The Photography Thread

[Henk]

Check this Pinterest page:

https://www.pinterest.com/lovetalent/nature-l/

[North Star]

Check this Pinterest page:

Some very nice work there, Henk! All are vertical, though?

[Henk]

Some very nice work there, Henk! All are vertical, though?

Yes now you say. Didn't make them myself..

[North Star]

Lake Kitka XXIV

[North Star]

Another nice one. I might have used a smaller aperture for a less shallow DOF here, though.

One from the summer, to celebrate this thread making it to 1000 posts finally

Perhaps I should have cleaned those spots sooner.

[Karl Henning]

Beautiful.

Separately, when I read Lake Kitka, I find myself momentarily needing to suppress thoughts of ....

[mahler10th]

I suppose it's time to add some controversy to this thread...
Please note I am talking about photography in general, and not popping at GMG' ers.   
I have a bit of a problem with modern day photography.  In the main, it isn't pure photography at all, it is playing with images through software.  In many instances this can be seen, with bright greens in the grass, wildly foreboding "photo-shopped" clouds, and some completely unnatural coloring and shading in outdoor shots.  So in the main, when I look at a "photograph" I'm seeing what the photographer would like me to see, and not what he actually saw.  The art has gone.  Reality takes a tumble.  What has been seen is not what you get.  A photo gets 'dressed up' or dressed down' according to how pleasing the manipulator finds it.  Now this is fine when it takes place at the point of shoot, angles, lighting, shading, perspective, all this taken into account to produce an eminently memorable photograph.  That is where the art is.  That is in the moment decision making and visualization. But most photography now is fakery - the product is finished on a computer device by adding 'effects'.
It is only to the few photographers left who would not dream to 'process' their photos with third party products, and process instead through their own skill and instant tecnique I raise my hat.  Even though I do not have a hat.  I have a cap, so I'll raise that instead.

***Runs away from crowd of screaming GMG Photographers***   

[North Star]

I suppose it's time to add some controversy to this thread...
Please note I am talking about photography in general, and not popping at GMG' ers.   
I have a bit of a problem with modern day photography.  In the main, it isn't pure photography at all, it is playing with images through software.  In many instances this can be seen, with bright greens in the grass, wildly foreboding "photo-shopped" clouds, and some completely unnatural coloring and shading in outdoor shots.  So in the main, when I look at a "photograph" I'm seeing what the photographer would like me to see, and not what he actually saw.  The art has gone.  Reality takes a tumble.  What has been seen is not what you get.  A photo gets 'dressed up' or dressed down' according to how pleasing the manipulator finds it.  Now this is fine when it takes place at the point of shoot, angles, lighting, shading, perspective, all this taken into account to produce an eminently memorable photograph.  That is where the art is.  That is in the moment decision making and visualization. But most photography now is fakery - the product is finished on a computer device by adding 'effects'.
It is only to the few photographers left who would not dream to 'process' their photos with third party products, and process instead through their own skill and instant tec[h]nique I raise my hat.  Even though I do not have a hat.  I have a cap, so I'll raise that instead.

Please name one famous photographer who published their work, and who didn't edit their photographs after they had been captured in film (it would be silly to claim that photographs seen by a large number of people were manipulated less in the film era. Ansel Adams: "You don't take a photograph, you make a photograph") or in a memory card.
And what does 'third party products' mean? Do you also dismiss painters who didn't make their own paint?

And please name a camera that can record a bright sunlit scene with dark shadows without losing any details in the highlights or the shadows. Oh? You can't? Well, perhaps we should be content with stating that the photographer then has to choose how much of each he wants to save, and is prepared to lose.

If photography was what it seems you'd like it to be, John, it wouldn't be much more than the art of being in the right place at the right time.


'Foreboding clouds' is something I'm definitely guilty of, but do tell me if there is a colour photo in the Lake Kitka series (while I'm trying to erase the connection mentioned by Karl) that you object to.

[Sergeant Rock]

. But most photography now is fakery - the product is finished on a computer device by adding 'effects'[...]It is only to the few photographers left who would not dream to 'process' their photos with third party products, and process instead through their own skill and instant tecnique

Do you really think Ansel Adams' photos were instantly produced when he clicked the shutter? Taking the picture was just the first step. There was nothing "instant" about it. The film had to be processed in a darkroom where "the product [was] finished" and that finishing process involved a lot of "fakery" such as burning and dodging. Manipulating the basic image is as old as photography itself. And now, we've simply moved out of an actual darkroom into a digital darkroom.

Edit: I see North Star beat me to it, even mentioning Adams 

Sarge

[Henk]

If photography was what it seems you'd like it to be, John, it wouldn't be much more than the art of being in the right place at the right time.

Well, in defense of John, isn't that the best thing in photography?

[Karl Henning]

Well, in defense of John, isn't that the best thing in photography?

Instead of the innocuous question, defend the thesis:  "This is the best thing in photography." 

[North Star]

         
“One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.” Minor White

[North Star]

Well, in defense of John, isn't that the best thing in photography?

In my view, one of the best things in photography is seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary, and how every photographer will have a different interpretation of a scene that has remained practically unchanged for longer than the art has existed. Of course there is also beauty in fleeting moments - expressions on people's faces, wildlife photography, and in different scales, microbial and astronomical phenomena.

[Karl Henning]

I don't think a photographer should be just the guy who pushes the button, any more than a novelist ought to be a stenographer . . . .

That said, I'm just a guy who pushes a button   

[North Star]

I don't think a photographer should be just the guy who pushes the button, any more than a novelist ought to be a stenographer . . . .

That said, I'm just a guy who pushes a button   

Even when playing the clarinet?  0:)

[Karl Henning]

No, strictly a photography comment 

[Henk]

A photographer only let things see, the remarkable thing is he doesn't see it himself. (Harry Mulisch, not the exact quote, which is a bit more elaborater)

[Karl Henning]

A photographer only let things see, the remarkable thing is he doesn't see it himself. (Harry Mulisch, not the exact quote)

There, you see: an argument for the process(es) of "touching up."

[Henk]

There, you see: an argument for the process(es) of "touching up."

Karl, I admit I have little to say. Busy with other things.

Not exactly the case though, because I have things to say, but that's on a different field of expertise.

[kishnevi]

I don't think a photographer should be just the guy who pushes the button, any more than a novelist ought to be a stenographer . . . .

That said, I'm just a guy who pushes a button   

The important thing is not to push other people's buttons