rivercityrocker
Well-known
As a photography writer I frequent different forums and one thing I find that runs rampant are discussions about sharpness and low-noise at high ISO settings.
Lately I've been revisiting a lot of images made in the past. Especially images from Magnum photographers. Tonight I was at a presentation by the editor of the book Reading Magnum http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Magnum-Visual-Archive-Photography/dp/0292748434 and I purchased a copy as well as a copy of W. Eugene Smith's The Big Book.
Anyway, something that I've been turning over in my mind lately is how photographers from the past were more interested in the quality of content over absolute image quality. I can't help but to imagine Capa, Bresson, Smith, etc... posting images on forums and having the camera nerds rip them to pieces because the focus wasn't spot on or the image was grainy.
So, I was at a coffee shop tonight and snapped 2 photos of a couple that appeared very much in love (I talked to them later and it turns out they were newlyweds). Of the two photos one shows her looking at him and smiling. It's a sharp photo and it's nice. The second shot is her leaning in to give him a kiss, it shows much more emotion, but it's blurry due to the slow shutter speed and the quickness with which she was moving. Personally, I think the blurry image is better.
What is more important to you? The quality of the image or the quality of the content?
Lately I've been revisiting a lot of images made in the past. Especially images from Magnum photographers. Tonight I was at a presentation by the editor of the book Reading Magnum http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Magnum-Visual-Archive-Photography/dp/0292748434 and I purchased a copy as well as a copy of W. Eugene Smith's The Big Book.
Anyway, something that I've been turning over in my mind lately is how photographers from the past were more interested in the quality of content over absolute image quality. I can't help but to imagine Capa, Bresson, Smith, etc... posting images on forums and having the camera nerds rip them to pieces because the focus wasn't spot on or the image was grainy.
So, I was at a coffee shop tonight and snapped 2 photos of a couple that appeared very much in love (I talked to them later and it turns out they were newlyweds). Of the two photos one shows her looking at him and smiling. It's a sharp photo and it's nice. The second shot is her leaning in to give him a kiss, it shows much more emotion, but it's blurry due to the slow shutter speed and the quickness with which she was moving. Personally, I think the blurry image is better.
What is more important to you? The quality of the image or the quality of the content?
Attachments
Pablito
coco frío
Tell me you can't predict the way the replies to this are going to go...
35mmdelux
Veni, vidi, vici
Some photogs were concerned w/ quality, others w/ sharpness witness 8x10.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
They're both important. You wouldn't believe how many great photos...good composition, interesting subject, etc....but out of focus. Example: a portrait with soft eyes and sharp ears. Yuck. At the same time, there are multitudes of tack sharp images with perfect tonality and color....and nothing in it worth looking at.
helvetica
Well-known
Exactly this - if you can tell where the focus was intended to be, then it's like a nice dinner but with a hair on the plate!
To the OP's point - some of those Magnum shots look like 35mm frames blown up to 16x20+ and where fantastic. Lacking detail? huge grain? looks rough? Of course, and it did not detract.
Ko.Fe.
Lenses 35/21 Gears 46/20
Problem with digital is - if it is not sharp and noise free it looks kind of crappy.
With film it seems to be less disturbing. I never understand, liked motion blurred pictures, until I started to look at some photos work on film.
Film opens imagination, digital starts gear heads talks.
With film it seems to be less disturbing. I never understand, liked motion blurred pictures, until I started to look at some photos work on film.
Film opens imagination, digital starts gear heads talks.
RichC
Well-known
Most "photography" forums, including this one, have a primary focus on gear not picture-making. Also, online forums tend to be populated mainly by men - and I have a female friend who loathes forums because of this: she says they typify how males communicate by essentially having pissing contests rather than through consensus like women. She has a theory that all men are to a degree autistic!
I have some sympathy with her - it does tend to be men who whip out their cameras and drone on about them, not women...!
Capa et al. were primarily picture-makers, not gear heads like most photographers are (and always have been I suspect), so for them photography revolved around the image. Image quality was of concern only if it detracted from the image content, from the message. Gear and technique were important of course, but only insofar as it allowed them to achieve their intent.
Outside of photo forums there are still plenty of photographers who consider themselves picture-makers. I've just completed a master's degree in photography, and the course was all about image content. And no one pulled photographs apart - no talk about sharpness, equipment, how an image might be created, unless it affected meaning in some way. The tutors were all wholly concerned with the image and its message - the course head is an expert in photography but is not photographer (she knows nothing about cameras!), and other lecturers are concerned primarily with content, like my tutor Mark Power, the Magnum photographer. That said, being on a postgraduate degree, we were expected to be competent photographers, to know how to take a technically good photograph, right from the start.
Where I live there's a photographers' organisation called Miniclick, which puts on talks and other events - recent speakers have included Giles Duley, Antonio Olmos, Simon Roberts and Jo Metson Scott. It has one rule: no gear talk - ever! It's made clear that asking a photographer what camera they use is not on, unless it has a direct bearing on image content! One of the reasons, I'm told, that photographers of this calibre talk at Miniclick is because of this rule...
It's noticeable that, unlike online photo forums, the Miniclick audience is half female!
There are far more people using cameras today, so the picture-makers are more outnumbered than in the past. But we're still here, and "get" Capa's D Day photographs despite their poor technical quality...
tarullifoto
Established
Of all the myths about gender, this has to be the most irritating. Think how that statement would be received had it been made by a man about women.
I realize this is off topic, but statements like that are pure bunk, and need to be called out.
RichC
Well-known
Not bunk - though I admit my phrasing is a bit colourful! And of course I'm generalising. Here's a couple of scientific articles picked at random confirming this isn't a myth - loads and loads on this topic.
• Monaghan et al. (2012), "A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication", Wiley, Chapter 21
• Warren et al. (2012), "Longitudinal gender and age bias in a prominent amateur new media community", New Media and Society, vol. 14
Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
This seems to me a reasonable statement of the situation.
Sparrow
Veteran
... usually I don't like generalisations ...
I'm not convinced either photo fits the quality definition in this case, but as a rule I think the better photo is usually the best ... sometimes it's the blurry one and sometimes it's the sharp one ... very occasionally it's even digital :tongue-in-cheek-smiley:
I'm not convinced either photo fits the quality definition in this case, but as a rule I think the better photo is usually the best ... sometimes it's the blurry one and sometimes it's the sharp one ... very occasionally it's even digital :tongue-in-cheek-smiley:
Michael Markey
Veteran
I agree .. I know plenty of women photographers and I don`t recognise these stereotypes.
Bille
Well-known
Nice image, I dont think the blur distracts at the image size you have posted. I also like the rendering of that specific lens, but this is what non-photographers usually dont care about.
What lens did you use?
Content is king.
TennesseJones
Well-known
Image quality doesn't have too much to do with the quality of an image.
But as Chris said, best not to focus on the ears.
But as Chris said, best not to focus on the ears.
alistair.o
Well-known
I agree with all that's been said on all sides.
Stupid statement, eh? OF COURSE.
Stick to the OP point: " What is more important to you? The quality of the image or the quality of the content?"
I just know that some smart arse is going to says something glib...
Some of these threads just show what the state of it all is today...
Stupid statement, eh? OF COURSE.
Stick to the OP point: " What is more important to you? The quality of the image or the quality of the content?"
I just know that some smart arse is going to says something glib...
Some of these threads just show what the state of it all is today...
bobbyrab
Well-known
I don't think I'm that much of a gearhead, If I need a piece of equipment, I do my research and buy the best I can afford, and then I stop reading about it. I couldn't tell you much about the spec of Canon cameras above the 5d as they're all too big for for me so I'm not particularly interested.
I believe that quality does have an impact on just about any image though. In my line of work, and not being a fan of flash if I can avoid it, I get a lot of compromised images, be it movement or critical focus. Sometimes they work despit, or because of the less than perfect result, but they are in the minority. Out of focus almost never works, and most blur through movement needs something approaching sharp within the frame to anchor it, and in my experience good lenses, even when you're focus is a smidgen off, or you have movement, a good lens will give you more critical information that can hold the shot together.
If you think of Capa's soldier wading onto the beach, there's just enough detail in the face. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority of great photographers will have worked with the best that was available to them for a reason.
I believe that quality does have an impact on just about any image though. In my line of work, and not being a fan of flash if I can avoid it, I get a lot of compromised images, be it movement or critical focus. Sometimes they work despit, or because of the less than perfect result, but they are in the minority. Out of focus almost never works, and most blur through movement needs something approaching sharp within the frame to anchor it, and in my experience good lenses, even when you're focus is a smidgen off, or you have movement, a good lens will give you more critical information that can hold the shot together.
If you think of Capa's soldier wading onto the beach, there's just enough detail in the face. I'm sure there are exceptions, but the vast majority of great photographers will have worked with the best that was available to them for a reason.
Red Robin
It Is What It Is
I didn't enlarge either thumnail, but only with the small view my eye went to the papers on the wall. On the other the couple had my attention. It's like the light fell nicely right between the lovers. So with these two I prefer the right hand picture because it grabs my eye/interest, not because of it being "tack sharp" or not. Then I shoot film now don't I.
L Collins
Well-known
Define "quality."
bobbyrab
Well-known
Why? Broadly we get the idea, and broadly speaking will usually sufice for any discussion.
mdarnton
Well-known
I was away from photography during the digital take-over. When I came back, the first thing I noticed was that photography had become slick illustration, as in for magazines, and such, photographic Norman Rockwell, modernized. Fourteen year old kids on Flicrk make technically perfect photos with complex staging and lighting that were impossible for all but huge, well-funded studios in the pre-digital era.
I think this is all about the availability of tools and color that enables anyone to be better equipped than a studio photog from 1950 and, well, give people a hammer, and they start looking for nails, sneering at screws and rivets.
I don't much care for that style, myself, though I appreciate the ability to do it. However, there are still lots of people thinking in old terms. My favorite Flickr group is independent photos, http://www.flickr.com/groups/independentphotos , and there you will find lots. Young Russians, in particular, and some other nationalities in that general neighborhood (Italians, too) seem to have a school developing around an older style that speaks more to emotion than technique. I think most of the people I follow on flickr are from that general corner of the globe.
I think this is all about the availability of tools and color that enables anyone to be better equipped than a studio photog from 1950 and, well, give people a hammer, and they start looking for nails, sneering at screws and rivets.
I don't much care for that style, myself, though I appreciate the ability to do it. However, there are still lots of people thinking in old terms. My favorite Flickr group is independent photos, http://www.flickr.com/groups/independentphotos , and there you will find lots. Young Russians, in particular, and some other nationalities in that general neighborhood (Italians, too) seem to have a school developing around an older style that speaks more to emotion than technique. I think most of the people I follow on flickr are from that general corner of the globe.