Photography Trends

[Steve.]

Badly done HDR or being able to tell its HDR.

Altering a photo (ie cloning out) then still insisting its a photo when its clearly not.

Badly edited photo's that scrape your eyeballs.

Pet Portraits

Wonky photo's

Steve...

[miketoll]

Number two intrigues me, if you say clone out some rubbish rather than physically remove it (maybe it is impossible or dangerous to remove) what does the photo become? A drawing , a painting or what? Photographs are always altered reality and are basically expressing what the photographer wishes to state. Some obviously are done better than others and of course the reaction of the viewer varies as everyone is different. Hey ho, always a good one for a discussion!

[Steve.]

Thats fairly easy to explain, consider the following.

The word photography derives from the Greek (phōtos), genitive of(phōs), "light" and (graphé) "representation by means of lines" or "drawing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Now, cloning out is editing pixels..NOT drawing with light so is therefore an image not a photograph.

If there is litter in the scene then I would suggest you walk to it, pick it up and remove rather than cloning out later in post processing. Set your scene rather than make it in Photoshop or other editing programme.

Its much the same as a Photographer will walk towards the Bride and straighten the hem of her dress or turn the bridesmaids slightly one way before taking the photograph, they are setting their scene and not relying on post processing to make the shot.

Incidentally, Its my opinion that PP is required as even todays modern cameras are still not a patch on film of yesteryear.

If I cannot remove something due to dangerous circumstances then it stays in the shot.

Steve...

[miketoll]

Derivation of words can be very interesting but the Greek root of the word photography does not set the meaning in stone. Language and meaning evolves, always has and always will.
I was bought up on film and did my own B&W developing and printing, believe me there was plenty of playing around with different parameters like the grade of paper, different films, different chemicals and even different types of enlargers to alter the final image. Dodging and burning were routine to overcome the inadequate dynamic range of even the best films so no essential difference there. Things were added or cloned in too. Did medium format plus of course 35mm film.

The only trouble with being such a purist is that you let other people dictate what you can or cannot take. I agree with you up to a point in that I do little post processing and massive construction of an image is not for me (yes I did use that term image) but I will not let other people dictate the photo I can take just because they are litterbugs or whatever so I will clone where necessary. There are people who would argue that you interfere too much by removing the litter or would consider straightening a hem wrong but that everything should be shot exactly as it is regardless.
It is a matter of opinion and preference where you draw the line so I am happy to differ.

[Steve.]

Its as I said, its something that bugs me in answer to the original posters question, and it will also continue to bug me for ever more, its just my opinion and I dictate to no one how they do what they do.

But in the technical sense of the word a photo is as taken in the camera, drawing with the light, and altering by cloning or sky replacement it becomes an image as your now drawing with pixels..its a fairly simple thing to understand with a clear division, the main problems occur when people wish to stretch or bend that division.

And I'm far from being a purist, oh no..not me.

Steve...

[miketoll]

No one is accusing you of being pure!
Sorry, you did indeed just answer the original posters question so I will happily leave it there.

[Steve.]

I've been called a purist before for my views on this very subject and I'll happily discuss it at length on another topic. Its true as software develops making editing easier than ever, the division I mention is differing for many.Especially with tools such as Content aware in Photoshop

It goes without saying that if I had to use cloning myself, no doubt it would become part of my workflow and so my divsion would shift too. I do hope not though.

Steve...

[postcardcv]

A helpful spammer just bought this thread to my attention... Can't think why I didn't comment at the time but as it is about trends it might be interesting to see what opinions are now.

So here are some of mine...

HDR done in such a way as to be obvious, subtly done it can be great but normally it looks horrible.

Colour popping - I am guilty of having done it in the past but wish I hadn't. For me it is over used and under effective not to mention more that a little cheesy!

Both of those could be combined into the fact that I don't like a photo to look processed. I have no issue with a bit of PP and will happily crop, tweek or clone photos if I need to but I like to keep it close to the photo I took. PP should enhance a photo not distort it. That said I do love to shot with a shallow depth of field and get smooth backgrounds which clearly doesn't represent reality. So I like to distort reality with a lens but not with a computer, but I never claimed to be consistent!

My other big irritation is people taking photos of captive birds/animals and trying to pass them of as wild. I waste a lot of time trying to take photos of birds and hate the fact that a good photo is often doubted because so many people cheat.

[Rachael Alice]

I hate every time experiments with HDR, Photo effects, Filter, focal lengths, contrast because so much experiments make photo ugly.