Slick photography

[mdarnton]

I've just been getting back into photography after a few years, and have been looking at a lot of different photo sites trying to figure out what's happening. Is it just me, or has everything photographic really gone Crisco-slick?

Maybe it's the possibility of digital or something, but there seem to be so many photographers doing slick, studio-style photography, even in the field of non-studio-type things. It all looks like advertising photography to me.

Two examples, and of course virtually 90% of Flickr, the part that isn't completely amateur:
http://www.pdnphotooftheday.com/
http://flakphoto.com/

Am I just looking in the wrong places?

 

[jsrockit]

I think both of the sites your referenced had photos that benefitted from clean high ISO / clean digital files.

 

[Neare]

Not at all. It's just the common aesthetic of art photography that many people strive for as they know it works well. It's popular because it's one of the best aesthetics you can gain out of digital work.

Also know that many photographers nowadays, although they are practicing photojournalism or art based photography, also have a desire to shoot fashion and advertising for the $$$. Hence why their aesthetic will cover a broad range of genres.

 

[shadowfox]

Smooth as silk does sells.
But it still takes much more than just smooth pictures to satisfy.

Early this year some people here posted links to "the best of photography" from several different publications. Just amazing digital photography that showcase the power of clean, crisp, photos that exude powerful messages and impressions.

But you are right, I also don't care for 90% of today's fashion, wedding, lifestyle photography out there. Just pretty pictures without substance. Rather 'Meh.'

 

[charjohncarter]

As all digital cameras produce pretty much the same results and you don't have a choice of film, developer, or lousy lenses; you end up with these photos on the surface all looking the same. And digital is slick (clinical) looking.

Digital is here to stay, and I feel that in the future there will be a move away from PS or HDR as the art of photography.

 

[pvdhaar]

Digital is here to stay, and I feel that in the future there will be a move away from PS or HDR as the art of photography.

Oh, no! You said the H-word!

 

[Teuthida]

Digital has no soul. its clinical and sterile. That, of course, is to my eye, which was trained looking at traditional silver halide images. Younger photographers, who grew up with digital, see traditional film capture images as murky and inferior. Thats life.

 

[Teuthida]

As all digital cameras produce pretty much the same results and you don't have a choice of film, developer, or lousy lenses; you end up with these photos on the surface all looking the same. And digital is slick (clinical) looking.

Digital is here to stay, and I feel that in the future there will be a move away from PS or HDR as the art of photography.

Good points.

I recently resubscribed to B&W Magazine after a few year hiatus wgile abroad. I remember it as being a great source of traditional B&w imagery. Much to my surprise, its now B&W and Color magazine, and full of the most horrid digital imagery and incredibly bad Color HDR stuff. If this is what counts as the latest photographic fashion, count me out.

 

[pvdhaar]

Digital has no soul. its clinical and sterile. That, of course, is to my eye, which was trained looking at traditional silver halide images. Younger photographers, who grew up with digital, see traditional film capture images as murky and inferior. Thats life.

Completely agree, but the way you state it, it's as if you're describing the course of evolution, with us film users in the role of bottom sucking pond scum.. 😱

 

[braver]

I found Color magazine especially icky (recently combined with B&W). The black&white variant is very nice, lots of beautiful photography of interesting subjects. However, 90% of the photographers featured in the color version rely heavily on photoshop trickery to enhance their badly taken photographs, with every edition featuring at least one that regularly overdoses on HDR and another one that can't hold his camera still and calls it art.

My theory: digital cameras (+ photoshop) are like the synthesizers of the late 70's/early 80's. Everybody is way too busy trying out all the gizmo's to make anything interesting and it will take a period of raw, honest grunge to pull everyone back in reality and show us how embarrassing the first decade of digital imaging has been.

 

[damien.murphy]

I do notice a preponderance of *clean* images, and not so much gritty imagery these days. Clean seems to be the popular look these days, from advertising imagery and perfect people to clean blogging templates and noiseless cameras. Things don't have to be this way, but it seems everyone wants to look perfect these days. I think more people are photographing today than ever before, and with noiseless digital cameras the norm over mildly grainy consumer grade colour negative film, clean, flawless images are everywhere.

Personally, I find it all boring, and its not really a film vs digital thing for me. I suppose things will change a little, when we see good black and white software being integrated into image editing programs, for example when software like silver efex becomes integrated into your iphotos, lightrooms, etc. Of course, via hipstamatic, et al and lomography, we are already seeing a backlash to same-y looking images, so we shall see where it all ends.

In all though, when I think of all these clean, same-y looking images, I am always reminded of one of my favourite images; Taxi - New York Night by Ted Croner, a blurry black and white night shot that for me has more soul than a skipful of clean, perfect, soulless images. Clean and perfect have their place, but I find it boring when it is the norm.

 

[pvdhaar]

Everybody is way too busy trying out all the gizmo's to make anything interesting and it will take a period of raw, honest grunge to pull everyone back in reality and show us how embarrassing the first decade of digital imaging has been.

In digital it's so easy to go full throttle on image manipulation that it's hard to resist the temptation to do so. Been there, done that. But the images get no better. More and more, I'm going after authenticity, showing things as they are, not as they should be. So yes, honest grunge sounds appealing.

 

[jsrockit]

I personally don't worry about clean versus grainy. I worry about good photos. I don't think it is right to let a medium get in the way of a message... a good photo is a good photo.

Digital has no soul? ... come on, that's a cliche if I've ever heard one. Only photo geeks worry about bokeh, grain patterns, things being too clean, and/or "soul." Non-photographers don't generally notice that stuff when viewing photos. The content matters more than anything else.

 

[damien.murphy]

I personally don't worry about clean versus grainy. I worry about good photos. I don't think it is right to let a medium get in the way of a message... a good photo is a good photo.

Digital has no soul? ... come on, that's a cliche if I've ever heard one. Only photo geeks worry about bokeh, grain patterns, things being too clean, and/or "soul." Non-photographers don't generally notice that stuff when viewing photos. The content matters more than anything else.

Well, clean vs grainy, it all comes down to style and the manner in which we present your images. Of course, content quality comes before that, and obviously determines which images we deem worthy of presentation.

Re: soul, I agree digital being soulless is a cliche, but knowing what we like in an image, content, style and otherwise, is not the preserve of photo geeks.

 

[furcafe]

Personally, I don't think it's always digital per se, but more the result of people educating themselves on the use of fill flash & lighting techniques via Strobist, etc. Obviously, digital helps speed the learning curve & made it easier to achieve the slick, studio-style look. The fact that digital files "out of the box" resemble medium format more than 35mm (e.g., in the lack of grain) also contributes to the effect.

I've just been getting back into photography after a few years, and have been looking at a lot of different photo sites trying to figure out what's happening. Is it just me, or has everything photographic really gone Crisco-slick?

Maybe it's the possibility of digital or something, but there seem to be so many photographers doing slick, studio-style photography, even in the field of non-studio-type things. It all looks like advertising photography to me.

Two examples, and of course virtually 90% of Flickr, the part that isn't completely amateur:
http://www.pdnphotooftheday.com/
http://flakphoto.com/

Am I just looking in the wrong places?

 

[jsrockit]

but knowing what we like in an image, content, style and otherwise, is not the preserve of photo geeks.

content and style is one thing... but I was speaking to technical attributes such as grain. Unless the grain is distracting, non-photographers don't care about this when looking at images.

 

[charjohncarter]

My theory: digital cameras (+ photoshop) are like the synthesizers of the late 70's/early 80's. Everybody is way too busy trying out all the gizmo's to make anything interesting(.)

Right in both cases.

 

[damien.murphy]

content and style is one thing... but I was speaking to technical attributes such as grain. Unless the grain is distracting, non-photographers don't care about this when looking at images.

I suspect we are probably in agreement, but your statements seem a little general, like the above. There are a lot of things we photographers care about, that ultimately don't matter a whit to the consumption appreciation of the final image by your audience. For me, these are things, some of which you mentioned, like bokeh and sharpness, where it seems a lot of photographers are hung up about things that do not contribute a lot to the quality of your final image. Unless of course the quality and content is there in the first place, and the objective is to wring the final few % of quality of the print. In other words, when you are at the 90%+ quality level.

The amusing thing for me, is to watch photographers nowhere near that quality level, argue about things like bokeh and sharpness and ultimate lens quality, as if these are the things holding them back from excellence, whereas in reality, they have not even mastered the basics, where the bigger gains are to be made for them in terms of image quality. Kinda like worrying about table settings for your guests, when you can't even boil an egg 🙂