Went for a walk yesterday to see the World Press Photography exhibition. I used to go to this annual show and come out on a little high. Now I am disappointed with the over use of photo finishing, or turning photographs into little paintings. I see it everywhere especially in professional photography and the NZIPP have become painters with cameras. Just take a look at their recent awards in the Photographer's Mail! Because it's all so new the clients fall for the trickery and expect it as regular work. I read somewhere that a photograph is never finished until it's been to a Photo Finishing Artist, and we are not talking about opening eyes and spotting here! Even the NZQA busary level photography blurs into design and graphics. The students are not taught about recognising a good photograph on its own merit, and ordinary images are OK because they can be dramatised with Photoshop. Don't get me wrong Photoshop can be an art form within its own right, but it's not a replacement for the real thing..
Actually a funny thing has happened in New Plymouth. It's a bit ironical because,in the past Peter P has posted comments lamenting what is being taught at schools photography classes etc. Recently a bunch of young New Plymouth School Children suggested that the Govett Brewster Art Gallery should reconsider whether or not they are wise spending $5000 for an original Peter P image of a stuffed hare( which featured on Peters Blog). They collectively saw no merit in the photo at all. ( No link to Taranaki or no great artistic merit) Do they have a point or not... One thing is for sure . If the image had been shot by almost anyone except Peter there is no way it would have been considered to be added to the Govett Brewster collection.
ReplyDeleteBut hey good on Peter...
NZIPP images this year.....
ReplyDeleteIt seems every photographer in the organisation has just learned about tone mapping .
I agree the images just bored me to tears.
It’s not just NZIPP propping up their work with Photoshop (and if it pays who am I to comment on people making a living) it’s also the Camera Clubs. My spine tingles when confronted with over sharpened manipulated digital images. Where are the great CC artist of old who could make classic romantic photographs, long before digital magic. But again, who am I to comment on what is a hobby for these people.
ReplyDeleteBut, my gripe is PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY which by the very meaning… ‘Representing real life’. It doesn’t!! it represents an imaginary world of toning, smoothing, false highlighting (often people in misery) and adjusting facts (adding and removing unwanted items) by people who sit on apples all day.
i am not a professional , but i don't find the pic photoshop free, no offence
ReplyDeletean image taken with a camera, film or digital, is the the beginning of a creative journey. But to call it a photograph pure and simple is a misrepresentation. I worked in advertising as a film editor for 40 years and became a master at story and image manipulation, it was simply called advertising. A broad brush and so I lean toward Julian, not too close mind :) in the labeling of manipulated images as photographs. Creative yes, original . . . NON!
ReplyDeleteThat was my biggest impression of the World Press event also, Julian. The journalism industry makes such a sanctified noise about digital manipulations such as copy/pasting data within the frame, but they are completely silent about the level of manipulation that goes on in the colour aspect of the image. This is no less dishonest than the manipulation of the physical elements. Colour has a rich emotional impact on the viewer, and the photographers who make these adjustments to increase the emotional impact of their images have not right to turn around and castigate their colleagues who add elements to the image to achieve the same effect - to adjust the emotions of the viewers. Both photographers are wrong, but the hypocritical colour manipulators should be ashamed of themselves. I'm not against manipulating images in photoshop, but I am against journalists doing it, as this is absolutely against the ethics that they should be abiding by. Until the editors make a few public examples of the offenders, as they've done with the bitmap manipulators, it will only get worse. Especially when they see that this is what gets them selected into events like the World Press exhibition.
ReplyDelete