Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Damn I can't spell lol whether**

Bingo!

Exactly. Thanks Ken.

I'm just saying what others have said, some folks like it au naturel and some folks like it "dressed" up but in the end it's the artist's interpretation or representation of how he/she felt their image should look.

BUT it does seem that certain looks do follow a trend. Take for instance, a few wedding photographers started doing a "journalistic" approach, now everyone does it. Dave Hill came perfected a unique look to his images and folks began to copy it. Someone started doing HDR and tone mapping and almost everyone is pumping out HDR (and some bad ones too, look at all the halos!), a few miniature effect pics showed up and now it seems to be the most used feature of a TS lens. People cried wolf when a lens was known to vignette and now you see a number of images with intentional vignetting or the next thing with the panoramic/widescreen look. Now weddings are going the tone mapped/hdr look.

In the end, does it matter how an image is processed? I like a well composed image and if it's photoshopped to death and done well, has some substance ie subject, composition etc and captures my attention, then I'll give it my full attention. If it's just a "blah" image with heaps of photoshopping on it to fool the viewer that it's a GREAT shot, well I'll just admire their photoshopping skills (or lack of) and move on to the next image.

It's like the big debate with purist saying that digital has taken away the heart of true photography and you just can't capture the "feel" of an image like film does. (might have open a can of worms with that comment).

Times are changing, technology is evolving, new trends will be made and not a whole lot that can be done to halt them. So folks can either sit back and be bitter and angry about it or keep an open mind and embrace change but nobody is forcing anyone to like something that doesn't appeal to them.

exactly ken. to quote, from one of the many photography books i have (in specific, this quote comes from "national geographic: simply beautiful photographs" by annie griffiths, p.425):

"Digital photography, with its extraordinary sensitivity, has made it possible to record scenes formerly too dark to register on film. It has made photography more affordable, and put terrific cameras in the hands of millions of amateurs. But there has been a price to pay for the magic of digital photography. One of the saddest things is that there has been a rapid loss of innocence - not among photographers, but among the general public. People are so aware that digital photographs can be altered in a computer, that there is a new skepticism about the truth of a great image. When a photograph seems too wondrous, there is doubt about its authenticity. Did he clone those fireflies? Did she add stars to the sky? Is it a fake moonrise or a manipulated rainbow? Fortunately, the dedicated photographers who seek wondrous images tend to disdain manipulated images. They are after the real thing."

I think those words speak for themselves.

Photography has always been an evolving art form, and the definition of it has changed, as well as the medium...people only go so far as comparing digital with plastic film because that's all they know (that, and dropping it off at the Photomat, or today Black's, and picking up their prints).

Going back in photography history there was the camera obscura, copper plate daguerreotypes, glass plate, albumen, celluloid, transparancy, analog CCD, digital CCD, CMOS, NMOS, and on and on and on.

Also people keep thinking HDR is a new thing, yes the way we do it today is new but HDR history goes back to 1850!!!

In 20 years something new will come along, and we will be debating it vs. what we are doing today! It's a waste of time debating all this stuff without studying it first; what you need to see is the Ansel Adams original negatives compared to what was displayed to the public...his mastery was in the darkroom.

This was published in 1905 and the writer calls it "other bastard process". I was laughing when I read this considering the conservative times, this guy was colorful with his dislike for gum bichromate and other processes which I happen to like. If you see an excellent print there is nothing like it.

The hissy fit http://bostick-sullivan.invisionzone.co ... processes/

A little is enough

I can't stomach stuff if it looks computer generated.

It reminds me of modern F-1, where all the cars functions are done by computer, why even have a driver, if your gonna have a 4 Tb processor make the gear shifts and determine the amount of throttle to maintain traction?

As much as the creator or buyer wants/accepts.....as long as it's not claimed to have nothing done when it has.

That being said, I'm in the school of "getting it right" in the camera first.

IMHO:

If it captures the scene, as it was, then it's photography.

If it shows something that didn't actually exist, then it's 'art', but not photography.

If it represents 'hyper-reality', then I typically just don't like it.

Ansel Adams used an interesting analogy to compare photography with music/performance. He once referred to the negative as the 'score' (ie. musical score) and the print his 'performance'. Each print unique despite being made from the same negative.

Many concert musicians from around the world enter prestigious competitions and some perform music that has been performed millions of times before by others (sometimes the same piece is performed by different musicians at the same competition). In the end it i the performance that matters - it's an interpretation of the sheet music and composition, often even created by someone else who is long dead and who could not

My problem with photo contests and competitions isn't that they allow or disallow post-processing - frankly it's up to the organizers to decide. However does bother me is that they images are viewed digitally and not in print. No matter how carefully calibrated an image there will be (sometimes very significant) variations in the presentation of that image on a computer screen. Taking the print out of the contest is like taking the performance out of a musical competition and submitting recordings.

I believe that print making is an essential element of the photographic process - be it intended as art or anything else.

Yes printing is half the photography fun for me. Add the hybrid workflow to that, analog printing is the bomb.

I fully agree with Ken .. Digital Viewing of photos does'nt hold a candle to A good Print .. Theres nothing better then a really good big print hanging on your wall .. To me Printing is one of the hardest things to successfully do in photography.

I also agree that there is nothing like seeing an image printed on paper. It completes the cycle of creating the image and seeing it to the final presentation. I love seeing my work when it hangs on a wall, and I am really happy with the final print result.

Bingo!

This is why I enjoy photography as a hobby, creating my own little wall of prints! I'm sure many of us do the same.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/qualdoth/5267970824/" title="Photo Wall by qualdoth, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5242/5267970824_19e6bdb266.jpg" width="500" height="359" alt="Photo Wall"></a>

Prints do not necessarily have to be "large" to be impressive.

Sometimes a prints effectiveness is lost when it's printed poster sized.

Cheers,
Dave

For me minimum 8x10 to really appreciate it

Agreed, not necessarily, however there is a threshold for prints that are to be hung and viewed on a wall versus small prints viewed in hand.

What looks good as a small print doesn't necessarily translate well to a large print whereas a print that looks great as a large print, usually translate well to small print sizes.

Unless your documenting for historical purposes. The ends justify the means.

For what its worth, I add CG to shots and I sleep well at nights.

That's a very limited view of photography imo. He says that the "art of the photographer is by definition that of exclusion" - perhaps in landscapes this is true but not in other types of photography. My definition of photography is much broader - it is "The Art of Painting with Light" and so it encompasses much more than artistic exclusion.

Unless you're illuminating your subjects with a flashlight or something (i.e. light painting), I'm not sure what you're talking about.

Speed and Aperture control light. I'm the same here as SD.

Really??

Photography is recording light that's all your doing

It's basics. Your camera is a lightbox basically. You control the amount of light that goes in by speed, aperture and ISO. It's probably second nature to you now but that's photography 101.

Not a god so I can't control the quality of the light that's why I wake up early for sunrise or wait for side light at dusk for that quality of light.

Technically not recording light, since it's invisible, recording the reflection of light is more accurate I would say.

Pretty metaphysical. Why would reflected light be more visible then non reflected light? Film and sensors record light no matter where the light has been. As sensors record photons hitting the sensor not the scene directly recording the reflection of light is not easy even if the scene is the sensor.

regardless this conversation is dumb and will never have a true answer

Sorry, I should have been more concise. The camera records reflected light coming off of the the subject matter in question. Some of the light is absorbed or reflected, to different degrees depending on the texture, colour, angle, etc of the subject and the camera records this reflected light and magically creates an image.

Yeah, it's a silly conversation. Let's go out and take pictures.