jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/12/85)
> If manipulation of a print is important to acheive the previsualized > effect, then you should do it. Burning in, dodging, using hot > developer, bleaching, etc., these are all important tools in realizing > the final image. This is true; and ever since writing my long essay last weekend on the evils of darkroom manipulation, I have been feeling guilty that my tendency for hyperbole would lead some ingenuous learning-photographer astray. Obviously, Adams did use burning-in and dodging; he grumbles often about it in his notes on his photographs. Nevertheless, it is my intuitive feeling that he didn't particularly like this. (On the other hand, he did do some considerable manipulation of the negative on his most famous photograph of all, _Moonrise,_Hernandez,_NM_, the bottom half of which he bleached, redeveloped, and intensified.) Many people who read this newsgroup I suppose have gotten used to my dogmatic expression of philosophies of art, and probably even ignore it. I forget that other people read it besides those who so regularly write here (e.g., Marty Sasaki and Howard Moskovitz), until I write something semi-metaphorical, and someone sends me mail which ends with "I can only conclude that this must have been a joke." However, I am not Adams, and I really do believe in the ideas I expressed last week, mentioned in the posting above. Working almost exclusively now with color materials has led me more and more to believe in the merits of exacting realism. I do have several negatives which I am often tempted to manipulate in these ways; yet, when I look at the unmanipulated print, compared with any manipulated image, I almost always come to the conclusion that the unmanipulated print is best. This has indeed led to some strange images, which, to interpret them as I do, requires you to study them until you are truly in the mood of the picture. I look at some of them at other times and wonder why I made a print like that. On the other hand, I have only a handful that I like; only one that I feel captures any essence of the spirit of the particular school of Realism in which I spent my formative years. Nevertheless, I think that even unconventional dogma is a good thing. If art does not inspire feeling, it doesn't have much to recommend it to the world. (This is, of course, an essentially "Romantic" philosophy, and I realize that there is some art -- T. S. Eliot's poems are an example -- that don't inspire much feeling, yet are nevertheless very good.) This is why I often tend, in here, to attack with a certain hyperbole many absolutist technical statements, such as, "don't roll your film all the way into the 35mm cartridge, or light will leak in;" "Only Kodachrome is the True Way," and statements about the Zone System that are made in a constraining tone. Or, "automatic cameras are not good for the Real Photographer." I tend to feel these are diversions, like the detailed notes under the photographs in Modern Photography.* If you are to accomplish photographs that are the essence of something you are trying to express, the camera and the equipment and the techniques should all disappear. Thus, I would like to see more inspired photography, and less technical photography; but I hope that no one is misled by my comments like the ones on darkroom manipulation mentioned above. ---- *I will admit, though, that I am always interested in the type of camera used, and for color, the type of film, though it's often possible to guess both, because sometimes there are true surprises. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Lbh xabj... jura lbh pybpx gur uhzna enpr jvgu gur fgbcjngpu bs uvfgbel, vg'f n arj erpbeq, rirel gvzr."
doc@cxsea.UUCP (Documentation ) (08/14/85)
> > However, I am not Adams, and I really do believe in the ideas I expressed > last week, mentioned in the posting above. Working almost exclusively now > with color materials has led me more and more to believe in the merits of > exacting realism. I do have several negatives which I am often tempted to > manipulate in these ways; yet, when I look at the unmanipulated print, > compared with any manipulated image, I almost always come to the > conclusion that the unmanipulated print is best. This has indeed led to > some strange images, which, to interpret them as I do, requires you to > study them until you are truly in the mood of the picture. I look at some > of them at other times and wonder why I made a print like that. On the > other hand, I have only a handful that I like; only one that I feel > captures any essence of the spirit of the particular school of Realism in > which I spent my formative years. That's all well and good, if you're into Realism. But isn't it time for photography (especially color) to explore other things, like impressionism? I thought the whole idea was to achieve personal satisfaction, not necessarily just Realism. Unto each, his own.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/18/85)
> That's all well and good, if you're into Realism. But isn't it time for > photography (especially color) to explore other things, like impressionism? Certainly... though nowadays Realism doesn't get too much support, hence my comments on it. (Except that recently there have been some really out- standing examples of that genre in the popular magazines; even a photograph called "Homage to Edward Hopper"!) As for exploring impressionism... well, wouldn't that be sort of a step backward? I mean, Group f/64's formation back in 1932 was a reaction to attempts to make photography emulate genres analogous to impressionism (well, it was (is) called "pictorialism" in photography). Nowadays, we can do it all over again, due to all the photographs out there whose whole reason-for- being is to "explore" or make some "statement" on the nature of Color. There was a really amusing commentary on that in a recent issue of _American_ Photographer_, which I encrypted into my signature line awhile back: If any general statement about photography could be discerned from this exhibition, it was that the Cibachrome print has become the photographic medium most acceptable to art curators. Of course, it is Cibachrome's specific, unlovely quality that makes it absolutely right to those for whom art need not please the eye or in any other way seduce the senses. * * * At least one of the Whitney photographers seemed to have decided that Cibachrome by itself was the pure stuff of art. Like the work of certain painters in the late abstract expressionist period, <name> presents color for its emotional effect alone, without imparting any intellectual spin to give the emotion a meaning. Alas, that is also what interior decorators do, but nobody displays their work at the Whitney. (From Owen Edwards's "Photo Disdain Lives," Am. Phot. 15(1).) > Unto each, his own. Certainly! I am not attempting to suppress anybody else's view of what their photography should be; only to try to discourage the commercial-art attitude so popular nowadays. (Why, in fact, I spent most of the day today making 3 Cibachrome prints, for that matter! Though that was mostly to retouch them... who ever heard of a terrier dog with bright blue eyes?) Ultimately, I sometimes feel that many photographs exist, not to say or be anything themselves, but to make some unrelated statement about the photographer. I don't think this is a good thing. At the same time, there's something else, too; something having to do with my own personal feelings about prints-from-transparencies, photographs which have their basis in strong colors, etc. This all has to do with a lack of moderation. I think one of the appeals of Cibachrome print material (in particular) is that it is so easy to use... there is something absolute and extreme about them. This is also true for strong color. It is harder to use print materials that require very exacting color balancing and exposure, and harder to photograph "natural" colors. Yet they tend to be more pleasing because of this, in my opinion, because there is something pleasing about precision, a sort of optimality rather than absolute maximization. But that's just my opinion... -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Gurl ubyq gur fxl/Ba gur bgure fvqr/Bs obeqreyvarf..."
mwf@mtgzz.UUCP (m.w.field) (08/27/85)
Of course you should use darkroom manipulation to achieve what you desire is a print. The main problem in photography is getting what you 'see' on the print. I don't know how many times an ugly garbage container in the background because I didn't 'see' it (I think I've got that one beaten now though). When I take a photo I have in mind the image that I want to see on the page and any method of achieving that seems to be fair, whether that means using different lenses or using darkroom techniques. By the way (related to "Kodachrome is the only way") I just used up a few rolls of Fujichrome (100) and the results are lovely. The subjects were mainly woodland and waterfalls and the reproduction of greens and browns was very good. When I went back to my local "Best" to by more I found they have stopped selling the stuff ! Is this a Kodak conspiracy ? Fujichrome is many dollars cheaper than Kodachrome and Ektachrome and I was looking forward to a log affair with it. Maybe the profit margin is not as good. (ihnp4!)mtgzz!mwf