On 6/19/05, William Robb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Paul Stenquist" > Subject: Re: How to make Good Pictures (Let's Free the Captured Images) > > > >I don't call my pictures anything but pictures. I leave it to the viewers > >to decide. A photograph presented solely for viewing pleasure promises > >nothing more. I've done newspaper photography and magazine photography. > >I'll clean things up if necessary but I don't misrepresent the subject. > >Hell, I don't misrepresent the subject in any of my photography. I only > >strive to make it more realistic and more pleasing to look at. > > A bit of a dichotomy. More pleasing and more realistic? What happens if you > decide that to make it more pleasing, you need to alter reality? > As soon as you do that, you are misrepresenting the subject. > > William Robb > > >
I have to agree with Bill, here. Allow me to proliferate. Truth in photography has nothing to do with the lens, camera, processing chemicals, photo paper, enlarger, or the color of paint on your darkroom walls. Our own eyes are good examples of this. My left eye produces a slightly sharper image than my right. My right eye, however, allows me to see more detail, though slightly blurred, than my left. eg. Staring at a blade of grass with my right eye from six feet up tells me there is a 'vein' (terminology?) running through the center. My left eye allows more edge definition of the blade itself, but only barely resolves the vein. Hell, your own eyes may have a different focal length than mine. My dear, departed Malamute couldn't see much color (so I've been told). Lots of folks are color blind. Some of you may have a better angle of view than I do. But what we see is really there. It's the truth, plain and simple. Thus, using a wide angle lens or an extreme telephoto produces no deception. Monochrome film is no less deceptive than color. Kodak Gold is just as honest as Velvia. Ann's recently sold Nikkormat is no more or less honest than an *istD. However, the details in that blade of grass are already fading from my memory. My own mind wasn't capable of permanently recording even a tenth of that information. At best, I might remember that we had a discussion about about truth in photography and I walked outside to look at a blade of grass in an attempt to prove a point. I believe this is why people make photographs. It's why we take cameras to the beach and it's why we use photographs to advertise a product. It covers everything in between. Taking of photograph of my backyard and then removing the tree in the background so that the blade of grass has a more pleasing appearance is dishonest. It's no longer a photograph. Call it a collage, an image, art, whatever. At best your final result contains part of a photograph. Presenting such an image and not being forthright about the alteration makes it difficult to impossible for the viewer to come to a come to a realistic conclusion. If you want to edit the reality out of your photographs, fine. Just let your viewer know. Otherwise, it's deception. -- Scott Loveless http://www.twosixteen.com -- "You have to hold the button down" -Arnold Newman
