i consider myself a film shooter shooting digital....i try to limit myself to what could be done in the darkroom, after all thats where most of the controls of PS came from.
i have heard the name pixel-ography, a respectable art where you combined several images into one, creating fantasy images, and thats fine.
i dont have a problem with retouching as its easier now, retouching products is fine, as they appear that way to our eye, but too many details are observed by the camera. color balance, brightness, dodge burn, dust retouch, etc all things of the darkroom era, just different ways of doing them.
i think what most people think, is cant you just doctor it up or enhance it to look like.....
and i think many photogs are doing that, the ones we all hate...whats another 10 mins to make the client happy....
that is taking an average photo and doing some quick PS work and doing a P*** poor job at it. i see extremely clear evidence of fast cloning of the same target over a large area and evidence a dark blue sky drop in.
well my comments are from shooting homes/real estate, i often hear can you make the grass greener when its dec and the grass is brown and yellow. i say i can, but its cheaper if i just i just re-landscape the yard.
i only answer yes to PS question if i know if will look perfect or close to it. i CAN DO open heart surgery, but i dont know how WELL i can do it!
maybe this has been forgotten....
photography certainly has been and will continue to be VERY affected by technology. all other art forms sell technique and practice, we sell "buy a better brush or pen and become a better artist".
and technology is very competitive and we are all consumers, coupled with the do it yourself mentality of the recent generations, this adds up to a insanely huge affect on photographers.
from what see, all the small jobs have disappeared, young parents shoot pix of their own kids, small companies shoot their product themself. less biz for us, but then our days are filled with the clients who appreciate good portraits or product shots. in someways it helps, but not if you are just getting by financially.
photography was popular and only continues to grow. according to the article, this started in the 20s. many people enjoy it and if they can make a few bucks they are ecstatic. photography is 10x more popular as a hobby or just for snapshots etc than professional photography. so thats a huge majority of the images out there.... so that becomes the norm, if those people looking to make a little, and i do mean a little money from their hobby get out there, their practices become the norm, just due to pure numbers. and the majority of those dont know anything about biz or taking a better pic than what P mode gives them...so the industry looks bad from huge influx of photogs.
but on the other hand, to smart consumers this is probably just as hard and annoying. sure they are lured by cheaper rates at first, but after a few tries with them, they now have 100 photos to look through in the yellow pages, 80 being bad ones, vs the "core" 20 real studios. so those clients still looking for quality struggle too.
To start with digital photography was criticized because the quality was not good enough and never would be. Next thing we know critics of digital complain that digital is too perfect and we need to buy filters too mes it up and add grain and such like.
In the past many critics of photography claimed that photography was not an art as it couldn't alter and interpret reality like a "real" art form. Even Susan Sontag in her book "On Photography" made this case. Now it is dead because it has broken its link with reality. It is all a load of hooey. Clever people cannot help themselves from making poorly thought out sweeping generalizations it seems.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
funny thing, i am still slightly biased against digital....when i look at photos on photo.net and see a really great one and check the details, if it was done on digital im still impressed, but if it was done on film, i know that person really knows what they are doing. it adds whole nother level to it.
Having been into photography and computers since the 1970s, I think more of the "film era" as a tremendous hindrance. It is gone, bye bye, and I've been embracing digital for the past decade.
Personally, I think of photography as an art form, and so everything and anything goes. Part of my justification for this thinking is: 1. It's flat, while the real world is 3D. 2. It suffers from tremendous range, color, resolution limtations not in the real world. 3. Our brains are involved in interpreting it, not just our eyes. 4. In the real world, we look around selectively at the things that please us; why not provide a pleasing experience in every part of the photograph?
Concepts like "accurate color" seem ludicrous to me (and admit it; you've never really seen a photo with truly accurate color).
However - and you know this to be true from seeing any number of my images - I cannot tolerate "quick and dirty" digital retouching work. This has driven me to be an expert at Photoshop.
A wise person once said "if you're going to lie, make it as close to the truth as possible, 'cause then it's hard to tell if you're lying.
So... After a stint in my "digital darkroom", the freckles may be lighter, the mole may be lighter, the eyes may be a little more contrasty and colorful, the hair may be a little shinier... But it's all really there in the out-of-camera exposure.
Film is dead, not photography. I make this statement after touring the School of Photographic Arts and Science and School of Print Media at RIT this semester. Next year' freshman class will have no film experience. The film cameras, darkrooms and chemical processors will be yesterday's news.
This in the home of Eastman Kodak!
I think photography has taken a new meaning, expanding in ways we never thought possible. I have been a part time photographer for over 30 years. After I retired from my first career, found it necessary to go back to college to gain more graphic skills so I could be marketable. Learning the new tools of the trade in the digital world (Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkXpress, Color Management, Print technology), gives me the ability to breath new life into a large library of slides and negatives. I continue to take digital images and can now present them in a variety of ways that can reach a larger audience.
Jerry Skrocki
Photography & Graphic Design
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Linear Mode
