Photo of the Week at photo.net

On 4/28/03 the photo.net elves kindly chose one of my posts as Photo of the Week, the second time one of my pix was chosen. I was delighted, of course, mainly because it gave me a bully pulpit from which to fling the bullshit. Examples follow.

Thanks, Elvish Ones, for turning this into a POW. The credit really goes to the flower, and to the Canon digicams I picked up over the last few months. My immediate impression was that digital workflow makes photography easier. The photos don’t (necessarily) get better, but decent photos are easier to crank out.

I posted the photos first in Qiang Li’s Photocritique Forum, where I added some notes about that digital ease-of-use issue. Here’s what I said. First, anent the less colorful G2 shot:

Of course I’m glad folks like these photos, but I want to emphasize what I’ve said before about still lifes with digicams: they’re easy. Believe me, I don’t mean this as a sly easy-for-me-but-hard-for-you pat on my own back. It really is easy to make perfectly good, even striking, flower photos like this once you have a Canon G2 or equivalent.

The flower I simply bought at the supermarket. Put it in a vase. Put the vase on a chair in a room full of windows. Propped a yellow board against the back of the chair. Screwed a close-up lens onto the G2, put the G2 on a tripod, and focused in close till the result looked good on the camera’s LCD display. Took the photo in AV mode at the smallest aperture (f/8) for DOF. Tried all the three focus points in case one gave better focus than the others. Tried setting exposure compensation up a bit, since the first try was a trifle dark. (Used the histogram display after each shot to judge overall light/dark cast.) That’s it. I took the photo at the camera’s highest JPG resolution, so was able to load it directly into Photoshop, where nothing but a little USM and Auto Levels was necessary.

You too can do all that. The photo’s pretty, but has no special merit beyond the colors dyed into the flower, and the prettiness of the flower itself, and the minuscule cleverness involved in using a colored background. A nice calendar or postcard shot at best.

Next day I posted the more colorful version with these tech notes:

To continue my comment from yesterday’s shot, this is the same flower (or possibly another in the same bunch – they’re almost identical) done with the D30 rather than the G2. This wasn’t such an easy shot as the first one, and did involve more sneakiness on my part. Also it shows off, I think, an important difference between the P&S G2 and the DSLR D30.

Speaking to the last point first, the D30’s sensor has fewer pixels than the G2’s, but each pixel is much bigger. Therefore the D30’s capable of subtler and smoother rendition of color and tones without noise and with that subtly unctuous look I think of as "digital." As for the ease of making the shot, this one took more doing, not in a physical sense but in accumulating and marshaling experience, the one thing I have in good quantity. (Hey, sometimes quantity can substitute for quality, as in the case of a 300-pound wrestler.) Look at yesterday’s shot and you’ll see that there’s more color in the flower than that simple close-up can show. The tubular petals have a kind of translucence, and the fact that they’re hollow suggests they’d look quite different under diffuse but direct light. (The first photo uses indirect daylight.) It’s a given that photographs bring out colors we don’t normally see, since our eyes (or rather the brain they’re a part of) adapt and adjust. Blue snow shadows are the classic example.

It seemed to me that the flower needed to be photographed again under direct light. I set the white point to "tungsten" and used the overhead light in the bathroom, going to the D30 and a true macro lens (rather than the G2’s close-up accessory). I picked a composition that shows off the colors as they run their rainbow gamut from the big outer petals to the tiny inner ones. As a raw file the image is dull, but I could tell that the D30 did in fact catch the translucence of the smaller petals and the shadows that show they’re tubular, with those charming organ-pipe mouths.

OK, I admit it’s not a stroke of inspiration on the order of Weston’s pepper or Cartier-Bresson’s "Brailowsky," but it did take more craft, or at least craftiness, than yesterday’s G2 photo. The point, I guess, being that with modern (digital) cameras it’s very easy to make a photo that’s technically good and esthetically satisfying, of the postcard or frame-on-the-table variety, but that there’s still a role for the "art" (or craft) that gives photos more pizazz.

Apologies for tacking this self-indulgent note onto a POW. I know that in a deep sense the tackle and gear of any art are "just" or "merely" or "only" the means to an end, but what the hell. I’m glad I went digital and thought I’d say why.

There was a funny subtext related to whether or not the photo was “manipulated.” I’d foolishly checked the “unmanipulated” box when I posted it. For example, some folks said it was manipulated because the flower in the photo had been dyed. Sure, I see no big difference between PS manipulation and manipulation of the subject or the lighting or whatever, and the animus some folks feel for "manipulated" images puzzles me. Many of my photos are heavily Photoshopped; it’s a fact but not a virtue that this one isn’t. Let’s face it: every photograph is a manipulation, nay an abstraction, of reality. Were the people in Cartier-Bresson’s photos really that small? Was the landscape shown in that Ansel Adams print really black and white? Was that pepper so flat that Edward Weston could render it accurately in two dimensions? Sheesh.

Aaron L. used the expression “rank amateur.” As for you or anybody else being an amateur, that’s cool. (I often wonder how "amateur" became an insult. In, say, the 18th century, science and the arts were mostly pursued by amateurs – rich folks mainly, who did what they pleased because they enjoyed doing it, and got very snobbish indeed about anybody "in trade" who did what he did for pay. Now, on the other hand, it’s important to be a Pro. You can buy "professional" bicycles, swim fins, computers, condoms and cameras. Double sheesh. Let’s hope that red herring rots away as soon as possible. It stinks.)

Learning that the flower was dyed, Geraldine A. wrote: “...the awe inspiring wonder at the colours has now been completely shattered.” So mote it be. I’m a photographer, not a florist. A photo is not the thing photographed, a picture isn’t the thing depicted. However lifelike, the image is the ding an sich, a thing in itself, however and by whomever it’s made.

Those who admire a photo because it shows them Something Beautiful are in fact admiring that Something, which the photographer most likely had no part in making. There’s not much satisfaction in being told you’re a wizard photographer because your picture captures the true beauty of the Mona Lisa or the Grand Canyon. I know my limits. I can’t make a photo that looks as good as the Grand Canyon. The only thing that does it justice is a trip to the Canyon itself.

In pre-photographic days there was some point, maybe, in flattering Michaelangelo or Rembrandt by saying they had the skill to copy nature so well they could fool the eye. Now anybody who can afford a disposable camera has that skill. But those guys are still famous; apparently their work’s valuable for some other reason.

I should’ve known better than to check that box, and the Elves should’ve known better than to put it there. It’s a trap. I stand by what I said before – all photos are manipulated one way or another. And especially mine. I revel in it. Treat these flowers as clever fakes, spun out of pixels, of no known species, spliced from fiendish genes, colored by hand by robots using artificial dyes extracted from oil sucked out of the world’s most scenic and sacred wilderness. If that makes a difference to you, I lose, as I usually do when I try to argue religion. Triple sheesh.

Kelly L. writes: "...this is the photographic equivilent of valium... just very comfortable... Well done, but not quite deserving of some of the received praise..." I agree with him utterly. To the beholder intention doesn’t count – who knows what motivated the guys at Lascaux, and who cares except anthropologists or the idly curious? But in my SFP (strictly-for-pretty) photos I’m doing what any oyster does, reducing irritation by making a pearl. Somebody wrote a bio of Vladimir Nabokov called "Escape into Esthetics"; I’m no Nabokov, yet the title pretty well states my case. Valium’s great stuff when you need it.

Geraldine (an excellent photographer, BTW) said anent the natural/artificial argument that it would be nice if we could "have it all."

Geraldine, I think we can have it all, at least in some distant epistemological sense, if we consider that everything is natural. After all, we people are natural phenomena too, and what we make by artifice is therefore a natural product.

Believe me, I’m on your side when it comes to admiring what folks usually call "nature" (as in Mother Nature) – it’s endlessly fascinating to me. I marvel at it like a two-year-old. But for that very reason I don’t want to make photos that rely on "natural beauty" for their effect – that’s like an actor getting the audience to cry by murdering cute animals onstage.

Carl R. writes: Many of us enjoy an ironic approach, yet it’s clear that most viewers missed the irony completely on this shot. Is it their fault...?

Hey, you won’t catch me blaming anybody for liking my pictures, unless it’s that guy in the back who keeps finding Darth Vader’s face in the clouds and bushes. By "overarching" I meant as a general motif or point of view, not something hidden in every photo like Al Hirschfeld’s "Nina."

Is it OK to present an image that requires explanation? For PJ or documentary photos, sure, but otherwise, well, it’s not to my taste, and if I did it I’d consider it a mistake.

>Do we create images that work best when presented with other images that reinforce the idea? You bet we do. Many of Cartier-Bresson’s photos wouldn’t get a second glance if nothing else of his had survived. But as his portfolio accumulated over the years, it became clear that they deserved that second glance, which (usually) brought to light subtle qualities that give even his banal shots a boost.

But wait, is that, well, is it fair? Couldn’t some wag "discover" a forgotten C-B photo and praise it to heaven, and get lots of nods and applause, then reveal that he took it himself, in high school, while winding the film, by mistake? Yes, some wag could. Me, I try to be skeptical. Much as I admire some great artists, I suspect that most of what they did is undistinguished and wouldn’t make the nut if published anonymously.

A work of art or craft that’s enriched by explanation isn’t the same as one that requires it. By me, at least, every photo’s on its own and has to stand on its merits or fall because it has none. My "ironic" photos are meant to be pretty – otherwise they wouldn’t be ironic.

Michael McCullough wrote: "This is a good image,does it warrent a couple of paragraphs, of wonder and excitement, I personally don’t think so, that said well done!!!"

Michael: Thanks. You’re onto something there. We probably shouldn’t try to parse images into words, any more than we’d try to photograph a poem. "Whereof one may not speak, thereof must one be silent." Many of us have a bone to pick with critics, even when we agree with them. But it’s hard not to talk about something that enthuses (or disappoints) you, and talk keeps us breathing.

Folks wouldn’t let go of the idea that I’d cheated by using a dyed flower, then claiming the photo was "unmanipulated."

Curses – they’ve found me out. I may as well admit it. I colored that flower by hand using phosphorescent paint, lit it with Christmas lights, irradiated it with cobalt-40 till it glowed in the dark, spliced firefly genes to its DNA, then photographed it in a microwave oven using side-scanning radar. When my tricks were detected I tried to weasel out by pretending to think that "natural" meant "as sold at the supermarket," though I knew full well that their apples are waxed with Alar, their oranges brightened by sulfur dioxide, their beef reddened with tocopherols.

It’s hopeless. I’m a mythomaniac. My name isn’t even Leslie Hancock, it’s Emmet Pismire. My parents died of fright when I was born and I was raised by aunts who kept me chained to a water pipe in the basement, a prey to rats and marasmus. Denied a normal life, I made up a fictional career and became a master of confabulation. Everything I say is a lie. Even this sentence is false.

Oh, wait! No! Look at this! I take it all back! I just discovered a tag that came with the flowers, signed by Mohammed Saeed Al-Sahaf, certifying that they’re perfectly natural, undyed and unbleached forever, grown in a clean room by albinos. Unfortunately the tag was eaten by my dog, who was immediately abducted by space aliens. But you can look at the photo now with innocent eyes and enjoy it as much as you did before you knew it was unclean.

Sheesh to the sheesh power! Anybody who has no more than this to worry about should open a bottle of champagne.

"Back Shooter," a very articulate and accomplished artist, wrote that he was having "a very strong, negative reaction to this composition... It is something a photgrapher who does not really understand classical composition...would do – I’ll have to look at the rest of the portfolio to see if that feeling is borne out." I pursued him with a little too much vigor, maybe, when I discovered he hadn’t posted any photos of his own.

When I was a kid I worked in a drugstore. One day a customer asked the owner how much it would cost to fill a certain prescription. "Twelve dollars."

"What!" says the customer. "I can get it at Walgreens for nine bucks!"

"So go to Walgreens."

"They’re out of it."

"Well," says the owner, "When I’m out of it I charge nine dollars too."

Laura N. told Back Shooter off – "If you don’t have something positive to say, at least be constructive in your negativity!"

Thanks for the nice note, but no fear – I know how to handle rejection. Why, just last week my wife and I saw an architect directing some people who were building a bridge. I told him he was doing it all wrong, that he didn’t understand the classical principles involved in hanging a catenary. He just smiled, patted me on the head, and said to my wife, "Your child, I presume? Boy or girl?"

At this juncture the elves began deleting and editing comments, so Back Shooter and I continued our discussion in email. I won’t publish his words here; what he wrote was reasoned and intelligent, but private. I’ll just say that I didn’t have it all my own way. At any rate, here are my own for-the-record sentiments.

One

Sorry not to respond in the thread. The elves put me off a bit by deleting one of my posts there. Anyway, what I would’ve said, and wish I could say it in public, is that I agree with you entirely about the "great pic" problem. As I’m sure you know, it’s not a problem that’s peculiar to photo.net or to POW. Every forum (including ArtForum) suffers from this ailment. Maybe folks just want to be on the winning side, or maybe we’re all used to admiring what’s handed us in school as an example of something admirable. Plus (let’s admit it) there’s pleasure in stroking a cat, and also in stroking people who may purr if you praise them. Most who post photos to online critique sites are amateurs in every sense, taking a chance. To you or me, "Great pic" means no more than "This sux," but to those who aren’t so sure of themselves there’s a big difference. I don’t get as highly ionized as you do about routine pats on the back.

Sycophants are another thing entirely. It annoys me as much as it does you, I think, to see a picture (or anything else) praised to heaven because it was published over a famous name. I think I spoke about that in the POW thread somewhere. If I ran an online gallery, maybe I’d keep all posts anonymous for a month or something along those lines, hoping against hope that they’d be judged on their own merit.

If "judged" is the word I want. I deplore ranking and rating systems.

All that said, I simply don’t agree with your analysis of my photo’s composition. My intention, and I believe it works this way for most viewers, is that the bud of curled lines in the LRH corner visually explodes into diverging lines, like a sunburst. Your eyes and mine move in opposite directions – you see the lines converging, I see them diverging. As to whether or not this follows "classical principles" (an arch phrase for "common practice"), or whether it’s commonly done by others ("successfully" or otherwise) I care not at all. If it works it works, if not not.

Thanks for the thoughtful criticism and for taking so much time over it. Believe me, I’m not one of the sensitive beginners I just described. I’m not unsure of myself, and I don’t believe I’m being persecuted. I do think your critiques are vitiated by your use of a pseudonym and failure to keep a portfolio online. (What is a "back shooter," anyway?) When two architects, cooks or photographers disagree on a point of craft in a public forum, the audience may reasonably look to their work for examples. The proof of the pudding and all that.

Two

Two points that I made earlier (in the reply which the elf construed as a flame and deleted from the thread) bear on what you say below. 1) Though I still haven’t seen your work (only because this PC isn’t up to loading the page – will check again this evening) I believe it’s true that you’ve put yourself in the bind of setting presentation standards so high ("does not merit public display") you can’t live up to them. 2) It’s true, too, that I gave myself sempiternal writer’s block and very likely missed my true vocation for exactly the same reason.

I get the impression you take photography very seriously. That’s to your credit, but taking it *too* seriously leads to paralysis and an empty portfolio. I know very well I’m not a great photographer and have no prospect of becoming one. I don’t mind at all making public a photo that’s a joke, or just so-so, or Strictly For Pretty. It’s my (all too) educated guess that insouciance was the hallmark of many artists we call "great," and that it was good for them. Remember what Ben Jonson said about Shakespeare? "I remember the players have often mentioned it as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing, whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, Would he had blotted a thousand," etc.

Ben was wrong. He was a wizard writer himself, but how many people read Ben Jonson and how many read Shakespeare? There’s real danger in taking yourself too seriously, asking too much. (It’s a more common affliction now than it was before the Romantics made such a religion of art, and especially before 20th-century introspection set in, but that’s a story for another time.)

To get back to the business of composition: I understand your point, that it’s more usual (and more usually successful) to center a sunburst at least a bit to one side of, and preferably above, a vertex, and I tried that but preferred this *sui generis* approach, which takes more risk for more reward. I think it succeeds, but I don’t insist on it. For better or worse, I disbelieve in the objective criteria you seem to value. ("Misapplication of the term" etc.)

It would be a sad world if everybody liked the same thing for the same reasons, or at least it would make me sad. I’ve put in my years as an ant; I’m a grasshopper now. :-)

Three

My own comments in the POW thread were immoderate and aimed at one of my betes noires, not at you. It’s a problem with public forums, I suppose. Saw your note to the elves in their spinoff thread, and posted this note of my own there:

Moderation in all things, and as I said in the POW thread I don’t object to being moderated by the elves. Refusing to publish my words on their server isn’t censorship – censorship is refusing to let me publish my words on my server. But I do regret the loss of the lively exchange between me and Back Shooter, who’s very articulate and makes a good case for his point of view (though I’ll never share it). We kept it up person-to-person over several long emails, the sort of heady stuff I’d enjoy reading even if I hadn’t been a party to it. Seems a shame there isn’t a meta-thread for POW’s, perhaps a link to a more freewheeling forum, one that viewers of the photo wouldn’t be shown as a matter of course but which would be there for folks who wanted to pursue a particular argument or just get off a dumb but passionately held opinion.