on 6/28/02 1:14 PM, ClassicVW@xxxxxxx at ClassicVW@xxxxxxx wrote:
> My main gripe with AA is not the fact that the images were heavily
> manipulated, but the fact that is wasn't heavily advertised as manipulated.
> Only when one digs deeper into his photography world do you find all this out.
> If you don't state it up front, you lead people to think that the photo is an
> accurate depiction of the scene at the time of the shot. Same with digital.
> Let me know _up front_ what you did to make that print. I want to know if
> you're that great of a photographer, or that great of a computer geek. Just my
> $0.02
>
> George S.
There's different schools for photography... some are 'just the negative,
just as it was exposed' and some are wholly open to manipulation of all
sorts, either chemical or digital. There's even 'art' that has been created
with photographic images that isn't at all a traditional print or
projection. There's room for a lot of schools, although not everything I see
satisfies *me* as being 'art'. I don't think the artist is necessarily
required to disclose the process behind the images in all cases.
Disclosure is important if we concern ourselves with the process and
technique involved in making the image, but most images should be evaluated
as the image itself. I won't respect effort and technique alone as making a
snapshot into 'art', I've worked and worked and I don't think I have yet
created anything that the world would consider 'art'. I may make my
snapshots better, but they don't quite reach to 'art' no matter how much
technique I lavish on them... There are some truly talented people on this
list, and when I see a really nice image I'm mostly pleased by the image,
and only peripherally concerned with what equipment and techniques i.e.
manipulation in development, exposure, digital, and otherwise may have been
used.
I guess each of us can choose how many and which tools to use to satisfy our
creative impulses. I mostly shoot straight-up images; at one time I was sure
I could be the next Cartier-Bresson, until I discovered that took talent
that was somehow missing-in-action... Then I wanted to be a National
Geographic photographer, travel the world and see interesting places, but my
pictures of 'exotic' travel locations and the local neighborhood both lack
something that the NG pictures have -- and I'm not quite sure how to find
what's missing.
I now see my role as the family and personal life documentation
photographer. I take pictures of stuff around me, and 1000 years from now
(with proper archival storage ;-) ) some future anthropologist can review
the images and say "Gee what a boring life this poor sap led." Meantime, I'm
getting into the digital manipulations as being a creative alternative to
traditional darkroom processes I can't manage to fit into my life or
apartment... I might tell you if I tweaked an image, but maybe I'd just
present it as 'this is my final offer' of the "artistic vision" of its
creation.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|