Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I'm pretty sure film and imaging sensors are also sensitive to light emitted directly from the source that has not reflected off anything.

I was just thinking about that after I posted .. lol .. as they used to say on SNL .. nevermind

Lets all settle this...at Thunder Dome. Two men enter...one man leaves.

Actually it started out as a good conversation, and the true answer is once you have gone past the basic darkroom manipulations, you no longer have a photograph, but a computer enhanced photograph.

Or should I say in new school hippster dufus....a pic?

What's wrong with new school? Still want to travel around on a horse and buggy? Then again the internal combustion engine is pretty old school now a days. I'm still waiting for my personal jetpack.

Negative compositing was done in the darkroom Is that not manipulation?

Wait till SLR's start coming out with in camera HDR! muahahahaha.

If you process the shit out of your photo. Turn a piece of crap into something someone will either pay you for or give you first prize in a contest for, all the power to you.

As I grow, learn and take in knowledge about photography, my style and taste changes. Everyone falls into the HDR hole at one point or another, thankfully mine was short lived.

At the end of the day you're either creating these images for the benefit of yourself or others. If you're doing it for yourself, do whatever you want. If you're doing it for others, the demand will dictate the supply. If you take crap pictures and people love them, and that makes you feel good about yourself, fantastic.

Thats not photography anymore then driving a modern car that has automatic transmission, ABS and a GPS is driving a car.

Take all the driver aids out of the equation and most folks wouldn't be able to flake their way through it. Same as photography with a computer.shoot some slide film where you have to get it right in camera, and then talk to me about it.

Take a look around you, then maybe the light will go on. Of course you had to have been around in the days when life really was better to see a difference.

I have nothing of value to add, I just come on to waste time.

It's amusing how on one hand so many people say that photography is all about the creative process, composition, etc, not just the technical stuff. Yet when modern tools take the complexity out of the technical side of it, people get all uptight at how it's no longer photography.

All that technology has done is made photography more accessible to more people, I don't see how that's a bad thing. You still need to be creative, understand quality of light, etc to make a good image. Who cares that you no longer have such a small margin of error to "get it right" as one needed with light. Do people really need that complexity to feel empowered and talented?

I'm sure a generation ago or two someone else was saying exactly the same thing about some modern advances that YOU were relying on.

Like I said earlier were all hack job artist who cant make art without a tool .. So the painters said at the beginning of the photography era ...Just because computers werent around doesn't mean its not photography now .. Sure if you ad elements to a photo that weren't there before it wouldnt be photography .. but you used to photography to make that image .. Give your ego a rest super nova

You misunderstood what I wrote. That was in response to smlg asking SD how it was an art of light. It wasn't meant to be taken per se and yes it does sound silly if you understood it that way.

No I didn't contradict myself. I just felt the need to explain it obviously you were slow on the take. My apologies if I was god that would have been needless.

A camera is just a part of the equation. Deciding what to shoot, manipulating objects/people in the scene, adjusting camera sensitivity, exposure duration, flash or no flash, flash position, flash intensity, light modifiers, zooming, DOF, tilt/shift are but a few ways of altering a photograph. By the time the images is captured on film or memory card, reality has already been distorted. To be a "purist" is only an ego driven illusion.

With the exception of photo journalists, clients don't care if you did it all in camera. Good creative is good creative. Shooting for a living, your job is to create the best image possible. If you don't, someone else will. For example, all ads are heavily retouched with car ads being at the most extreme. Virtually all car ads are rendered in 3D apps as its cheaper and offers perfect images. Backgrounds are usually still photos but thats it. If you were a "purist" when the marked shifted to CG product placement, you would be unemployed or working in a Walmart portrait studio. Photographers have a multi disciplinary role and now have to plan for products to be rendered in post. In fact many commercial photographers (not just car photographers) are now becoming efficient in 3D rendering and can build the images in house. Its only going to get worse, no sense in fighting. New post shoot technologies are opening up unlimited possibilities for the open minded. The duties of photographer will continue to expand. Don't be a diva, evolve or die.

Have to disagree with this whole line of thinking as both the camera and your eyes can see light FROM THE SOURCE when it is in the visible part of the light spectrum...otherwise we wouldn't see light when looking at an incandescent lightbulb, but only see the objects lit up from it.

Some bulbs do work with a reflection off their surface, but if you removed the bulb from an incandescent bulb it would still emit light (until the filament burns out).

And what about candlelight, you can definitely see light from the source.

When I do painting with light I'm not recording light from the reflection, rather I am recording light right from the source!

Yes, you missed my later post where I agreed with Taob on the camera sensor not only seeing reflected light but also light directly. It was an incomplete thought on my part.

I see dead people...

No doubt your assessment is accurate. Unfortunately, most photographers (ie. hobbyists) never deal with a paying client and spend more time/effort arguing online than they do taking/making/printing images. Look no further than the majority of this thread.

I guess I have a chip on my shoulder LOL. When I hear someone saying that photoshop is for fixing crappy photos... well, its a bit short sighted.

Who wouldn't want to shoot like a pro? There are some awesome pros out there! I guess I'm just trying to say, if you go into something with a closed mind you won't get very far. Use the tools available to you.

Well get back to this thread when you look at that Playstation 3 GT5 stuff.

Graphic rendering and post processing an actual exposure is like apples to oranges.

At least with the GT5 rendering it tries to be as life-like as possible.

Not necessarily. If you pass it off as a photo and who can tell with a little more than a casual inspection? This could be the future of advertising photography.

What I am implying is that with everything blurring who is to say what is real and what is not?

Photoshop has allowed people to explore their creative impulses much easier than they could with film.

It also allows people like me to bang around endlessly and randomly and sometimes create a different look that works....for me.