It's specifically about landscape painters but ultimately meaningful to anyone who enjoys rendering an artistic landscape in any medium.
My favorite quote from it is: "not to replicate the scene (...) but to capture the feeling of it." This has been my own philosophy and one that makes most arguments on "image manipulation" moot. Art should be free to capture a feeling, unburdened by the mechanics of a given medium. The gear and the process are not the art.
"Art should be free to capture a feeling, unburdened by the mechanics of a given medium. The gear and the process are not the art." I agree completely. I never make any headway with my premise that no photography is "real," so maybe I'll throw out the word art and moot the antimanipulation arguments.
Pete D. ever the artiste <-- violent agreement
Posted by Kent Staubus on November 3, 2006 at 10:26 AM
I agree with most of it. I'm not surprised that painters and photographers have similar feelings/approaches. My goal in making in an image is to capture the feel as much as anything too. Literal photos run the risk of boring me.
Excellent article, along with your observations Guy:
My favorite quote from it is: "not to replicate the scene (...) but to capture the feeling of it." This has been my own philosophy and one that makes most arguments on "image manipulation" moot. Art should be free to capture a feeling, unburdened by the mechanics of a given medium. The gear and the process are not the art.
I'm just wondering in what context you refer to when you guys say moot.
moot >adjective subject to debate or uncertainty: a moot point. >verb put forward for discussion. >noun 1 (in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England) a legislative or judicial assembly. 2 Law a mock trial set up to examine a hypothetical case as an academic exercise.
I'm not sure I understand what you guys mean. Thanks, Tim
The meaning of a landscape photograph or painting? As an artist/photographer and viewer, it takes you there. The work itself is 2 dimensional. We create the 3rd dimension with our minds eye. I often feel that I am experiencing the landscape images I enjoy here.
Landscape photographers (and painters) share what they find beatiful with others. We are encouraged to appreciate the world we live in as we behold the beauty of our planet. And since not everyone is able to go to the places visited by the photographer, the landscape is brought to the viewer who in turn (as I said in the beginnning) is taken to the landscape.
Ok, thanks Guy, I just wasn't sure what you meant, you know, exactly. I thought the article was interesting, I want to read some of the linked material , when I get a chance as well. Thanks, Tim
Posted by David Senesac on November 4, 2006 at 9:27 PM
Thanks for passing that little article "Why do you paint?" along Guy.
I work landscapes because it is a visual vehicle for perceiving beauty in our natural world that can improve one's perception of natural beauty over time and experience that will be part of one's nature. And one collects these experiences which one may later revel in and have others revel in what one's perception and skill created. So many in this world focus their life on wealth, power, and beauty. With the latter as in best looking mates, best looking homes, cars, animals, clothes, and many other things. Yes we humans seek out beauty and most of those things revolve around wealth and power. With landscape photography one is dealing with that visual phenomenon of beauty in a powerful much more direct way that doesn't have anything to do with wealth and power. Yes we can have beauty too in ways the rich and powerful have no way to buy or control into.
I don't see the issue about image manipulation so simple as the freedom to be creative without restriction many photographers would like it to be. On one hand most photographers want their public audience to believe their images were of experiences they captured out in the natural world. But on the other hand most would resort to kicking and screaming if they had to admit up front what they were doing. Instead they prefer to not say anything while in the game on the level playing field with everyone else. A playing field where some tweak their files modestly to match what they saw. Where some just use saturated films, warming filters, tweak the image color, saturation, and luminance, to bring out a more contrasty impacting image. Where some do that and also remove a person, a car, a power line, a branch, an awkward cloud, then perform major darkening and lightening to highlight the subject elements . Then others beaming in their editing skills, also add a deer, some picturesque clouds from another image, ooh some vibrant red vegetation, change the dim dark gray blue dusk sky to tones of pinks and purples, and a pterodactyle flying across the sunset sky. Well I say fine to any that enjoy being so creative wherever one draws the line, tiny or huge, on their own work. However they ought in some way whether subtle or exactingly communicate what they have done to their public audience. Else our community will continue to suffer more and more in the public's eye as they find out what is going on. ...David
David, my own observations don't support your last statement. By far the loudest and most adamant outcries I hear come from other photographers, usually ones who are invested in the "old ways" and don't care to learn new techniques or compete on the NEW level playing field - one leveraging new and more powerful tools to express one's vision.
From my experience, clients and casual observers rarely if ever express interest in the process. They see the final product and either like it or not. Most questions I get have to do with locations, sometimes the type or brand of camera I use, but never about my processing techniques. I observed that when someone asks me if my images are "digitally manipulated" they are invariably a fellow photographer.
As you say, there's any number of ways to abuse these tools but in my opinion the final judgment will not be their use per se but rather the abused/overdone results which will turn off viewers who may or may not even know how they came to be.
This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much.
"From my experience, clients and casual observers rarely if ever express interest in the process. They see the final product and either like it or not. Most questions I get have to do with locations, sometimes the type or brand of camera I use, but never about my processing techniques. I observed that when someone asks me if my images are "digitally manipulated" they are invariably a fellow photographer."
This reflects my experience too, Guy.
"This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much."
Digital manipulation along the same lines is acceptable in fields beyond fine art photography, but within very narrow limits in editorial or evidenciary photography. Editorial won't stand for much, as demonstrated in recent firestorms over of manipulation. Evidenciary photography involves not just chain of custody for original image files, but also "acceptable" manipulation limited mostly to sharpening and contrast enhancement. These latter are very specific and based upon case law that gets right down to the mathematics and algorhythms used in the manipulation program.
For ad and commercial photography a high degree of manipulation is permissible, even desirable in many cases. It's all about achieving the "look" a client wants. Clients may expect to be on site and view images in real time on the LCD or laptop screen in the case of tethered capture. The conversation can get "intersting" when discussing subsequent manipulation and what is technically feasible, and of course how much it is going to cost them.
There are broad to narrow technical/legal/aesthetic bounds to manipulation in each field, but there are also very good reasons to do as little as possible. The more you can achieve before pressing the shutter release, the less time you have to spend on your computer.
The more you can achieve before pressing the shutter release, the less time you have to spend on your computer.
Absolutely! And in this regard I also find that Photoshop very much follows one of the old truisms of all software: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). I don't believe you can take a bad image and turn it into a masterpiece by means of digital editing alone.
Guy
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 12:49 AM
David, my own observations don't support your last statement. By far the loudest and most adamant outcries I hear come from other photographers, usually ones who are invested in the "old ways" and don't care to learn new techniques or compete on the NEW level playing field - one leveraging new and more powerful tools to express one's vision.
From my experience, clients and casual observers rarely if ever express interest in the process. They see the final product and either like it or not. Most questions I get have to do with locations, sometimes the type or brand of camera I use, but never about my processing techniques. I observed that when someone asks me if my images are "digitally manipulated" they are invariably a fellow photographer.
Hey Guy
I think this is largely because other photographers have more knowledge about what goes on. Most members of the nature photography audience (who are not photographers) have no idea of the degree to which images are often manipulated and don't necessarily bear more than a passing resemblance to what the scene looked like. And I don't think it's reasonable or fair to claim that those photographers who voice concern do it simply because they are "usually ones who are invested in the "old ways" and don't care to learn new techniques or compete on the NEW level playing field" - this is a simplistic and untennable position, and I'm kinda surprised to you see pull it.
You also said, earlier:
The gear and the process are not the art.
Of course the gear is the art - it's sitting right there in the definition - landscape p-h-o-t-o-g-r-a-p-h-y! Discourse that attempts to interpret what 'photography' is (when you label something 'landscape photography'') is hardly moot. And on one other note.; I disagree 110& with you that the process is not the art. That's the ONLY thing that art is - process.
I did enjoy some of tha article, but mostly the stuff that just had to do with the painters relationship with the subject.
Carl, that's why I'm not hung up on definitions. Call me an image maker if you want. The whole "painting with light" thing is and always has been a misnomer in my mind. I'd rather maintain my freedom to use whatever tools are available to convey my visual message than be bound to any arbitrary technical limitations dictated by shutters, apertures, optics etc. I'm here to portray the beauty and inspiration I find in nature. Period. Whether you call it Photography or not is really of little concern to me - I only care about the final product.
And whether you agree with it or not, today's playing field is not the same playing field of 10, 20, or 100 years ago. To claim that anyone using modern tools is not playing on a "level" field is simply ludicrous. It's like saying Lance Armstrong is not playing on a level playing field because his bicycle uses manufacturing techniques not available 20 years ago, or that race car drivers are not playing on a level playing field because they use internal combustion engines rather than horses or dogs to pull their vehicles. The field as it is today is heavily geared towards computerized tools, and it is level - these tools are readily available to all who wish to own and use them.
Guy
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 10:08 AM
Hey Guy
That's ironic you mentioned 'painting with light' - I was writing some stuff last and said exactly the same thing - well, pretty much.
You said you're 'not hung up on definitions', yet you also said "This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much. "
It seems to me you're saying you don't want to be put in a box, yet you're defining exactly what box you want to be in.
And no, I don't think the situation today with what's possible in photography is even close to what it was in years past, even 5 years ago. I didn't mention whether the 'playing field is level' or any such thing - my point, obscurely as it may have been made, referred to this part of your post:
"By far the loudest and most adamant outcries I hear come from other photographers, usually ones who are invested in the "old ways" and don't care to learn new techniques"
I don't think that's fair, accurate, or supportable. I'm not invested in an 'old way' at all. Speaking of investment, my investment in the 'new way' is far greater than what it was when I shot film (in terms of time, finances and energy); there's simply no comparison. But I still feel it's damaging for nature photographs to misrepresent nature - and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that artists make some honest effort to NOT misrepresent their work as something other than what it actually is.
Carl, my statement regarding fine art photography was to avoid discussion of other branches that I consider more documentary and where I can see an argument for staying as faithful to the literal "truth" as possible. It's not that I confine myself, but rather stating that I don't consider myself bound by the same restrictions.
As for your last statement, I agree 100% and I will say loud and clear: I never have and never will misrepresent nature in my work. Natural beauty is the reason for my work. As I have said many times before - I aim to capture the spirit of a scene more than the elements themselves - that which is greater than the sum of its parts. To that extent I don't create what was not there to begin with but I also won't stand for limitations of gear or tools that stand in the way of expressing my perception where I can help it.
Cameras, lenses, film, sensors etc. are products of engineers. Images are products of artists. The former is there to enable the latter, not to constrain it.
Guy
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 11:15 AM
Hey Guy,
2 points:
But there IS a line where a photograph (even a 'fine art' one ;) ) becomes something 'other' - you've acknowledged that when you said you don't create what was not there to begin with - something we know is entirely possible. Essentially you're laying out your own limitations on what you will or will not do to express your perception. That's fine, but understand that's no different to what I or many other folks are doing - we simply disagree on where that line is, and also on whether or not artists have a responsibility to acknowledge where in relation to that line they created a given image from.
Also, I'm not really discussing this subject from the standpoint of whether or not gear/tools constrain your process. That's not at all what we're talking about. On the contrary, the very reason this subject arises is precisely because of what gear/tools can now enable us to do. The limitations we're talking about (and I'm not really talking about limiting anything, simply disclosing when we've moved beyond what most people understand to be 'nature photography') are something we, as artists, work within - they have nothing to do with engineers and their products.
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 1:00 PM
Hey Guy
You're welcome not to agree to not agree, if that's how you feel.
As for being wrong, you may be right, I may be wrong - I suppose it could happen - in fact, it's probably bound to occur one day. I thought I was once, but as it turned out, I wasn't, I was right.
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 1:45 PM
Hey John
I can't point you to a resource, such as a study or stats that tracks such things, any more than someone else can make the claim that the audience for nature photography don't care about such things. I can point to my own conversations with clients, and audience members, just as anyone else might.
I'll ask you this: do you think an image of a mountain, constructed entirely in photoshop, constitues 'landscape photography'? Or 'nature photography'? If you don't, then you agree there IS some boundary that somethings are understood to be nature photography, and some are not. I'm probably no more knowledgable of what that line or area might be than Guy Tal or you or anyone else - but I don't pretend there isn't one.
Happy Tuesday to you.
Cheers
Carl
Posted by Carl Donohue on November 7, 2006 at 2:06 PM
Hey John
That makes sense. To be honest, I'm not sure I would ever try to state, emphatically, where I feel it is, on a consistent basis - it seems fluid, and perhaps somewhat image determinant.
Discussion
21 repliesFound this interesting article in the local art community's newsletter:
http://www.artistsofutah.org/15bytes/06nov/page5.html
It's specifically about landscape painters but ultimately meaningful to anyone who enjoys rendering an artistic landscape in any medium.
My favorite quote from it is: "not to replicate the scene (...) but to capture the feeling of it." This has been my own philosophy and one that makes most arguments on "image manipulation" moot. Art should be free to capture a feeling, unburdened by the mechanics of a given medium. The gear and the process are not the art.
Guy
Pete D. ever the artiste
Kent in SD
My favorite quote from it is: "not to replicate the scene (...) but to capture the feeling of it." This has been my own philosophy and one that makes most arguments on "image manipulation" moot. Art should be free to capture a feeling, unburdened by the mechanics of a given medium. The gear and the process are not the art.
moot >adjective subject to debate or uncertainty: a moot point. >verb put forward for discussion. >noun 1 (in Anglo-Saxon and medieval England) a legislative or judicial assembly. 2 Law a mock trial set up to examine a hypothetical case as an academic exercise.
I'm not sure I understand what you guys mean. Thanks, Tim
http://merriamwebster.com/dictionary/moot
2 : deprived of practical significance : made abstract or purely academic
Guy
The meaning of a landscape photograph or painting? As an artist/photographer and viewer, it takes you there. The work itself is 2 dimensional. We create the 3rd dimension with our minds eye. I often feel that I am experiencing the landscape images I enjoy here.
Landscape photographers (and painters) share what they find beatiful with others. We are encouraged to appreciate the world we live in as we behold the beauty of our planet. And since not everyone is able to go to the places visited by the photographer, the landscape is brought to the viewer who in turn (as I said in the beginnning) is taken to the landscape.
Will
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
I work landscapes because it is a visual vehicle for perceiving beauty in our natural world that can improve one's perception of natural beauty over time and experience that will be part of one's nature. And one collects these experiences which one may later revel in and have others revel in what one's perception and skill created. So many in this world focus their life on wealth, power, and beauty. With the latter as in best looking mates, best looking homes, cars, animals, clothes, and many other things. Yes we humans seek out beauty and most of those things revolve around wealth and power. With landscape photography one is dealing with that visual phenomenon of beauty in a powerful much more direct way that doesn't have anything to do with wealth and power. Yes we can have beauty too in ways the rich and powerful have no way to buy or control into.
I don't see the issue about image manipulation so simple as the freedom to be creative without restriction many photographers would like it to be. On one hand most photographers want their public audience to believe their images were of experiences they captured out in the natural world. But on the other hand most would resort to kicking and screaming if they had to admit up front what they were doing. Instead they prefer to not say anything while in the game on the level playing field with everyone else. A playing field where some tweak their files modestly to match what they saw. Where some just use saturated films, warming filters, tweak the image color, saturation, and luminance, to bring out a more contrasty impacting image. Where some do that and also remove a person, a car, a power line, a branch, an awkward cloud, then perform major darkening and lightening to highlight the subject elements . Then others beaming in their editing skills, also add a deer, some picturesque clouds from another image, ooh some vibrant red vegetation, change the dim dark gray blue dusk sky to tones of pinks and purples, and a pterodactyle flying across the sunset sky. Well I say fine to any that enjoy being so creative wherever one draws the line, tiny or huge, on their own work. However they ought in some way whether subtle or exactingly communicate what they have done to their public audience. Else our community will continue to suffer more and more in the public's eye as they find out what is going on. ...David
From my experience, clients and casual observers rarely if ever express interest in the process. They see the final product and either like it or not. Most questions I get have to do with locations, sometimes the type or brand of camera I use, but never about my processing techniques. I observed that when someone asks me if my images are "digitally manipulated" they are invariably a fellow photographer.
As you say, there's any number of ways to abuse these tools but in my opinion the final judgment will not be their use per se but rather the abused/overdone results which will turn off viewers who may or may not even know how they came to be.
This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much.
Guy
This reflects my experience too, Guy.
"This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much."
Digital manipulation along the same lines is acceptable in fields beyond fine art photography, but within very narrow limits in editorial or evidenciary photography. Editorial won't stand for much, as demonstrated in recent firestorms over of manipulation. Evidenciary photography involves not just chain of custody for original image files, but also "acceptable" manipulation limited mostly to sharpening and contrast enhancement. These latter are very specific and based upon case law that gets right down to the mathematics and algorhythms used in the manipulation program.
For ad and commercial photography a high degree of manipulation is permissible, even desirable in many cases. It's all about achieving the "look" a client wants. Clients may expect to be on site and view images in real time on the LCD or laptop screen in the case of tethered capture. The conversation can get "intersting" when discussing subsequent manipulation and what is technically feasible, and of course how much it is going to cost them.
There are broad to narrow technical/legal/aesthetic bounds to manipulation in each field, but there are also very good reasons to do as little as possible. The more you can achieve before pressing the shutter release, the less time you have to spend on your computer.
Absolutely! And in this regard I also find that Photoshop very much follows one of the old truisms of all software: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). I don't believe you can take a bad image and turn it into a masterpiece by means of digital editing alone.
Guy
Hey Guy
I think this is largely because other photographers have more knowledge about what goes on. Most members of the nature photography audience (who are not photographers) have no idea of the degree to which images are often manipulated and don't necessarily bear more than a passing resemblance to what the scene looked like. And I don't think it's reasonable or fair to claim that those photographers who voice concern do it simply because they are "usually ones who are invested in the "old ways" and don't care to learn new techniques or compete on the NEW level playing field" - this is a simplistic and untennable position, and I'm kinda surprised to you see pull it.
You also said, earlier:
Of course the gear is the art - it's sitting right there in the definition - landscape p-h-o-t-o-g-r-a-p-h-y! Discourse that attempts to interpret what 'photography' is (when you label something 'landscape photography'') is hardly moot. And on one other note.; I disagree 110& with you that the process is not the art. That's the ONLY thing that art is - process.
I did enjoy some of tha article, but mostly the stuff that just had to do with the painters relationship with the subject.
Cheers
Carl
And whether you agree with it or not, today's playing field is not the same playing field of 10, 20, or 100 years ago. To claim that anyone using modern tools is not playing on a "level" field is simply ludicrous. It's like saying Lance Armstrong is not playing on a level playing field because his bicycle uses manufacturing techniques not available 20 years ago, or that race car drivers are not playing on a level playing field because they use internal combustion engines rather than horses or dogs to pull their vehicles. The field as it is today is heavily geared towards computerized tools, and it is level - these tools are readily available to all who wish to own and use them.
Guy
That's ironic you mentioned 'painting with light' - I was writing some stuff last and said exactly the same thing - well, pretty much.
You said you're 'not hung up on definitions', yet you also said "This is strictly regarding what is generally termed "fine art" photography. Other branches of photography have their own restrictions and don't concern me much. "
It seems to me you're saying you don't want to be put in a box, yet you're defining exactly what box you want to be in.
And no, I don't think the situation today with what's possible in photography is even close to what it was in years past, even 5 years ago. I didn't mention whether the 'playing field is level' or any such thing - my point, obscurely as it may have been made, referred to this part of your post:
I don't think that's fair, accurate, or supportable. I'm not invested in an 'old way' at all. Speaking of investment, my investment in the 'new way' is far greater than what it was when I shot film (in terms of time, finances and energy); there's simply no comparison. But I still feel it's damaging for nature photographs to misrepresent nature - and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that artists make some honest effort to NOT misrepresent their work as something other than what it actually is.
Cheers
Carl
As for your last statement, I agree 100% and I will say loud and clear: I never have and never will misrepresent nature in my work. Natural beauty is the reason for my work. As I have said many times before - I aim to capture the spirit of a scene more than the elements themselves - that which is greater than the sum of its parts. To that extent I don't create what was not there to begin with but I also won't stand for limitations of gear or tools that stand in the way of expressing my perception where I can help it.
Cameras, lenses, film, sensors etc. are products of engineers. Images are products of artists. The former is there to enable the latter, not to constrain it.
Guy
2 points:
But there IS a line where a photograph (even a 'fine art' one ;) ) becomes something 'other' - you've acknowledged that when you said you don't create what was not there to begin with - something we know is entirely possible. Essentially you're laying out your own limitations on what you will or will not do to express your perception. That's fine, but understand that's no different to what I or many other folks are doing - we simply disagree on where that line is, and also on whether or not artists have a responsibility to acknowledge where in relation to that line they created a given image from.
Also, I'm not really discussing this subject from the standpoint of whether or not gear/tools constrain your process. That's not at all what we're talking about. On the contrary, the very reason this subject arises is precisely because of what gear/tools can now enable us to do. The limitations we're talking about (and I'm not really talking about limiting anything, simply disclosing when we've moved beyond what most people understand to be 'nature photography') are something we, as artists, work within - they have nothing to do with engineers and their products.
We'll just agree to not agree.
Cheers
Carl
OK, I agree to not agree
But you're still wrong
Guy
You're welcome not to agree to not agree, if that's how you feel.
As for being wrong, you may be right, I may be wrong - I suppose it could happen - in fact, it's probably bound to occur one day. I thought I was once, but as it turned out, I wasn't, I was right.
Cheers
Carl
I can't point you to a resource, such as a study or stats that tracks such things, any more than someone else can make the claim that the audience for nature photography don't care about such things. I can point to my own conversations with clients, and audience members, just as anyone else might.
I'll ask you this: do you think an image of a mountain, constructed entirely in photoshop, constitues 'landscape photography'? Or 'nature photography'? If you don't, then you agree there IS some boundary that somethings are understood to be nature photography, and some are not. I'm probably no more knowledgable of what that line or area might be than Guy Tal or you or anyone else - but I don't pretend there isn't one.
Happy Tuesday to you.
Cheers
Carl
That makes sense. To be honest, I'm not sure I would ever try to state, emphatically, where I feel it is, on a consistent basis - it seems fluid, and perhaps somewhat image determinant.
Cheers
Carl