I won’t comment on this again but I think the idea that processing photos is not photography is disparishing to most photographers.
There is a reason most shoot RAW. They are meant to be processed.
Not all great photography is shot with the latest equipment or shot in a RAW format but about 95% of it is these days so I am not sure who this discussion is aimed at?
Since a lot of good photographers and some who post here spend an enormous amount of time and effort to develop products that we use to process photos with, I can really see no reason for even having the discussion on this site.
2 Likes
I agree with Dan above. You only have to look at Ansels extensive notes 
n prints re dodge this x percent etc to appreciate how much post processing he did, not to mention his manipulations of negative development time.
I believe that had Ansel had the post processing tools we have today, he would have been a Photoshop master.
But I would also say many of us consider ourselves artists who wish to portray what we “see”. Our vision, if you will. Artists generally use whatever tools can get them there and many of our tools reside in computer software.
So my personal opinion is that if you limit yourself to one tool you are handicapping yourself as an artist.
(I have to edit as I had to leave the post and accidentally hit reply)
BUT …Some photographers choose to take pics with home made pin hole cameras and do no editing . That is their choice as an artist. Other photographers eschew any post processing, as George is talking about - again their choice to make that statement.
It is all about choice as an artist. My opinion that you should not close off avenues of endeavor is just that, my opinion. It does not make me any less an artist nor is George any less an artist when he chooses not to use tools that are available.
Its our choice. One thing I do disagree with is not calling people who do not take their stuff directly out of the camera “photographers”. To me that is the same form of disingenuousness as the photographers who sniff at people who use digital instead of film. We are all photographers and , hopefully artists who “make” a picture, rather than "take " a picture. However we get there.
Cheers to all
Kathy
1 Like
I have to err in favor of folks new to photography. No matter the pursuit, old hands can start leaving out lots of detail and still communicated just fine. Leaving newcomers in the dust.
Hank
LOL ! Took me a year to figure out why everyone was so ga-ga about “luminosity masks”. I totally had no idea what they did and much googling didn’t help. Finally happened upon a video about “targeted adjustments” that explained them. Lightbulb!
I am not complaining that people did not stop to explain by this. When you start doing complicated adjustments you will speak in shorthand here. Otherwise you probably wouldn’t post, it would just take too long. But that does leave newcomers in the dust until they pick through the verbiage and watch enough videos (in my case).
Its like peeling away onion skin, you just keep going.
Why pick on poor Ansel ? He was already late to the game of post processing by 20+ years.
Learn some history:
In fact, every photograph is a fake from start to finish
-1904 Edward Steichen
This quote by Edward Steichen and his post processed image Moonlight: The Pond (Mamaroneck, N.Y) from 1904 was recognized by Time books as one of the most influential images of our times. A century after Steichen made the image, a print sold for nearly $3 million.
Edward’s Steichen and his contemporaries fore told of a now acceptable practice to create images from photographs and not just capture images. The Pictorialism movement, of the early 1900s, ‘can be seen in every photographer who seeks to create scenes, not merely capture them.’
Steichen wrote an essay arguing that altering photos was no different than choosing when and where to click the shutter. Photographers, he said, always have a perspective that necessarily distorts the authenticity of their images.
Here we are 115 years later, still thinking we are discussing a relevant argument.
Decide what is best for your photography.
I do not post process my wildlife images. I mirror my mentors mantra and decided that birds and wildlife are in-camera captured/published as a response to documenting existing environmental conditions/diversity.
Anything else-Anything goes.
I have to say that I can relate a little too much to that. So much of my work required submission of original capture rather than anything post-processed. Clients were NOT going to pay you anything for hours of post, especially when a submission could run into the hundreds of images. They used their own in-house GA’s and AD’s to post-process for their own needs, and often as not “artistic” post processing by the photographer ran counter to their needs. My mantra had to be “Get it right, or find a new profession.” I still can’t force myself to spend hours at a computer “adjusting” an image. If I can’t do the processing in under half an hour, I round-file the image.
1 Like
I am reminded of this classic: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hwqn9
(P.S. Apologies. I am too old to take life seriously any longer).
I’m going to support George here to a degree.
They say that the difference between painting and photography is that in the former you start with a blank canvas and add to it whereas in the latter you focus on eliminating everything that’s irrelevant. Thats essentially what photographers do out in the field when they are seeing. And for me that’s the crux of photography.
Virtually all of the creativity in photography occurs prior to pushing the shutter release. A friend of mine likes to quote “garbage in, garbage out” when it comes to processing. You can paint lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. I have learned a ton on processing during my time at NPN but those core beliefs have stayed the same.
However, there is a lot of truth to the statement that RAW files need to be processed. The images that come out as RAW are often unviewable. In the film days if an image was shot in the proper conditions you had a quality image. Not so anymore. The D810 has great capabilities but every single file needs to be processed to just be representative of the original subject, much less enhanced.
And so I agree with George to a degree but it’s a personal choice. I find myself drawn to photographers who process very little and rely on vision and composition. I revere them. Others, not so much. But I don’t look down on their craft.
Great discussion. Glad I stumbled upon it.
1 Like
Interesting topic and I think 1 worth discussion. I find information about other people’s cameras lenses and data for the actual image is of Interest.
I do think it sometimes people make judgments based on other people’s equipment and the settings they use when they took the photograph. For example if I say I used a smartphone the photograph something then people doing critiques take that into consideration and look for things about the Imaging equipment impossibly wouldn’t have gone to that trouble otherwise. If that makes sense?
I’d also like to say that that information is available in the image file and there are ways to posted with the image without the photographer having to do it manually. It would take some programming to implement.