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.
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
Looknsee Photography wrote: From the artistic point of view, you should check out the images by Jerry Uelsmann. All of his images were done in a darkroom.
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.
Hugh Alison
Posts: 1,299
Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom
"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. "
Hugh Alison wrote: "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. "
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.
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.
NewBoldPhoto
Posts: 4,641
PORT MURRAY, New Jersey, US
MC Photo wrote: 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.
Now, if you were curating an exhibit of manipulations wouldn't you put the manipulation itself front and center?
I saw the exhibit and thought it was great but I walked in looking to see the manipulations... my only complaint is that it is always hot in that gallery.
Now, if you were curating an exhibit of manipulations wouldn't you put the manipulation itself front and center?
I saw the exhibit and thought it was great but I walked in looking to see the manipulations... my only complaint is that it is always hot in that gallery.
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...
NewBoldPhoto
Posts: 4,641
PORT MURRAY, New Jersey, US
udor 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...
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.
Lumatic wrote: 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:
How very true - as long as the art of photography has existed, people have been manipulating images to achieve fantastic and unreal results..
Or as Ansel Adams once famously said "You don't take a photograph, you make it"
Here is a timeline (dating back to the 1850s) that I like to refer the "Get it right in camera" and "That's not photography - that's graphic design" crowd to from time to time...
http://www.d-log.info/timeline/index.html
Shades Of Gray
Posts: 1,043
Colorado Springs, Colorado, US
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.
Looknsee Photography wrote: From the artistic point of view, you should check out the images by Jerry Uelsmann. All of his images were done in a darkroom.
Yeah... Uelsmann's work was/IS amazing!! None of that whimpy Photoshop shit..
Now, if you were curating an exhibit of manipulations wouldn't you put the manipulation itself front and center?
I saw the exhibit and thought it was great but I walked in looking to see the manipulations... my only complaint is that it is always hot in that gallery.
I'm not clear what you're getting at?
I see the logic in displaying the subject of the exhibition.
I think I probably would have scrapped the idea if I was in charge. Or if that wasn't an option, I'd probably have set it up so that you see a series without the manipulation followed by the manipulated photos so that you can actually experience the difference. Also groups of manipulated photo before non-manuiplated photos.
In the most literal sense, manipulations are about the surface - the exteriors, which for the most part is irrelevant. The best photos are about the subject's interior. Even though it may not appear or feel that way, that's what we react to.
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.
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.
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. :-)
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