Paul Hansen

[Bill Pierce]

A photographer friend based in Hong Kong sent me an email. We covered a war together, and he wanted to know what I thought of the controversy surrounding Paul Hansen's shot of a funeral procession in Palestine. (The winner of World Press was accused of faking the shot with Photoshop. The picture was shown not to be subject to excessive manipulation. The prize was not revoked.) Specifically my friend was interested in the parallels between Gene Smith’s silver printing and Paul Hansen’s work on his digital image.

I can’t talk specifically about Mr. Hansen’s process. I don’t know him. But I can make some general assumptions that are probably correct. I do know about Gene’s printing. He started with a print that had all the information and then emphasized the important. He printed on variable contrast paper (High Speed Varigam and then Polycontrast when Varigam was discontinued). He used a multiple filter technique and slightly boosted the contrast of the important elements in the picture. This could also be done with ferricyanide.

Given that as a news photographer you don’t have a lot of control over what is in front of you, Gene might do a slight burn through a low contrast filter to those areas of the image that were less important and could distract from the main subject.

It wasn’t very complicated. Make sure that everything in the picture was legible. Draw attention to the important things and slightly diminish the distractions if they exist. From what I’ve read, this is what the World Press winner did digitally, it’s what most good photographers and image services do and it’s what I do with my family snap shots. I think the criticism of Paul Hansen’s work is absolute bull. I would direct my criticism to those who don’t understand or don’t make that effort and who, by the way, are not getting shot at.

Your thoughts?

 

[kbg32]

Agree. I saw the before and after. It was not like Mr. Hansen Photoshopped elements in or out of the image. I find nothing wrong in "creative" dodging and burning to emphasize the subject.

I entered a juried exhibition once, and was asked, "Why do your images open the Photoshop program on my desktop?" I explained that the images were shot in RAW and processed in Photoshop. I was accused of being less then a good photographer, because a good photographer is one who exposes correctly and sets the parameters of camera correctly, and should only shoot jpegs. Needless to say we got into a heavy argument.

I find this argument quite moot. Anyone who knew Gene Smith, knew the attention and labor he paid to his images in the darkroom. He had a vision for his work and controlled it through the process.

 

[L Collins]

Agreed. As long as there's no compositing, dodging and burning digitally is nothing different than what competent darkroom printers have always done. The only difference is that digital capture has made it Quicker and easier.

 

[charjohncarter]

It is too bad but war is not a big deal anymore. They are everywhere, as they have always been (but not seen before). The B&W of wars is not there anymore. Just too many of them and not enough differences (or stupid polemics) between the waring parties to make the multitude of digital images available have any impact.

 

[sparrow6224]

Gene Smith is one of the two or three photographers I admire most in the history of the art form. He was, of all photographers, the absolute master of darkness, and indeed as he got older the prints got darker and darker and darker. However, going back to his early career, to emphasize what Bill has written, I'd direct everyone's attention to a well known WWII photograph he took of a sailor being buried at sea:

[ http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m17dqrsHOK1qcglluo1_500.jpg ]

I think it's pretty clear that some work was done on this in terms of darkening and lightening for emphasis. This was the picture, when I was first studying his work, that taught me what to look for in Smith's photographs. He was a man of extraordinary intelligence (as was Cartier-Bresson) and he knew what he was about. All you have to do is follow where your eyes tell you to go to see Smith's photographs as he wanted them to be seen. As one other (vastly more famous) example, consider this in light of Bill's remarks:

[ http://blog.medieninformatik.de/uploads/Mixedbag/EugeneSmith-TomokoUemuraInHerBath1971Big.jpg ]

The man was a genius and he cheated as much as possible. He set pictures up: one time, working for Life, owned by Henry Luce, a conservative who wanted the Labor Party in England to lose the election in 1950, Smith was on assignment in England to show America how things were going there. He understood that Luce would like to have seen a slant that indicated a change of government was needed. Thus he began concentrating harder on the working class and its conditions (thus the three miners faces covered in soot, one of his iconic images, also a bit faked). One day, to get a picture of a lorry stopped dead amid a herd of sheep, he hired the sheep, the shepherd, the lorry and driver, and set the whole thing up himself. This kind of thing is not acceptable anymore: but my feeling about rules for geniuses is, there aren't any.

 

[Sylvester]

I had an argument with a photographer friend the other week about this image... We ended by both thinking it was "legit"...

 

[Joosep]

I find this argument quite moot.

1. Originally in Law, of a case, issue, etc.: proposed for discussion at a moot (MOOT n.1 4). Later also gen.: open to argument, debatable; uncertain, doubtful; unable to be firmly resolved. Freq. in moot case, [moot] point.

But to the topic. I find the debate rather ... strange.
I mean we all have preferences, like the deodorant we use or how much we photoshop. We might dislike others preferences but that is not a basis for some strange type of hate. An image is an image, it was the authors vision, if the contests jury deemed it fit then thats that, vsjo.
I know how much photoshop I like for my personal stuff but I will not use it as a holy moral and wont split people into worthy and unworthy groups.

This is my oppinion. Not trying to force it on others. A pluralist society is a fun society. 🙂
The image is rather cool by the way...

 

[Contarama]

No to change the subject to politics but I wonder how much (if any) of the backlash is due to the Palestine question? I am not anti Semitic by any measure but don't Jewish folks own and control huge swaths of newspapers, magazines, media and the such or am I way mistaken?

 

[PRJ]

I have no problem with the Hansen photo. maybe a little overly done, but he changed nothing in the picture so it is fine by me.

I think this episode is more valuable as an example of how stupid the internet is becoming. There are so many "experts" now that they, as a collection of morons, can disrupt legitimate and serious things. THe days of thinking before speaking or writing are long gone for far too many people I am afraid.

 

[Rodchenko]

I have very little doubt that there are people who would wish to discredit the photographer and undermine the power of the image.

 

[willie_901]

Good News/Bad News

Good News/Bad News

We can all be pleased that this image was authentic. Only the data recorded from a single shutter press was used. Dodging and burning is as old as photography.

The bad news is the tonal manipulations were ill-conceived. The first time I saw this photograph I thought, "Well I wasn't here, but how likely was it that the light in that alley appeared like this to the human eye? Too bad they had to overcook the image when the content is so overwhelmingly powerful and composition is so well done."

The enhanced tonality almost insults the content. That particular aesthetic treatment seems entirely superfluous. They didn't have to turn the dial up to "11".

 

[Rodchenko]

The US & British media - print and broadcast - is strongly slanted against the Palestinians, though I wouldn't go so far as to say that was about Jewish ownership, so much as the sympathies of press barons.

I agree that the image had an arresting power before it was tweaked, and it was a hostage to fortune to give in to the temptation to turn it up to 11, as willie so aptly puts it. Even more subtle enhancement may have added something without becoming the story.

 

[sparrow6224]

I would say there is more sympathy for the Palestinians and opposition to the occupation and all its inevitable brutalities, given greater voice with less attempts at suppression, in Israel today than we will tolerate in the United States. Which is nuts, and scary too. I don't imagine, though I see no way of finding out, that either the winning picture of the burial nor another winner, called Pepper Spray, were widely seen in the United States.

 

[Chuck Albertson]

The BJP has a decent discussion of the topic today:

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-j...ctivity-manipulation-and-the-search-for-truth

It also has a link to an earlier article on the 10b digital lab, which is mentioned a lot in discussions of how much post-processing is too much.

 

[Timmyjoe]

I work as a photojournalist and have no problem with dodging, burning or cropping an image, whether in a darkroom or in Photoshop. Adding or subtracting things from an image is strictly forbidden though.

Heck, every day we are choosing how and what we compose in the camera. Covering a controversial protest rally just days ago, as a photographer I could have made the story anything I wanted. Want to make one side look bad, just wait for the moment when one of their people is screaming, easy to make them look like a nut-job. Want to make the same side look like the victims, just wait for someone deeper in the crowd to tire and have a quiet moment. Choosing how and what to photograph has alot more impact on the visual story you tell; than how much you dodge and burn, or how you corp.

As others have said, the controversy over Paul Hansen's photograph strikes me as "Much to do about Nothing."

Best,
-Tim

 

[kbb]

Bill's right...false scandal.

Bill's right...false scandal.

The propagation of false or specious scandals is one of the many symptoms of our cultural senility.

 

[leicapixie]

my reply was blocked and or removed.

 

[leicapixie]

It matters little if an image is "worked" on..
it will be published if it in no way damages the real owners of News.
The Industrial complex.
The images i shot of horrible housing for Migrant Miners was never published.Not then, not now! Too many pages of Dividend Reports..

The G-20 Riots in Toronto.Easily stopped.
The actual protests lost in images of a burning police cruiser.
The rioters no doubt were assisted.
The anarchists very visible, in earlier marches..

Use internet for your news and your own thinking!