In order to achieve, I call it “honesty of the image”
not always will be accomplished or possible with the minimal adjustment.
Sorry to repeat myself. The most important thing at least to me is the composition. In era of large megapixel sensors some, not all photographers had become lazy and leave the composition to the cropping at post editing. Again IMHO, they losing out the creative moments at the time of capture which I cherish the most. Off course they may argue that for them create time is at the post editing time. We all know Ansel Adam did substantial editing in post capture. However he considered them not at post editing but at capture time.
That is my approach in capturing an image. I started my photography at 12 years of age (55 years ago) not behind a camera but in the darkroom. That has influenced my whole life in photography. I capture an image knowing what I can do later in the darkroom or now in darktable. I don’t just use DT to fix up my mistakes, but rather use DT to finalise the vision I saw when I picked up the camera.
I also don’t aim for honesty in an image. My definition of photography: The art of manipulating light to capture a three-dimensional moving world as a
two-dimensional still image. I deliberately use the word manipulation because that is in my view the art of photography. For instance, do we use a slow shutter speed to add blur to an image or a fast shutter speed to prevent blur and freeze motion. Do we use a long lens and large aperture to give a soft background in a portrait or use a short lens and small aperture to give extended depth of field in a landscape. This is all manipulation.
Yes there is a grey area when we have to consider is this a photograph anymore or a digital creation. Replacing the sky in an image and adding content that was not there are two examples of where I feel we have moved from a ‘honest’ photograph to a digital creation.
For me a picture is an independent ‘object’ separate from the original. As I want I will make it look like the real thing, when I don’t I don’t.
And I like dt for the way it enables me. Much more then where I came from.
Like you I started analog, in 1970… was 13 then. Practica L + Domiplan 2.8/50mm boy was I proud. And a two years later found my way to the darkroom at school.
Totally agree. You said much better than I could. Maybe, I should have said capturing an image with intent vs take a picture with the wish that something good come out of it in the post. Maybe “with a purpose” would be a better description?
