My view has always been to create an image that as closely matches the scene in which I am photographing. My vision has been to reproduce the moment in time and space in which the photograph has been taken. This means faithful color rendition, and objects that are in the photograph were actually in the scene in their proper placement.

Filters can be used, but only to compensate for the inefficiencies in film. A yellow filter will render an accurate sky color on black and white film. A slightly saturated chrome film such as Fuji Velvia will yield colors that are accurate when a 35mm negative is enlarged quite a bit, but may appear overly saturated on smaller prints. Most older films, when shooting smaller formats such as 35mm, yielded washed-out colors when enlargements were made. Thus the new saturated films were produced which yielded vibrant colors. Some people, and film manufacturers have gone overboard with this to the point where there is no longer any tonal graduation, but rather big blobs of overly saturated colors.

I know, because I fell into this trap and then quickly caught myself and came out of it. Its all too easy to make a print with overly saturated colors and super polarized sky that gets the oohs and ahhs of the admiring public. Now Gilee prints in digital have taken Gaudy prints to new heights. Some digital photoshop enthusiasts are producing images that do not depict reality in any way. This is fine as long as you are straight with the viewing audience, but when a digital dummy makes an image of Giraffe's walking over sand dunes in the Sahara and depicts this as a real life event, I have an objection. Most classic film photographers have shunned digital for this very reason. Use photography to create your art or use it as I do to create real life photos of real places. Photos such as these enable the viewer to imagine what it was like being there. This cannot be done with altered images as the viewer feels no need to transcend to that place and time.

Photography can be very subjective. Some people will like an image and others will not care for it. Some will grow with you over time and it may take a while to realize the beauty of a photograph or the vision of the photographer. I think that every one can use photography as they see fit, but I feel the need to make people aware of straight photography and the benefits and credibility of the art. Too many people look at an image for immediate gratification. Bright saturated colors, out of the ordinary subjects, digital manipulation. For me, I find the beauty in the details of nature and people, in reality and sharing these images with others

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 23, 2002

Answers

Veni, vidi, fotografi!

-- Tod Hart (g_t_hart@lycos.com), March 23, 2002.

Whatever floats your boat.

-- Glenn Travis (leicaddict@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

And what is reality? And what is "straight photography and the benefits and credibility of the art"? Specifically, please nail down "the benefits." Last I looked, the "benefits" of art seemed a moving target, a close cousin to discussions of why my politics and/or my religion can make you a better man. Please--just take pictures. If I like 'em, I'll congratulate you; if I don't, I'll just quietly move on.

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), March 23, 2002.

Reality is always a benefit,we look for it in our politics.Seldom is it there.Maybe in our photos we can achieve it.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 23, 2002.

Reality

Sacred Hands, Fes, "Straight" shot, Copyright 1999 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 23, 2002.

Another "straight" shot:

This is silly. Take whatever kind of photos you want. Don't expect anyone else to believe that you're doing it the "right" way.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), March 23, 2002.

The photographer moving in on the Holy ground of the Capital A artist.A PHOTOGRAPH that speaks a thousand words.IMPRESSED.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 23, 2002.

Allen - church is where I go on Sundays (actually I don't) to get my fill of preaching. Mike is right on - you're only doing this for yourself - it 'straight' suits you fine - but each to his own.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 23, 2002.

Interesting thoughts Allen. Well my view on digital is a little mixed. As much as I believe it has financial and business benefits, I also think that it is slowly washing away the art in photography.

By this I mean that it is destroying the way in which photos are created. A photographer can sit in a spot and shoot a landscape 50 times until it is right. What does this say about the photographer's ability? It means he learns through practice, and not mistakes. Improved learning?

And digital photography means no wait time for developing. I like this time as I am excited to see what i have done. Sonn this will be taken away. But I'll ride the wave as far as it takes me.

And digital manipulation. It's like cosmetic surgery. If it isn't done well we'll all know what's real. If it is done well, congratualtions to the creator. I've slowly come to accept this, especially now when I have bought a scanner.

Nice thought Allen

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

Mike Your street photography on your web-site is excellent.Do you really feel that photos are about this. I was looking at photos in a leading magazine, a photo taken of New York in daylight,by photoshop,was changed to a night shot.Then a huge moon was placed in the photograph.The mag exclaimed what great photos and how original and artistic they were.Okay he was one happy person.Some how i feel there is more to photography.And it needs to be said.Otherwise a whole generation will think that is what it is all about.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 23, 2002.

Jeff & Mike's examples are just two of countless possibilities of representations of "reality." Each of us sees differently, literally & culturally. I see a startlingly geometric monolith, so basic in its lights & darks, that I have to stop because I'm becoming dizzy -- you see an old 1960s building & never look twice at what has blown me away. I turn the corner & pass a girl coming the other way; her face is that of an angel, her eyes on fire with life -- you walk behind me & see the same girl, but she reminds you of a girl you sat beside in high school French. I hear an old song & remember that my father used to whistle it when he worked around the house. You hear the same song & are irritated that you don't know its name... Reality's a slippery place. Debating it is, as Mike said, silly. Artists pursue their own reality because it's all that they know, all that matters to them. But their particular "reality" may not mean diddly to the next person. Don't fall into the trap of "digital is bad," unmanipulated film=straight=good. That's nonsense... Go out & take your pictures & if they please you, you've succeeded. But don't waste my time (& your time) trying to persuade me. If it's good, I'll know it when I see it because it'll resonate with me in a way that no one can describe (or predict). That's what good imagery does, whether straight or crooked or digital or hand-colored xerox or laser or silver print or some mechanical means we cannot even anticipate... The image is all that counts. And you can't count on the greatest images resonating with everyone. Each of us sees from a different viewpoint... Do what matters to you, but don't play the missionary. Photography persuades, ultimately, by its imagery, not by the essay that accompanies the photographer's work.

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), March 23, 2002.

Your answer provokes thought.But while i ponder. You are turning photography away from reality ,to fantasy.Every mans dream of reality in their mind.A photograph deals with what is.Facts, the more they are turned and twisted away by a persons fantasy the further they away from a photograph.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.coma), March 23, 2002.

And yet, in the end, Death takes us all, Saint and Sinner alike.

-- Glenn Travis (leicaddict@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

Another "straight" shot...

A Death in Maroc, Fes, Copyright 1999 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 23, 2002.

Hands were a lot better

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 23, 2002.

Hey Glenn Travis. Let me guess: 50mm f2.8 Elmar-M. Right? :>)

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), March 23, 2002.

Me, not down with digital, dudes...

-- Alfie Wang (leica_phile@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

Dear Dennis, I have one camera, a Leitz M6, with one lens, an Elmar-M 50mm 1:2.8. I've found this to be very liberating.

"And yet in the End, Death takes us all, Summicron, Summilux, and Elmar-M user alike."

-- Glenn Travis (leicaddict@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

Dear Glenn:

I, too, have an M6 with a 50mm f2.8 Elmar-M, and it is indeed liberating. Now, if I only had the courage to sell all the other Leica stuff... (BTW, liberating or not, the Elmar-M isn't as sharp as the Summicron. Just thought I'd throw in something controversial as one is often required to do on this forum.)

Dennis

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), March 23, 2002.

Hey Jeff:

Nice shots; very creative. I like'em.

Dennis

-- Dennis Couvillion (couvilaw@aol.com), March 23, 2002.

I am a bit confused. I thought a photograph was a captured image of "how we want something in life to look", whether it be as we see it or fantasy. We all see things differently, thus we all need to use different techniques to portray our own unique view.

Isn't this why we love to look at another's images as appossed to just our own?

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

Jeff, love the hands.

Glenn, love the lighting. Great eye.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), March 23, 2002.

If photography were only about the literal recording of a scene, then photography would be sterile and dead. Photography is about recording how the photographer sees a scene, and emphasizing the things that the photographer is most interested in.

There's a picture that looks pretty literal, but in fact looks nothing like what I saw. It looks like what I wanted to see.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), March 24, 2002.

Great shot Pete! Paris, right?

-- Dan Brown (brpatent@swbell.net), March 24, 2002.

Yeah. It's Ile St. Louis. taken from the bridge between Notre Dame and the Ile on a pretty cold night in Jan.

-- Pete Su (psu_13@yahoo.com), March 24, 2002.

Classic shot! Great imagery, great technique. If you had 30-40 similar quality images, you'd have a great book. Nice work--

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), March 24, 2002.

Sorry Allen but using different focal length lenses to change perspective is a form of manipulation. We would only use 50mm lenses by your definitions. Isnt muliple exposure on films the same ultimately as digital overlapping? To say film is pure and digital is heresy is a very narrow view, each has their advantages and disavantages to capturing the image at hand. You do seem to be preeching here.

-- Joel Matherson (joel_2000@hotmail.com), March 24, 2002.

Allen:

Of course this is an extremely ancient subject but it invites numerous and strong opinions each time somebody raises it again.

I have noticed that different *realities* can share the same place and moment. Which one is realy real ?

Certainly I know that your statement refers to a different category of realities but still the objection holds: real "reality" is far wider than what you select in your viewfinder to show your public so that you manipulate reality by the very act of taking your picture no matter how "straight" you wanted it to be. I assume this circumstance goes down to the very nature of graphic representation itself, no matter the medium you chose. Photography in this (our) case.

Regards, Allen.

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), March 24, 2002.

Sorry, Allen, I forgot to say that maybe your statement could be made more clear if you took your time to show to us graphical (photographical would be better still) examples of your personal opinion on this respect (no second intentions intended)

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), March 24, 2002.

Allen, Implied in your post is the notion of censorship with you most likely being the censor. None of us are in a position to tell others what they "should " be doing. I too am a "straight "photographer, whatever that means. But I am not trying to convert people on the Net.

-- John Elder (celder2162@aol.com), March 24, 2002.

I am not trying to convert anybody,anywhere.It is a point of view which goes against the general tide.I also find some of the other views very interesting....i have not got all the answers(HAS ANYBODY) it is good to talk,share thoughts. Different lenses,angles help to bring out the best in a photo to get near to what you are seeing.The photograph is still there,a blue moon has not been added. I seek knowledge,by offering a thought,i invite others to share theirs,that when it becomes interesting.I maybe wrong in my approach,narrow minded.But if you do not begger the question you will never know. Regards Allen

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 25, 2002.

I seek knowledge,by offering a thought,i invite others to share theirs,that when it becomes interesting.

If you genuinely sought knowledge, you would have paid attention to the response to your first "statement" of this sort. Instead, you say the same thing over and over and over again in post after post while ignoring the informed responses to your ignorant blather. All you're seeking is attention. You want to cast yourself in the role of "insightful rebel," but your actual role is "annoying troll."

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), March 25, 2002.

Allen, perhaps you are confusing reality with realism (?) Realism is a very valid "ism" for both painting and photography. However, to mandate Realism in either case smacks of institutional dictatorism. If that had prevailed in art history then impressionism would never have lived to enlighten us. Personally I embrace all art as valid. If i'm ignorant of an "ism" I chalk it up to exactly that, being IGNORANT. If, once educated, I do not care for the work, then at least I've a basis for my prejudice. You obviously have a very personal take on photography, and what turns your crank. Yet, to eliminate openess and the new, leaves you few places to go except the Purgatory of repetition, of yourself or of others. As individuals and as artists we each see and feel the unique, ever changing world around us. If you choose Realism as your technique, then it is art if it strives to enlighten that which was not known before. Other than that, it is a simple and accurate recording of information that these days can be done better by a computer--whether in a camera or not. Rent the video of David Hockney's adventures in exploring CubISM using photography as the medium of expression. In his hands the photo IS art, mainly because he is an Artist that just happened to use a camera. His Cubism work with motion picture film is even more mind boggling. The point is time and space, and when first discovered it revolutionized man's way of thinking way beyond the art world. While we here may not ever reach the point of global influence, we certainly can enlighten our own lives through the medium of photography. Just a point of view from a painter and designer that happens to also take photographs ( sometimes even with a digital camera). ---Marc Williams

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.net), March 25, 2002.