Hi Gang!

I appreciate the encouraging comments and the various reactions to my and especially thank the folks who had the patience and fortitude the read into the second part. Sadly, the first part seemed to attract a number of disparaging comments mostly about the length of the post, the typos, a number of picayune remarks but very little about the substantive theme of the article.

I agree that just about anything do do with photography is debatable and there is nothing wrong with a good debate- it's healthy, stimulating and educational. I oftentimes find it disgusting how some of the members here seem to troll the site, pick fights and behave like snarky junior high school students. Some folks, just have no manners, diplomacy or common decency.

My first knee-jerk reaction to some of the comments was to answer them and defend myself. A more sober though followed, that is, to not dignify some of that nonsense with an answer. Perhaps a few general statements are in order. If any of the folks who made harsh criticisms bother to read this- they will know who I am addressing.

When I post here, I am not attempting to IMPRESS anyone, I prefer to express myself, stimulate conversation and exchange ideas. I never wish to foist my opinions on anyone and I am always open to opposing opinions, critiques and remain open to learning- learning is part of teaching.

Some of my writings are not directed to very advanced photographers but rather to newcomers to the craft, especially those who seem to have some serious misconceptions having been exposed to so many single-minded posts and literature that tend to disparage alternative opinions, methods and philosophies.

I certainly don't mind being critiqued on my photography, methodology, or my concepts nor to I take offense to being fact-checked. What I find disconcerting is on this PHOTOGRAPHY site, some folks took the time to critique my writing style, the length of my posts, my spelling and grammar and even question my motivation for wanting to share what I know.

One poster mentioned that PP stands for post-processing not post production. OK- all I know is that post-war means AFTER the war, postmortem means after death, postpartum means after birth and post operative means after the operation. So..if post processing means AFTER processing- does that make sense? I like to think that we produce the basic image first and then process it. OK again- I'll go with all kinds of photo slang and lingo- I mean technically, STROBE is not really electronic flash. There are all kinds of misnomers and and nomenclature glitches in many technical fields. As long as everyone knows what we are talking about things work out- we are not discussing neurosurgery or formulation for high explosives!

One gentleman called my article “crib notes” but asked why I did not delve further into the feud between Ansil Adams and William Mortensen - good point! As I alluded to, Adams was/is one of my idols and in my brief encounter with him at his workshop, I found him to be a lovely gentlemen, a down to earth guy and a photographer of the highest order. I never met Mortensen. What bothered me about their adversary history is that artists and craftsman of their stature should have NOT engaged in a war of derogation- it beats me. I found to to be beneath their dignity and their reputations. Personally speaking, I have been a successful professional photograph for over 50 years and have operated in several highly competitive markets. I have dealt with retail clients, ad agencies, art directors, gallery owners purchasing agents and many corporate and individual businesses. I have NEVER resorted to negative adverting, negative sales strategies or anything that insults or degrade the reputation of any valid competitor. I feel that those tactics simply “turn smart buyer off” and reflects poorly on the folks who do that. I just can't relate to such attitudes.

This goes directly to my disappointment with what kinds of nasty arguments arise here and on other photo forum sites. Rather than some of those those folks with opposing opinions, schools of though, and different points of view simply laying out their cases, as it were, debating in a “professional” manner, using decorum rather than nasty and offensive narratives .

What I wanted folks to take away from this post was that there are many approaches to photographic processing as well as a multitude of tools and techniques. Many of the current state-of-the-art digital systems are rooted in many older and traditional technologies. There are certain fields of photography that may demand images of the utmost authenticity and accuracy, some that are strictly traditional and others that are the antithesis of those disciplines- wildly creative and and unabashed art. Some folks just shoot for fun and family snapshots.

As far as ethics and journalism are concerned, I am not sure if, nowadays, those are not mutually exclusive terms. Some of the stuff I see on broadcast and in print journalism in outrageously biased and slanted. Yellow journalism in not dead! So-called tabloid journalism and the photography related to it has much to be desired in terms or ethical and totally honest content. Yes there are time-honored news outlets of the utmost integrity but this is up to their own editorial policies. There are new terms like “op-eds”, those are opinion based articles rather than straight news. Do photographers have the same latitude?

My lovely wife insists that my posting on this part of the HOG is an unmitigated waste of time. I am beginning to see her point. To finish off the day, I got a private message form on of the HOG admins advising me not to use upper case letters in the titles or the body of my posts. He implied that it would cause an epidemic of that habit in folks that wanted to call more attention to their posts. All I do is capitalize the odd world or phrase for emphasis since the site does not enable underscoring or italic fonts. It's been an interesting day! I asked the good administrator if he sends similar notices to folks who continuously make combative and rude posts.

It's been an interesting day.

Ed

Hi Gang!

I appreciate the encouraging comments and the various reactions to my and especially thank the folks who had the patience and fortitude the read into the second part. Sadly, the first part seemed to attract a number of disparaging comments mostly about the length of the post, the typos, a number of picayune remarks but very little about the substantive theme of the article.

I agree that just about anything do do with photography is debatable and there is nothing wrong with a good debate- it's healthy, stimulating and educational. I oftentimes find it disgusting how some of the members here seem to troll the site, pick fights and behave like snarky junior high school students. Some folks, just have no manners, diplomacy or common decency.

My first knee-jerk reaction to some of the comments was to answer them and defend myself. A more sober though followed, that is, to not dignify some of that nonsense with an answer. Perhaps a few general statements are in order. If any of the folks who made harsh criticisms bother to read this- they will know who I am addressing.

When I post here, I am not attempting to IMPRESS anyone, I prefer to express myself, stimulate conversation and exchange ideas. I never wish to foist my opinions on anyone and I am always open to opposing opinions, critiques and remain open to learning- learning is part of teaching.

Some of my writings are not directed to very advanced photographers but rather to newcomers to the craft, especially those who seem to have some serious misconceptions having been exposed to so many single-minded posts and literature that tend to disparage alternative opinions, methods and philosophies.

I certainly don't mind being critiqued on my photography, methodology, or my concepts nor to I take offense to being fact-checked. What I find disconcerting is on this PHOTOGRAPHY site, some folks took the time to critique my writing style, the length of my posts, my spelling and grammar and even question my motivation for wanting to share what I know.

One poster mentioned that PP stands for post-processing not post production. OK- all I know is that post-war means AFTER the war, postmortem means after death, postpartum means after birth and post operative means after the operation. So..if post processing means AFTER processing- does that make sense? I like to think that we produce the basic image first and then process it. OK again- I'll go with all kinds of photo slang and lingo- I mean technically, STROBE is not really electronic flash. There are all kinds of misnomers and and nomenclature glitches in many technical fields. As long as everyone knows what we are talking about things work out- we are not discussing neurosurgery or formulation for high explosives!

One gentleman called my article “crib notes” but asked why I did not delve further into the feud between Ansil Adams and William Mortensen - good point! As I alluded to, Adams was/is one of my idols and in my brief encounter with him at his workshop, I found him to be a lovely gentlemen, a down to earth guy and a photographer of the highest order. I never met Mortensen. What bothered me about their adversary history is that artists and craftsman of their stature should have NOT engaged in a war of derogation- it beats me. I found to to be beneath their dignity and their reputations. Personally speaking, I have been a successful professional photograph for over 50 years and have operated in several highly competitive markets. I have dealt with retail clients, ad agencies, art directors, gallery owners purchasing agents and many corporate and individual businesses. I have NEVER resorted to negative adverting, negative sales strategies or anything that insults or degrade the reputation of any valid competitor. I feel that those tactics simply “turn smart buyer off” and reflects poorly on the folks who do that. I just can't relate to such attitudes.

This goes directly to my disappointment with what kinds of nasty arguments arise here and on other photo forum sites. Rather than some of those those folks with opposing opinions, schools of though, and different points of view simply laying out their cases, as it were, debating in a “professional” manner, using decorum rather than nasty and offensive narratives .

What I wanted folks to take away from this post was that there are many approaches to photographic processing as well as a multitude of tools and techniques. Many of the current state-of-the-art digital systems are rooted in many older and traditional technologies. There are certain fields of photography that may demand images of the utmost authenticity and accuracy, some that are strictly traditional and others that are the antithesis of those disciplines- wildly creative and and unabashed art. Some folks just shoot for fun and family snapshots.

As far as ethics and journalism are concerned, I am not sure if, nowadays, those are not mutually exclusive terms. Some of the stuff I see on broadcast and in print journalism in outrageously biased and slanted. Yellow journalism in not dead! So-called tabloid journalism and the photography related to it has much to be desired in terms or ethical and totally honest content. Yes there are time-honored news outlets of the utmost integrity but this is up to their own editorial policies. There are new terms like “op-eds”, those are opinion based articles rather than straight news. Do photographers have the same latitude?

My lovely wife insists that my posting on this part of the HOG is an unmitigated waste of time. I am beginning to see her point. To finish off the day, I got a private message form on of the HOG admins advising me not to use upper case letters in the titles or the body of my posts. He implied that it would cause an epidemic of that habit in folks that wanted to call more attention to their posts. All I do is capitalize the odd world or phrase for emphasis since the site does not enable underscoring or italic fonts. It's been an interesting day! I asked the good administrator if he sends similar notices to folks who continuously make combative and rude posts.

It's been an interesting day.

Ed

W. Eugene Smith was my photojournalism hero. Although I lived in New York during his time a Life Magazine and other NYC based publications, I never met him. One of my early mentors and teachers, however, was a photo-lab technician and equipment pool manager at Life Magazine and told me of many of his experiences with Smith. Smith was known for his undertaking of dark and dangerous assignments in war zones, covering marginalized and victimized people, investigative esposés of international environmental poulterers. One would assume that this kind of work was very straightforward in terms of production. Smith was a tortured souls with many addiction and health issues, a staunch humanist and a hard-nosed journalist but managed to alienate many of his editors with a self-defeating quest for artistic and technical perfection. He would shoot under “god-awful” lighting conditions and come up with “difficult” negatives. He would then spend literally DAYS in the darkroom, holding up production, near-missing deadlines and in the end, producing prints of masterpiece quality. The other technicians talked of his “resurrecting dead negatives” and creating salon quality photographs. The “stories” in the pictures were never manipulated or slanted- just the tones were re-constructed with endless dodging, burning, flashing, and bleaching out tiny areas with a 00 retouching brush or a Q-tip.

Was that Post Production- or what?

During my tour in Viet Nam, I did manage to run into famous photojournalist/war photographer David Douglas Duncan. I wished I could have spoken to him at length but the conditions were not conducive to a long conversation. He shot with Lica M-3s and did mention something about processing in D-76 (pushed) or Acufine with Tri-X at ISO (then ASA) 800. Local, in country processing oftentimes required tropical additives to the developer as ambient temperatures were high and developer temperatures were difficult to maintain. Mostly, the processing and printing was routinely done back Stateside. Color was shot on Ektachrome (pushed). Not all that much P.P.

Duncan did great work under dreadful circumstances!

Henri Cartier Bresson was the famous French photojournalist/street photographer/artist who liked to compose in the camera. He was the photographer who became known for shooting at the “decisive moment”. He insisted on composing strictly in the camera- no cropping. I knew a gentlemen in New York, who back in the 1960s, was printing much of Bresson's work for limited edition prints, and gallery and museum exhibits. No kidding this guy printed FULL NEGATIVE just about up to the sprocket holes. There was however, some routine burning and dodging.

Yosef Karsh- yet another one my my photographic idols. I always, as a young student, studied a thend tried to emulate his lighting for portraiture. Karsh's fame centered around his philosophy of authenticity and character in portraiture and his incredible portfolio and books of who's who of the world. Famous artists, actors, world leaders, politicians, royalty, sports figures, captains of industry, top executives, writers, TV personalities, the odd dictator, great military men and woman, scientists, doctors, educators and even a few great images of regular who could afford his fees were all among his clientele. As a kid, I never imagined that I would move to Ottawa, the Canadian city where Karsh had his studio in the elegant and majestic Chateau Laurier Hotel- a 10 minute drive form my own studio and home neighborhood!

Our local professional photographer's association would regularly invite Karsh to lecture at our conventions and meetings. He would always graciously attend and conduct a lecture or provide us with the keynote address on our award nights. He was an extremely personable gentleman and would share many of his experiences of photographing presidents, kings and popes but kept his techniques very close to he chest. He gave us lectures and speeches- NOT CLASSES! His lectures usually emphasized the need for authenticity and character in portraiture and the evils of “retouching” I certainly had a great deal of respect for the mans' work- in fact I was in awe of it, however, I always detected some subtle manipulation in his work. There are not that many real SECRETS in photography. There is always a book, an AV tutorial and just plain old research and a sharp eye that will reveal things that are oftentimes obvious but shrouded in awe, glitz and hype.

So...several years past, Karsh kind semi-retired, donated his negatives to the National Archives of Canada, and moved himself his book publishing activities to Boston, Mass. in the U.S.A. He was well into his 90s and was becoming frail and wanted to be closer to his doctors as well. After the close of his studio, two of his former staff members called me at my studio looking for work. One was his main black and white lab technician and the other, believe it or not was his RETOUCHER! At the time, I did most of my own color and black and white printing and had one otter darkroom technician on staff as well. I also had a very talented and capable retoucher on staff and a part-time restoration artsit. I did not want to waste their time and bring them in only to just to “interrogate” them about Karsh and honestly told them that I was presently fully staffed but each of them insisted in coming in to see me anyway- just in case I changed my mind or needed additional seasonal help. At that point I was indeed tempted and I invited each of them in for a chat. So this is what my “investigation” revealed- some of which I already knew or suspected. The big revelation was that there was indeed a retoucher, and there she was in the flesh! There was definitely lots of pre- and post production manipulations. First of all, as was obvious, all the portraits were made on 8x10 large format cameras with razor sharp Kodak Ektar Lenses. Mostly ORTHOCHROMATIC black and white films were used- theses films were somewhat red-blind and render skin tones and textures in a far more dramatic, acute and somewhat exaggerated relief- and oftentimes in a more ruddy manner. Add to this kicker and feathered lighting at steep angles of incidence and you have a formula for some kick-butt killer low key portraiture. This was quite the opposite of the more mushy and diffused imagery that the average “bread and butter portrait studio” was offering. The film was developed in a 2 step PYRO developer which was quite unique in that it added a YELLOW stain the the shadow areas. This meant you could print down significantly to get bodacious detail in the highlights but the shadows were kinda automatically held back a bit- most single graded portrait papers are less sensitive to yellow- the color of the darkroom safe lights over the printing sink- BUILT IN DODGING! So... the prints had exemplary specular and diffuse highlights, plenty of middle tones and inky but very detailed shadows. The negative retouching was EXPERTLY AND BEAUTIFULLY done with dyes, not pencils, so it was not at all detectable. The head sizes on an 8x10 negative were much easier to retouch flawlessly than those on a 4x5 negative let alone roll-film medium format negatives. Believe it or not- some of the retouching was applied to emphasize the character lines in a faces rather then to subdue them. Karsh's favorite paper was Kodak Medalist G paper- A very silvery neutral tone material- sadly long gone.

Another interesting case of well- kinda unexpected or un-orthadox post production work!

Well now I know all of my idol's secrets but alas, I will never be another Karsh. First of all he was a master craftsman/artist of the highest order and his unique talent lied in being able to relate to all those big shots. I've done a few in my day but a prefer sitting on the floor, camera in hand an playing with kids and photographing regular folks- it's more in my comfort zone. One of my other teachers and mentors told me to get more with the celebrity scene. He used to say, it's not HOW you photograph but WHO you photograph. Too late!

Sorry for the LONG POST, gang- needed to get it off of my chest. Now I'll go back to the wedding department and write smaller posts.

Kindest regards, Ed

I decided that my previous post only partially addressed the issues you raise here. The simple answer is that the photojournalist cannot know what is relevant, because s/he does not necessarily know what the real story is, and if s/he does make changes, nobody will trust her/his motives. As purely a "thought experiment" {as Albert Einstein called them}, imagine that, just as JFK was cut down on 11/22/1963, a photojournalist had taken a picture including the infamous Grassy Knoll; a few hours later, while doing a thorough cleanup of such an important image, he removed what looked like "trash" and haze on the top of the knoll - not important because everyone knew that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin, and that he had shot from a different location; don't you think his "cleanup" would be a problem today??