"To Photoshop, or not to photoshop.."

And if you do 'photoshop' (that has become a verb hasn't it), when does it become too much?
This is a topic that gets constant press, and will inspire discussion that is interesting, amusing... all the way to ridiculous, for a very long time.
It would seem to be pretty easy to spot 'over-the-top ridiculous' work, which would fool no one, but that doesn't stop some people:

"Photoshop jobs gone very, very wrong"
Betsy Schiffman, SF Gate, 07/31/09
"Some real estate agents and home owners go a little too far in their attempts to spruce up a listing. Take for example...."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?entry_id=44647

But sometimes it's harder to spot manipulation, and to decide where to draw the line.
A recent brouhaha at the NY Times is a good example, they have a great photo blog, check it out:
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/

The brouhaha I am referring to is this one:

Lens - Photography, Video, and Visual Journalism
July 8, 2009, 8:04 pm
Behind the Scenes: Digital Manipulation
By David W. Dunlap
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/behind-5/


A reply by the photographer followed on 7/31:

July 31, 2009, 4:43 pm
Behind the Scenes: Edgar Martins Speaks
By David W. Dunlap

Edgar Martins is a photographer whose picture essay in The Times Magazine on July 5 and an accompanying slide show on NYTimes.com, “Ruins of the Second Gilded Age,” were found to include digital alterations — contrary to the stipulations of his contract and his stated, repeated assertions to the writer, editors and fact checker at the magazine. This week, Mr. Martins released an essay, “How Can I See What I See, Until I Know What I Know?” It constitutes his response to the controversy that has arisen.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/behind-10/


"How Can I See What I See, Until I Know What I Know?" you say?
Personally, I think the writer (and photographer) has either spent too much time in some fancy art/photo school, or maybe he just found the wrong calling, and should do creative writing instead.
This question implies that one must 'know' before one can 'see' - exactly backwards.
The 'seeing' must come BEFORE the knowing, the 'seeing' informs the knowing.
Anyone who thinks differently, has their priorities mixed up.
At least, I think so.
I can't possibly know much of anything, until I see it.

Fortunately, there is more sensible ( and more easily understood than Mr. Martins) discussion being had:

"Photoshopped images: the good, the bad and the ugly
The graphics editing tool is praised for making people look their best and dissed for setting the bar too high."
By Jeannine Stein
August 2, 2009
http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-photoshop2-2009aug02,0,3129812.story

Even as I was in the process of writing/compiling this, for this August 9th or so entry, yet another instance of 'hey, too much photoshop?' was in the news:

The Buzz Log: Kelly Clarkson Cover Controversy Rocks The Web
Posted Fri Aug 7, 2009 1:15pm PDT by Claudine Zap in Stop The Presses!
http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/stopthepresses/87112/the-buzz-log-kelly-clarkson-cover-controversy-rocks-the-web/

I am no Kelly C. fan, but from the pix I've seen, she looks just fine.
Her fans, judged by the comments posted after the above web page, don't care how she looks...
and they are not as easily fooled as one might think - here's one comment:

11. Maggie - Fri Aug 7, 2009 4:59pm PDT
Does anyone else see the irony with Self magazine airbrushing the Total Body Confidence issue of their magazine?

Maggie is probably not alone.
You know where I stand on this one, photoshop is 'neutral', it's just a tool - it's the brain & heart behind the hand on the mouse that counts.


Another thought, amidst all the constant tweaking done to the images in magazines, & in show-biz, etc, & the 'American Idol' crapola?....
(All of this is, of course, a matter of 'looks count' (too often, more than substance..))
Have you ever seen the album cover for the U.S. release of the Who's first album, with the four band members posed w/ an iconic London tower in the background?
None of these guys would make it far past square one on American Idol ("waay too ugly!") - Keith Moon might make it past square one on 'looks', but as soon as he opened his mouth, or sat down at a drum kit, you knew he was anything but normal.
The rest of the band?.. all look like guys you would never, ever, want to meet in a dark London alley after a few pints.

Sooo... what's happened to them, since this album cover photo?

Pete Townshend has become one of rock's most revered and respected writers...
John Entwhistle has been recognized as a bass player with few peers...
Roger Daltrey is one of the few rock vocalists who can actually *sing* ( and the only one who could ever do justice to Townshend's writing...)
Keith Moon?.......just broke the mold, any mold, anywhere, at least in 'rock' music, there has been no replacement since - listen to the drumming in "Won't get fooled again".)
Enuf said.
Oh, sorry, not quite enough yet, just one more thought - what do you think American idol would have done w/ Jimi Hendrix???

I'll be back, soon, w/ some 'darkroom', including, at some point in the future, this one, still just a photoshop sketch...

Digital vs Darkroom - The 'Desert Ride'

So I did a darkroom (B&W) version of this image...
And recently I did a digital (color) version of roughly the same image.
(Both are above.)
In this case, it was kind of a no-brainer to try a digital version of something 'darkroom' - I had both film and pixels of the same situations, a carousel, and some very nice skies taken in Nevada last December, at the end of the day when the sun was close to sinking behind some mountains - it was a very fast moving situation, and the pixels and film were different - color vs B&W, and 'normal' lense length vs. a very wide Pentax 6x7 55mm lense.


Comparing the two images & techniques seemed definitely worth doing.
It is ALWAYS a good idea to review what you have done in the past.
'Could it be different? Could it be better'? ( whatever 'better' is!..)
"Critique yourself", ya know?
It's a habit you should try out - that was the 'lesson' part of this entry.
No one (but you) will be kinder... and no one could be harsher, it all depends.

For years now, photo friends of mine have been asking, in so many words, "how long you gonna keep being a (darkroom) dinosaur, dude?".
The answer is "always!".... and "shut up, **** you!".
(Just tryin' to keep things 'PG' rated, OK?)

When I first worked w/ Photoshop ( V4, in 1992) all you could do montage-wise was "float" a selection, move it around/etc, but you couldn't save any layers ( that capability didn't exist yet), and you had to 'merge all' before you could save anything. And 'saving' anything substansial?... You could go see a movie, have dinner, and when you came back, it might possibly be saved. How times have changed.
My first hard drive, in '97, was all of 1 GB/1000 MB's.
Now?... the chip in my digital camera saves over 4 *Gigabytes*!, and it's about as big as my thumbnail.

Back to the difference between the two images...
To tell ya truth, I like both of them, for different reasons.
I will always like B&W darkroom - the severity it imposes forces you to deal w/ *just* composition, and values...
And film, at least the film I shoot on a Pentax 6x7, is soooo much sharper than anything digital I have seen, there just ain't no comparison, at least not w/ anything that is within my price range, and you could add a '0' to the price? and it still wouldn't compare.
I will never stop loving the process, of seeing a B&W image develop in Dektol, & rocking it slowly back and forth, in the tray...
The burning/dodging I can do takes less than a minute...way easier and faster done than anything digital.

The digital version of this image?.... well, 'color' makes everything different, naturally.
I chose a different foreground, just because I could - I really liked the rolling hills, the way they were lit, and the color they are.
I used a different sky, because it was color - the B&W version wasn't the same, I had no 'equivalent' to work with.
And the color of the land kind of matched the color in the sky (a different relationship - 'color' as opposed to 'design'(B&W))
And the digital version became vertical, as opposed to the darkroom version, horizontal.
Why? it just felt right, it 'worked' - what more reason do ya need?
I always try and stay open to what is going on in the image, no rules, no 'given's.
Kind of like golf - wherever your ball lands? that's where your next swing starts.
Unless you cheat, and who would want to do that?... it destroys the integrity of the game/match!
Same goes for images - 'stay true'... you'll be glad you did...

If you have any interest in Carousels?
Check these links out:

Carousels in the SF Bay Area:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/12/PKHJ18HB7S.DTL

National Carousel Association:
http://www.nca-usa.org/

As usual, larger images are at a page on my site, including a download of the digital version at much smaller size, if you want to see how it's done:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_2009/Dig_v_Dkrm