Friday, December 4, 2020

December 3, 2020

Once more we are being assailed by the Luddites of the photographic world.  

Photoshop was going to destroy photography.  Digital photography was going to destroy photography.  Photography was dead anyway - photography destroyed itself.


 

I started working professionally in 1975, when there was a good deal of grousing that “postage stamp sized negatives couldn’t possibly be sharp enough”.  Also, there were those that claimed you were not really a photographer if you did not use a rangefinder (Leica, of course).  Or a Nikon F.  Or a Hasselblad. 

There was a bunch of “you have to print your B&W negatives straight out of the camera on grade 2 paper without dodging, burning, cropping, or bleaching otherwise you were doing it WRONG!”

 

And never ever crop – which meant you were accepting camera makers proportions whether or not they worked for the image.

 

We are still experiencing more or less frantic arm waving any time a new technology emerges.

Never uses multicontrast paper. Only graded paper.  Never use grade paper, only multicontrast paper, never use resin coated paper.

 

Always tone your prints.  Never tone your prints.  Always use/never use gold toner, sepia toner, selenium toner…

 

Only black and white photography is art. 

 

Only large format photography is real photography, or - only medium format photography is real… I had a stock agency director yell at me for having the gall to show him Kodachrome slides since only 2 ¼ format and up was sharp enough.  To prove his point, he trotted out a bunch of out of focus 2 ¼ slides.

 

You should get a great image with one exposure.  You should shoot miles of film to get a great image. Or fill endless memory cards.

 

Autoexposure, autofocus, auto anything is wonderful/dreadful.

 

Photography is dead.  This one seems to be repeated every few years.

 

You must be using the latest and most expensive version of everything.

 

Digital photography will never replace film photography.  Digital prints will never be good enough.  You cannot make good digital black and white prints. 

 

If you do any more than remove dust from your images you are cheating.  Compositing, color enhancements, any and all esthetic changes to an image are good/bad.

 

If you have not published any work you are not a real photographer.

 

Let me propose a radical idea:  photography is about making an image. Without getting into the ethical issues of photographs that are faked for malicious purposes (which has been done for a long time) I believe that an image should stand on its own, independent of the method it was created.  An art professor at a distinguished art academy once responded to a discussion about the perfect brush to use said “for God’s sake, paint it with a mop!”

 

Gene Smith: Burned dodged bleached and cropped his images.

 

Walker Evans cut his negatives with scissors to crop his images.

Edward Weston used a cheap lens he found in Mexico.

 

I was once told that I should come to California to be with my fellow large format photographers.  Everything in the exhibit where this happened was shot on 35mm film.

 

Let us enter the thoroughly muddy waters of the realm of professionalism…

 

What makes a photographer professional?

 

Money? Fame? Expensive equipment? Clients? Published work? Shooting exotic locations? Shooting famous people?

Attitude.

 

A professional will make good images without relying on luck (a photograph is made, not taken) nor will they rely on their equipment or software to solve problems.  In my opinion, a professional makes the image about the image, not about themselves.  

 

We are also hearing from those with no education in art history at all.  Case in point:  Portrait retouching.  Portrait paintings were often done as idealized images to flatter the subject.  Society portrait painters were the prime practitioners of this “art”. 

 

Artists who painted honest portraits caused quite a stir.  Painters who presented the world honestly (e.g.: The Ashcan School) caused an uproar, Manet’s “Odalisque” almost started a riot.   

 

Tools and techniques are only paths to a result. 

 

I have never heard a group of painters arguing the merits of different brushes and stating that if you did not use such and so brand you were esthetic pond scum. 

 

One of my favorite remarks about equipment is “you’ll never get anywhere using (insert whatever you are currently using).

 

As far as I can tell Photography is the only art form where the image is secondary to the response to it. 

It does not matter whether I use an 8x10 Sinar with an obscenely expensive 90mm apo-whosiswhatsis lens or an Android phone to make the picture. 

 

I have been to too many photography exhibits where there was constant blather about what lens, film, camera, etc. was used to make the image. 

 

I once showed my mages of homelessness in New York to someone who’s response was “Did you use TriX?”.

 

When there is discussion about the most powerful and effective images – such as “Tomoko in her Bath” by Eugene Smith, Nick Ut’s “Napalm Girl”, Joe Rosenthal’s “Flag Raising at Iwo Jima”, Ansel Adams National Parks work, Eddie Adam’s “Saigon Execution” – the discussion is about the power of the image(s), and how they have affected the world.

 

Nick Ut’s and Eddie Adams work helped to end the war in Vietnam.  Ansel Adams work helped to further the cause of the National Park System…

 

When I create an image, I want people to see the image, and not the equipment used to make the image.

 

My opinion is that all of the obsession with equipment and processing technique devalues the image itself.

 

Yes, there is a lot to learn by asking “how did they do that?” in an effort to improve craft, and that can be said about any art form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Monday, March 25, 2019


Where to start?

After all, what does it mean to be professional?  Especially a professional photographer.  Does it depend on the amount of money we make?  The gear we use?  The publications we have worked for?  The number of images in print?  Whether or not we have a studio?  The format we work in? 

Professionalism is, in my opinion, the ability to make good photographs without relying on luck, or that special moment, or being in a location where you would have to be an utter idiot not to get good images (Monument Valley, war zones, beautiful snowfalls, etc.).

Things I have been told about being a professional which just were not true (these will give away my age):

35mm can never be sharp enough, you must shoot 2 ¼ format.
Professionals only use Nikon.  Cameras made by Canon, Minolta, Pentax et al. were second or third rate.
Kodachrome 25 was the only slide film you should shoot.
Tri X was the only black and white film you should shoot.
Real pros had motor driven cameras.
Hasselblad was the only professional medium format camera.
“You should never do it that way!”  pick a tool or technique and someone will get hysterically upset about it. 

While It is true that one of the poorly kept secrets of professional photography is that we shot a lot of frames, it was due to the fact that we didn’t have the same ability an artist had in changing small (or large) details of an image. This can go to neurotic extremes - there was one poor soul who shot 10,000 rolls of slide film for a liquor ad which is certainly carrying things a bit far.

I have done assignments, advertising (not a lot), newspaper photography, stock, exhibited, done headshots, portraits, and the unifying theme has not been the dollar amounts accrued, but the production of images which 1.  Don’t require captions to give them emotional punch.  2.  Stand on their own as images – regardless of the medium.  2. Aren’t equipment driven, formulaic imitations of other photographer’s work.  3.  Making images that aren’t stories.  While they may enhance a text, they are not reliant on the text for power, visual art is not a literary form.  4.  Whenever possible retaining all rights to my work – to prevent copyright infringement, yes, but also to deal with the concept that the person photographed has anything to say about its use, composition, getting royalties, using it for their own purposes without permission, etc. 

Let us try to recognize that a great image is a great image.

As a group, photographers seem to be among the least supportive people I’ve ever met. 

It is important to remain positive in the face of statements like
“No one does that kind of photography anymore”
“Brand x is better than whatever you are shooting with”
And pretty much everything we do or have is a target for these kinds of remarks
“So and So (insert famous photographers name) says you should…insert name here
Never crop
Always crop
“It should come straight out of the camera” – no processing (color correcting, no sharpening, no fixing skin tones et al
“I would never use – insert software brand here)

Charting a path through this is hard.  It’s too easy to fall into the better gear = better photographs trap, and the last and in my opinion the worst is basing your professionalism on your accounts receivables.

Some suggestions:

1.        Do not compare your insides with other peoples outsides.
2.       Stick with the photographers who are positive, encouraging and happy to share information.
3.       Avoid long conversations about lenses, cameras, lighting equipment.  Painters don’t sit around yammering about their brushes for hours on end.
  
A word to any one who has been at this for a while:  Be careful what you say to neophytes.  They are easily hurt and discouraged.  Negativity projected onto a new photographer says nothing about them, it can be a means to elevate one’s own opinion of oneself.

A quick anecdote:

I was at an event standing next to two photographers, one of whom was the son of a very famous photographer and worked on staff at a major NY daily newspaper.  The other one shot for a Jewish publication and was relatively well paid.
One had an early digital Canon ($14,500 was the price tag).
The other had the latest Nikon stuff motor drives and all.
I was shooting with a Nikon F made in 1965.
Says one of them to me:  what are you doing with that piece of  crap camera?”
Say I “Making great photographs”.

It isn’t the machine, it’s the mechanic.



    



Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Back From the Dead...

Haven't blogged here in almost forever, the press of personal events, family member's illness, and just plain old inertia has held me back.  Not to mention chasing the almighty dollar, uploading to 6 different galleries, and shooting a lot and often.















Gay Pride NYC 2018

A spectacularly hot and sticky day...









Stuff seen just walking around and about.  Almost always carry a camera.  
Been shooting with a 5D Mkll and 60D Canons.