How has digital photography changed photography?

[Sparrow]

My apologies, I did not intend to hijack this thread.

Still, I thought I'd share this amusing set of photos:
Which photograph was staged? 😉😀

more to the point which one was cropped … 😱😱😀

 

[hawkeye]

Sweet shot. Who's got the Legocam?

 

[visiondr]

I should have provided some attribution here:

The first image was by this gentleman: http://www.flickr.com/people/balakov/

The second was (obviously) by Henri Cartier Bresson.

 

[maddoc]

My apologies, I did not intend to hijack this thread.

Still, I thought I'd share this amusing set of photos:
Which photograph was staged? 😉😀

...... 😀😀 !

 

[Roger Hicks]

Your correct assertion that manipulation of photographic output has been around for some time is still largely one of semantics, Roger precisely because it is so easy to make a convincing fake today versus yesterday. It is that simplicity and near seamless perfection that will soon destroy any assumption in the minds of viewers about an image's provenance. If that doesn't disturb you, you're either lying to yourself in order to score a rhetorical point or you should take up painting.

Dear Ron,

Alternatively, I may have been thinking about it harder for longer, quite possibly more clearly, and am less easily disturbed.

The camera ALWAYS lies, or at least, tells a highly selective version of the truth. At the very least, the photographer decides where to stand, what focal length to use, where to point the camera and when to press the shutter release. That's assuming the photograph isn't staged, or a 'photo opportunity'.

Your view, by contrast, strikes me as naive. The best we can do is to say that picture A is probably a fairly straight representation of a more or less carefully chosen scene; that picture B is an interpretation (as, for example, all AA's B+W must necessarily be, given that the world is in colour); and that picture C is probably faked, whether by staging or image manipulation, though there are 'straight' pictures that look faked.

I fail to see that I am making a merely semantic distinction when I say, "It used to be more difficult, and now it is easier." I will cheerfully agree that digital comping by a competent operator (very rare -- look for consistent shadows and highlights, for a start) blurs the distinctions, but I really don't think that the fundamental game is very different. As Fred says, 'provenance' is rather more complex than your interpretation.

Cheers,

R.

 

[kuzano]

Give Me A Break.....

Give Me A Break.....

I think it has shifted the importance away from the gear and toward the image. I don't hear about many people fondling digital cameras and talking about them as cult objects as I've always heard with film cameras. Folks tend to buy digital cameras to shoot photos.

Are you Kidding?

I sleep with my right hand wrapped lovingly around the rubber covered grip of my BIG Canon DSLR??? It's a gear thing.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Hey folks. My post was about how digital photography has changed your own photography. Not so much about issues of whether manipulation is good or not or what's better digital or film. But how has it effected both how you shoot and what you shoot.

For me it has opened up room to experiment. When shooting a model I can shoot as many images as I had with film but I can now review images midshoot and that often given me new ideas or how to readjust the lighting. Seeing the image on a monitor is a better feedback loop for me than the old Polaroid backs provided.

And I have among other digitals a 'superzoom' with a 500mm equivalent lens. With 35mm I never had anything longer than a 200mm. Suddenly this little camera, IS and superzoom opened up another visual space for my photography.

So digital has given me the tools to expand my vision in a number of ways and I am thankful for that.

And I was one of those early naysayers. When digital came out I really hated it. It was slow and clumsy and the early Nikon 2MP cameras made more struggle than film. But the world has changed and so have I.

So back to what I wanted to hear, how has digital changed your photography?

Hawkeye

Dear Steve,

Sorry!

I'd say that it had made me worry a lot less about 'faking' pictures. Is there a major difference between using Photoshop to render verticals parallel, or doing it with a shift lens or a camera with movements? If so, what is it? Is there a major difference between chosing different colour films for different saturations, or adjusting the saturations in Photoshop? If so, what is it? Is there a major difference between creating a white shadowless background by lighting alone, and doing a cut-out? If so, what is it?

I very seldom do 'comps', mostly because I never feel the need. In fact I'm pretty sure that I've done more wet composition prints, with separate foreground and sky negs, than ever I've comped in Photoshop.

The other thing is that whereas I used to carry a happy-snap camera loaded with neg film for reference shots and aides-memoire, and a Leica loaded with slide, now it all goes on the Leica (except B+W, which goes on film -- in a Leica, of course).

Cheers,

R.

 

[Ducky]

I should have provided some attribution here:

The first image was by this gentleman: http://www.flickr.com/people/balakov/

The second was (obviously) by Henri Cartier Bresson.

Bump - That's a cute link and a well done series.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

It's made it damm hard to make a steady paycheck like it was when it was just film and professional people took pictures......now everyone and their Mother thinks they can take good photos and no one wants to pay good money to have anything done professional anymore, people in general have lost their use for professional photoraphy due to having digital cameras at every corner.

I really find it even CHEAPER now to shoot real film and the quality is STILL better than any digital in my book, it's really not easy to make a living shooting as I used to, now I sell rare collectable WW2 era Leica's, there's more money in that than taking pictures.

Needless to say I HATE digital photography, I only have/use my M8 to backup shooting with real film, I'll use and shoot film till the very end......

Tom

mmm.....seems a bit strange to overcome your digital hatred enough to fork out so much money for a 'M8 back up camera' - when a 'real film' camera would be so much better - and a fraction of the cost! 🙄

 

[hawkeye]

Okay we seem to be mixing things up here.One is print making and the other is image making.

Although I studied at the Ansel Adams school and taught B/W printing for years and I can make a damn fine wet print, But I haven't printed in a darkroom in years. But I have a big 13x19 inch printer and use some fairly expensive print papers and I think I get some pretty good prints. Prints that next to my wet made prints are quite close in tonality etc.

But its image making I was speaking of. For me that's what matters and how I get to the image is less important that the image works. The lego HCB takeoff is a cute image and works for what it is supposed to be. I don't care what the gear was although I'd like to know how the photog got the Lego man suspended in midair.

But my point when I started this thread was how did it change your individual style of shooting or how you see the world. Has digital opened up knew directions for you that you hadn't tried before or did it have no effect?

I have friends who are classical musicians and particularly the younger ones have no problem with electric violins and such. Most enjoy experimenting with them and seeing how a 17th century cello piece sounds on an electric cello.

Reading msgs here it seems like there's a lot of resentment towards digital gear and some folks seem downright offended that photography has gone this way.

But whether you shoot digital or not is there something that's changed your seeing?

Hawkeye

 

[back alley]

i don't believe that digital has changed my style or the way that i see.
i still shoot many of the same subjects.
the crop factor has changed which focal lengths i use and i have discovered that i really like 60mm as opposed to 50.
i still shoot conservatively as in a few shots of any subject. i meter much the same and my photoshop adjustments relate closely to my former darkroon work.

 

[LeicaTom]

mmm.....seems a bit strange to overcome your digital hatred enough to fork out so much money for a 'M8 back up camera' - when a 'real film' camera would be so much better - and a fraction of the cost! 🙄

Hello Dave!

Ohh well, no I did'nt really "fork out" any $$$ that time, I had an offer I could'nt refuse a trade for an M8 last year for $1,500 (invested into IIIC K Grey) so I gave it a try 😉 ~ I'm still not 100% sold on the camera....BUT it is a really great way to test lenses and have a digital back up to real film, using my WW2 and 1950s era lenses.

I do have a full time Wetzlar M6 and I shoot a 1945 Leica IIIC K as well as a Vietnam era Canon F-1 Mech. ~ I guess it does come over a bit crass, my lingo, but well I do feel very sad for film and what's happened, I honestly feel that digital falls short is every aspect still, there's just NO digital replacement, for the 1940s and 50s Kodachrome look ~ even though in my business I have experimented with digital retouching, I personally can still tell which PinUps were shot with film and which on digital.

For the clients who need the work fast, digital is a blessing, but everything that means alot to me artwise, I STILL shoot on real film, that's what makes it some much fun to use 65 year old + vintage Leica's and lenses in todays crazy world.......

Keep On Shootin'

Tom

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

it's really not easy to make a living shooting as I used to, now I sell rare collectable WW2 era Leica's, there's more money in that than taking pictures.

Damn! - I wish I'd thought to do that.....there are so many around - to be picked up cheaply! 🙄😀

 

[Ted2001]

Digital has not changed my style, it's given me the opportunity to create the images I always wanted to, but previously could not afford to. 11,000 shots in less than 17 months would cost a lot for Velvia., not to mention the logistics. I always tried to convince myself that film was free and that I simply needed to shoot, but since I love saturated color, I finally hit a wall of cost. Now digital has revitalized my shooting.

 

[250swb]

Digital has not changed 'photography', but some photographers have changed.

Around the same time as digital started to become the dominant medium over film the rise in the use of the internet coincided. So photographers became overnight whinning ninny's with overblown images of their own adequacy that need to 'express' themselves. But dig around and you will still find that a good photographer will be able to make a great image given any camera (from Holga to half plate), and its just the devotees of particular genres or manufacturers that have trouble separating equipment from just being good in the first place.

Steve

 

[Leigh Youdale]

This is going to cause some interesting debate!
Go across to Mike Johnson's "The Online Photographer" and check out this item posted today. 'Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop CS5?'
So, how (or will) has digital change photography - and is it still going to be called/regarded as "photogrpahy?

 

[Finder]

I guess that depends on the work. The work I do for myself, nothing has really changed. For the scientific imaging I do, digital imaging has opened up many possibilities. It is quite amazing the images/information you can get that is not possible with a straight photochemical process.

 

[hammerman]

i have been a documentary and art photographer for over 45 years and happened on digital as a studio professional in the late 90s, my first digicam being a kodak DCS 315. 3 mp as i recall and gave me some very good 23x36 prints out of photoshop. it cost me just at A$10,000 body only, picked it up in singapore from the kodak dealer warehouse.

what has changed for me is more as an art photographer than a documentor. i still shoot film for most doco work but also digital as the backup. however for my exhibition work as an artist i think digital has offered me many more opportunities to create 'paintings' from a camera.

digital art is a new medium for artists and makes new work, different from what is otherwise traditional art, ie, paintings on paper or canvas, etc. an entirely new arena.

in the 1970s we worked with a technique called photo lithography, a *******isation of age-old printmakers' stone lithography, using transparent layers of textured acetate over the unexposed print paper under the enlarger. this exposure through acetate onto paper meant we had textures and effects 'laminated' into the projected image, giving over to an artist's impression of what the camera saw. this is art gallery stuff. today i do the same with acetate prints out of photoshop layered with a transparent digital print and re-photographed, all through a comb' of digital and film resources. this s also known as 'layering' inside photoshop but using ps to 'laminate' layers yields a different effect to actual hard copy layering.

so, in a way, digital, for me, is used the same as i did in trad wet lab work except colour is more accessible and quicker.

in answer to the original question, digital vs film, it is the same but different.

 

[hammerman]

hmmm, that's interesting..the 'bleeped out' word refers to the illigitimate child of... starting with 'b.'

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

While the number of images has exploded, there are lesser choices now than before in terms of gear, lens and formats. Picture taking has been reduced to being almost idiot-proof snapping with mistakes being corrected in Photoshop. And yet, we still see bad pictures. And worst, we confuse Photo-realistic pictures with Photos.

The popularity of Digital Photograpy means that I can now afford the film cameras I could only dream of buying previously.


raytoei