photograph the same way as you would in reality is not an easy task.
Just as a mind highlight some information and hide other, the same must be done by the photographer. S/he must decide what to highlight and what to not draw attention to, and take necessary steps to achieve the desired result. In reality we live in a frameless environment but photographs are not and this must be accounted for in the compositioning. All information visually needed has to be available within the frame. The information within the frame can (and maybe even should) stimulate the imagination beyond the picture shown and this without leaving unintentional loose threads (compare with plot holes in movies). Seeing a photo should never make you notice the background, for example, and think: I wonder what that is, if that’s not the effect you’re looking for (but then I’m going to argue that the photo is not meant to resemble real life perception either). Considering all this, it becomes obvious that a snap shot is not the way to go if you want match human perception.
To transfer a feeling, or a perception if you will, it’s especially important for the photographer to analyze why he sees an object the way he does. The information that makes up his visual image of the subject must be accounted for in the photograph. If the subject is crocked, for example, how do you know? It may seem trivial to ponder over, but it’s essential to the result. Maybe you compared it to objects nearby, maybe you could tell because of the horizon. Leaving that information out from the frame of the picture, how will it affect the viewers’ perception of the object? In most cases here, the viewer will find the tilt of the object unnatural and distracting, as they have nothing to relate it too. Maybe, in this case it’s better to shoot at an unnatural angle to get the object to appear more true to life for the viewer, even though it’s not the way it looks in reality. In short, a naturalistic image is not equal to reality, which brings us back to the question about art or technological process. It takes an artist to identify and compose information that makes up the illusion of reality whereas the technical process of snap shooting without thought hardly gives you the desirable result. Preferably, if this illusion is well executed, it will make the viewer forget the medium. The way I see this is that the image is so well composed the viewer won’t feel a need to visually expand the frame, but could (and might even should) be able to do so in his or her imagination. A snap shot not concerned with composition, for example, often have elements in the frame that gives an incomplete illusion and therefore points to the shortcomings of the medium. But I think I will save those aspects for later.
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Shooting raw and the importance of the little things.
I bought my first DSLR camera (Nikon D40) in conjunction to my birthday in 2008, and these were the very first photos I took with it. A series that resulted in 4 photographs from my birthday dinner. They hold a special piece of my heart not merely from being first, but also because I really appreciate the colors. The vibrant pink and green in the Anemone offers contrast nicely and the dark blue and gold gives a nobel feeling to the champagne (Taittinger by the way).
(click to make bigger)
Sadly this was before I started shooting raw, so being jpeg-only they offers me somewhat limited opportunities to correct what maybe wasn’t perfect from the beginning. But learning from my mistake, I now always shoot in raw. Always! So don’t make this rookie mistake just to save a few MB, it’s not worth it. Even if you’re just playing with the camera not expecting anything useful to come from it, you never know, and then you are going to want the raw file someday.
One thing a raw file can’t correct however is bad composition. For example, it still bugs me that I didn’t think to include the entire rim of the champagne glass. It makes no sense, which pretty much sums up my sense of composition at this time. I’ve since realized that it’s the seemingly small details that can make or break a picture. Lucky for me practice makes perfect a little less clueless, and through experience I’m slowly improving!