Tag: art

Does your photography really matter? I don’t necessarily mean to the world or even others but does it even matter to yourself? Do you create the photographs you want or do you create work that others expect?

I know if you’re a photographer who earns your living through your photography you often have to produce the photographs that pay the bills, but is it really the work you want to create? If it is, that is wonderful, if it is not maybe you can create some side projects of the work you want to create.

I don’t make my living through my photography. I’ve made money from my photographs but it isn’t what I do for a living, but I have found myself producing work that others expect to see rather than what I would want to produce. Even as amateur photographers (amateur meaning for the love of it) we can, at times, produce the work others expect. We can also get lost in the creativity arena.

I have, in the past, asked photographers why they took a particular photograph. Most of the time, they will answer with something along the lines of, “I was drawn to the scene by the light” or “I thought it looked interesting” but when questioned further about their “why” most are not able to expand upon the why. They don’t know why of the why. We don’t have to create images that have a deep meaning or hidden message, but if we, as the photographer and artist, don’t understand why we are drawn to particular subjects, light, scenes, and so on, how can we create the photography that matters to us?

Ansel Adams was an environmentalist. He was a lifelong member of the Sierra Club. He had a passion for the environment. It isn’t any wonder why his photographs of natural places like Yosemite are so wonderful. His passion was for the preservation of nature and natural places.

Maybe I should explore my passions outside of our photography and that will allow me to see my photography in a new light and I can create the photographs I want and understand the why of my why.

Has Photoshop and similar programs made photography too easy? What?! Some of you who have followed me for a while may think this is totally opposite of what I’ve written about in the past but bear with me.

I think I have somewhat figured out why the anti-post-processing crowd may believe what they believe, at least some of them. I think they may believe Photoshop has made it too easy. They struggled to learn how to “do it in camera” or some types of photographs were nearly impossible for them to create because their darkroom skills weren’t as advanced. Now comes along Photoshop, Lightroom, and similar programs that have opened the doors to advanced processing of images that were nearly impossible or, at the very least, difficult to achieve. Some of them are the, “I suffered and struggled so you must suffer and struggle as well” crowd.

I’ll be the first to admit that many of the past masters of photography were fabulous photographers. They knew how to use their equipment, but also remember that in those days, they were the very few. The numbers of photographers were a mere fraction of those today. I’ll also admit it has become easier to do some awesome advanced techniques just as masking, sky replacements, element selections, and compositing but to make the images look natural takes practice and honing of skills.

Every advancement in technology has met, at least, some resistance from previous generations. People complained about the advancements in transportation, computers, television, and communications.

No! Photoshop hasn’t made it too easy. Photoshop and similar programs have just changed the technology. I’m older and have been involved in photography for 40+ years. I love the advancements in technology. I also don’t have a problem with keeping the “old ways” alive. There is room for us all. There is enough respect and admiration for us all.

Along with photography, I am a fan of philosophy although I barely passed philosophy as a college student. As I have grown older I have realized that many things we think we know we actually know very little about. We often accept a common belief system without question. One thing many photographers may not know is there is a whole genre of philosophy about art, aesthetics. Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste. Some of the first writings on the topic date back to the days of Socrates, although the thoughts of Socrates were written by his students, Plato and Aristotle.

The whole topic of what constitutes art and beauty has existed for nearly 2,500 years and continues today. I suspect that the debate will never cease. As time goes on, views of what is and isn’t art and beauty change. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it is a good thing. I believe it is important to remember all the past art movements (a list of past art movements can be found here). Because of the fact that perceptions of what is and isn’t art change, I choose to not worry about following the trends or what is currently popular even though I may participate in such things from time to time.

To me, the most important thing about creating art through my photography is self-expression. I didn’t always think this way. I can participate in any of the past and current art movements from photorealism to surrealism.

In one of the social media forums, I participate in there is a current trend of creating “twirl” art. This has created quite a stir. A few members of the forum have complained this is no longer photography since the original photograph. The complaints, of course, just created more of an interest in creating these works. While this may be a passing fad, the tools available to create these sorts of works in Adobe Photoshop have existed for every version I have used and I began using Adobe Photoshop in 2010.

The philosophy of art is not writing in stone. We can debate what is art ad nauseam but I still find myself participating in such debates. This is why I like photography, art, and philosophy, everything is ambiguous. If we haven’t clearly defined what is art or beauty in 2,500 years it is likely that we may never agree on what is or isn’t art past an often short-lived movement.

Create your art your way.

I’ve talked about not letting reality stand in the way of creating art many times, but you don’t have to change reality to create photographic art. Sometimes we just have to see artistically or a scene just meets our vision. For me, art is about intentionally creating something aesthetic to view.

While the scene in the image above accurately shows the city, it also alters reality, without manipulation through post-processing. How so you may ask. As the caption shows, the photograph above, while only mildly processed in Adobe Lightroom, was a long exposure with a small aperture. The long exposure renders the cars traveling the streets as streaks of light. The traffic signals may show red, green, and yellow lights. The small aperture renders the points of light as starbursts. This isn’t how we see the scene with our eyes.

Again in the image above, the scene is only mildly edited through post-processing, yet I altered reality since we don’t see the flowing water as a smooth surface.

Even when we don’t use long exposures, we alter reality since we freeze time. The cars and people are permanently frozen in time. We have merely captured a fraction of a second of reality. The real world is a moving flowing place.

One could argue that video may show reality, but is it? Can the reality be altered by the choice of a lens focal length or aperture? We, as photographers, can only show a scene close to what it was in reality. This is why I often don’t hesitate to alter reality further.

As a photographic artist, I portray reality as it exists to me. I portray the reality of my world. If I ever have to record something forensically I will not alter the record any further than I have by taking a video or photographic record, but when I create a work with the intent to create art, all is fair game.

I’ve touched on this topic in the past when discussing reality and post-processing with your photographs. When I take photographs I attempt to visualize what I want the final artwork to look like, at least as best as I can at the time.

Let’s take the photograph above as an example. The scene when I took the photograph was daylight and brightly lit.

The scene above is far less dramatic. I knew what I wanted to convey which was a nicely dressed good looking woman in a gritty rough environment.

The photograph above was as I envisioned it when at the time of the session in 2016.

Today, when I revisit these images I still envision them the same way but with a bit of a change in style.

As you can see, the general vision is the same with the exception I often think in terms of color grading to give the scene a sense of drama.

I know, some may not like the style but as you may see in the image above of the original scene as it appeared it isn’t nearly as dramatic. I don’t let reality stand in my way. I am working to create an artistic look, even in portraits. I can create the generic school photo look, it just doesn’t fit my artistic desire. I envision the world in the form of art, not in a flat two-dimensional format. I often see bold colors and textures. I love seeing drama and emotion, even in landscapes. We, humans, are emotional and often dramatic. I work to create things that will give me a moment to pause and view my work. I always hope others will do the same.

I believe that once an artist starts to view the world as a form of beauty, with emotion and drama it changes how you envision your art. This is why I often find straight photography boring and unexciting. Even the masters before us that created wonderful pieces in the days before Photoshop and similar programs felt it was nearly as important, if not more, how work was done in the darkroom as it was at the time the film was exposed in the camera.

Each of my examples above, not counting the original looks, took very little time in post-processing using a current version of Adobe Lightroom. You don’t have to spend hours post-processing. You just have to become familiar with the software and your style. Learn to see with drama and emotion and then make the art come to life and meet your vision.

When I’m asked about my advice for new or beginning photographers I always recommend they learn to use their camera in manual mode. Manual exposure, manual focus. Using manual control you learn much more about exposure and focus, additionally, you slow down a bit, especially at first. Slowing down gives you time to consider your photograph. Learning to manually control your camera will be my first bit of advice. I probably shoot 90% of my images in manual mode.

The second bit of advice I believe is important is to learn post-processing. In today’s digital age post-processing is the darkroom of our photographs. When we think about past masters of photography many, if not most, developed their own photographs or had a very talented darkroom person. In fact, I can’t think of a single photography master of film days that just sent their film to the neighborhood drug store or any other mass production film processing business. Why, because how the image is developed post shutter click is nearly as important as the setup pre-shutter click. For me, the straight out of the camera jpg is not unlike using the neighborhood drug store or the “one hour photo” development store. Yeah, it’s a usable image, but they are more often than not, lacking. Can you image Ansel Adams or Edward Weston putting their camera in auto mode, clicking the button, and using the in-camera processed jpg as the final product? Me just writing that probably has those guys rolling over in their graves.

If you truly want to be the master of your photography do yourself the favor of learning to control your camera and the development of your images in post.

I spend a lot of time reading photography forums, maybe too much sometimes, and it never fails that I find a debate on editing. While there are several different types, they fall into three basic categories, purists who don’t like much or any post-processing, the “I don’t really care crowd”, and those, like me, “the anything-goes-crowd”. The group that seems to be the most passionate is the purists.

I am working towards becoming a fine art photographer, thus I use the term photographic artist. I’m not sure I have made it yet, but I’m working on getting my style(s) down. I am quite passionate about my stance on the use of post-processing. I don’t let the fear of reality or changing reality stand in my way. Let’s take a look at the photograph above in its original form.

I love photographing alleyways, but I’m often not in them when the scene looks the way I envision it because sometimes they are in bad neighborhoods where I don’t want to be at night.

Don’t let the neigh sayers keep you from your vision. I rarely let others know just how much I may have altered a scene because it really isn’t important. What is important is that I created the art that I envisioned. Work your magic, create your art, and don’t listen to those who want to discourage you. Make magic, make art.

How seriously do you take your photography? Let’s face it, photography is an expensive hobby but does expensive gear show you take your photography seriously? I see a lot of photographers who profess their obsession with photography but yet they aren’t willing to invest in the one thing that will take their photography to new heights. I’m not talking about upgrading cameras or lenses. I’m not talking about buying the latest greatest craze. I’m not talking about using this computer or that one nor film versus digital. What I’m talking about is investing in yourself. I don’t give two hoots and a holler what kind of equipment you use or the media.

What do I mean when I say invest in yourself? I mean invest in your know-how, not necessarily paying for an education. I mean by reading, doing, studying, experimenting. I mean getting yourself into the mindset of an artist. I mean knowing when to just savor the moment and let the photograph go, when to take a camera and when to leave the camera at home. Investing in yourself also means self-care. Take a break if you need it. I’ve seen so many photographers burn themselves out, sell their stuff and never come back. Investing in yourself means don’t buy the presets or add-ons to your programs of choice but learning to build the style yourself.

Invest in your photographs by writing a short story about the scene or subject. Give your photographs titles. I always wondered why a photograph hanging in a gallery was titled “untitled”. Was the photographer/artist too lazy? Did the scene/subject not really mean much to the photographer? Was it something that the photographer rejected and someone, later on, discover it?

I’m guilty of these things as well so I’m telling myself to invest in myself. I’ve been negligent in not titling photographs. I’ve been guilty of not writing a story about a scene or subject. I’ve been guilty of letting the photograph go, or obsessing about the latest and greatest new gadget. Let us obsess over what really matters with our art, ourselves, and each other as artists.

When is good enough actually good enough? Do your photographs and artwork have to be perfect, or as close to perfect as is possible? Why or why not?

We often see this sort of discussion in terms of detail and sharpness. There is a group that believes photographs need to be “tack sharp” with all the minor details recorded. It also appears this mindset is growing amongst photographers but is it really necessary to be “tack sharp” and highly detailed? In some photographs that amount of detail and sharpness may be necessary but not in everything.

Sharp focus and detail are wonderful but they can also be a curse.

Super sharp lenses that can render all the minor details will show everything ruthlessly. Every skin pore, every bit of hair and blemish. Trust me on this one, the resulting image above is softened a LOT compared to the actual image on my computer screen.

My goal as an artist is to give enough sharpness and detail to convey the message I wish to without giving the viewer distractions or useless or unnecessary details. Back in the “olden” days, we used to use a variety of tools to give a soft look to images and this was before lenses and digital sensors were capable of rendering the level of sharp focus and detail as they can today. What changed? Was it that we were now able to achieve this level of detail and show off the quality of our equipment. Has photography become so narcissistic that we as photographers and artists have to show off the quality of our equipment rather than our artistic skills and creativity? Maybe we should obsess over the art rather than the gear and how “tack sharp” it can reproduce every minor detail. We don’t have to be scientists so we can study skin pores, tree bark, or insect shells and antenna. We don’t expect the same level of sharpness and detail from painters.

I’m not going to give up my quality equipment, not just yet, but I don’t obsess over the rendering of sharpness or detail. I, in fact, often soften a photograph in post-processing while developing the final version of my artwork. Let us lead the way to obsess over the art rather than the forensic science level sharpness and detail. Learn to convey your message using less rather than more. Remember the old adage, “less is sometimes more.”