When I was studying photography at The Technical School of Reykjavik we went on a fieldtrip to the Icelandic Museum of Photography. At the end of our tour of the museum, the curator, a woman in her thirties(relevant as she was clearly not of a generation that only had wetplate or camera obscura at their disposal), walked us through an exebition of some work by the Swedish photographer Lars Tunbjörk. Tunbjörk sometimes uses some big flashes to light up outside environments. Scenes like suburbs and supermarkets get an erie feeling because of this. At the last photo the curator said smugly that the best thing about Tunbjörk was that he didn’t use any photoshop-tricks to manipulate his photos and did not cheat in that way.
This led me to thinking, so many consider Photoshop as a manipulation, cheating and false in some way. Flash on the other hand is considered by the same people as a classic method in photography, but its added light so in a way the scene is not natural anymore. I think these purists should stick to their guns and only use pinhole.
There is much debate going on these days on how far we can go in photoshop. Some say its complicated but I don’t see it that way. Its simple as long as you do not add something to a frame from a completely different frame it’s a photograph. Otherwise it’s a photo illustration. In both instances it can be art.
There is a great article on Luminous Landscape about a photographer dealing with accusations of falseness in his photographs a good read.
Just a note, I have gotten some feedback on this and have to clarify that I am not talking about Photojournalism, clearly there are other rules and considerations in that field.
January 12th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Its the same issue with programming, old time programmers get tetchy about modern languages that do a lot of the work for you, compared to older languages where you have to learn more to be as good. As with photography, progress happens and veterens complain because it is not as hard anymore.
Personally I love using the RAW option for photos and playing with the image later. Cheating or progress, its a matter of opinion.
January 13th, 2007 at 9:45 am
Yes the Craft issue comes into this as well, but I think Photoshop skills are just as much of a craft, even though I do not have to mix chemicals and work in the dark. Of course it must be irritating to see your skills become obsolete, something that will happen to us at some time too.
cheers
Sno