Not only sharpness, but details is bourgeois concept?

[Ko.Fe.]

Personally I'm not into OOF pictures. I don't need extremely accurate focus, just more like an accent on where main part of the picture is.

But how much details do we need?
Do we need to be able to zoom 100% and see every little detail in the picture? Why? Is is about crime scene?

Do we need all of these gradations of grey and all details in the shadows?
How it is related to photography as the art? Or is it to prove what you are technically sufficient and gear you have is nothing but perfection.

I like my family and frends pictures taken in focus and with all of details my DSLRS and film cameras gives. It isn't art, but my life.
I also like to be creative in photography. But I can't find creatives in Photoshop. I was computer graphic artist long time ago. Went on technical side of digital image processing where money to support my family is.

I grew up going to museums and looking into books with art. I like impressionists. They gave no details, wrong color balance, but nice impressions comes to my mind.
And art is on prints, not on the screens for me. It is in museums, galleries on canvases and prints. Not in the facebook and instagramm.

I always wanted to print something like this - not so much details, but impressions. Two weeks ago I have my first lith prints. Moody&Muddy.
This is the direction where I feel more creative and less as the giftless gearhead.
But I was disagree with comments at another forum, what I don't need Leica camera, lens for it and just Holga will be sufficient.

"It is complicated". 🙂

 

[segedi]

This is the direction where I feel more creative and less as the giftless gearhead.

Nailed it!
I have to admit every time I hear the phrase "micro-contrast", I cringe a little.

 

[cz23]

Photography is a big house, with rooms for all styles and preferences. I'll join you for tea in one of the more expressionist rooms. But let's mind our own business and live and let live. The house will be a better place for it.

John

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Nailed it!
I have to admit every time I hear the phrase "micro-contrast", I cringe a little.

As I mentioned it is complicated for me. 🙂

I'm still not sure if I understand completely this term. To me it is how contrast is rendered in smaller parts of the picture. Like human skin and object edges. It is lens thing.

While contrast in general is something about entire picture. And it could be added in PP.

 

[jsrockit]

Photography is a big house, with rooms for all styles and preferences.

Exactly... yes, sometimes detail is very important. Sometimes it isn't. Whatever works for the image.

 

[jojoman2]

Exactly... yes, sometimes detail is very important. Sometimes it isn't. Whatever works for the image.

I find that the work I'm most drawn to has just enough detail to convey a certain mood while the rest is left to the imagination. Just my personal preference which can coexist happily with the most detailed of HDR images.

 

[tuanvinh2000]

make pictures that satisfy yourself. others' comments are subjective and worth little to the end of the game. unless you make a living with photography so satisfy customers is the high priority.
so details don't matter if your pictures aren't about details but more of shapes/forms. if your pictures want to show off the composition/subjects at the corner then a sharp lens all the way there might benefit the picture depends on the size of the print.

 

[Scapevision]

to be fair, you don't need leica for anything really. 😉

 

[Moto-Uno]

I rather prefer most pictures I take to be tack sharp, because my memory clearly isn't ! Peter

 

[Ko.Fe.]

to be fair, you don't need leica for anything really. 😉

It is more about to feel good. I feel good with Ontarian Leica here, in Ontario.
I would feel even better with German diesel VW here as well, but it is complicated. 🙂

 

[Scapevision]

It is more about to feel good. I feel good with Ontarian Leica here, in Ontario.
I would feel even better with German diesel VW here as well, but it is complicated. 🙂

I settled on a mexican-german diesel 😀

 

[Hsg]

I grew up going to museums and looking into books with art. I like impressionists. They gave no details, wrong color balance, but nice impressions comes to my mind.
And art is on prints, not on the screens for me. It is in museums, galleries on canvases and prints. Not in the facebook and instagramm.

If you like impressionist paintings, why don't you start painting? Why do you want to reach an established painting aesthetic, impressionism, through photography?

In life if you want to go to X location, you go to X location, you don't go to Y location hoping to be in the X location.

Photography is not painting and painting is not photography.

 

[jojoman2]

If you like impressionist paintings, why don't you start painting? Why do you want to reach an established painting aesthetic, impressionism, through photography?

In life if you want to go to X location, you go to X location, you don't go to Y location hoping to be in the X location.

Photography is not painting and painting is not photography.

I don't think art is this compartmentalized. Henry Cartier considered himself a surrealist and hung out with surrealist painters. I've seen plenty of impressionistic, painterly photography that works VERY well. In life you try to go to X location and end up at Y by accident, causing you to (possibly) like Y better. Before you know it you'll be thanking your lucky stars you got lost in the first place.

My two cents

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Photography is not painting and painting is not photography.

Light is my paint, hands are my brash, darkroom paper is my canvas.

You know, I was reading Yousuf Karsh book recently. One of his first photo landscapes was arabic gum print.

 

[Hsg]

I don't think art is this compartmentalized. Henry Cartier considered himself a surrealist and hung out with surrealist painters. I've seen plenty of impressionistic, painterly photography that works VERY well. In life you try to go to X location and end up at Y by accident, causing you to (possibly) like Y better. Before you know it you'll be thanking your lucky stars you got lost in the first place.

My two cents

Consider the simple distinction between photography and painting. As OP mentioned a crime scene, you don't forward an impressionistic painting of a crime scene in a court, you forward photographs.

Photography in its early days had its fling with Pictorialism, so, OP needs to read his photography history... And the sharpness movement that came about was mainly in opposition to Pictorialism and its 'painterly look'.

 

[Hsg]

Light is my paint, hands are my brash, darkroom paper is my canvas.

Fair enough, although painting snobs won't accept you as 'one of them', as photographers are so welcoming and modest that they accept anyone who takes a photo with a camera as one of them.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Fair enough, although painting snobs won't accept you as 'one of them', as photographers are so welcoming and modest that they accept anyone who takes photo with a camera.

I'm not into painters circles either. My beard isn't long enough. 😀

Honestly, I don't care in which category it falls.

 

[jojoman2]

Consider the simple distinction between photography and painting. As OP mentioned a crime scene, you don't forward an impressionistic painting of a crime scene in a court, you forward photographs.

Photography in its early days had its fling with Pictorialism, so, OP needs to read his photography history... And the sharpness movement that came about was mainly in opposition to Pictorialism and its 'painterly look'.

I will refer you to Johnwolf's metaphor likening photography to a big house. There are a lot of different folks photographing in a lot of different styles for no other reason than that's the way they want to shoot at that time.

 

[jsrockit]

Photography is not painting and painting is not photography.

But they certainly have influenced each other...

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

It all depends, if I'm illustrating a book on stripping down and repairing an M7 then things will be different from a soft focus picture of my young ladies...

Regards, David