Does it spoil it?

HornetSting

HornetSting

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Ben
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Ive always wondered this, but never really asked anyone. Do you think that digital photography spoils photography?

The reason I say this is because back in the day, you couldnt use a computer to enhance pictures, change things, add and subtract objects and all the other many many things you can with computer software.

You used to use the skill of the operator and the equipment and that was it, there may be the odd thing you could do in the developing stage (I dont know what though), but it must be very limited to what you can actually do to the picture.

I just think in some ways when you see pictures now its kind of cheating, a bit like airbrushing models in magazines etc, you dont know how genuine the pictures are and whats been done to them.

Whats your thoughts on it? :thinking:
 
Age old argument which'll never resolve itself!

In my view, nothing beats good composure, whether analogue or digital. No amount of studio work or Photoshopping is going to make a duff picture look good.

Where you have got something good, then, in all honesty, Photoshop pretty much enables you to do what you'd do in a darkroom anyway if you were skilled enough. I'm sure there are people who are more skilled in a darkroom than I am with photoshop; would I ever doubt their end product? Not really, as long as it didn't look obviously tampered with.

And I suppose there's the rub in a way. If you tell someone that you've used Photoshop to process a load of pictures, a lot of the time there's a nod and wink, "What've you changed then eh?" Err nothing, I've just cropped the pic a bit and brought out some of the highlights, exactly the same as I could do in a darkroom. Except, if you told someone you'd done something in a darkroom, then they'd praise it without any kind of scrutiny as to whether it's been enhanced or tinkered with in any way.
 
HornetSting said:
Ive always wondered this, but never really asked anyone. Do you think that digital photography spoils photography?

The reason I say this is because back in the day, you couldnt use a computer to enhance pictures, change things, add and subtract objects and all the other many many things you can with computer software.

You used to use the skill of the operator and the equipment and that was it, there may be the odd thing you could do in the developing stage (I dont know what though), but it must be very limited to what you can actually do to the picture.

I just think in some ways when you see pictures now its kind of cheating, a bit like airbrushing models in magazines etc, you dont know how genuine the pictures are and whats been done to them.

Whats your thoughts on it? :thinking:
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Mmm . . . I agree . . . 'but' . . . I think, if its treated as film, then I find I get satisfaction out of it. In the days of film, it was impossible for me to have a darkroom. I can now indulge myself . . . if I want? However, generally, I prefer to keep it simple, along the lines of the limitations in the good old days.

I like to be a 'photographer of opportunity', keep it simple as part of my life, not ruling my life, keeps costs down and time staring at the computer limited. I have a life, and other people to consider.

CJS
 
It depends what you mean by photography. Professional photography, enthusiast photography or general public photography, and what era you're talking about.

Professional photography has always had the ability to manipulate images from near enough day one. Most images in fashion magazine have always been 'tinkered' with. ;)

And there are some notable manipulated images here. Note the date on the first image, and what an amazing job they did. :eek: That would take some doing in Photoshop even now.

Enthusiast photography has gained the ability to manipulate images as time has gone on, mainly in the darkroom, and mainly correcting exposure and dodging and burning etc. Not many I would venture would be replacing skies for example, but if you had a darkroom and the skill the ability was there as the technology became cheaper over time.

General public photography had virtually no chance of manipulation by the user, you sent your film away, you got it back. Now the people you sent it to may have been able to correct exposure problems as time went on. Most people have had the little stickers on a grainy picture advising when an image had been under exposed. If it had been printed has it appeared on the negative it may have been virtually black on the paper. The machines compensated for exposure problems, maybe giving people a false recollection that all there images used to be perfectly exposed when they used film. :LOL:

Most people can now easily and cheaply get the technology to alter their images which may not have been possible 10-15 years ago. How many people actually do that is another thing. We get a skewed impression of 'photography' in places like this which has enthusiasts with quite a high technical ability, most people still take their images on a memory card to a shop hand it over, and get the images printed. Though there is the ability to do some basic editing in the shop should you want to.


How much or how little manipulation you wish to do is up to you, but don't kid yourself it is a recent thing, it is just that more people are able to do it now. ;)
 
Ahhh nostalgia, it ain't what it used to be...
 
desantnik said:
Ahhh nostalgia, it ain't what it used to be...
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:LOL::LOL:

I have never processed film, like many on here I suspect, so I don't feel I am missing anything. I do try to recreate the old film look sometimes though, especially in my street shots.
 
redhed17 said:
And there are some notable manipulated images here. Note the date on the first image, and what an amazing job they did. :eek: That would take some doing in Photoshop even now.
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Thats a great link and post covering pretty much how I feel about the subject :clap:

I wish we would get over this seemingly inferiority complex we have regarding the legitimacy of digital photography.

Steve
 
Spoil it? No, not at all but it does make the image making process a very different beast.

There are things that got a lot better and things that seem to have become less enjoyable too but the essential elements of craft and vision are just the same.

The big difference for me as a working snapper is that the buzz of working without a saftey net has gone.
 
Yeah, I think everytime I've seen this debate arise we have to remind ourselves that they did actually doctor photographs in the film days too (although I didn't realise it was quite as much as that link!).

It is more accessable now. Does it ruin it? Definitely not.

There, case closed :p
 
I suppose it comes down to the question of, when does a photograph stop being a photograph and become a creation?
 
Rob 80386 said:
I suppose it comes down to the question of, when does a photograph stop being a photograph and become a creation?
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It could be said that unless you print straight from the camera or with no editing at all, it is a 'creation' anyway. ;) :LOL:

Obviously it's up to the individual, but as long as you're not a journalist/documentary/forensic photographer, or claiming no editing (and what counts as manipulation can differ from one person to another) then it's whether you like the image or not surely. :shrug: And if you enjoy doing it all well and good.

Oh, and if you use filters, are you manipulating reality before the light even hits the film/sensor? ;) :LOL:
 
redhed17 said:
It could be said that unless you print straight from the camera or with no editing at all, it is a 'creation' anyway. ;) :LOL:

Obviously it's up to the individual, but as long as you're not a journalist/documentary/forensic photographer, or claiming no editing (and what counts as manipulation can differ from one person to another) then it's whether you like the image or not surely. :shrug: And if you enjoy doing it all well and good.

Oh, and if you use filters, are you manipulating reality before the light even hits the film/sensor? ;) :LOL:
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Fair point (y)
 
Rob 80386 said:
I suppose it comes down to the question of, when does a photograph stop being a photograph and become a creation?
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I saw a posted image today and admit I wondered just this

the OP said like "rubbish sky - I'll just PS add another"

so it's not a photo of the "event" but a collage..?

might just as well have done an oil painting instead......:thinking:
 
Yardbent said:
I saw a posted image today and admit I wondered just this

the OP said like "rubbish sky - I'll just PS add another"

so it's not a photo of the "event" but a collage..?

might just as well have done an oil painting instead......:thinking:
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so then it's not what the photographer actually saw, it's what the photographer wanted to see, hence it's a creation from the mind's "eye"

:)
 
PerfectSpeed said:
:LOL::LOL:

I have never processed film, like many on here I suspect, so I don't feel I am missing anything. I do try to recreate the old film look sometimes though, especially in my street shots.
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The results were often not worth the time covered in chemicals while you can't see a thing :D I liked film but I can't say I miss the whole devving side of things. Printing, now there was an art....
 
I don't do much in PP that I didn't used to be able to do in the darkroom (apart from doing it in colour as well as B&W). When necessary, I would drop in some intersting sky to replace the flat white one that nature had provided. Easier when it was behind a sillouette but still very possible whatever the foreground.

Dodging and burning? No problem. Combining images? Took a bit longer but wasn't too hard.

Digital does make a lot of other things possible and most things easier, not to mention removing the chemically induced headaches. I rather like being able to do it all with the lights on as well.
 
Exactly. People don't complain at painters because they missed out that pylon when they painted a country landscape, or moved the cart slightly right to make it better compositionally... Why should photos, an art form, be any different?

(Slight difference with editorial photos)
 
Speaking of Paintings, I've seen a few TV programmes over the last year or so where they have gone to the location the painting's were painted, and some of them bare no relation to the reality, with the painter actually removing hills that obscured the subject in some cases. :eek:

There are some famous paintings of Venice which are not possible in real life. I don't think the painters said 'oh, and by the way, if you actually go there, it doesn't look like that'. ;) :LOL:

Does it make them bad paintings? :shrug:
 
An image doesn't have to be manipulated in post processing, if you are happy with it straight from the camera. I don't think digital has spoilt anything, I think its opened it up to many more people, and for those that want to use film, they still can and do.
 
HornetSting said:
Do you think that digital photography spoils photography?
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No.

Sometimes there seems to be a somewhat elitist notion about film photography; that somehow that's the only true way of producing a quality photograph.

That always reminds me of my grandparents who refused to move to a color tv, because that "wasn't how it was supposed to be". Same views came up when moving from primarily black and white to color photography; some were reluctant to do so because it wasn't "right".

People innovate and experiment, technology improve. Just because some people are reluctant to adapt with doesn't make the result of the latter of lesser value.

So no, digital photography doesn't spoil or ruin the art of photography; if anything it enhances it and let us easier present the end result as how we envisioned it.

For me there's no "digital photography" or "film photography" - just photography.
 
Maybe using the word 'spoil' was not the right one. I just wonder if it kind of takes something away from the original kind of pictures people used to take years ago?! Of course its down to the operator of the camera and having good equipment to get a good picture, but when it gets to the point where you are removing wooden posts or changing the sky etc in a picture, is that the point that it has gone too far?

I just wondered about it, I suppose the way I see it is a bit like films using CGI too much. Before it existed, stuntmen would do real stunts and it would look great, a lot of films now they are standing in a studio with green screen and its all generated. Thats the only comparison I can think of to put my point across.
 
Check out the Genius of Photography documentary, and you'll see that they changed backgrounds, perspectives, added "overlays", etc way back in the day (in 40's).

Nothing has really changed, it's just easier now.

I see your point, but I don't think it's a nuisance though, so to speak. There are some techniques who's results I'm not too fond of (HDR, tilt shift) but I don't consider them to "lessen" the art of photography. It's just a different genre of it.

But each to their own, we all have our opinions. In the end it's just pictures, so go out there and take and produce them with whatever means works for you! :)
 
We had a similar discussion at work regarding hand drawings vs autocad - the conclusion is that, although you can produce good results quickly, it is more often than not wrong and needs correcting, where hand drawn designs had the time taken on them to make them right first time. I think the same applies with photography.
 
HornetSting said:
Maybe using the word 'spoil' was not the right one. I just wonder if it kind of takes something away from the original kind of pictures people used to take years ago?! Of course its down to the operator of the camera and having good equipment to get a good picture, but when it gets to the point where you are removing wooden posts or changing the sky etc in a picture, is that the point that it has gone too far?

I just wondered about it, I suppose the way I see it is a bit like films using CGI too much. Before it existed, stuntmen would do real stunts and it would look great, a lot of films now they are standing in a studio with green screen and its all generated. Thats the only comparison I can think of to put my point across.
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I get what you are saying 100% and to be honest i sit on both sides of the fence. You simply cannot answer the question with a yes or now answer. I do think digital has made things doable that before we could never do but at the same time something has been lost.

The one main issue i have since digital is not the rearranging of images but the all out obsession with noise or texture or should i say obsession to get rid of it all. I see certain applications where having a very clean image is beneficial it has given us an advantage over film but a lot of the time having an ultra smooth image just takes away a whole dimension of the photographic medium. When you take away grain/noise you then have to rely on edge sharpness to give your eyes something to focus on and thus make the image appear in focus and sharp. That process instantly makes the image far more like CGI

Its another whole area of debate but people tend to see through cultural eyes so they will mimic what is around them as it influenced them. If your looking at clean computer generated content all the time then that is what your going to come accustomed to. The irony is the holey grail of CGI is to make it life like and one of the biggest hurdles has been texturing and getting away from that ultra smooth glossy look. I find it amazing that in the CGI world they are trying to make everything look more real but in the photography world we are stepping away form that and making images look more mystical and fantasy like.
 
I think there's a good point being made here in that there's no definite yes or no answer. As with all arts there's this huge grey area between still a photograph and too far. Most people have different tolerances and in turn different sized grey areas. I think you can push it to certain limits and a lot of people would still deem it a photograph, others would deem it a piece of art (or piece of shoyte depending on what you did :LOL:). For example, if I took a photo of a person looking out at a pretty mediocre sunset, stook it in photoshop, processed a red gradient filter over the sky and wham got a burning sunset is that going too far? Some people will say yes. How about this then... 2 minutes after said digital photograph I switch over to my 35mm film camera, stick on a filter on the lens to bump the colours to a nice magenta/crimson sunset, bang a flash with some coloured gels on it at the subject to bring him back to a "normal" colour, and wham! I get a very similar result... This time, it's using pre photo trickery and smart lighting to acheive a result we do afterwards now...

So... for me the grey area is vast. There's certain things I'll think "oooh, that's pushing it a tad..." and other areas I'm thinking "Yeah, I'd have cloned that bird out of the sky too..."

No point trying to solve it, everyone will have a different take. And that's what makes photography so interesting at times. And I suppose it's what pushes people to take better photographs, improve post processing, etc. We need to change with the times, not fight em.
 
To be honest its all about saving time/money.

You could produce the same photos by trial and error and intense repetition - keep looking for the perfect sunset, the shot without the seagull in it, the model without a zit on the day or one with perfect skin tone and curves, the annoying twig sticking into the edge of the frame in your tiger shot...

But time is money, why keep going at it when you can get 90% and fix the rest.

What we are talking about here are commercial techniques that amateurs emulate because thats the shots they want to produce. Happens in all sorts of photography - your shots need to look like the ones in Bird Monthly or Fast Motors or Gorgeous Gals Weekly... and they all use shortcuts to meet their publication deadlines and to produce something every day/week/month.
 
Amp34 said:
Exactly. People don't complain at painters because they missed out that pylon when they painted a country landscape, or moved the cart slightly right to make it better compositionally... Why should photos, an art form, be any different?

(Slight difference with editorial photos)
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I agree. Unless they're documentary shots, go to town on them..
 
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