Anyone's a photographer, if they can photoshop

[Raj_55555]

This is not a rant, just a story I wanted to share.
So I was just back home after a long session in the jungle,crawling around dog poop and stalking a rose ringed parakeet family. I fired up lightroom and started processing the files. This is when my brother shows up, gives me a smirk and says "Anyone can be a photographer if they knew how to use photoshop". Clearly he didn't know the difference between LR and CS, but this led us to a bet and now he has my camera for a week and I've promised to process all his pics for him. The results would be interesting to say the least :lmao:.

I was wondering what's the most absurd thing you guys have ever heard about photography?

 

[bribrius]

your brothers a smart guy....

lol

what he said isn't actually new or absurd. People have been saying it for YEARS.

 

[Scatterbrained]

It has been rumored that once, while speaking at an art exhibition, Ansel Adams overhead a man say "I guess anyone can be a photographer if they have a darkroom"; to which Adams responded by making an imprint of an 8x10 sheet film holder on the back of the mans head. He then told the man to go lie in a dark room for a while and see how that developed.

 

[480sparky]

I guess I screwed up then. I bought cameras and lenses and tripods and filters and memory cards.

Turns out all I needed was software. Didn't need all that stupid hardware.

 

[snerd]

I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.

 

[bribrius]

I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.

One of my sisters was a semi pro. shot sports. she quit the business all together hasn't done photography since.. Probably about ten years now. I think I get it.

 

[snerd]

I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.

One of my sisters was a semi pro. shot sports. she quit the business all together hasn't done photography since.. Probably about ten years now. I think I get it.

Well, I do get it, in a way........... but on the other hand, it also opens up a whole new medium of creativity and artistry. It seems she doesn't get "that" part.

 

[Scatterbrained]

The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography. Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer. (granted it was a lot more work)

 

[bribrius]

I discovered that my wife was into film photography. Big time. Before we got married, about 7 years ago. She said with the advent of digital cameras, and Photoshop, she lost all desire for it. The fact that images can be manipulated so easily now just ruins it for her. Period. I don't get it. At all. But that's how she feels.

One of my sisters was a semi pro. shot sports. she quit the business all together hasn't done photography since.. Probably about ten years now. I think I get it.

Well, I do get it, in a way........... but on the other hand, it also opens up a whole new medium of creativity and artistry. It seems she doesn't get "that" part.

cheapened it and made it more fake. And easier.

I still like looking at the lower performing 1940's cars. Type on this laptop but I reminisce of the old typewriters. Granted, it was no where near the capability. But the typing was more real. No delete button. could hit back erase but often it didn't work right, or no erase tape. Might have to deal with white out but that don't always work right. sometimes you might just have to throw out a entire page and start it again if you made a mistake. But for every page that came out you had a much larger appreciation of it. And since it wasn't saved on a disk you guarded it as a treasure. Seemed I made a lot less mistake on a typewriter, as I knew they couldn't often be fixed or at least not always easily. And I didn't want to lose a entire page. so paid closer attention.


pjagpjangpjdfngpjdngogpoagkgkodngopdgkajgkangkijfkoank

suppose it doesn't matter if I mess up now. I can just fix it later. its in raw.

 

[Derrel]

Analog or "silver-based film" photography and digitial imaging are related, yet are very different activities.

 

[bribrius]

The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography. Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer. (granted it was a lot more work)

This is what I don't comprehend here, when people defend it like you do. Not that it needs it but whatever, i don't get it anyway. All I know is I was taught in high school photography to get it right in camera . taught in correspondence after high school photography to get it right in camera. this was like 1991/1995. I don't have my own dark room. never did. only experience was there in darkroom. I don't recall doing anywhere near what we tweak now. And one teacher especially drilled it into our heads. Get it right in camera. After that I spent the next over a decade shooting reg 35mm film. Drop it off get it developed, pick it up. All messed up. so again, remembered, Get it right in camera. Did the same thing before photography courses, didn't have a dark room then either. Get enough crap prints back you start to remember get it right in camera. There is a comparison between post processing and dark room. But most of us never did any of it to that level, if at all. Least I never did. Those that did, I would imagine still thought get it right in camera because it wasn't easy to fix and film and developing wasn't real cheap not to mention the possible lost shots and work and wasted time.
you think I and everyone else had a personal dark room in our house all that time and I spent all week tweaking images in it? Especially people doing it to the extent they do now?
so I spent from the early eighties through until just last year with zero post processing other than a couple dark room classes with photography and whatever they did when I sent out 35mm, which judging by how the prints came back they didn't do a hell of a lot of tweaking and didn't much care how they looked. (which is why we had to)

 

[Scatterbrained]

The funny thing is, I have a book here from the late 80's early 90's on "special effects photography", geared towards still life/commercial/product photography. Compositing images and retouching images was quite common in the film era,it's just that it was often handled by someone other than the photographer. (granted it was a lot more work)

This is what I don't comprehend here, when people defend it like you do. Not that it needs it but whatever, i don't get it anyway. All I know is I was taught in high school photography to get it right in camera . taught in correspondence after high school photography to get it right in camera. this was like 1991/1995. I don't have my own dark room. never did. only experience was there in darkroom. I don't recall doing anywhere near what we tweak now. And one teacher especially drilled it into our heads. Get it right in camera. After that I spent the next over a decade shooting reg 35mm film. Drop it off get it developed, pick it up. All messed up. so again, remembered, Get it right in camera. Did the same thing before photography courses, didn't have a dark room then either. Get enough crap prints back you start to remember get it right in camera. There is a comparison between post processing and dark room. But most of us never did any of it to that level, if at all. Least I never did. Those that did, I would imagine still thought get it right in camera because it wasn't easy to fix and film and developing wasn't real cheap not to mention the possible lost shots and work and wasted time.
you think I and everyone else had a personal dark room in our house all that time and I spent all week tweaking images in it? Especially people doing it to the extent they do now?
so I spent from the early eighties through until just last year with zero post processing other than a couple dark room classes with photography and whatever they did when I sent out 35mm, which judging by how the prints came back they didn't do a hell of a lot of tweaking and didn't much care how they looked. (which is why we had to)

The real problem is your assumption that because people use Ps they aren't getting it right in camera. This is the biggest issue I see. Sure there are the "I'll just fix it in post" crowd, but as the saying goes, you can't polish a turd. (yeah, I know, the Mythbusters actually did polish a turd) Crap photography zipped through Ps is still crap. It's just retina searing crap now. Guess what, there are still plenty of press and sports shooters shooting jpeg and sending the images off for publication straight from their location, no post whatsoever. There are plenty of people that just shoot jpeg because they don't want to process their images. There are also plenty of people shooting film as an artistic choice. Film photography isn't dead, and neither is the need to get it right in camera.

I don't think Ps has changed the mantra of "get it right in camera" it has simply changed what "right" might mean. You still have to have vision, and skill, but now you can tailor your shooting to your workflow. If you know the limits of your camera you can shoot with those limits in mind, just as film shooters might have shot with the limits of their film in mind, as well as their darkroom workflow. For example, if you're shooting jpeg you may find yourself having to sacrifice the sky to expose the subject, yet with raw you know you can shoot for the sky and push the subject in post. It's a creative decision, but it's the same kind of thinking that led to the development of the zone system.

 

[baturn]

If you have been a regular on TPF for any length of time and still do not understand why files from your digital camera need some manipulation in a PS type program then you really need to go back to school and learn how to read.

 

[Vince.1551]

This is not a rant, just a story I wanted to share. So I was just back home after a long session in the jungle,crawling around dog poop and stalking a rose ringed parakeet family. I fired up lightroom and started processing the files. This is when my brother shows up, gives me a smirk and says "Anyone can be a photographer if they knew how to use photoshop". Clearly he didn't know the difference between LR and CS, but this led us to a bet and now he has my camera for a week and I've promised to process all his pics for him. The results would be interesting to say the least :lmao:. I was wondering what's the most absurd thing you guys have ever heard about photography?

Imo you could largely identify a digitally manipulated photo. So if your brother is talking about a 'make-believe' manipulated photo he's probably correct in that assumption.

However it you are referring to a shot with minimal post processing (except the typical 'digital' push and pull or blemish touch up or something which you would normally be able to do with negatives or slides and etc) then being able to capture an amazing shot is something admirable.

Key is manipulated & captured (in the way I described above).

On a judging perspective, there are separate categories and one can quite simply identify a photo that is hard-to-believe(quite unlikely to happen in natural state largely) vs the other.

Not sure if I'm clear on my description ...

 

[photoguy99]

In camera versus post is irrelevant.

Crap is crap and good is good. Doesn't matter how you got there. You can fix a lot of stuff in post.