hyper reality

[robertdfeinman]

Every since the invention of Kodachrome there has been a push to make photos more colorful that reality.

Kodak did some studies once and found that people judged pictures as more "realistic" when the sky was bluer and the grass greener than in nature. Many films were developed and marketed explicitly because of their saturation.

Today the race seems to have shifted to printer technology. Each new model claims a larger gamut than the prior generation. New digital cameras have settings designed to make images more "vivid".

Somehow this all passes me by. I currently shoot color negative and scan the film. Any attempt I make to boost the colors or contrast just comes out looking garish (to me). Mother nature just isn't that brilliant outside of well-known spots like Bryce Canyon and the occasional sunset.

In fact I find that I'm printing with less contrast than I did in the days of Ektachrome and Cibachrome papers. I prefer to capture the shadows and the highlights and not have things pushed to dead black.

I seem to be in a minority. The screaming colors and heightened contrast demanded by advertisers trying to stand out in an image saturated world have become the norm for what people expect.

Even black and white is not immune. It's already a form of hyper reality, but a flat, full range image would not be found pleasing by many viewers. To see the change just go back and look at what Stieglitz showed in "Camera Work".

Once the pepper is added to the stew can people ever go back to plain again?

 

[RayPA]

I know what you mean! I've been scanning my own color negs too, and while it's a lot of work and difficult to get the profiles correct, there is something refreshing about seeing natural-looking color. I was so disappointed the first time I tried scanning some color negatives that had previously been scanned to disk by a one-hour lab, until I realized that what I was getting on my scans was closer to reality than the super-saturated over sharpened nonsense I was getting from the lab. In this sense I have come to appreciate color almost as I do b&w.
.

 

[le vrai rdu]

I just have to say that I love TRUE colors suchs as portra NC gives 🙂 but I have to say that people mostly love saturation :/ ( It doesn't matter to me but what is, in my opinion, sad is that they are not aware that what they like is not "true" colors :/ )

 

[rogue_designer]

How we perceive colors is often quite different from the reality of colors.

You cannot underestimate the power of expectation and the role it has one the viewer.

I tend to prefer more subtle tones and colors - but it has to be almost exaggeratedly subtle (oxymoron or what) for it to come across as intentional.

 

[le vrai rdu]

supéria fuji, saturated :/

portra NC 🙂 much better

 

[RayPA]

I just have to say that I love TRUE colors suchs as portra NC gives 🙂 but I have to say that people mostly love saturation :/ ( It doesn't matter to me but what is, in my opinion, sad is that they are not aware that what they like is not "true" colors :/ )

I think one has to acquire a "taste" for true(r) color, which means more exposure to and experience with color, just looking at it and doing it yourself. Most people look at b&w and see a lack of color (regardless of the quality), but everyone here sees something very very different, because of our experience and involvement. The same with color, most likely, the more you work with it, the more you learn how to make it work for you. There's a use for contrasty oversaturated color, truer color, and subtle color. So yes, I feel some sadness for those who don't know what they are missing, probably something like a chef driving past a McDonalds.



.

 

[mhv]

I think there has been some variability in the taste for saturation.

It seems that the first post-WWII color negatives were saturated and contrasty, but from the seventies until the end of the 80s, the taste in negative films shfited toward a more subdued, earthy palette. It's probably because the dyes were getting better, so instead of having to crank saturation to have detail, manufacturers could use more delicate colors while retaining tonal separation.

By the time of the 90s and the 2000s, it seems we have returned to purer, more saturated colors. We have integrated the subtlety of tone with purer colors, so that you can now have very nice low contrast and high saturation images.

I intend to print some old color negatives on RA4 paper when I have time to make a comparison between film looks across eras. I've done a few 60s negatives, and sometimes the reds are so saturated that you don't see an inch of detail! It's pure, solid color.

 

[Doug]

Is the goal of the photo to faithfully reproduce reality? Or interpret reality as we'd like to see it? 🙂

 

[le vrai rdu]

Is the goal of the photo to faithfully reproduce reality? Or interpret reality as we'd like to see it? 🙂

each photographer as it's own answer 😉

 

[sjw617]

Is the goal of the photo to faithfully reproduce reality? Or interpret reality as we'd like to see it?

Both, it depends on your approach / style.

 

[JeremyLangford]

Is the goal of the photo to faithfully reproduce reality? Or interpret reality as we'd like to see it? 🙂

I agree that the purpose of color should be to interpret reality as we'd like to see it. But Im not talking about boosting saturation. Im mainly talking about white-balance. I tint my colors to have more yellows, when I want to show that it was very hot that day. I tint green when I have shots of certain urban things such as escalators.

I always try to change my colors after I get my picture on my computer. But sometimes I do end up sticking with completely original colors. I view post-processing as just another step in the system of getting the final picture. I used to see it as cheating, but now I enjoy it. Why see the colors you see everyday when you can change it a little bit and set a certain mood with the colors?

I see it like the movie "The Matrix". Everything has a blue tint in that movie and the movie would be seen completely different it wasn't for that blue tint. Thats what I am trying to do. Computers are a major part of photography these days. Theres no point in not taking advantage of modern technology to make your pictures better.

 

[robertdfeinman]

Personal History

Personal History

When I was in high school I worked summers for a variety of color labs. The most interesting was one which catered to fashion photographers such as those that shot for "Vogue".

In those days the color film of choice (there wasn't really any other) was Ektachrome E1, ASA 10 on 8x10. Pulling those sheets out of the tank and looking at them on a light box was impressive. The film was very flat and unsaturated (pastel in the jargon of the time). The photographers made up for the low contrast by use of elaborate studio lighting. You can see the look if you view some fashion magazines from the period (late 1950's).

At that moment Kodak decided to upgrade to E2 (amateur) and E3 (professional). There was a lot of consternation among the pros. They had adapted to E1 and didn't want to change. Many forestalled the inevitable by stockpiling boxes in the freezer. The lab was forced to keep an E1 line running for an extra couple of years because of this.

For most people, the improvement of E3 meant they never wanted to go back. So, I agree with those who say that our perceptions and expectations are formed by what we see.

The digital processing that is now the norm in TV and movie production has opened up an entirely new range of aesthetic options.

Personally I find that ability to control local contrast and color balance of scanned film via digital editing allows me to produce prints that are closer to what I had always wanted, but was unable to achieve with chemical processing.

The same lab that I worked at made dye transfer prints of the selected transparencies for reproduction. This was the only technology that I've seen that allowed a similar degree of control to what is now available. Even in those days a print cost several hundred dollars. Fine for Vogue or an advertiser, but out of reach for ordinary people.

I think we live in a golden age for photography. We still have most of the options offered by conventional film and printing as well as all those provided by digital. In a few years the film options may disappear or become severely limited. One will then be seen in much the same way as people making tintypes or Platinum prints are now. You can do it, but you have to really want to.

 

[jbf]

There are studies saying that women experience color in a much more dramatic way than most men do. I think its probably right.

I have a red/green color blindness so I've stayed away from much of color shooting. While that is somewhat a crutch to lean on as excuses go... another reason is that I dont really think my photos have the same impact in color as I do in B&W. Not quite sure why. I have a feeling its because I havnt shot enough with color and havnt thought about 'color' and focusing on the theory, etc while shooting.


I do have to admit the shot of the horse does indeed look a million times better in the NC film than saturated. I love the Portra NC films.

The funny thing about hyper-reality though... is that it is something that is seen in almost any of the visual 'arts'.

Movies and video games most undeniably are getting more and more realistic when it comes to visual effects and CG animation, etc. However just as I have come to know. Just because technical values in various CG programs are deemed "physically correct to the real world" does not mean that it is pleasing to the eye. It is all about going beyond reality. Making CG imagery etc more vivid and "surreal" is something that almost all art direction does with films, and any cg production.

 

[shadowfox]

I thought this thread is about HDR 😛

Digital is good at reproducing reality.
Films are good at interpreting reality. Some more vivid, others more subdued. Use one or the other depending on the situation.

Not that hard 🙂

 

[le vrai rdu]

I've never understood if it's an film emulsion thing or not, but most pictures I see from the soviet countries and china seem to have a totally different tonality range giving the impression of "washed out" colors. But the quality of light over different continents, land masses, could account for something.

that's because of the film quality, just watch pictures made with trix for exemple in china or russia, they have a similar tonality range 😉

 

[le vrai rdu]

ah okay 🙂

 

[charjohncarter]

I don't what is going on but I think if you have your FILM developed at say Costco (and scanned there). Using a very pedestrian film like Costco Fuji Superia Xtra 400, THEY juice it to look like this.

I did ZERO post processing on this image. I did a thread on this a few weeks ago. I still have no answers. After the Christmas Season, I will talk to the Costco people about this. To me they are and all the others are now using saturated images as the 'new' standard.

 

[le vrai rdu]

Did you scanned it on your own? Labs use to over shapen and over saturate pictures :/

I've never regretted to buy a scanner 🙂

 

[charjohncarter]

Le vrai rdu, Bon Sua (spelled wrong, I know), I don't speak French, so that is probably wrong. Americans have a poor 'attitude' toward the French. But I went there and was treated wonderfully. Besides you guys helped us a lot in our Revolutionary War, THANKS. No, I didn't scan these myself. I send all my Color out for developing and scanning. I'm just lazy.

 

[sjw617]

Americans have a poor 'attitude' toward the French.

Not true, we named out beloved fries after them.