safeguy

My buddy Howell recently used me as an example on his blog as the holder of a contrasting view in his argument against the digital modification of photos (taken with a digital camera). We’ve had this discussion on a few occasions while drinking beers and have pretty much agreed to disagree.

That said, bitch called me out, so I have to respond.

First things first, read this. He has clearly expressed the crux of the argument and represented me fairly. My apologies as I intend to address his blog directly, though I might on occasion paraphrase his point of view based on conversations we’ve had. I leave that open to argument. Now, I shall now defend.

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Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the photo Howell referenced in his post.

It might be easier to begin with that upon which we agree. Your photographs are gonna be crap unless you know how to use your camera. The less you understand about how photography works and the less you understand abot how to manipulate the various buttons and switches on your camera, the less control you’re going to have over the final outcome of your shot. This, my friends, is a no brainer.

However, I’m a firm believer in happy accidents. A happy accident is the result of making a mistake or indecision that results in something unintentionally interesting or beautiful. It’s like accidently putting too much paprika in your marinade and realizing it tastes awesome. Or a misspoken phrase that’s hilarious. Or the microwave. Or penicillin.

For years, I’ve subscribed to a belief that an artist is equal parts technical skill and a set of eyes. You have to be able to see what’s beautiful. That can be when viewing other peoples’ art, creating your own, or just looking at the world around you. In terms of seeing beauty in your own work, I don’t necessarily believe that as a photographer that has to happen before the shutter clicks. This is why most photographers will shoot 100s of frames to get maybe a handful of final prints, etc. I suppose we can just call this editing.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone is arguing with that. I think the disagreement is in what happens next.

In photography, if we were to avoid any digital manipulation, the process would end here. You’ve taken some pictures and made some selections. Game over. In some instances, if you are working with a staged set up, then you can go back and manipulate the scene, change your lighting or exposure settings. But regardless, what you pull off your flash memory is the final product.

In my process, I’ve done about 30% of my work at this point.

Back when I would shoot on film, there were so many choices. I know very little about film types, but I at least played around with Fujis that had brighter hues and Kodak that was warmer. Also, there was paper selection. Different papers gave you different results in color, contrast, warmth, etc. You could push and pull the development of your film. I would make 10 or more rough prints on my way to finding a final version. During that process there would be burning and dodging and exposure adjustments and length of time in development. There were infinite possibilities of how you could render your final product.

Every photographer I knew worked this way.

So to take a photo straight from a memory card and put it out there to view is the digital equivalent of taking your roll of film to walmart/walgreens/target/cvs* to get prints. What you took is what you get.

I understand where part of the attitude against digital modification comes from. There is certainly such a thing as misleading and an amount of modification that can be considered dishonest. That line is definitely blurry and ultimately has to be judged by the viewer. However, a very strong consideration should be the intended purpose of the photo. In the case of photo-journalism, one must be extremely careful how he/she manipulates a shot (see O.J. Simpson). On the flip side, photos created for arguably, more artistic purposes should enjoy a lot more freedom. There is a lot of ground in between these categories and that’s probably where this argument lives. At that point it becomes an issue of trust between the artist and viewer and to what extent the viewer is willing to accept a photograph as a piece of art or a documentation of an event.

In the end, like most artistic debates, it’s a matter of personal taste and preference in technique. I have a large amount of respect for anyone who can get the photo they want straight from the camera… I just can’t imagine that happens very often. I understand that there’s a kneejerk reaction to any photo work that makes use of computers because of some examples of misleading manipulation, but shit, my computer is just a darkroom afterall.

*Wolf, Ritz or any other specialty photo processing store doesn’t count because they color correct and adjust for exposure.