photography as a creative endeavour

by julie posted June 14, 2007

I’ve been reading Art & Fear, and it has been striking a lot of chords with me on a very basic level.

Unfortunately, it also hits a slightly ‘off’ note. I’ve casually mentioned before that I’ve enjoyed photography a lot more since going digital because when I shot slide film, once the exposure was made, my job was done. I sent them off for development and received them as a finished article (I’m going to ignore my own E6 processing in terms of this discussion). I never did get a decent print made, although after getting a couple of straight prints I was very disappointed by the lack of vibrance in the colours I was originally so amazed by (Velvia, of course) and although I liked the sound of cibachrome, it was entirely too much hassle and too much expense, for the half hearted postcard shots I had produced.

Now I consider photoshop to be at least half of the process of my photography at the moment – and that’s not to say that the composition and pre-exposure work is 50% – I’m just leaving out the other 30% that would be taken up by the nightmare that I haven’t started getting into yet: printing…

Anyway, as much as I consider photoshoppery to be a craft of its own merit, and even more so than development in the darkroom because it’s not global – I apply the changes to each individual image and even then, to different areas of the image, in essence doing something akin to painting – it still has a certain clinical feel to it. My judgement of a good application of photoshop is when it’s invisible in the final work – a million miles away from admiring brush strokes on a painting or stitchwork on an embroidered panel! I spend my time at the computer trying to avoid pixellation, colour casts, halos, posterisation, and noise, trying almost to pretend that I haven’t been messing with the pixels, as originally captured.

It has highlighted the lack of ‘craft’ that I’m feeling is involved in my photography, less than if I was painting or sculpting. I wonder if I would feel the same way of doing printing in a darkrooom? I think I’ll find that out soon enough, if I can produce some decent (obviously the term is applied loosely in this instance) negatives with my new Holga, I’ll be having a go at it anyway!

I think this may be related in some way to an urge I’ve been having for some time now to get involved in alternative printing processes, from using watercolour paper to doing all sorts of transfers and generally just making a bit of a mess in the process of producing a final print. Something that I don’t have to be ashamed of, and try to hide in the resulting image… rather something that actually gives it more life, and more of myself, the mark of my own hands.

As a quick final note, I’d also like to consider how people think a photographer can put more of themselves into their photographs at the point of creation, at the point of exposure? What is it that shows the mark of your own hands on an original capture, pre-process/printing?

What’s the ‘craft’ element in photography, besides the work of producing a print?

12 Responses to photography as a creative endeavour

  1. I recommend taking a look at Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson’s book Photo Impressionism And The Subjective Image. A good read full of interesting ideas for thinking outside the box.

  2. I recommend taking a look at Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson’s book Photo Impressionism And The Subjective Image. A good read full of interesting ideas for thinking outside the box.

  3. I really need to get my hands on all of Freeman Patterson’s books, actually… for the moment I’m doing a bit of reading about him on the web, very interesting stuff.

    Thanks for stopping by again :)

  4. I really need to get my hands on all of Freeman Patterson’s books, actually… for the moment I’m doing a bit of reading about him on the web, very interesting stuff.

    Thanks for stopping by again :)

  5. Julie, you used the word ashamed in reference to manipulating your picture with Photoshop. I think that I take a different tract, as far as craft. I’m not an expert PS user, far from it. However, I don’t object, at all, to its use as part of the entire creative process.

    I did darkroom work for years and you could print on rag papers, poly-contrast, etc. You could dodge, burn, touch up, hand color, etc. All of these were accepted practice to practicing one’s art.

    I think that PS, Elements, Neat Image, filters, polarizers, etc. are available to the general populace and that people are doing some wild, wacky, over the top things with them and it makes some people uncomfortable with it because they believe that photography is about portraying reality … whatever that is.

    Those uncomfortable with it seem to want to lessen it; however, take those same people and show them an image created entirely with PS and they are in awe. Here is one such example: http://www.bertmonroy.com/fineart/text/fineart_damen.htm
    this is NOT a photograph. This was drawn by hand using PS. It took nearly 2,000 hours to do. Amazing isn’t it?!

    Why should not all avenues be open to the artist to explore his or her creativity without being judged as inappropriate? There is, in my opinion, no inappropriateness at all in using PS, no matter to what degree that you use it. Take your tools, use them. Photography is not merely about documentation. It is about expression.

    It’s art and there shouldn’t be artificial constraints put around its creation.

    OK, I’m off of my soapbox now! :-)

  6. Julie, you used the word ashamed in reference to manipulating your picture with Photoshop. I think that I take a different tract, as far as craft. I’m not an expert PS user, far from it. However, I don’t object, at all, to its use as part of the entire creative process.

    I did darkroom work for years and you could print on rag papers, poly-contrast, etc. You could dodge, burn, touch up, hand color, etc. All of these were accepted practice to practicing one’s art.

    I think that PS, Elements, Neat Image, filters, polarizers, etc. are available to the general populace and that people are doing some wild, wacky, over the top things with them and it makes some people uncomfortable with it because they believe that photography is about portraying reality … whatever that is.

    Those uncomfortable with it seem to want to lessen it; however, take those same people and show them an image created entirely with PS and they are in awe. Here is one such example: http://www.bertmonroy.com/fineart/text/fineart_damen.htm
    this is NOT a photograph. This was drawn by hand using PS. It took nearly 2,000 hours to do. Amazing isn’t it?!

    Why should not all avenues be open to the artist to explore his or her creativity without being judged as inappropriate? There is, in my opinion, no inappropriateness at all in using PS, no matter to what degree that you use it. Take your tools, use them. Photography is not merely about documentation. It is about expression.

    It’s art and there shouldn’t be artificial constraints put around its creation.

    OK, I’m off of my soapbox now! :-)

  7. Not specifically a comment about this entry (though a fascinating read)…just stopped by from a link in your comment to one of George Barr’s posts, and found some beautiful – indeed: serenely, delicately, beautiful! – photography. Just wanted to say I’ve enjoyed sampling them, and will likely make your blog a standard stop from now on as well, as I sip my coffee in the morning. Well done!

  8. Not specifically a comment about this entry (though a fascinating read)…just stopped by from a link in your comment to one of George Barr’s posts, and found some beautiful – indeed: serenely, delicately, beautiful! – photography. Just wanted to say I’ve enjoyed sampling them, and will likely make your blog a standard stop from now on as well, as I sip my coffee in the morning. Well done!

  9. Andy, wow, that’s a glowing compliment and much appreciated! It’s fantastic of you to let me know you’re around.

    Paul, it’s nice to see someone else up on that same soapbox I usually find myself on ;)

    It’s a frustrating one, the photoshop thing, and I could think/write/talk about it for days if you let me… but in this context, it’s even less about responding to others’ misunderstanding of the purpose and value of photoshop as another photographer’s tool, and more about my own feeling that it’s not very hands on – I read today where someone referred to it as almost ‘clinical’ and that seemed to fit what I’m getting at. In Brooks Jensen’s podcast about Photo Lucida he actually mentions a shift towards manipulation after the printing stage, and the popularity of alternative printing processes, and puts it down to this same feeling. Funny how sometimes you come up with something then find out other people have been talking about it before you, hehe…

  10. Andy, wow, that’s a glowing compliment and much appreciated! It’s fantastic of you to let me know you’re around.

    Paul, it’s nice to see someone else up on that same soapbox I usually find myself on ;)

    It’s a frustrating one, the photoshop thing, and I could think/write/talk about it for days if you let me… but in this context, it’s even less about responding to others’ misunderstanding of the purpose and value of photoshop as another photographer’s tool, and more about my own feeling that it’s not very hands on – I read today where someone referred to it as almost ‘clinical’ and that seemed to fit what I’m getting at. In Brooks Jensen’s podcast about Photo Lucida he actually mentions a shift towards manipulation after the printing stage, and the popularity of alternative printing processes, and puts it down to this same feeling. Funny how sometimes you come up with something then find out other people have been talking about it before you, hehe…

  11. I realize this is an old post, and it may very well prove to be pointless to write this if you or no one else reads it.

    But no, that’s not what art and craft are about. Communication, surely. And what the heck, “I” found this post just doing a search for “what is craft”

    I did a lot of B&W SLR shooting in the 70’s and 80’s and of course did all the darkroom work necessary to get a print. Ditto previous comments that the manipulation of the image is a part of the craft/art of photography. Every photographer great and lowly manipulated their images to achieve their goal. Ansel Adams didn’t take photographs, he made them – those are his own words. Edward Weston used to experiment like a mad alchemist with his mix of darkroom chemicals to get the “look” he wanted.

    Recently I’ve reacquainted myself with photo imaging through digital film making. This new media has given me a larger vocabulary to understand the meaning behind creative work.

    The operative word for a filmmaker is “intent”. You could be looking at anything, but you choose to look at something, in context/relationship to other things through location, resolution, direction, other stuff. You enhance that intent through post production work (digital darkroom) and you leave enough space so that the viewer feels as though they discovered what you meant all on their own.

    I believe that everything in that process is craft and that the whole of that craft process is what makes your craft unique to you. The art is in how well you were able to execute your intent through the quality and control of your craftsmanship.

    I’m just saying.

  12. I realize this is an old post, and it may very well prove to be pointless to write this if you or no one else reads it.

    But no, that’s not what art and craft are about. Communication, surely. And what the heck, “I” found this post just doing a search for “what is craft”

    I did a lot of B&W SLR shooting in the 70’s and 80’s and of course did all the darkroom work necessary to get a print. Ditto previous comments that the manipulation of the image is a part of the craft/art of photography. Every photographer great and lowly manipulated their images to achieve their goal. Ansel Adams didn’t take photographs, he made them – those are his own words. Edward Weston used to experiment like a mad alchemist with his mix of darkroom chemicals to get the “look” he wanted.

    Recently I’ve reacquainted myself with photo imaging through digital film making. This new media has given me a larger vocabulary to understand the meaning behind creative work.

    The operative word for a filmmaker is “intent”. You could be looking at anything, but you choose to look at something, in context/relationship to other things through location, resolution, direction, other stuff. You enhance that intent through post production work (digital darkroom) and you leave enough space so that the viewer feels as though they discovered what you meant all on their own.

    I believe that everything in that process is craft and that the whole of that craft process is what makes your craft unique to you. The art is in how well you were able to execute your intent through the quality and control of your craftsmanship.

    I’m just saying.

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