LanceLewin
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- Feb 17, 2021
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For me, if I can't make the image look good in five minutes, I am done. So more or less where you are drawing the line. Anything beyond should have documentation that states clearly what was manipulated.
For me, if I can't make the image look good in five minutes, I am done. So more or less where you are drawing the line. Anything beyond should have documentation that states clearly what was manipulated.
I'd also suggest that time to work on something might not be the most useful measure. Things can take longer if you're a perfectionist (or a hack), or if you're solving a difficult problem, including a color management one.
I used to work for days on an individual print in the darkroom. This was on very traditional work (in the technical sense). Now I sometimes spend many hours on the computer. Some of this comes from my habits in the black and white darkroom, of regarding a print as a crafted thing. Some of it is just about the last details of getting the color and the shadow values right in the final print.
I can spend all day on something that's natural looking and true to the subject, or 5 minutes on something that's a completely fictionalized franken-print.
This is a topic that's always interested me. You probably know you're on well-trodden ground here; I suggest that if you want to contribute to the discussion it would be helpful to acknowledge where you stand relative to what others have learned and written on the topic.
One idea that needs to be unpacked is if digital processing really is distinct from traditional processing—and if so, how and to what extent? The excellent show Faking It at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (and its catalog) lays out a history of photographic manipulation in the analog era. Without getting into the specter of machine learning and deep fakes, it makes a convincing case that digital imaging mostly brought ease and accessibility.
I'd suggest that the real question isn't analog vs. digital, or any other real dichotomy, but rather, to what degree does a manipulation make an image less fundamentally photographic? You hint at this in a few places, but only in the most subjective terms, suggesting that our feelings of authenticity are what's important. But we as viewers are easily fooled. And what are our standards based on to begin with?
I'd suggest looking more closely at what makes something photographic to begin with. A thinker whose work I find instrumental is the semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce, who laid out a useful framework for thinking about the photographic and post-photographic, even though he died in 1914. If you google "indexicality" and photography, you'll quickly get an idea of where the thinking stands on the topic.
I look at each manipulation individually, and through the lens of semiotics, ask to what degree this manipulation makes the image less photographic. Not in terms of how it feels, but in terms of how much it weakens the causal chain between the world and the image.
I feel this passage I wrote covers my feelings and even a sound explanation for (at least some) of the conflicts we see in photography, both from the standpoint of the artist and patrons of the arts viewing the wide variety of photographic aesthetics seen in galleries, museums and online.
The Digital Manifesto:
One may argue I am something of a rogue, as I continue to insist that all types of photography institutions need to continue to support teaching traditional photography methods in the mist of so many that have adhered to virtues that are digitally inspired, and whereby photography’s survival as a pure and proprietary genre of art is being threatened. Large photography institutions, and for the most part, namely, online photography associations, as well as local photography clubs and guilds, have nurtured a new generation of photographers by imposing upon them a wide scope of digital oriented photographic concepts and exercises while de-emphasizing or altogether sponsoring vacuity in teaching traditional photography skill sets. As a consequence, and in my opinion, we are faced with the quickly deteriorating line that separates the essences that interpret the Art of Photography from a traditional posture, from the growing popularity that is changing the focus to a digital philosophy: photography that is heavily dependent upon post-production manipulations in creating a final piece. The digital photography revolution has taken the creativity of the photographer from behind the lens to cultivating most of their creativity, comfortably, in front of computer software illuminated monitors, thus instigating a digital manifesto that outline both physical and philosophical alterations on how photographers and patrons of the art approach and contemplate photography. L. A. Lewin
...Except that my feelings, when I take a picture, are nothing like that at all. I have a vision of what the final picture will look like, and I try to craft something in the moment that I take a picture that will get me to my vision. The more of the work that is done when I snap the shutter, the more effective I was at that point in time. It is a question of craftsmanship and process, not whether the end product is art, or acceptable, IMHO.
And I know that I am no more than a craftsman, and a mediocre one at that. I have seen and known the artists in the flesh, and have too much reverence for what they have achieved, to think otherwise.
So you could put me in a box you reserve for those who do not agree with you, if you wish! And close the lid, if you must!
I would humbly suggest not to revere artists too much. Artists can be good or bad at what they do, just like anyone else! If this weren't the case, I'd be embarrassed to use the word Artist anywhere on a website or resumé. But we need a word to describe people who are engaged in making art, even if it's art you think is terrible.
Good suggestion. I have been deeply disappointed personally in some artists. It does not diminish their accomplishments, but it can certainly diminish or even ruin my enjoyment of them.