Digital BW, The Print

Loris wrote:

>>...
>> "With Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, and a handful of
>> other photographers, Adams founded in the early 1930s Group
>> f/64, which was dedicated to straight photography as an art
>> form. Photography at the time was dominated by the
>> "pictorialists," who created staged, artificial (and now
>> largely forgotten) photographs that imitated the conventions

>Just to address the sarcasm enclosed in parenthesis:
>I simply don't beleive that Joel-Peter Witkin's
>(which is not the only photographer to present staged,
>artificial photographs) work will be forgotten in the
>future...

Just to be clear, the phrase/sarcasm in the parenthesis was in the original
quote -- it's not mine.

>>... Adams was instrumental in the struggle to gain
>> for photography recognition as art on its own merits."
>> <http://www.turtlebay.org/exhibitions/anseladams/pg04.html>
>> ...

>> ...
>> Near the end of his life, Adams produced prints
>> intended to represent his life's work not just as a series of
>> landscape images but as a panorama of the possibilities of
>> the "straight," unmanipulated style to which he adhered."

>I don't consider AA's work unmanipulated at all. ...

Nor do I.  In addition to lots of dodging and burning, he even eliminated
the big "LP" (for Lone Pine High School) that was on a hill in the middle of
one of his shots of Mt. Whitney.

That is why I think "straight" photography is a good, accepted term for the
genre of photography that includes what I and many other landscape
photographers do.  It includes AA's work, most of other Group f64 member's
prints, and many more traditional B&W landscape photographers.  There are
certain traditional manipulations that have been accepted in the genre.
Yet, the significant details and physical relationships of the lens-formed
image are preserved.

This is not to say that the "straight" photography genre is better or worse
than any other, but it may serve as a way to describe a certain style that,
in my view, retains the essence of the "basic honesty" of the lens-formed
image that gives viewers of photographic prints the feeling they are looking
at a slice of reality.  The genre clearly still allows manipulations that
are, in my view, necessary to convey the photographer/printer's overlay
communication that makes notable and memorable prints more than random
snapshots.

(Note that even contact printers can dodge and burn their prints.)

Wendel wrote:

>..."What's in a name? That which we call a rose by
>any other name would smell as sweet" ....

Maybe, but maybe not always.  When I represent my work to be "straight"
photography, that gives the viewer information that adds value to what I
do -- at least for some, like me.  Again, I love the digital, fantasy
landscapes, but being a nature lover, the fact that a photo is a "straight"
view of my beloved nature is important to me.

>... [An] LA Times photographer, was recently fired for
>manipulating an image in Photoshop that ran in the paper
>as if it was a "straight" or a faithful document of a
>moment during the Iraq War. But this
>sort of manipulation has been going on since
>Matthew Brady began dragging dead bodies around the
>battlefield for better composition during the US
>Civil War. He did not need Photoshop to manipulate
>the "truth" within a photograph.

>This is the thing about photography - it lies
>and tells the truth simultaneously.

Absolutely, and it's a more major problem now than in the "good old days."

It's not an easy thing to define the line between a "lie" and a manipulation
that simply emphasizes that part of reality which the photographer wants to
communicate.  Did AA's elimination of the "LP" from the hill misrepresent
the view in a significant way, or was it removing a human intrusion into a
beautiful scene.

I think the L.A. Times, in doing and publicizing the firing did the same
thing I try to do with my label of "straight" photography.  For some
markets, a major part of the value of the photograph comes from the
"illusion" that it is an "accurate" representation of reality, at least
within boundaries that the viewer, perhaps unconsciously, has accepted.  The
L.A. Times is mostly in the news business, not the art business.  The ease
with which digital tools allow manipulations -- and the viewer's knowledge
of this -- has the potential to seriously undermine a major part of
photography's value to that news organization.

Traditionally, whether true or not, most believed that a photo represented
"truth."  The L.A. Times wants to assure it's readers that, unlike the
tabloids, it's photos do represent the truth.  Figuring out how to
preserving this characteristic of photography, at least for some subset of
the larger field, is what this thread is about.

One thing I like about Photoshop is the ability to remove twigs, etc. from
intruding into my shots.  When one considers that the old-time landscape
photographers cut down trees to clear their views, I feel good about my
modern methods.  Even if they portray a view of reality that is not strictly
accurate, I consider them to be accurately described as "straight"
photographs.

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com