Modern mentors and photographers

[flyingPhoto]

big dif

The best photographers, is an extremely opinionated ideal, because it not only involves the personnel preferences of a type of photography but also the medium of reproduction.

I chuckle when folks distain digital post process and praise the purity of film. My personal hero, Ansel Adams, describes it best in his book trilogy.

When Ansel shot a scene, he was not intending to duplicate what he saw but to present what he was envisioning in his head. Before, he pressed the shutter release, he drew upon his decades of knowledge. He knew what filters and their effect on specific brands of film. He knew how much each of his favorite films could be pushed or pulled by various developers. He knew that grade of photo paper he intended burn and dodge based on his expected negative density. Rare indeed is the individual that has mastered his methods.

As digital replaced film the software gurus found ways to not only simulate these effects but to introduce additional effect not possible with film.

So determining the current masters, it is a little like comparing apples and oranges or Bach and Bluegrass or the best beer. I always suggest looking at all the present photographic art works and study the artist or artists you like.

Good Luck

ference between doing a dodge and burn...

and using photo shop to put the photo subject into the drivers seat of a camaro,,,, thats driving on the bottom of the sea world shark aquarium..

far to many "experts" on the you tube claiming thats the ONLY way to do photography these days.

 

[limr]

big dif

ference between doing a dodge and burn...

and using photo shop to put the photo subject into the drivers seat of a camaro,,,, thats driving on the bottom of the sea world shark aquarium..

far to many "experts" on the you tube claiming thats the ONLY way to do photography these days.

False dichotomy.

There is a lot of work done between these two extremes. To ignore all that work is unfair.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I used to be upset about photo shop showing some 3 year old riding a rodeo bull or Zorro sword fighting with sharks; but then I remembered a 1950's photographic add of four dog sitting at a table smoking and playing poker. I believe it was a cigarette add.

So to placate my biases, in my mind I divide photography into two groups. The first are those who "enhance" the photo, which has always been done, back to photography's earliest days. Albeit it is much easier to do today. However, you can still go to that location and snap the same scene.

My second group are what I classify as "photo artists" they can change the scene completely. I compare them to the brush and canvas artist who looks at scene and decides that the tree will look better on the right than the left, especially if a doe and fawn are added.

These are two completely different approaches to photography mostly made possible by digital photography. As far as the OPs question is concerned, they are just two of the many choices he will need to examine on his road to becoming a photographer.

 

[mrca]

Ron, that and elvis were on black velvet. Like the law, photography is a seamless web from what used to be photojournalism straight out of camera to over saturated HDR, over soften skin and crazy composites. But shooting alot of hybrid, film capture scanned and processed in LR/PS, it is way more than I could do in the wet darkroom 60 years ago. As people make their photographic journey, they find what appeals to them and can do what ever they like on that continuum and there is no right or wrong. When they find what THEY like it can become their style. Not only what they shoot, but how they shoot and edit it. So much to photo, so little time.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

mrca,

I have to agree that the hybrid approach is a great time saver. With change a bag and light proof developing tank my film dark room is the top of my ping pong table.

But the most important part is the time saved by transferring the negative to digital processing. I use my camera and a light table. I can cull through the negatives and select the few one I want to print. I do a lot of experimenting so not every one is a keeper. My bathroom is my darkroom so set up and tear down for enlarging and printing is a bit of chore. It is more of a winter thing when it is dark early and to cold to play out side.

 

[mrca]

Ron, I get 46 mp scans using my d850 on my rolling camera stand. Not only a huge cost savings, but I don't have to wait 3, count them, 3 weeks for turnaround. Using a led for photography pointing up from my top side desk drawer through a piece of frosted plexi I use for product, then through a window the size of my film holder cut in a mat to prevent spill I can sit at my desk tethered to Lr, slide an uncut roll of film through the holder one frame at a time and click the shutter in LR. Scans 36 roll in about 6 minutes. Takes longer to set up and tear down.

 

[Dave Maciak]

Ansel Adams (1984) is a well known photographer and author that has written an iconic trilogy. Another author and one of my favorite photographers is Fan Ho (2016), but both of these masters of the industry were around in times past. Who is the Ansel Adams of today? Who is it that you look up to and enjoy the works of in modern times? This thread may be very opinionated but it would be awesome to recognize the next books and works of present modern day photographers and artist.

I really don't have favorite---but DDD (David Douglas Duncan) is/was top of my influence list.

 

[newfilm]

False dichotomy.

There is a lot of work done between these two extremes. To ignore all that work is unfair.

I would farely say that your response is the false dichotomy.

There is a far difference between using standard methods of dark room work like dodge and burn, and split printing to make a final print.

Compared to what is done these days as an apparently needed via u tube mandated way of making a photo image.

IE long ago, if a person wants to have their picture done as a double exposure using a gold coin as the back groun.. one would have to do actually WORK to do it..

ie take the picture of the person and the coin, making sure to use the correct scale when zooming in on the coin. Then combining them.

NOW i can take a photo of anyone, send it to photoshop according to the videos, and make the person a different hair/skin/eye color i choose, change the color of their out fit, put a new back ground in, and if i want make it look like they are kissing a horses bottom.
If the person was taken in a photo of them eating an ice cream cone, you can end up with them in a photo kissing or licking anything on the horse.

 

[Sharpshooterr]

I would farely say that your response is the false dichotomy.

There is a far difference between using standard methods of dark room work like dodge and burn, and split printing to make a final print.

Compared to what is done these days as an apparently needed via u tube mandated way of making a photo image.

IE long ago, if a person wants to have their picture done as a double exposure using a gold coin as the back groun.. one would have to do actually WORK to do it..

ie take the picture of the person and the coin, making sure to use the correct scale when zooming in on the coin. Then combining them.

NOW i can take a photo of anyone, send it to photoshop according to the videos, and make the person a different hair/skin/eye color i choose, change the color of their out fit, put a new back ground in, and if i want make it look like they are kissing a horses bottom.
If the person was taken in a photo of them eating an ice cream cone, you can end up with them in a photo kissing or licking anything on the horse.

New, I don’t understand your logic. Now this thread is from last year and I didn’t go back and review it but by what you have said, your statement is pretty flimsy. It’s the old film shooters must have been better BS. Some were better, but the majority of shooters back then sucked just like the majority today suck. No amount of soaking paper in developer was gonna make a crappy composition any better just like no amount of PP today, using utube or not is gonna make a composition better, just different no matter how many horses arses you creat. Composition was and still is king! If you were good then you should be even better today or vice versa.
SS

 

[mrca]

Sorry, sharpshooter, composition is no king, that produces nothing more than what Ansel referred to as sharp image of a fuzzy idea. Starting with a message or inspiration is king, otherwise it is nothing more than a snap shot and only by luck will it be a strong image. I was at the Firestone grand prix yesterday and have not seen more amateurs with zoom lens in one place in my life. All spraying and praying. Like a broken clock right twice a day, they will have a few images they like out of hundreds. Then folks wonder why they have such low percentage of keepers. My second camera was film and you can be sure there was a far higher percentage of keepers at 30 cents a click.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

I do remember cigarettes calendars with dogs playing poker and smoking cigars, while seated around a poker table. That was long before the advent of digital photography.

Fakery is a lot easier today but is nothing new. There is a picture of Ulysses Grant on a horse in front of a Civil War battle field, apparently composed of three deferent scenes.

As for the spraying and praying approach, if the photographers knows what they want; they can shoot dozens of shots to capture the exact image the have in mind. When I switch my camera to the "sports setting" it automatically fires 5 shots. Often one of those will be what I had in mind.

I am sure many a film photographers, had wished they had taken a couple of more angles they though about, once they got to the dark room.

 

[mrca]

It's not "fakery" it is photography as more than an aping of what is in front of the lens. My copy machine does that. Steiglitz and Steichen fought hard to have photography recognized as an art form. But to this day, there still lingers the demand it be a literal mirror of reality. Artists like Picasso or the impressionists would chucke at that and ignore it. I do have a problem with folks being taken in by the marketing that the latest and greatest will transform their work. No matter how much Nikon or cannon or sony says so, it won't. I was shooting several times at the end of 2 straights where cars reached their highest speeds and was only 50 feet from them. So I actually went from burst to 9 fps high speedburst. Now I have hundreds of near duplicate photos to sort. This is the classic, horses for courses. Wishing you had taken the shot differently happens on about 80% of the non keepers most folks take. I can guarantee when I was sending my medium format film out costing $3 per click, every shot was carefully selected, composed and exposed. Even now at $1.20 a click, that stil lhappens. Yesterday at 25 cents a click in 35 mm film, who cares, no burst but lots of shots.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

To say that photography is not art is based on the fact the that "Art", in most peoples minds, is and image that is created with a persons hands. Paintings are art, sculptures are art, carving wood is art, dancing is art, as is playing the Violin. The end product does not exist until the artist applies their hands, brain and body to some immanent objects. Even if it is just a pair of ballet slippers.

Very few people would say they could be an fine artist, if only they had a brush and canvas, hammer and chisel or a pair of ballet slippers. However, the camera is so ubiquitous these same folks can look at a fine photograph and feel they could have done that; if they had been lucky enough to be standing there at the time. This is reinforced every time we see photos submitted by readers to magazines that were little more than snaps shots.

In my opinion the opposite is true, fine art photography was evolved into digital photo-art. Photography had advanced beyond the simple dark room improvements. What is lost on the general public, is the skills it take to manipulate the color sliders and enhancement options to create todays photo-art. The many feature offered by todays camera simply move some of the post processing to the camera itself.

A great photographer is like the world best stagecoach driver. They are appreciated by their pier group but their skill level is lost to most folks.

 

[mrca]

To say that photography is not art is based on the fact the that "Art", in most peoples minds, is and image that is created with a persons hands. Paintings are art, sculptures are art, carving wood is art, dancing is art, as is playing the Violin. The end product does not exist until the artist applies their hands, brain and body to some immanent objects. Even if it is just a pair of ballet slippers.

Very few people would say they could be an fine artist, if only they had a brush and canvas, hammer and chisel or a pair of ballet slippers. However, the camera is so ubiquitous these same folks can look at a fine photograph and feel they could have done that; if they had been lucky enough to be standing there at the time. This is reinforced every time we see photos submitted by readers to magazines that were little more than snaps shots.

In my opinion the opposite is true, fine art photography was evolved into digital photo-art. Photography had advanced beyond the simple dark room improvements. What is lost on the general public, is the skills it take to manipulate the color sliders and enhancement options to create todays photo-art. The many feature offered by todays camera simply move some of the post processing to the camera itself.

A great photographer is like the world best stagecoach driver. They are appreciated by their pier group but their skill level is lost to most folks.

My camera is in my hands. My hands work my keyboard, mouse and tablet. My hands load my printer and remove the print. They can take an image that apes what is in front of them, but to make art, that is rarely going to happen. Some of my images take 3 months to sketch out and edit then execute. But I certainly don't concern my self what the general population thinks of my art, only my clients and I spend time educating potential and actual clients. As another pro once told me about his work, he didn't care if they liked it, only if they bought it. In the sermon on the Mount Christ said" We are not to be hypocritical judges, yet we must be able to discern the swine, lest we cast our pearls before them.

 

[Grandpa Ron]

"As another pro once told me about his work, he didn't care if they liked it, only if they bought it." Yep, that pretty much sums up photography. The photographer does not determine what the customer thinks is good, because "good" is an individual opinion.

The late songwriter John Denver once commented, how people would find some deep meaning in his songs; even though he had no idea what they were talking about.

It makes little difference to the person doing the buying, how much or how little time a person spends crafting the photograph. They like it and are willing to buy it or they do not.

I enjoy Ansel Adams and I marvel at his ability to look at a scene and visualize, what film in what developer, for how long, printed on a particular type of photo paper with proper techniques, would give him the picture he had in his minds eye. However, many of my non-photographic friend wonder why he wasted his time on black and white photography.

When I was younger I had dozens of thing I wanted to do for a living. However, I was often reminded that, unless you can make a living at it; it is just a hobby. Yes indeed, sometimes my hobbies made enough money to cover my investment in them, however I never quite my day job.

If you love photography and can make a living doing it, you have the best of both worlds.