I think you've lost me in some places Tim, I suspect if I was to hear it in person I'd understand a bit better, but I think we'd agree on the main points.
What I'd say is it totally depends on the image and what the artist was trying to convey. Let's take an extreme example of something emerging from the dark. In that situation you wouldn't want detail in the deep shadows. Take for example Toulouse-Lautrec's "The Hanged Man" (link below)
https://www.moma.org/media/W1siZiIs...B4MjAwMFx1MDAzZSJdXQ.jpg?sha=fe7e0ba8e7820952
Large parts of that image are blacked out quite deliberatley for adding interest, definition and emphasis.
Or Rembrandt and his Slaughtered Ox (link below)
https://nielsbergervoet.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ox.jpg
again using a lack of detail in the shadows to de emphasise the unimportant.
So I'd argue that having the ability to choose whither or not to use that type of technique is a valuable tool in the box. But it totally depends on your initial vision.
I'd also say that the technical details of how that darkness was achived is acedemic, as lonv as it was in line with the quality of the finished article.
Sort of, and sort of not...
I'm not trying to critique but highlight why we see things differently, (as individuals in general), and the dangers inherent in that.
Let's generalise. We don't understand this world and form a logic based on that understanding. What we do is form a logic that allows us to impose a framework of understanding, and this allows us to navigate and make sense of the world more easily. Blinkered, bigoted, indoctrinated, extremist, are all examples of words we use to describe people that we don't feel see the world correctly, who do not understand our framework. But I've chosen the somewhat obvious extremes where beliefs and how some people view the world seems obviously distorted by environment, learning, language and experience. So why would we assume that these people are in a different category to us, in the way they form opinion and not the opinion they form? Innocent, over-trusting are examples are examples of environment and learning have not exposed other people to our *rational* point of experience.
They all share something in common, they are labels we apply. They are not absolute categories but ways of describing how other's beliefs *differ* from ours. They are relative descriptions and not absolute.
If we accept that our experience, learning, the language we hear and use all contribute to how others view the world then we must also accept that it applies to us.
And if this colours the way we view the real world why should it not colour the way we view images?
We suffer one fundamental mis-conception, that we see clearly. But it is also that which allows us to navigate the world with confidence. If we accept that our vision is not absolute and that we rarely see what's there then it fills us with far more uncertainty in our beliefs. And though you may fully accept the above it's also very common that we also make the assumption that what we see is absolute without question.
A contradiction.
What I'll try to explain is what you don't see, and why you don't see it. But it's very hard to counter years of learning and experience with one or two sentences.
When we view the world we do it through a framework we apply to allow us an understanding of what we see. When we look at images we do the same. When you compose an image you must therefore include elements of order to enable your viewer to gain an understanding. But the trouble is that because we think we see clearly and what we see is actually there we fail to notice something else. That the order we impose is our framework, it is what we impose to make sense of an image. It is neither logical or really correct, it is not the whole truth or really absolute and exists within the frame of the image. Most of it comes from our experience, our learning and language, how we classify and impose order on our surrounding to gain understanding. It comes from being human and seeing the world through human eyes.
But yet many photographers still believe in absolutes, that things are clearly in images and that they obey the logic and science of how they were formed by the camera and software. Because a lens and sensor recorded it, it is there. It may well be, but in order to see it you first have to view it as a human, with all the above baggage...
The trouble is that we are influenced by how we learn and categorise things, so if our logical framework is one of absolutes then we learn to see images as absolutes and it becomes very difficult to see beyond that.
What we don't always see is that vision is relative, we see the difference between two things and not the absolute nature of one. If we judge an image by sharpness we see it as an absolute quality. Not that we necessarily believe that all images should be sharp, we often believe that sharpness is a tool, and softness has it's place. What we fail to see is that they are relative terms for the same thing. When you reduce the real world to 2 dimensions and contain it within a space that has limited contrast you find that a lot of things that existed separately in the real world become dichotomies. They exist as yin and yang, a balance between visual opposites and not as absolutes at all. You don't always realise what you need new glasses until you have your eyes tested because sharpness is relative and only revealed when you see a difference.
Light and dark. You can stand in a space where the overall brightness is almost blinding, you can stand in a dark space where it becomes difficult to see. But can you achieve that in an image? No. It becomes a dichotomy, you can achieve the appearance of light by contrasting it with dark, or the appearance of dark by contrasting it with light. But you can't achieve a blinding light or a claustrophobic dark on their own.
Large parts of that image are blacked out quite deliberatley for adding interest, definition and emphasis.
again using a lack of detail in the shadows to de emphasise the unimportant.
They are not absolutes, this is the way you label and classify, apply order and understanding. They are part of the same thing. In the Lautrec the sense of light on the man's dead son and his sense of shock at the *sudden* discovery is very much communicated by the visual contrast created by combining the two things together. The shadows have to be dark in the limited contrast and reveal little detail in order for the effect of the light to be so much more graphic and sudden. The trouble is that many of these digitalised copies recognise the need to see the absolute detail. The actual installation image shows the visual effect far better and is also shown against a darker ground:
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Hanging Man (Le Pendu). 1895 | MoMA
Similarly with colour and volume, to achieve colour you have to paint with colour and volume requires chiaroscuro, but shading involves the removal to some extent of colour and replacing it with shades and tones.
If we see only in absolutes we teach ourselves to evaluate by absolute qualities and so fail to see in images things are always a balance between two opposites. If we teach ourselves a language of sharpness, detail, contrast and skies with drama then we fail to see how it impacts on the impression of volume, depth, colour, light within the confines of a 2 dimensional space of limited contrast. We fail to realise things that exist simultaneously in the natural world are reduced to opposites in a visual image because it's not allowed for in a narrative of absolute defined by the way a camera captures. Our narrative, or framework, that we use to describe our photographs does not include that distinction. Most photographers on some forums would universally prefer the image on the left because it is a language they've taught themselves to recognise and understand. Most non-photographers see the one on the left as cartoonish and unreal because they recognise the one on the right as being more consistent with their framework based on looking at the real world with human eyes. Neither is either real, correct, or the way we would actually see. But they both reveal the framework, or logic, imposed by the photographer. The viewer makes a judgement based on *their* understanding and framework as to which makes most sense to them, or which one they would like to make most sense.
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