Whats with the overly glossy aesthetic?

[jojoman2]

You guys know what I'm talking about. Extreme saturated color that would never occur in nature, too perfect black and white (leica monochrome), bokography, airbrushed photographs to remove every last imperfection from portraits, landscapes, and architecture. What is happening to the mainstream aesthetic? Do a lot of photographers just have bad taste, or is photoshop ruining honest, gritty photography?

I'm sick of bad photography. I know my definition of bad is simply that, "my" definition, that most subjective of interpretations--good or bad. But seriously people, airbrushed, glossy, alien looking color is one of my biggest pet peeves, and it seems to be the norm nowadays.

I won't pretend that I don't have a lot of improvement to make before I can even start to brag about my work, but I'm having serious difficulty finding GOOD street and portrait work on Flickr, or other portfolio websites, instead finding airbrushed, mass produced-looking crap. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Maybe the real street photographers have their own exclusive club that I haven't stumbled upon yet.

Ugh, I'm feeling frustrated today. It's because I just started a 500px account and all the recommended photographers work looked SO over processed and just weak, weak material, weak photography.

 

[mdarnton]

Wassamattayou? More is better. 🙂

 

[aizan]

i stopped surfing the internet for good photographers many years ago. the good ones end up being published in print, and it's hard enough keeping up with that anyway these days!

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I agree with you.
Somehow I like crazy colors on paintings, but not in digital photography.

But. Here is no problem to find amazing portraits and street work on Flickr.
Plenty, in fact. Just don't follow tasteless crowd flow. Where are good individuals without +99 likes on every picture.

500px top was garbage for me years ago, for same reason you have mentioned.

And I didn't find Monochrome bw any good. Q BW is better for my taste. 🙂

Tastes are different, but I'll dare to recommend http://www.coltonallen.com/ (known here and on Flickr as well) for color photography. And check portrait groups for bw film.

 

[daveleo]

Well you and I balance each other out.
I like nearly everything, and appreciate people who have the moxie to make (let's say) adventurous images.
I've seen all the flower pictures I need to see, and all the cafe scenes I need to see, and all the red barns and ocean sunsets I need to see.
If you don't like something, that's just fine. Just say "I don't like this picture" and leave it at that.

I do know you were mostly blowing off steam, so don't read too much criticism into my wording.

 

[JP Owens]

Yeah, most stuff has become homogenous these days. I think it has to do with so many people, even good photographers, using commercial actions with LR and PS. The quality of some of these actions is amazing, but the result is that everything, including street, looks the same.

 

[jsrockit]

This argument has always existed...

 

[jojoman2]

yeah I hope folks don't read too harshly into my initial post. I think it's great that everyone has access to high quality images. I think it's great that almost everyone is into taking pictures for fun. Hell I even think it's great that humans of new york exists simply to promote street as a genre with potential for mainstream exposure, even though I think a lot of his photography is generally pretty amateurish--but the stories are good, as are some of the portraits.

One of the main reasons I search out working street photographers is to eliminate the nostalgia factor that accompanies my adoration for photographers of yesterday. It isn't possible to make a lot of those images now, or those stories. I need to see the work of photographers today to keep me grounded in these streets, and to motivate me to try harder, be more daring.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I'm looking at Winogrand's work, because I like it as geometry of coincidence and as art next to classic sometimes. Yes, not so many monkeys on the street these days for sure. And Oldsmobiles. But people are walking, talking and sun is casting the same shadows.

If you don't have motivation to go on the street to tell your story it is time to leave and take a break. The spring is coming.

 

[Calzone]

Not sure gritty photography is good either, but heavy post processing kinda prevails on the internet where you can't really judge print quality anyway.

One thing is that digital cameras have mucho resolution. I can print a lot bigger with my Monochrome than with my film Leicas. If too much resolution is in your face than you are just old school.

I have to laugh when people say Fuji Acros looks too digital and clean. I happen to like that look, but the same people who say that Acros looks too clean and sterile because it lacks grain and grittyness are people who probably dislike large format photography or fine art printing.

I would agree that there is mucho high contrast, exaggeration, and heavy handed post processing that gets mighty crunchy. I look at prints rather than a computer screen to fairly judge an image. A retina screen on a Mac Book Pro is definitely a heightened exaggerated reality and that most displays are way too bright. Unfortunately this aesthetic has taken root... and is actively promoted via bright computer screens that is not so tasteful.

Recently I learned that there is a lot more shadow detail on my Piezography prints than is displayed on my 27 inch EIZO. Realize that I dimmed down my calibrated monitor to 85 Lux so it resembles the amount of light reflected off paper and ink of a print, and this is in a darkened room.

Took me about 9-10 months of serious printing spending thousands of dollars in paper and ink to realize and utilize all that resolution, all that tonality, and all that IQ.

I thought that I might of overdone things, and I kinda mistakenly thought my prints have a HDR like effect, but it is really a higher level of resolution/perfection that one would experience in a larger format, and the resolution is something we are not use to in small format.

Anyways I can print mighty big and come pretty close to doing a Salgado, meaning print crazy big. We are at a point now where digital small format has to be considered a different medium: a very different medium.

Cal

 

[jloden]

Some thoughts in response, in no particular order.

1) There's plenty of great street photography on Flickr IMO. There's just a TON of bad in there you have to slog through to get to the gems 😀

2) 500px is not a great place to find street photos in my experience. It leans heavily toward vibrant landscapes heavily produced/lit portraits of exactly the type you're complaining about.

3) To each their own when it comes to taste.

I've seen a number of people (including on this forum) rave about the quality of a B&W photo based on the huge range of grays encompassed in it. But I personally detest photos without contrast and a clear black point and white point evident, and sometimes I'm heavy handed with a tone curve to create extreme contrast if that's the look I want in a photo.

There's no "right" and "wrong" way to practice photography. People use bright, saturated color because they like it. Underexposed Kodachrome was popular a long time before Photoshop and the saturation slider 😉 The photography you're seeing on 500px is popular right now, which feeds the image making machine two-fold. People are producing work that will get them acclaim, and new photographers are being inspired by the work they've seen and liked.

By the same token though you can also find pockets of people that follow just about any style. Folks who idolize Cartier-Bresson, or Robert Frank, or Alex Webb, or whoever and follow that path for their own photographic journey. Currently popular trends in photography change with every generation, but the death of any particular style or approach is usually greatly exaggerated.

 

[cassel]

My early mentors in pro photography taught me several things (not necessarily right or wrong or the "best"):

Zoom with your feet (use prime lenses)
Compose in camera (don't crop in the darkroom)
Get the exposure right the first time
Film is cheap- when in doubt, keep shooting (sort of contradicts the last rule?)

That was the late 80's/ early 90's. When I was getting out of the profession, it was just starting to transition to digital....

Basically the idea was to let the negative stand (or fall) on it's own merit -- no excess manipulation after the exposure is made. Now I shoot for fun, not income, but I often default to those rules...

How does this relate to the OP observation? I think that the technology of modern photography is vast and exciting... but these are all just tools. They still require careful contemplation and skill to use well. "Glossy" "Perfect" images have their place when used in an appropriate context. All of which is SUBJECTIVE for sure😉

 

[JayN]

I think it comes down to intent. Editing has always existed and IMO it's best used when it augments the subject matter of the image. Photographers have always altered, edited, or used certain equipment (ie: snapshot aesthetic) to help convey an idea, or help establish a feeling that they're trying to communicate through their images... It's kinda like the fourth camera control - shutter speed, aperture, iso, darkroom/lightroom.

We live in a pretty HD world right now and I think a lot of the images that you are seeing are a reflection of that. It's not bad, or good, it's just kinda what's happening right now.

Also, a lot of it comes down to laziness. Photography is so easy and just about everyone can do it. This is good and bad. The good is that it's become accessible and that there are a lot of amazing folks finding photography and expressing themselves and telling stories in super unique ways. The bad is that photography is so saturated and unfortunately folks don't take enough time to learn the history of the craft and create a context for their aesthetic.

 

[mfogiel]

You need to select your contacts on Flickr according to taste - that's it. For example, I do not follow anybody who posts colour pictures - this is entirely my choice. As to photos that I dislike - well, I try to gloss over, but nowadays photography is so ubiquitous that it would be naive to expect people to only post masterpieces.

 

[jsrockit]

There is no one way to do Photography right...

 

[Keith]

The thing that makes me cringe is 'portrait pro' .... you don't even really need photoshop skills to work that software. 😱

 

[Hsg]

People will always confuse color with colorful.

 

[__jc]

There is no one way to do Photography right...

...but there's a million ways to do it wrong. Am I right?

 

[jsrockit]

...but there's a million ways to do it wrong. Am I right?

Subjective...

 

[daveleo]

...but there's a million ways to do it wrong. Am I right?

Actually there's a million ways to do it "right", but people generally have a tough time with that concept. (Oranges are wonderful, so avocados must be awful.)
Good to put these thoughts on the table, but it's silly to get too serious about them.