A Manifesto

[Derrel]

SNIP>ideas with the camera and the computer>>>destroy light and eliminate its dominance in the image>>the light IS crushed> result is a visual muddle>forms and structures are not revealed, they are confused with one another> SNIP>>>

SNIP>>"strobes all over the place" which crush light pretty thoroughly>>cheesecake,>>mass market photos of hot chicks.

I took the liberty of removing a mass of connecting words, and distilling a few critical ideas that amolitor has discussed in his blog, and touched upon here. Note that it begins with camera and computer. Emphasis added by me. A second topic, his "Strobes all over the place" concept is a second aspect, not originally discussed here, in the manifesto, but dealt with elsewhere. Both these methods, the camera AND computer manipulation of images using HDR and tone-mapping software, and totally re-arranging tonal relationships, and 2) the use of a bazillion strobe heads in so,so much advertising photography these days, represents a HUGE, a positively HUGE sea change in the way photography is being "done", on the part of many people.

Also, the use of the word "crush" seems to be causing some friction...

The fundamental issue as I see it is that bringing computers and massive software to bear on real-world situations has created an entirely new type of imaging; one where the clues that light, and lighting, and light direction, and tonal values (whites, blacks, grays,etc,etc) are now just freely rendered, willy-nilly by some people, in ways that look positively, well, "Fake", for lack of a better word. It is a NEW STYLE. It is indeed a sea change. The fact that somebody is trying to call it to our attention is a positive. Of course, those who enjoy tone-mapping images heavily, and who enjoy creating HDR type image, and who like the Software Hammer (that is a Derrel-ism that I have created and use in my own thoughts...) approach seem to take umbrage...

I wonder if Manet and Monet enjoyed it when the traditionalists dismissed and ridiculed their work, and denied them entrance to the European salon exhibitions...hmmm...probably not...but did the critics who DESCRIBED how the new Impressionist painters's renderings differed from those of the prior traditions have Impressionist Fanboys call them "impotent"?? Come on...bring it up a little, Joe...

I use the above analogy because the rise of Impressionism in painting marked a positively huge sea change in painting; I submit that HDR imaging is similar in its magnitude.

 

[panblue]

This is completely false. You might read it as an attack if you like, but it is not intended as such, and I fail to see how it can easily be construed as an attack.

Until I scrolled down, I also thought you were taking the p*ss..
because the opening premise is one asserted negatively.

We propose to do nothing less than to destroy light in photography.
​

More like a communique from the Angry Brigade.
Ulrike Meinhof with a bootlegged copy of Artizen (mocking now..)

Our ideals are the engineering drawing, the blueprint, the exploded view, the architectural plan. Ours is an era of technology, we choose to embrace the visual idioms of technology. We choose to fully reveal the structure and form of our subject, and by doing so, to fully reveal the idea of the subject, and our relationship to the subject. The form without the idea is of no interest to us.
​

Full-marks for the tone! ;-)
you'd have fit right in, during that turn-of-the-20th-century furore for new kinds of art.

Cartier-Bresson is better remembered than Marinetti but both were important.

I endorse your manifesto!

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[amolitor]

Manifestos are not traditionally polite documents, they exist to crystallize ideas and movements!

You don't say "to temper the dominance of the key light as it is traditionally used in photography" because a) that's weak, b) it sounds like you just want to use a lot of fill and c) it's not exactly something you can get excited about.

 

[panblue]

Manifestos are not traditionally polite documents, they exist to crystallize ideas and movements!

I agree.

 

[Derrel]

As far as amolitor wants to talk about new aesthetics: I want to go back to my excerpts of his very own words, as I posted above in post #16. Specifically:

"SNIP>>destroy light and eliminate its dominance in the image>>the light IS crushed> result is a visual muddle>forms and structures are not revealed, they are confused with one another>

Oh-My-GAWD Gladys!!!! Changing the way light was represented---that is what Impressionist painters did!! Rembrandt's old-timey, traditional lighting was thrown out the window! The strong shadowing and highlights were "crushed", in a visual muddle. Oh my Gawd--those damned Impressionists painted things in a fuzzy, non-traditional way, and all their figures and skies and people all formed a visual muddle! The new Impressionist painters, why those crazy bastards, they painted in a way in which "forms and structures" were not clearly revealed! Things kind of became "confused with one another". Those damned Impressionists painted like crap!!! Right??? Almost everybody said they did!


SNIP>>"strobes all over the place" which crush light pretty thoroughly>>cheesecake,>>mass market photos of hot chicks."

Oh-My-Gawd, Gloria!!! This new-fangled mass-market, cheap printing of the 1880's and 1890's, and this mass-market advertising in these penny press newspapers and all these newfangled weekly magazines and these 5-Cent silent movies at the Nickelodeons has spawned a new kind of imaging--it's called "kitsch"...it's not fine art, it is low-brow cheesecake, low-brow Hollywood movies for the unwashed masses...it's not Moliere, it's The Office....it ain't Shakespeare, it's Jersey Shore....

Impressionism...kitsch...Abstract Expressionism...Post-Modernism...avante garde...HDR imaging...These are ALL real aspects of art or art-like-works, and all were the subject of many hotly-debated articles and essays in the field of artistic criticism. Historical movements. Each one WILDLY unpopular with traditionalists, and gobbled up by a certain opposing group or groups. This is the reason I so often harp on art history and studying it.

 

[panblue]

..but did the critics who DESCRIBED how the new Impressionist painters's renderings differed from those of the prior traditions have Impressionist Fanboys call them "impotent"?? Come on...bring it up a little, Joe...

I use the above analogy because the rise of Impressionism in painting marked a positively huge sea change in painting; I submit that HDR imaging is similar in its magnitude.

Honestly, it's worth considering for a moment whether they DID consider their Salon
critics 'impotent'. Incidentally, those critics DID regard the 'non-conformists' ("Impressionists")
as dilettante.. sound familiar? ;-)

I would submit that photography was a fellow-traveller of Impressionism and they together
besieged the Bastille! HDR I would compare to something much further along the road, after
the fact..

scratching around for an equivalent..

Warhol's mechanical Pop Art maybe; but that doesn't nail it convincingly IMO.

 

[panblue]

A
Oh-My-Gawd, Gloria!!! This new-fangled mass-market, cheap printing of the 1880's and 1890's, and this mass-market advertising in these penny press newspapers and all these newfangled weekly magazines and these 5-Cent silent movies at the Nickelodeons has spawned a new kind of imaging--it's called "kitsch"...it's not fine art, it is low-brow cheesecake, low-brow Hollywood movies for the unwashed masses...it's not Moliere, it's The Office....it ain't Shakespeare, it's Jersey Shore....

Impressionism...kitsch...Abstract Expressionism...Post-Modernism...avante garde...HDR imaging...These are ALL real aspects of art or art-like-works, and all were the subject of many hotly-debated articles and essays in the field of artistic criticism. Historical movements. Each one WILDLY unpopular with traditionalists, and gobbled up by a certain opposing group or groups. This is the reason I so often harp on art history and studying it.

I agree with you but there were two battles being fought. Maybe this is why I can't credit HDR
as deserving of the Impressionist analogy. There was the struggle for the freedom to render
things emotionally. But also the struggle to paint 'non-salon' subjects..everyday scenes.
This was 'not on!'. This actually was what half the incensed public were shocked by.

Not only were these cats painting like children, they were painting every day scenes..
trains, haystacks, prison yards, alcoholics.

So HDR to me is only going as far as colour, cloissonist style and so on. The major league
fight was 'subject' not 'rendering'.

Hence my off-the-cuff comparison of Warhol. Not his Campbell's soup, but his split-tone
portraits.

Edit: And Warhol maybe wouldn't have gone there, if Die Brücke hadn't already broke the ice.

 

[Mully]

e e cummings said it best " since feeling is best, who pays attention to the syntax of things"

 

[vipgraphx]

I will not get into an argument about it and only post once in this thread but,

This thread is whack!!! :chatty:

 

[Derrel]

Some folks might enjoy reading the actual blog post from which this manifesto came. Photos and Stuff: October 2012

It is the October 16 entry.

 

[Parker219]

OP- Why dont you SHOW us a picture of an HDR that you have done. As you know, a picture says a thousand words.

 

[amolitor]

Oh, I thought it was clear? I don't do HDR and don't even much like it.

My goal is to in the first place try to make sense of it as an aesthetic (not a technology) and in the second place to share any sense I can make of it as such. I don't write novels either, or make sculpture, but I try to make sense of those as well.

 

[Parker219]

Oh, I thought it was clear? I don't do HDR and don't even much like it.

My goal is to in the first place try to make sense of it as an aesthetic (not a technology) and in the second place to share any sense I can make of it as such. I don't write novels either, or make sculpture, but I try to make sense of those as well.

This made my day ( and it is only 8:59am ) thank you. Let me get this straight...You are trying to tell others how a certain type of photography should be done, yet you dont even like that style and wont show us an example of your work, so your manifesto might actually carry some weight?

How is anyone supposed to take your advice if you dont even take your OWN advice?

 

[manaheim]

The problem with this is that it's an attack. It's sarcastically and ingenuously presented in the form of a manifesto. As a negative assault it isn't productive.

This is completely false. You might read it as an attack if you like, but it is not intended as such, and I fail to see how it can easily be construed as an attack.

ETA: Let me expand on this slightly. When I wrote this piece, I had not one iota of thought of making an attack on HDR. I felt, instead, excited and pleased that I had found a way in which I might contribute an idea, in which I might in some small way point a way forward for these new visual ideas. I recognize fully that I would probably not like the results, and said as much, but there is much in art that I simultaneously dislike, and respect as art. Nothing would please me more than to have some cadre of photographers take up my manifesto, modify and bend it to their taste, and direct their vision with clarity and power along lines slightly related to what I have said here. While I might not like their work, I would be pleased that it exists, in the same way that, for exmple, I am pleased that cubism exists.

When I started to read it, it sounded like a bit of a sarcastic attack as well, but as I read further I got the impression you were more serious... so I think it sounds sort of right on the edge. I think a lot of that is in your first sentence. Few photographers would truly endeavor to "destroy the light", or however you put that.

Perhaps if you re-wrote it a bit from a positive angle... think in terms of not so much "destroying light" as "liberating the shadows"? Something along those lines... "We feel that shadows are harshly neglected by traditional photographic means, turning darkened details into utter blackness. As technologists and photographers of a new age, we feel... we know... that this is an unecessary sleight. We aim to bring those details out of the abyss and back into the realm of the visible."

While a bit over the top, I think that comes across as more genuinely positive.

 

[manaheim]

Manifestos are not traditionally polite documents, they exist to crystallize ideas and movements!

You don't say "to temper the dominance of the key light as it is traditionally used in photography" because a) that's weak, b) it sounds like you just want to use a lot of fill and c) it's not exactly something you can get excited about.

mmm... yeah I suppose your point about them not being polite is true, but something tells me even an HDR photographer would disagree with destroying the light.

And you don't NEED to be hostile to incite the masses. Political revolutions and photographic ones may be very different audiences.

Not sure, but it's an interesting thing to consider.