Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/07/14
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Adam,
I has nothing to do with darkroom, or computer, per se. It has everything to
do with the honesty of the photographer.
As the wise man once said:
Cameras don't lie, photographers do.
Elliott Erwitt (who the quote was taken from - and who is attributed in my
message) is a straight photographer. And one of the best street
photographers to ever pick up a Leica.
His point is that there are a lot of cheesy things being done to photos that
have nothing to do with the medium of photography, and everything to do with
illustration, marketing, advertising, deception. That kind of photography is
an abomination to him. You only have to look at his photos to see they are
as straight as they come. Cropping is fine, tonal adjustment is fine,
spotting is fine. But making Elizabeth Taylor pimple-free is not, because
she isn't. (Especially now!) That's how he and a lot of photographers work.
Straight, honest, whatever the camera lays down with the acknowledgement
that cameras and film do not lay down a 1:1 analog of what is in reality,
and that some adjustment of brightness and contrast is just fine.
I prefer that kind of photography, but I like the other kind too. It's not
an abomination for me. But it's also not without it's weaknesses because of
the choice to deviate from the "pure" image. As long as I disclose what I
did, no problem. In straight photography, the very fact of the photo I
present to the world already discloses my choice of cropping, angle, moment,
etc. But if I combine two photos and present them to the world as one "real"
photo, then I am a liar.
For me, that's an abomination.
Nobody is fooled by Ted Orland's "Even Ansel Adams Has to Make a Living"
photo. But people were fooled by the L.A. Times' photographer's photo that
he made from two others during the war in Iraq. And he was rightly fired,
and will likely never find another news organization that would be willing
to hire him. Note the grief the New York Times still gets for that young
writer a couple months ago. It will take years to live that one down.
(I haven't weighed in on that topic in a long time!)
Okay, now I'll shut up!
on 07/14/03 8:22 PM, Adam Bridge at abridge@mac.com wrote:
> On 7/14/03 Eric Welch wrote:
>
>>
>> .....manipulation of pictures. I think it's an abomination. I reject it all.
>> I mean, it's OK for selling corn flakes or automobiles or for taking pimples
>> out of Elizabeth Taylor's face, but it undermines the thing that photography
>> is about...
>
> Oh, and all that stuff done in the darkroom is "natural" and doesn't have
> anything to do with manipulating an image.
>
> I don't think so...
>
> Adam
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Eric Welch
Carlsbad, CA
http://www.jphotog.com
"Have no fear of perfection; you'll never reach it."
-Salvador Dali
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