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Straight Photography? I have recently finished reading Ansel Adams' autobiography, getting a feel for how the master went about his life and who and what were his biggest influences. One aspect of his life that I found interesting was his struggle to increase the awareness of photography as a legitimate art form throughout his life (and of his financial struggles through almost all of his working life). As one of the leading West Coast photographers, Adams was a founding member of Group f/64, a loose collaboration of like-minded photographers who attempted to present their photographed subjects true to life or "straight" without the artsy (as opposed to artistic) embellishments that had been in vogue in the early 20th century (derisively known as "salon" by Adams). It was this dedication to present the photographer's vision with the greatest photographic accuracy that led to some thoughts about how I photographed a subject and then later edited the images in Photoshop. For the most part, I am as much a reality photographer as Mr. Adams, in that I try to the best of my limited skills, to represent the natural scene without embellishment. Seeking out interesting subjects in good light is much of the battle but so to is the angle and composition of the subject. There had been a few times in which I felt a subject or scene had photographic potential and compelled me to take a number of exposures to extract a measure of what I saw and felt onto film. Sometimes I am successful but many times, I am not and wonder as how I could improve the shot or even if the chrome had any redeeming qualities that could be salvaged. I am not one to blame equipment for my failures on film but sometimes the equipment can be a limiting factor in producing high quality results. I do not mean my actual photographic equipment but rather, my low cost flatbed scanner, the Epson 1200U that now seems so limiting where once upon a time; it provided me with a greater ability (and joy for a short while) for expressing myself. There are some chromes or negatives that it just cannot handle with aplomb and comparing what I see on the light table to what I see on the monitor are two different images. I edit the image to the best of my abilities in Photoshop to try to eke out as much of the qualities seen in the original chrome but with the problem images, to no avail. It is on these occasions that a wholly accurate rendition of the scene is put aside and I use the tricks found in the digital bag to edit the image to be something more than what it is. Here on the left we have a scan of the original chrome that is not to my liking and on the right, the same image after it had been edited. Which interpretation is more to your liking? For me the digitally enhanced image is the superior one but of course, it is no longer an accurate representation of the original scene. It would not be in keeping with the old Group f/64 ideals of not embellishing the natural world (just because my images do not compare to the Group f/64 photographers does not mean that I cannot adopt and respect their principles).
What if we take another image, similar in concept to the image above, but one in which the practical limits of the photographic equipment was not capable of capturing a truly accurate rendition of the reality? In the series of images below, you see the original image captured with the Coolpix 950 camera and the final version that I like best.
Digital capture is very much like shooting chrome film, one must shoot for the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may for future editing, otherwise the highlights would be blown away and no amount of editing would be able to recover lost data. For this example image, I also needed to shoot for the highlights in order to maintain a fast enough shutter speed to handhold the camera in the dark canopy (yes, I broke a cardinal rule of serious photography by not using a tripod). After downloading the image into the computer, I was dismayed by the amount of dense shadow areas that covered half of the image. I thought the image was lost but I still decided to play with the curves to see what sort of information was available. To my great surprise, the CP 950 did capture a large amount of detail but I had to blow out the highlights in order to see the details in the shadows. What to do? I pulled out a recent issue of Shutterbug magazine for an article that was tailored made for such an image. I also recalled an article on the Luminous Landscape website in which Michael Reichmann provided a digital lesson to work around severe contrast problems in an interesting scene. For this image, the Shutterbug article was more directly relevant. The technique is deceptively simple:
Now the edited image is obviously much closer to the reality of the scene than the original highlight biased image but I am still not satisfied with this more accurate image. I apply a similar set of editing to this image as the first trail image above. Which is the preferable image, the reality or the digital edit? For me, again, it is the digital edit because it comes closer to my interpretation of the scene in my mind. Okay, I am getting into dangerous territory here as I try to explain the idea of the individual's vision. Dangerous because it is so subjective and open to never-ending debate. In the mind's eye, the photographer sees a scene and the potential that scene has for a photograph. What the photographer envisions could actually have little bearing on reality or rather, the reality as captured on film. If we are lucky, what we envision through our interpretation of the scene will coincide with what Nature has provided us but what if this is not the case? Digital imaging and editing has given the photographer a greater ability to edit the image to better match what the photographer's intent is. I confess that when I took the shot of the Burnaby trail, I had already had in my mind a look and interpretation that was much warmer and more inviting than the dark and cold look of the trail in reality. Photoshop made it supremely easy to edit the image to what I had envisioned in my mind. The $64,000 question is, is this digital edit acceptable as a photographic medium? To further muddle the situation, when printed out, the image does not even resemble a true photograph but more of a painting (some have described it as a snow fall scene at first glance only to discover that it is in fact a summer time shot). Impressionism or objectivism? I will take the coward's way out and suggest that there is no answer to the question. Whatever the output from the photographer, it does represent the legitimate interpretation from the person. If the image is never published or shown to the public then there can be no debate but once the image is within the public domain and awareness, comment and debate should be expected. Photographers cannot expect to introduce an image and expect the public to become adoring of it without question. Thus, the photographer who decides to clone a few birds here and there because they better represented the idea in the mind should expect criticism of artificiality. However, the edited image should still be accepted and if good, admired for what it is. For really, is a digital edit any worse than a photographer doing a double exposure or a montage of two or more slides sandwiched together to create a new image? One is created electronically while the other mechanically but neither represents the true reality of Nature. There are those who believe any misrepresentation of Nature's reality is anathema. Need I mention the debacle National Geographic Magazine created when they digitally moved the pyramids of Egypt to fit within their cover page's portrait orientation instead of keeping the landscape orientation of the original image? Since I do not wish to limit myself creatively, I am open to whatever techniques I feel are suitable to bring about a better picture but this does leave me open to criticism. If the original image is such that I feel compelled to alter it in a way that I think is more pleasing, what does that say about the original image? That it is not good enough to stand on its own would be a reflection of my skills as a photographer. If the scene is devoid of meaning that heavy editing is required, does it stand that the edited image should be any better or meaningful than the original? How about Ansel Adams' Moonrise over Hernandez? From the accounts I have read about how Mr. Adams took the exposure, his negative was quite thin and required quite a bit of work in the darkroom to produce the work of art that so many recognize the world over and laud as being his best ever. It has also been recounted that the later prints produced by Mr. Adams were different than the earliest prints, being denser in the skies and Mr. Adams admitted as much in his autobiography, about altering the density of the clouds in the skies as time passed. Although an image based upon what Nature provided to him, it took a great deal of effort by the great man to create a print and it is certainly the case that Mr. Adams edited the image to coincide with his visualization of the scene in his mind. Even a founding member of Group f/64 did not leave well enough alone for the original negative and from the sounds of it, he would not have had much of a print had he printed as objectively as possible. Or how about Freeman Patterson and Andre Gallant and their collaborative new book about impressionistic photographs? Many of the images are montages or multiple exposures that create a wholly new look of familiar subjects. They are wonderful images but should they be considered any less good than photographers who choose a more rigid interpretation of Nature? I certainly hope not for we would be poorer for not having the Freeman Pattersons and the Daryl Bensons continually creating new images that are certainly fine art in their own right. There is enough space for "straight" photography as well as expressive photography that blur the boundaries of what a photograph means in the minds of most people. What it comes down to is the image itself. Is it good? Did it move you or provoke further thought from you? If so then it is an effective image no matter how it was created and no matter what you personally feel towards straight or impressionistic photography. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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