The Online Photographer

By Roger Overall

I have to declare an interest before I get started. I'm a documentary photographer. Worse, I'm middle-aged. That puts me fairly firmly in stick-in-the-mud territory. You need to bear that in mind while you read this. A grasp of a commentator's bias helps better understand what they are saying, no? Let’s begin.

By all accounts, the Master Photographers Association (MPA) put on a good show this year at its recent awards dinner. It drew comparisons with the Oscars. That's a fitting analogy when you consider that most of the winning images were as high on post-production values as many Hollywood movies.

Yesterday, the Federation of European Photographers (FEP) announced the category winners and runners-up in this year’s European Photographer of the Year Awards. Here too, heavily manipulated images did well.

Xanti Rodriguez of Spain won the runners-up prize in the commercial category of this year’s FEP European Photographer of the Year with this image.

That raises some questions, the kind that lead to fightin' talk in photographic salons. Have computer skills become more important than camera skills? What exactly is a photograph these days? Should we make a distinction between photography and image-making? If so, where exactly do we place the divide?

European photography has a bit of history when it comes to pushing the boundaries of post-production. Man Ray mastered solarisation and used it as the foundation for part of his career. (U.S. readers will, I hope, forgive the appropriation of one of their photographic luminaries as a European—after all, he did spend most if his career in Paris and is identified with that city's art traditions). Czech photographer Jan Saudek founded his career on heavy manipulation of prints. More recently, influential Irishman Vincent O'Byrne was until a few years ago using darkroom techniques to produce fantasy photographs. He has since switched to computers to help him achieve his results.

Where these photographers were once unique voices, Europe's professional elite are presently producing prodigious amounts of extravagant fantasy images. Europe isn't alone in this. Just look at Asian photographers such as Keda Z. Feng and Ryan Wong Teck Yan. In the U.S., there is of course Dave Hill. This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.

In some instances, very little photography-as-we-know-it-Jim is involved, with photographers dropping off ideas and schematics to rendering artists who translate the vision into an image on a computer screen. These are expressions of immense imaginations to be sure, and beautifully crafted, but what have they got to do with photography?

We shouldn’t be surprised that straight photography is being lapped in competition by heavily post-processed images. Consider the myriad options in the RAW processing modules in Lightroom and Aperture. Even the photo apps on your smartphone encourage heavy post-production. Lord knows what the statistic is, but it's a fair guess that only a small minority of Instagram photographs make it on to the web without one of the filters being applied.

We’re being overrun by sliders and dials and curves—options to add more colour, less colour, selective focus, no focus, warp this, bend that, tone the other, reduce noise, enhance noise, drop that in, cut that out. Everything that software developers are doing is geared towards enticing us further away from the moment of taking the photograph. Photography is shifting away from the instant of capture in favour of post-production.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. Modern software is unleashing an incredible amount of imagination that previously couldn't be expressed. But it does put the ordinary photograph at a disadvantage. It's hard to compete with luxuriant fantasy worlds where people live in floating castles and mermaid princesses ride dolphins. I don't know about you, but I just don't get those sorts of thing 'round my way—and I live in Ireland.

One of Keda Z. Feng’s images that made up his winning MPA Best Rest of the World Portfolio. Even Ireland doesn't look like this.

Probably, the time has come to separate out photography from image-making (of which your actual photograph is only a small component—however well executed). Doing so will likely cause a fight, but let's be honest: we could do with one. It's been a bit dull round the blogosphere since the film vs. digital debate subsided.

You can see the two camps. On one side: "real" photographers. They will view themselves as the purists, the guardians of the tradition of producing an image in-camera. Inevitably, they will feel superior. We shall call them Bressonites. Clever merchandizers will sell them T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan: "I did it in camera." If they're really clever, they'll put a red dot in there somewhere.

Over on the other side of the line, their rivals will revel in their ability to take a still image (or a clutch of them) and turn them into a remarkable flight of fancy using modern technology. They too will feel superior, due to their ability to conjure up entirely fictional galaxies on their screens. No relying on reality for them. We shall call them Lucasonians. Their T-shirts will read: "I did it with three warrior angels and I made them all look like Angelina Jolie."

There is a wider implication. Professional photographer organisations don't want to lose members over this, so they'll have to rebrand in some way to house both camps. In fact, there is talk among some associations in Europe that it is time to bring videographers into the fold as well. That's a whole other debate, but interesting to note that while stills-video convergence is driving photographers and videographers together, Photoshop has put a wedge between Bressonites and Lucasonians.

The time has come for each of us to ask ourselves: am I a photographer or an image-maker?

Roger

TOP reader Roger Overall is a photographer from Cork, Ireland. Here's his weblog.

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Featured Comment by Steve Jacob: "Art photography vs. photo Art?

"Photography has always had many classifications, and photo-based illustration has always been an accepted sub-set of the genre, though these days in a commercial sense it has become hugely significant thanks to advances in computer-based imaging. As a result it features heavily in professional advertising-oriented events and competitions.

"However, there are plenty of photo exhibitions and prizes which are entirely specialised and involve no manipulation (though perhaps a bit of enhancement). The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize for one. I don't think we should worry too much about this when there is still a burgeoning market for Magnum style images and art schools are still preaching objectivity.

"Each genre has its place and always will."

Featured Comment by Chris Raecker: "Literature is a medium. There is fiction. There is non-fiction. Fiction is not a lie, it's just not a document. Do documents lie? All the time. Can a work of fiction tell truths? Some of the most important truths in religion and philosophy are told in fiction.

"Photography is a medium. There is fiction. There is non-fiction...."

Featured Comment by David: "I have no problem with photography versus photo-illustration. I do however dislike the lumping in with the video people. In my opinion, still and video is the real chasm. It's a different mindset and way of working."

Featured Comment by Ludovic: "I'm usually quite sanguine about these things, but I'm flabbergasted that either of the samples—Feng's in particular—in this post were considered photographs in the first place. But then again, Pixar make films, so what do I know?"

Featured Comment by Mathias: "I am primarily a documentarist photographer as well. I think most photographers don't really get the value of a straight photo unless they have worked within the fields of documentary or photojournalism, where purism is expected. I am also a graphic designer, and a photoshop expert (and beta tester). Knowing how to expertly post process my images into something else (art?), does not mean that I do it—I have always strived to capture my vision at the moment of shutter release. However, a digital negative (RAW) is ofcourse only the first step in the process. I don't mind using all the tools at my disposal within Camera RAW for instance. Mostly global corrections, but also some spotting work, perhaps a graduated filter to darken the sky. The effects I apply can be grain to simulate film, vignetting to simulate a lens, or cross processing to simulate a darkroom technique. I don't mind using these tools, as the digital image is often very sterile in its perfection, and a photographer is allowed to develop a 'look.'  Saying that I only do what can be done in a darkroom is moot, because you can do a whole lot in a darkroom. Saying that I want to capture perfection with only the camera is moot, because I usually set the camera to capture the best data for post processing—where my vision is concluded. I think its a valid discussion you bring up, and I do think there should be differentiated categories in photo competitions depending on whether its a created or captured image—and this goes double for 'street' vs 'studio'—in order to save the craft of, let's call it, 'hunting photography,' itself."

Featured Comment by Michael Bearman: "In 1917 when Captain Frank Hurley had his composite images of WWI Western Front battlefields rejected by the Imperial War Museum and Australia's official war historian, Charles Bean on the ground that 'they were little short of fake.' Hurley sought to create the impression of the battle by e.g. placing images of explosions in the same frame as Australian soldiers going over the top, with a biplane overhead. He considered the impression left by the image to be his purpose—the camera and negative being a parallel to a painter's paints and brush.  The museum and Bean thought that photography ought be 'scrupulously genuine'; viz. an unmanipulated record. Hurley was posted from the Western front to Palestine of which he made a moving an 'acceptable' photographic record.

"Photography operates both as a scientific tool and as a visual art. Although these ends often join together (e.g. in photojournalism, or images from the Hubble telescope) they will often and inevitably be in conflict. Debate about the acceptance of digital manipulation of images as photography is merely the latest, early 21st Century example."

Featured Comment by latent_image: "I think there is a case to be made for point-for-point representation in photography, but I also appreciate that a lot of people disagree or could care less. I also think it worth remembering that shooting transparencies is a form of photography that is almost entirely based on a camera work. Since I used to shoot transparencies exclusively for professional work, I continue to have a strong preference for minimal post-production."

Featured Comment by richardplondon: "Image manipulation—or construction, assemblage, whatever you want to call it—is of course perfectly fine, provided there's no intent to deceive anyone in a factual sense. But looking at these images, I am just thinking what has been already said many times, in many ways: having restricted means tends to liberate the creative imagination, and having unrestricted means tends to impoverish it. It is as if everything of value had been squeezed out of surrealism, and then we had—depressingly—been served up the dry pith and rind, instead of the fresh juice."

If you're a regular reader, you might remember this plain picture of a tree I used to illustrate a post called "Does Equipment Matter?" about two months ago. It was captioned "A Tri-X 400 Picture."

What else are you going to say about it? It's a tree.

Whenever the subject of captions comes up, people are quick to admonish you that "photographs should stand alone." And, sure enough, some pictures don't seem to need captions. When you take pictures of trees, for example, you've pretty much got a stockpile of titles three deep: "Tree," "Another Tree," and "Yet Another Tree." After that, you're done—out of choices. After all, unless you're a botanist and are interested in the facts of the tree, trees are trees. Like this shot. It’s a tree picture, right? A certain kind of tree, no doubt, but just a tree. A tree is tree is a tree.

And I'm sure a case could be made that some pictures are actually weakened by captions or explanations.

But for the most part, I prefer pictures that have captions. I find I almost always want to know the Who-What-When-How-Why. I noticed this again when I was looking through Matt Weber's website again yesterday (he and I are talking about doing a print sale). The website often features his comments about the pictures, something the book lacks. I prefer to know the stories.

Take this picture for instance:

Matt Weber, Saddest Photograph, 1988

In the book (page 79) I let this pass by without much of anything registering. But here's what Matt says about it on the website: "It's been over twenty years since I took this picture, and at the time I felt like it was the saddest photograph that I had ever made. Now I still feel that sadness, because the man's eyes show more pain than I could ever expect to know, as he pushed all his possessions across 23d Street in a shopping cart…." The words help me see in the picture what the photographer saw in it. It helps me to see it better.

Certainly, news photographers are used to dealing with captions, but curators and editors and critics also like to know the context and significance of a photograph. Some amateurs, on the other hand, often seem to be engaged in a dogged pursuit of the generic and the pictorial. Don't think that uncaptioned art photographs are actually uncaptioned, either. When Martin Parr made his book The Last Resort, or Alex Soth his book Niagara, each picture may not get its own caption, or only a cursory one, but the context is more than amply provided by the book's written introduction and the photographer's commentary on the project as a whole.

I would venture to say that for someone as besotted with photography as myself, sometimes much of the running commentary is within the viewer's head! Only the photographer can really explain the picture's true signifiers, however, as Matt Weber did for me with his comment. Photographs are documentary much more than pictorial, and they are specific, not generic. Are you familiar with Hiroshi Sugimoto's seascapes, for example? They’re all minimalist pictures exactly bisected by the horizon line, sea below, sky above, often as simple as a rectangle of light gray above a rectangle of dark gray. What makes them interesting—valid, one might even say—are the titles telling which of the world’s oceans is pictured and from where. I want to whack some photographers over the head with a rolled-up photo magazine when I'm shown some fascinating landscape or city scene and the title is merely "Fiery Sky" or "Early Morn." Don’t other people want to know where and when the landscape was taken, or in what city and at what time of year the city scene was made? I do. I want to add the photograph to the sum of my knowledge about the world.

At the very least, I always encourage photographers to take a moment and jot a few identifiers on the back of their prints. You may see no need to label a picture of your very own mother, but then, you are not going to be upon this coil indefinitely, and a hastily scrawled "Mother, age 52 in 2006, by John Q. Doe" may be invaluable to your grandchild half a century from now, because she wouldn’t otherwise recognize her forebear. In her wonderful and sadly long-out-of-print book Photography and Society, Giselle Freund points out how easily the meanings of pictures can be changed by simply changing the captions. (Get a copy of that book if you possibly can. It's wonderful. Your library might have it.) Captions are how photographers become more than camera operators, how we are honest or deceptive, how we become thoughtful. If you've not been in the habit of captioning your pictures (or giving them descriptive titles), take a few minutes sometime and jot down the "stories" behind a handful of your own pictures. It might be an instructive exercise.

I would also claim (perhaps optimistically) that getting in the habit of telling the stories behind your pictures will change what you take pictures of, and even how you see. Considering the meaning and conceiving of the authorial point of view can't help but make one's pictures deeper and more exact. It would probably at least relieve the weekend snapper of the heavy responsibility of trying yet again for that elusive perfect fall foliage picture. (I kid.)

•     •     •

Oh, and by the way: The tree picture at the top of this post was taken at Manassas, Virginia, near a creek named Bull Run, where the first major battle of the American Civil War was fought exactly 150 years ago yesterday. The tree grows as near as can be determined to the spot where the Southern General Barnard Elliott Bee, rallying his men, cried, "Take heart, men! Look! Yonder stands Jackson like a stone wall!" Bee was mortally wounded soon afterwards, but from then until his own death, and ever since, the legendary Confederate General Thomas Jackson was known as "Stonewall."

So it isn't really a tree picture at all. It's a picture of the place where Stonewall Jackson got his name.

And aren't you glad to know that? I am. Does it change your sense of, even your appreciation for, that pleasingly plain but otherwise nondescript tree picture? It does for me.

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(A version of this essay was originally published in Black & White Photography magazine.)

Featured Comment by Ed Hawco: "On the other hand, sometimes a caption is a great opportunity for a bit of a laugh, such as this 'Smoke Break':

Ed Hawco, Smoke Break (Montreal)

Mike replies: Ed, I have to say I think "Smoke Break" is a bad label for that picture, and, while I acknowledge your right to do whatever the heck you want, I object to that impulse. It trivializes the subject and makes the photographer seems unserious and puerile—if not dunderheaded. If I were your picture editor you wouldn't stand a chance of getting that one through.

"Captions" in that sense can be unfortunately revealing of the project any given photographer has undertaken...some hobbyist photographers are unserious, scattershot voyeurs, without thoughtfulness or purpose, and their "captions" can help betray that fact. Bad captions can also reveal mawkish sentimentality or soppy romanticism or literal ignorance...by that last, I mean they can reveal that the photographer didn't understand what the hell he or she was taking a picture of. The need for literary craft as well as intellectual rigor in a good caption shouldn't be underestimated.

Probably the worst use of captions is when a good, fundamentally serious photographer undermines his or her own work by applying stupid, punning, or dissonant captions to it. The pictures might invite thoughtful reflection and serious interpretation on the part of the viewer, but stupid, knee-jerk captions torpedo that impulse. Redirecting a considered response for the sake of a cheap yuk that isn't even really funny doesn't begin to be worth it, in my view.

The fact that I like and approve of captions shouldn't be misinterpreted to mean that I think all captions are good. 95% of everything is crap, and that probably doesn't exclude captions for photographs.

German fireworks

How "Li'l Stumpy" got her name

Where there's sizzle there isn't always steak

Just the fact that one can think of punning, jokey, hokey, trivial, or clichéd titles for pictures does not mean that one should use them. (I had an even worse one than these three but I just couldn't bear to do such a thing to John Moore's great photograph.)

When I say I approve of captions, I'm acknowledging that photographs have meaning and significance that goes beyond their visual content. They have context, and the context has significance and maybe even meaning: the connection of the photograph to the broader world is what makes photography different and distinct from all the other visual arts. And the photographer has some sort of relationship to what's in the picture, and some reason for having taken the picture and having presumed to present it to others. Any of those things might be important. Relaying some sense of this, somehow, is part of the responsibility of being a photographer. (Or, I should say, of being a good one.) That might even include redirecting the viewer away from the facts in the picture, if the photographer means to highlight some other aspect of it.

I'll give you another example, a positive one this time:

During the Bosnian war, the city of Sarajevo was shelled by up to 300 mortar rounds a day. As a deliberate memorial to the dead, the scars in the pavement were repaired with a red resin, resulting in what were known as "Sarajevo roses."

Is any picture that puts forward a Sarajevo rose without mentioning where it is, and as if it were merely a pretty colored design on the pavement, enough? I say it isn't. We need context and significance to know what we're looking at. Photography is not just an endless parade of random colors and shapes to be stared at, dully, as you would stare dully at a television screen as you flip steadily from one channel to the next.

Ed Hawco replies: "Well, in my defence I think it's an overstatement to put my 'smoke break' caption in the same category as the 'German fireworks' and other ones you showed (particularly as there were no injuries in the fire I photographed—although how would anyone know that?).

"In my case the most curious thing about the photo is the firefighter on the right, who is casually sitting down in an old chair that happened to be in the alley. If you look at him, he is most definitely taking a break, but it's not some gut-wrenching close-up of an exhausted firefighter who needs to pull himself away from the fight; he looks like a guy —or even a kid—who's just having a bit of a sit-down. If this were video you would have seen that the whole operation was pretty relaxed and had a bit of a 'ho-hum, there's another fire to put out' air.

"That discordant note in the photo—which if you ask me is what makes the photo prompted the equally discordant title.

"Otherwise I fully agree with what you said in your reply to my comment. I just don't see my caption as being as dunderheaded as the other ones you showed."

Mike replies: True. You only inspired my rant, you didn't deserve it. :-)

Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "I agree that captions can greatly enhance the viewer's experience with a photograph...nearly any photograph. For example, even one of Helen Levitt's wonderful scenes benefits from having her typical place-and-date captions (example: "Harlem, 1964").

"I also agree with avoidance of silly captions, although your criticism of 'Smoke break' might be rather harsh. You've equated the term with tobacco use rather than the firefighter being overcome by inhalation. I realize that Ed was probably applying the popular term to the familiar form in the image, but I think you see my point here.

"Finally, I think it was in very bad taste to use that horrific image of the injured little girl to make your point."

Mike replies: Ken, I respect your response, but it was intended. Why did you single out that picture and not the other two? It's not clear that the little girl was going to die (although she might have). But there are indisputably people dying in the other two pictures.

I think it was important to use the middle picture because it highlights my belief that what I'm talking about here isn't just a matter of taste, or preference, or pose, or strategy. The other two pictures are so well known that it's easier to divorce them from their original pretext, and accept them as mere symbols or "memes" that can safely be recontextualized, satirized, or warped into jokes like something you'd see on a bad T-shirt.

Yes, of course, that caption on that middle picture is appalling and immoral...it disrespects the reality of the picture and the humanity of the subjects. That the picture connects to a real event and a real meaning that goes beyond what the photographer controls, knows, or "owns" goes to the heart of the point I'm trying to make. As photographers we stand in a relationship to reality that is outside ourselves...we are neither gods nor is everything in the world a straw dog. At the very extreme, one might even claim we don't have the "right" to recast reality in our own terms, especially if it's too far removed from what a sensitive viewer can see and extract from the picture itself. The miscaptioned middle picture makes that point more clearly than the other two, and I think the fact that you objected to that one more than the other two just makes that more evident.

(Ed. Note: Ken replies to this in the Comments section.)

Featured Comment by Jeff: "Mike, I think you overgeneralize (maybe to make a point) about the use of, and need for, captions (used interchangeably, it seems, with titles).

"I'll use some of your recent print sales as examples. Did anyone really need a caption to understand or appreciate Gordon Lewis's 'umbrella lady' photo? (We all would call it that, or something similar, without the need for a title or caption.) And the picture is wonderful without a title or caption.  I don't need to know more, and even if I did, it wouldn't change my reaction (unless I learned the situation was posed or 'photoshopped.')

"Charles Cramer's photos strike me the same. Does 'Aspens in Fog' lend anything more than we can already ascertain?  Is the photo diminished without the title or further information? We pretty much get it.

"I could use thousands of other examples. Virtually any Cartier-Bresson 'decisive moment,' for instance. Does anyone really care, or know, that the 'puddle jumper' photo is really called 'Behind la Gare Saint-Lazare'? And did the photographer even call it that formally, or did some publisher or curator insist on naming it? And does it really help the image? I think the picture speaks for itself.

"I love much of the work of André Kertesz. His photos all have titles; some, like 'Melancholic Tulip,' are overly interpretive in my view, but that's of no major consequence to me. I either like the photo or not. Learning about Kertesz and his mood or background of course helps me to better understand his body of work, but I liked the work before I knew anything about that.

"Sometimes a caption helps. Sometimes not. And not all work is documentary (even if a scene is documented). It just works compositionally, and sometimes magically, at a moment in time. And, to me, there's nothing wrong or lacking in that.

"Methinks you protest too much."

Mike replies: You might be right.

A Guest Post by Steve Jacob

Firstly I have to say that Mike's essay "Perfect Ambivalence" is one of the most eloquent and poignant articles on the subject of the digital transition that I have ever read. I can genuinely understand that from the point of view of someone steeped in the business of film for a generation, the decline of film as a mainstream medium brings a genuine sense of loss. However, though I take no pleasure in the decline and would be as happy to see film persist, I cannot feel genuine empathy for that sense of loss.

I plan to try, though probably with less poetry, to express a different experience, that of a humble amateur of moderate means, someone on the outside looking in, someone who loved photography but lacked access to the facilities, the infrastructure and the people that made film photography such an engaging and special process.

At college in the early 1980s I had access to all the B&W developing and printing facilities a budding photographer could wish for. As a chemistry major, the process held no mystery—it was pure fun and excitement from beginning to end. I can totally understand the joy, the sheer experimental exhilaration of it. Then I graduated. I worked in a regular IT job, lived in shared flats, then small apartments, then small Victorian terraced houses. I never had space for a proper darkroom, though I did manage to make a handful of prints in a bathroom with blackout blinds and an old enlarger. Then I started to discover Eggleston, Shore, Parr and other exponents of colour and realised that it was near impossible to self-develop and print colour film at all, let alone in a bathroom. Without access to a professional lab I was at the mercy of local or mail order film labs of variable quality, or constrained by the limited latitude of slide film. Ordering large prints from 35mm negatives was both expensive and frustratingly unsatisfactory.

Of course some enjoy the discipline of constraint, but for me this was just pure, raging frustration which led in turn to disillusionment and lassitude. I was denied by the vagaries of time, technology, geography and income the opportunity to control anything after the shutter was pressed, or to create large, beautiful colour prints to the standard I wanted. I could not be creative in any real sense; I could not experiment, even in a small way; I could not learn or develop as a photographer and I could not share my work. Film photography was a rigid hierarchical class system and mere amateurs could not hope to compete without substantial financial resources. For nearly ten years my despondency was so profound that many of my travels in the U.S. from 1987 to 1995 went undocumented, a criminal act of omission and one of my deepest regrets.

Then, in the late 1990s something wonderful happened. I bought a CanoScan 2700 and a copy of Paint Shop Pro and started to edit my collection of negatives and slides. It was the perfect drug and I was addicted. I would spend weeks in rapt concentration working on a single photo. I made over 200 versions of one file just to practice and experiment with different ideas. I remember finding the ability to dodge and burn a colour photograph a pure revelation. Next came an inkjet and my love affair with photography was not only rekindled, but blazed. My trusty Dynax was transformed into a power tool that could build a house instead of a bird table.

Transitioning to a full digital SLR five years later was barely a transition in any real sense. My workflow was simply more seamless, the feedback more immediate, the results more than acceptable. The various deficiencies of digital were minor compared to the control I could now exercise. Since then those deficiencies have all but disappeared and the technology has moved on in leaps and bounds. I can print archival quality 19x13" prints at home or order exceptional A2 prints over the internet for a few pounds.

Now, as I said, I don't in any way wish to scorn the affection for film that many photographers gained by craft and hard-won skill over many years. I know that the creativity and craft of really good film processing and printing was and is deeply satisfying. I accept that film has artistic qualities that are hard to replicate in digital and that inevitably something will be lost in the process. Such is the nature of all transitions. But in reality the facility to exploit this craft fully was the preserve of a privileged or lucky few. Now the edifice is crumbling and the next generation is free to create its own masters, styles and techniques. The best of the old masters have made the transition already with facility and good grace, but the fact that some of the new masters will increasingly be amateurs of average means using humble equipment is surely to be celebrated. At no time in the history of photography has the opportunity to learn, experiment, create and share great images been so accessible. How can this process of democratisation be anything other than a pure joy in every conceivable sense? The fact that we are all sharing our thoughts on this blog today is a direct result.

There is of course a body of opinion that asserts that quality and artistry have suffered. Yes, it’s easy to flick through Flickr with a barely stifled yawn, but these are often just people’s ordinary snaps. If you compared them to the holiday slide shows Uncle George put on when you were a kid, the standard of the humble snapshot is now remarkably good. One can perhaps thank the advances in modern cameras and a little peer pressure for that. To see how this translates into the output from real enthusiasts, you only have to spend a few hours browsing through 1x or Photoblur to realise how far the bar of mere acceptability has actually been raised. Yes, freedom has also enabled tastelessness to abound and created an industry in copycat technique, but it has also given free rein to imagination. It only requires artistry and skill to turn imagination into something wonderful. If anything, digital is haring off down so many new avenues that we are almost too tired of surprises to notice. As the technology matures the cream will rise to the surface, just as it did with every new genre of film photography. It usually requires a distance of one or two decades to judge the truly significant output of each generation, but I have a feeling that in 20 years many will look back on this transition period as the birth of a new golden age in the art of the still image, one we are all part of.

For me, even if I am a merely average photographer even more aware of my weaknesses, I believe I am producing far better photographs than I ever have. Perhaps more to the point, I’m having a lot more fun doing it.

Steve

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Maybe we should always show pictures: This is excellent...humor, of course, but a pointed commentary on photographs in the news as well, touching on issues of censorship, transparency, and the public's right to be grossed out.

I actually saw this on the show last night and decided to post it (after thoroughly perusing Comedy Central's Terms of Use*, of course—apparently it's okay with them), and then, this morning, a number of emails were waiting for me pointing me to it. If you can't see it here, it's also available on Comedy Central and at
Hulu.com.—>The Daily Show—>clips—>Face/Off.

Mike

* "...you may embed videos using the Video Player, provided you do not embed the Video Player on any website or other location that (i) contains or hosts content that is unlawful, infringing, pornographic, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, harassing, vulgar, indecent, profane, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, encourages criminal conduct, gives rise to civil liability, violates any law, rule, or regulation, infringes any right of any third party including intellectual property rights, or is otherwise inappropriate or objectionable to Hulu...." Whew! I can only hope we are upright and righteous enough to avoid all of those things.

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Featured Comment by Mike Plews: "Part of me wants the picture released but I also don't really want to see some idiot wearing it on a tee shirt."