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FAKING IT-Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop
We all can see this uproar of professionals and non-professionals demonizing "photoshopped" images in advertising and otherwise, as if that was a new thing to do to alter an image dramatically. Well... I went with my buddy to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see a Matisse exhibition, but we also saw a new current exhibition, which I will go back to see, because of time constraints we had. Faking It Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop  This exhibit was most fascinating... When I was 15/16 (1981), I did an internship in the photolab of the German TV Network ZDF, and worked part time after school for 2 more years... there I had to dodge and burn, crop etc, on photos for movies and tv shows that were sent out to magazines, tv program papers and newspapers for their listings. So, that was my involvement in non-electronic photo manipulation. This exhibition is very fascinating... I knew of course about the hand coloring of images... as early as 1835 (or so) but they even had templates of battle scenes for mass productions where a soldier was photographed and his head inserted on a jumping cavalarist within a battle scene... Anybody in NY, I recommend to take a look at that exhibition it ends January 27, 2013... it's truly fascinating... they also have a section for photo manipulation with Photoshop, and the results are equally as amazing of what some people did. Here are two examples:  Io + gatto, Wanda Wulz (1932) Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987  The Sleepwalker, George Platt Lynes (1935) Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 Jan 13 13 11:26 am Link From the artistic point of view, you should check out the images by Jerry Uelsmann. All of his images were done in a darkroom. Jan 13 13 11:30 am Link Looknsee Photography wrote: Very awesome what was being done in darkrooms before Photoshop! Back in the day, I loved working in darkrooms ... almost as much as I enjoy shooting the pictures. I still enjoy the challenge of "in camera capture" while doing double exposures, or using filters to create some of the images I have with film. Jan 13 13 11:38 am Link This looks like a very cool exhibition, would have loved to visit it. Jan 13 13 12:56 pm Link "The valley of death" where the Charge of the Light brigade took place in the Crimean war - by Roger Fenton, 1855:  "Roger Fenton, Into the Shadow of the Valley of Death,1855, salt-paper photograph (courtesy Library of Congress). Note the cannonballs strewn in the road. This is one of two prints of the same scene—one with, one without cannonballs. Apparently, the one without was taken first. Fenton wouldn’t be the last war photographer to doctor a scene. " http://venetianred.net/2008/08/05/into- … -of-death/ Jan 13 13 01:22 pm Link Hugh Alison wrote: I thought those were horse droppings. Jan 13 13 01:29 pm Link I saw the exhibit a month or so ago. It was interesting, but in the end it pretty much reinforced the fact that if there's not story in a photo, it's simply not a good photo. Most of the photos were about the manipulation itself and not very interesting. There were only a half dozen or so that were great photos. Jan 13 13 01:44 pm Link There be witches in this room. ;-) Jan 13 13 02:37 pm Link Yep, people were manipulating and compositing photographs long before Photoshop. Anyone who thinks that's a new thing doesn't know their history. I don't know what it is with people having some kind of obsession with the photograph having to be the sacrosanct truth just because it records an image mechanically. It's the same with compositing: Gustave Le Gray regularly composited separately-shot skies into his mid-19th century seascapes with combination printing, retouching the horizon and adding/subtracting elements as he saw fit.  Henry Peach Robinson made "Fading Away" in 1858 out of multiple negatives.  Edouard Baldus shot and composited the Cloister of Saint-Trophime Aries in 1851 with 10 negatives... plus a hand-painted negative of the vaulted ceiling, which he didn't shoot!  Oscar Rejlander made "The Two Ways of Life" in 1857 after viewing Raphael's "The School of Athens." Over thirty negatives.  Jan 13 13 07:07 pm Link Terms like Dodge and Burn have their roots in very real actions. Has anyone heard of any work by Prokudin-Gorskii, which was retouched by the artist?? Imagine that? Retouched color images before color film existed! It would have been interesting (albeit intricate) process! Jan 14 13 04:35 pm Link And people think (Pshop) the wheel was invented yesterday. Different technique same results. Jan 14 13 05:20 pm Link MC Photo wrote: Now, if you were curating an exhibit of manipulations wouldn't you put the manipulation itself front and center? Jan 15 13 01:28 pm Link NewBoldPhoto wrote: I had not enough time to look at everything in detail... but I will go back there and look at it again before it closes... probably on Thursday... Jan 16 13 09:30 am Link And good old Ansel would not be allowed in current CAPA or PSA comps. because he spent weeks dodging and burning his prints. Jan 16 13 09:38 am Link udor wrote: When you first walk in (assuming you enter thru the first door you come to and take the shortest route from the main entrance) to your left will be a hand-colored Daguerreotype it is beautiful in a way that I find hard to describe but after seeing it the only reason that I am not shooting Daguerreotypes now is that my wife won't let me install a chemical fume hood in the house and Iodine is nasty without proper venting. Jan 16 13 09:46 pm Link Lumatic wrote: How very true - as long as the art of photography has existed, people have been manipulating images to achieve fantastic and unreal results.. Jan 17 13 03:47 pm Link http://www.uelsmann.net/ http://www.google.com/search?client=saf … 30&bih=694 All his shots are done in a wet darkroom with 8 enlargers. Jan 17 13 03:51 pm Link One of my earlier published works came about when ditching my English and Journalism classes in high school. There was a significant eclipse of the Sun that day and I talked the teacher into letting my friend and I skip the two classes to photograph the event. (Well, I needed and "assistant" take this complex photograph, right?) Nevermind that the only cameras I had at that time were a Speedgraphic 4x5 with a 135mm lens and a 2 1/4 sq, twin lens Mamiya with an 80mm. Since I had to show something for my time spent, I whipped up a plausible example in the darkroom. Well, it turns out the teacher was a member of some astronomy association and he submitted the picture to them without my knowledge. They then published it in their monthly magazine. I just knew that I would get busted for sure by the experts. I never did. He had it put in the yearbook as well, full page no less. I am pretty sure that the statute of limitations has expired by now  It was so much fun back in the day when I was great in the darkroom and could do all kinds of magic. Now, I find myself still playing catch-up in Photoshop with some of the amazing work here. Maybe I will get there before technology takes another giant leap. I still miss the wonderful smell of the chemicals and what that smell meant. I might have gone digital sooner if they had offered a "scratch and sniff" version of Adobe Photoshop.  Jan 20 13 11:29 am Link I forgot! I have one where I did a double exposure on film. It's in my Classics folder;  Not perfect, but that's how it looks on film .... ... with no manipulation other than shooting twice on the same frame. Jan 20 13 12:13 pm Link Looknsee Photography wrote: Yeah... Uelsmann's work was/IS amazing!! None of that whimpy Photoshop shit.. Jan 20 13 12:18 pm Link NewBoldPhoto wrote: I'm not clear what you're getting at? Jan 29 13 12:44 pm Link Having gone to photo school in Daytona, Uelsmann use to come to our school often to give seminars and workshops. Very cool work and a great guy. Taught at U of F forever. Probably still does. BUT... Back in the late 80's/early 90s Neil Molinaro blew me away with things he did "in camera" He did a few of shots for Sinar for their catalog and ads. And of course for many well known companies. All the shots in this gallery were done in camera with masks, many exposures, and lighting. http://neilmolinaro.com/Long%20Ago/SinarWatch.html Still does great work. Have no idea if he uses PS or not. He was so talented without it. I would imagine he does. Jan 29 13 08:50 pm Link At least with Rep. Nancy Pelosi she added members of the House of Representatives to the Capital steps photograph instead of removing politicians and others from the Kremlin wall like Stalin did in his day when they fell out of favor. Jan 29 13 10:00 pm Link After Leon Trotsky fell into disgrace Stalin's censors edited him out from a famous picture which shows him with Lenin...  Jan 30 13 05:33 am Link There is a difference between the above mentioned beautiful artwork and making a lovely girl look like a creepy barbie doll and trying to sell it as sexy. Next, there is a vast difference in quality of those photographs versus cgi/photoshop of again, a lovely girl who is photoshopped to look like a creepy mermaid and trying to sell it as sexy. Suspension of disbelief...you don't look at those photographs and say "WOW! That lady is HALF CAT!!!!" in the same way you don't see an overly photoshopped portrait and go "WOW! That lady is completely PERFECT! She doesn't even have veins in her eyes!" For my experience, that was where most of the backlash against photoshop is from. People who don't understand how to use it give it a bad rap, because as far as I am concerned, it is necessary to achieve the image you want in the way that the best photographers of all time spent hours in the darkroom. Photoshop tools are named after darkroom techniques for a reason. :-) Jan 31 13 10:43 am Link image-manipulation does not equal photography (includes warping, liquifying, distorting, moving pixels around etc) a photograph that is being altered is an image, or illustration.... not a photograph on the other hand...i would go as far as saying that superimposing/sandwich techniques still stay within photographic real...it's done by light Jan 31 13 02:00 pm Link Shades Of Gray wrote: By now it probably regrets having ditched those classes. Feb 02 13 11:35 am Link This exhibit opens at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC on February 17. Feb 11 13 04:43 pm Link |
