well these days photograohy and graphic design pretty much comes hand in hand. Not for me but I'd like to.

I was commenting on if you spend more time in a computer than shooting then you're not a photographer comment. I do basic touchups and exposure/white balance corrections in CS3 and that's it and that alone is very time consuming.

But I do have to laugh when people say it's an "Amazing" shot cause that is OBVIOUSLY not the original shot and does pass the line to graphic designing.

 

I see what you mean. For me at least I usually don't spend more time in Photoshop than how long it too me to setup and shoot the shot. For film I think that is a key point, it took the photographer much longer to develop and edit the pictures in a darkroom than it took to shoot them. With digital that time is greatly reduced to the point that I believe everyone who's been doing it for a while can do all their RAW editing and whatnot in the same or less time than it took to setup and shoot it. So if you're out shooting for an hour you can probably expect to be editing for an hour if all the shots turned out good. But if you're shooting for 5 minutes and still editing for an hour than you're doing some advanced stuff and at some point you gotta draw a line. That's where I got my "more time behind a computer than camera" comment.

 

I agree with the whole thing that alot of photographers spend alot of time behind the computer and it really is a finishing up step.

But, this guy has alot of stuff where he added stuff in took stuff out etc.... That is tons of photoshop work more than camera work.

Alot can be acheieved from behind the camera and I feel that if you really want to be one of the best you use the camera to its fullest then use photoshop or darkroom to process your picture ie... ajust color and contrast and sharpness not spend hours revamping the whole picture.




Sorry for keeping this thread way off topic this is for sure my last last last last last post in here despite what I read in it and feel like expressing myself about.

To far off topic in this thread.

 

I think that's great that you feel that way and want to share that with the rest of the FF community.

So some dont particularly dig it. Dont let that keep you from posting up stuff that you want to share.

I must admit though I am not a fan of all his stuff, but who cares. Its more of a creative endeavour than reading plain text. And some people like it so it did its job.

As far as how long it takes you to process a pic WHO CARES?!?!?!?!?!
extended time in a darkroom or photo kiosk at Rite Aid
extended time in photoshop or hitting the print button

As a photographer (yes a paid profesional) and fine artist, are fine art prints graphic design becuase they were heavily processed? Does a painting become just a sculpture if it has a heavy (and I mean heavy) impasto technique? Is one art form ever stripped of its title/medium just because it borrows heavily on other techniques? (commercial or not)

Enough of these psuedo elitist comments.
There is "old fashioned" and there is "closed minded" (they are not one in the same, and few if any of you are either one, inexperience is a bigger contributer)
I have colleague's, cohorts, and friends who spend countless hours editing and/or manipulating, and it does not change one bit the category in which they or I indulge, it only broadens what we can accomplish.

 

I just noticed that lifepixel was sponsoring this page!
Irony!!!

I have even endorsed their products...haaaahaaa

(edit) whoops it's gone now....bummer,
well it was funny at the time. heehee

 

Your analogies don't match up. The only thing this guy had left of his original picture was the car that he cropped out and stuck it on something else he created. If you want the equivelent in fine art it'd be more like doing an oil painting of a Fit, then gluing it onto a background you made with construction paper.

No one ever said you cannot work on your pictures in PhotoShop and not have them still be photography. Obviously you can touch it up (though if you're spending hours doing so than maybe Photography isn't your thing if you have to correct that many mistakes) but when you're physically taking apart your picture and adding things that weren't there and things that are impossible to be there if all you used is a camera; then it's simply not photography anymore.

 

i agree these finished pictures do look good, but i don't think it's accurate to call it photography because so much of it is edited. i'm by no means a good photographer but i'm trying to learn and i chose to use a manual film camera because i've noticed that digital photography has become very much about fabricating a picture that you want people to see, vs. taking a good photograph like in the good old days.

it does seem like digital photography and computer editing of the photos is the future, however.

 

I'll suggest 2 things if you're learning from film which is challenging as hell, but if you nail the exposure, along with focus, you'll love it.

1 - Buy a light meter, Minolta Autometer IV is what I started with, you'll learn aperture and shutter speeds a lot faster.

2 - Shoot slides, because the latittude for error is really small (1-stop either way +/-). First start off with regular film, then go to slides after a few months. Slides are INCREDIBLE but again, your lighting/exposure has to be pretty much bang on.

Have fun

 

whoops sorry hit submit by accident...hold up *embarrassed*

 

response in blue belowVVV

 

i'm not going to lie, i love reading the discussion of photography/graphic art.
very entertaining

 

response in blue below VVV
BTW just in your average digital cam (P&S, SLR, or back) you have more pre-photo and post-photo editing tools at your disposal than most standard darkrooms had for after capture.

and one more- anyone remember the movements of large format gear?
like swings, tilts, shifts....(its like phtotoshop in a body! haahaa)

 

booyah gramma!
lol

 

But they don't... just because you're spending time on PhotoShop instead of the darkroom doesn't mean you can add magical star backgrounds to your picture in a darkroom.

You simply cannot do what he did on film camera, there's really no arguement to prove so. Therefore it's not photography; the definition of which is "The art of process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces."

My example was not to say that the oil painting glued to construction paper is not fine art, it's that it's not longer an intact oil painting.

As far as the PhotoShop/Light Room: It doesn't matter what program you use but if you can't do it within the parameters of what you're able to do to a photography in Light Room than that breaches the line of what you're able to do in a darkroom on film. You can use any program you want to edit your pictures, hell even MS Paint but you can't add fancy backgrounds and merge different pictures into one fake one in Light Room.

 

thanks for the tips kuba! i didn't buy a light meter but my super old minolta sr505 (japanese market) does have a built-in light meter that i got modified to work accurately with modern batteries. it seems to work pretty well. i still take some messed up photographs once in a while so when i am more confident i will try slides and new things!

to snapfit: yeah digital photography seems to be the way to go if one wants to learn quickly and have the ability snap hundreds of photographs without wasting money on film. but that is one of the reasons i decided not to go digital. it makes the results instant and just seems to take away a lot of the challenge. i think it's exciting to see my developed photographs long after i had taken them, and i am patient enough to learn things slowly, especially something that can be as complex and versatile as photography!

 

response in blue again VVV

I started looking up more of Steve Demmitt and well.... hmmm I change my view I actually dig much of his other stuff.

 

I know what you mean. Sometimes I just go out with my film gear (whether it be 35, medium format, or large format) It is certainly a very special medium, and many things I still prefer in film. I can sometimes attribute it to opening a present, especially as more techniques are compiled. After a while you get a really good idea of what what you took and how it will turn out, but it always hides a bit of magic.

I rarely get a gig where the prerequisite is film based but it happens, I did a large event and a wedding this last year that had requested a certain percentage that be done in film. It made things more hectic for the shoots (switching between film cameras and digi) but it gave me a warm feeling non the less. And most importantly the clients liked it.

The funny thing is when I shoot 35 whether its for a gig (rare now) or for myself (not quite as rare ) I still burn through tons of film

You actually sound like a prime candidate for trying out large format photography... you feel like you are in a ZEN picture state! Haahaa ...seriously though.

 

Quote:

Quite possibly but...you would be amazed at how close you could come, or better for that matter.

I'm not sure where you're going with all these examples as they don't really do much to sway me. All these techniques are aspects of film photography and in some cases can be brought over to digital. White balance is irrevelent since it can be adjusted in-camera and comes given with the digital photography age. But if you honestly think that what Steve does is photography then I'm through trying to convince you since we'll be here indefinately as your arguements have not be swaying me either. All I can say is take some of his work and bring it to a prominant photography gallery and see if you don't get laughed at.

 

Amen, Fury.
As a fellow photographer, I'm with you on this. Time spent in Photoshop does not equate to being a good photographer. I do think this is a cool shot, but it was less about photography and more about graphic design. It was well-done, unquestionably, but could have been done by a computer geek who didn't own a camera, using stock photos. I'm sure the photographer would agree on this. Props to him on his Photoshop skills, though. I don't have the patience to be that good in Photoshop.

 

response in blue below VVV