Tag: art

The topic of “Photoshop”, using the term generically to mean the use of digital photography editing software, comes up often in photography forums. I find it comes up less often when actually talking to other photographers in person, especially if they identify their work as art. This topic can become very intense.

Through the course of the conversation, it rarely fails that one or more of the “anti-photoshop” photographers will start to refer to photographs that have been edited in software as “digital art” and not a photograph. This is always an attempt to insult the “pro-photoshop” crowd by implying their work is “no longer a photograph and therefore they are not truly a photographer”.

Having seen this discussion many times, I’ve developed (pun intended) a couple of theories on the types of “anti-photoshop” photographers.

They never learned how photographer

The first anti-photoshop is the one that falls into the category of they never learned how to effectively edit their photographs so they have adopted the idea of “if I can’t do it no one should be able to do it”.

The “get it right” in the camera crowd

These are the so-called “straight” photography crowd and often tout the works of Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, and Alfred Stieglitz. Those that argue this often forget that these masters worked in a chemical darkroom to finalize their photography, in other words, comparable to modern photo editing software. This group also includes the straight photographer.

Photoshop makes it too easy crowd

This group believes that because it often took a lot of time and skill to process in the chemical darkroom that the use of modern digital techniques is “cheating”. Just like the “get it right” crowd, this group doesn’t have a problem using modern built-in light-metering, auto settings, and autofocus.

Conclusion

In reality, I don’t care how or what process a photographer uses. I appreciate good photography. Not only do I use photo editing software but I also make use of dedicated light meters to read not only reflected light (used in-camera meters) but supplemental lighting, and light modifiers. Often none of these tools are employed by the anti-photoshop crowd. The true masters of straight photography also used some of these same tools along with creative and/or unusual camera positions and angles.

The photograph I used above is not edited in post-processing nor did it use supplement lighting or light modifiers. What was used was a dedicated light meter to measure the exposure of the light from the sun coming through the leaves of the trees in a wooded area.

One of the most curious things I have discovered in looking at Edward Weston’s gallery is the photographers who are also displayed there, Jerry Uelsmann, Patty Carrol, and Maggie Taylor.

The power of digital photography, even film scanned, coupled with the ability of modern photo editing software, has allowed creativity to flow. Today, we can mix lighting, color grading, and more without taking a truckload of gear. I will still bring lighting equipment and modifiers to use as necessary but I can fine-tune the light or completely change it up.

The image above is the original unprocessed version.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you to stop processing your photographs in post-production. You are losing the power of creativity and might as well be shooting an Instamatic camera.

I don’t profess to be a soothsayer so you won’t find some huge prediction from me in this post. I see all sorts of blogs and articles with headlines that go something like, “Is this the death of photography”, “This invention may soon replace photographers” or “The death of the SLR camera”.

What I find interesting, a few years ago many predicted the death of film cameras. While there are not many new advances or new models of film cameras being developed but you can still buy film and film cameras. In fact, looking at a big-name photography retailer and online store you can even buy a pinhole camera.

A few short years ago smartphone cameras took small, grainy, blurry photographs. Today’s modern smartphone cameras can rival the quality of many dedicated cameras and the technology is advancing. As I think about it, my smartphone is a miniature computer. It has replaced my address book, my GPS device, my landline telephone, and my radio. I can stream movies and television with my smartphone. I no longer need a dedicated device to store and play digital music. While I still have vinyl records and compact discs with music I rarely use them. Although, I am getting back into listening to vinyl records.

I’m not saying I’m giving up my dedicated cameras for smartphone photography. Not in a moment. Hell, I started shooting film again with my twin lens reflex and a 35mm film camera. I may soon look into adding to my film camera collection and do more with them along with developing my own film again.

I’m thrilled to think where photography may go next because we will have more options available. I, for one, love to embrace new advances in technology.

One of my most popular months for photography is coming up. During a recent search of metadata in Lightroom Classic, I discovered the months where I take the most photographs are June, October, April, and November in that order. I found that 21% of my photographs were taken in October and November and 24% were taken in June and April. If I add May in, which is the 5th most photographed month I can account for 33% of my photographs.

Maybe that makes me a “fair weather” photographer? Nah, what I really think is happening is in May and June there are loads of things to photograph after a cold winter. It is before the weather gets hot and humid. Then after the hot humid summer, things become cooler, and the inspiration of autumn (my favorite season) with all the colors and then the inspiration of the creepiness of Halloween.

It’s interesting to me, to see how this stuff plays out. Now that cooler weather is coming and I am once again getting inspired to do more thanks to my many blog followers and photography friends I am ready to see what I get this fall.

Yesterday, I took a much-needed break. I played video games and watched mindless television. We, my wife and I, had intended to go to a small town in Kansas on Saturday. We didn’t go because we had to wait for a delivery and didn’t want to do the 1 hour and 45-minute drive after the wait. Instead, we visited a local winery.

I didn’t do much photography but I did manage to get a couple that interested me and, of course, enjoyed some wine and cheese.

It’s important to remember to take the occasional break. Sit back and relax. Even though I enjoy my photography some days you just need a break.

Do you, we, just copy the work we see of others, or are we original artists? I don’t even mean copying the work of others intentionally but subconsciously copying the work of others. I often like to think of myself as an original artist but am I truly? I suspect we are all influenced by the work we see, especially if we like the work.

Just this morning, I read a blog article sent to me by a friend. It was titled “Brain and Eye Photography” and can be found here. This article got me to think about this topic even more so. Are we unduly influenced by what we see and how we see it? Do we change by seeing more photography or by seeing less photography?

I guess one of the reasons I have never bought presets for Adobe Lightroom is that I edit each image individually. While this sounds great it makes it difficult to get consistency when putting together projects where you want to have a consistent style.

I know I have mentioned it in the past but I feel it bears mentioning again. One of the features of Adobe Lightroom (not Adobe Lightroom Classic) that I have found I really like is the “remix” and discover features. This feature takes you to the “cloud” and lets you see how others see the same photograph when developed in Adobe Lightroom. I find looking at these to be truly inspiring and hopefully become more creative and original.