# Image Exaggeration



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Over the past couple of years I have noted a lot of linked images have severely exaggerated contrast or saturation. At first I thought it was a case of individuals trying to milk every last bit out of an image, resulting in something more along the lines of blinding art rather than photography.

I have a reasonably good display and have used the built in OS X display calibration. I can print my images, either on my own printer, via a local Kodak kiosk or at London Drugs and 98% of the time the prints are a very close match to the image as viewed on the display. 

Recently I had occasion to transfer some images to a friends computer. All of these were either right from the camera or had been optimized for prints. All looked quite good on my display and required no further tinkering. The individual I gave these to has a fairly expensive 17 inch display Windoze laptop. On his computer the images tended to look flat and slightly washed out. If he were to correct them to where they look good on his computer I am sure they would produce that same overdone artsy impression I referred to earlier.

So the real reason for this artsy fartsy trend, may have more to do with crummy and/or poorly calibrated user displays rather than bad taste.


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## yeeeha (Feb 16, 2007)

eMacMan said:


> So the real reason for this artsy fartsy trend, may have more to do with crummy and/or poorly calibrated user displays rather than bad taste.


That's one reason. Perhaps another reason is that people are used to seeing images with rich/saturated colours in calendars, magazines, postcards, so they want the same kind of colour richness in images that they take. Some cameras have a default JPEG settings to rich colours. Or users might change the default "standard" colour to "vivid".

Merry Xmas!


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

The manipulation or enhancement tools that used to be in the hands of the very few are now available to everyone. Many factors are involved in the variety of presentations of one image: colour calibration of screens (phone, tablets, laptops, desktops, LCD/plasma/projection TVs, cinema screens, and, of course, paper); in-camera and photo app enhancement; viewing environment, and the expectations of the viewer. The latter is yeeeha's point; every 'professional' picture is manipulated and these images set the standard of expectations. Even as we press the shutter button on our own camera, we have an ideal image in mind.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Here's my take. Photography is no more immune to trends in aesthetics than music or painting; in that respect the digital era is no different from the analogue one which preceded it. We happen to be in a phase where the "over-baked" look is big. Instagram seems to be predominantly about bad pictures being sexed up by an array of clichéd filters. And it should be no surprise; we have such a huge range of tools at our disposal, the inclination to try on a bunch of different things is not only natural, it's exceedingly hard to resist. Look at how huge Instagram is; look at how photography itself has soared in popularity. It speaks volumes about culture but not necessarily about Art (which is probably a good thing).

I dunno. I don't find a rich, tone-mapped HDR image to be any more "real" or compelling than I do a grainy pinhole camera shot from a century ago. Each can be instructive - and more importantly, each can be beautiful. Seems to me that photography has always been about painting with light. It's as real as you claim it to be, and such claims can always be contested. Is colour photography more realistic than black and white? Not by my estimation. Colour can violently skew our perceptions just as seductively a monochrome image. Does it matter that my opinion on this matter can be challenged? Nope. This stuff is pretty subjective. We're simply not wired to like all the same stuff all the same time.

I find it more useful to assume that all photography is, by its very nature, selective, reductive, artificial. It makes it easier to appreciate the artistry in more subtle manipulations of light and tone. That said I also can greatly enjoy stuff that's been pushed to the limit. In each instance, it's useful the consider the original intent and then carefully compare that to the result.

There's room for all sorts of photography in the big old world. Thankfully we all don't shoot the same stuff, or praise the same photographs.

I'll say one thing, though: I'd rather discuss the merits of differing philosophical schools of photography than get into an endless tangle over gear talk - I just find the latter to be terribly dreary, with no end game in sight.



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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Uncalibrated displays do play a large role in digital imaging, however, no matter what digital camera you use the resulting digital image will require some correction ands/or manipulation. Anyone who claims they shoot in jpg only and go straight to print…well, I din't know about that, but several professionals claim this as their modus operandi. I don't think the technology is consistent or advanced enough to avoid corrective action. I have showed people the difference between their camera's originals and a properly corrected image and they were amazed at the difference.

My personal find is that after correcting the basics I keep taking it further and sometimes too far. lol


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

A lot depends on who does the printing. Some machines have an auto correct feature, these printers (the individual running the machine) need to be told not to use autocorrect. If your printed images consistently fail to match the screen display by a wide margin, calibration of some sort is in order.

I do agree that I almost always tweak but at the same time I try not to transform photos into art unless the subject warrants that sort of interference. 

Knowing how difficult screen calibration can be on the Windoze side, I really feel that many Windozers are completely unaware that their displays can and should be calibrated.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> Here's my take. Photography is no more immune to trends in aesthetics than music or painting; in that respect the digital era is no different from the analogue one which preceded it. We happen to be in a phase where the "over-baked" look is big. Instagram seems to be predominantly about bad pictures being sexed up by an array of clichéd filters. And it should be no surprise; we have such a huge range of tools at our disposal, the inclination to try on a bunch of different things is not only natural, it's exceedingly hard to resist. Look at how huge Instagram is; look at how photography itself has soared in popularity. It speaks volumes about culture but not necessarily about Art (which is probably a good thing).
> 
> I dunno. I don't find a rich, tone-mapped HDR image to be any more "real" or compelling than I do a grainy pinhole camera shot from a century ago. Each can be instructive - and more importantly, each can be beautiful. *Seems to me that photography has always been about painting with light. It's as real as you claim it to be, and such claims can always be contested. Is colour photography more realistic than black and white? Not by my estimation. Colour can violently skew our perceptions just as seductively a monochrome image. Does it matter that my opinion on this matter can be challenged? Nope. This stuff is pretty subjective. We're simply not wired to like all the same stuff all the same time.
> 
> ...


Agreed on all accounts. 

Nice to have you posting back here again you varmint you.


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

I agree with Max: Photography is art, "painting with light." In that sense, there is no such thing as correction - it's manipulation (in the non-pejorative sense) or alteration to meet an expectation. And, all of it is legitimate (the original and the final picture). The pictures that are selected as winners or 'the best' in a contest are nothing more than the rater(s)' personal expression(s), not a property of the picture!

That said, I enjoy looking at pictures, mine and others, and I'm always learning. I've been into photography for about 55 years, so I guess it's a life-long hobby. I also specialized in visual perception in graduate school and carried that experience with me to the present. Keeping on snapping!!


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Screature: thanks.

About displays and calibration: I consider myself fortunate to no longer be in a line of work where colour correction and exacting agreement of printing/proofing profiles is critical. It runs against the grain for me anyway and I'd have a tough time of it. Too dry for this man's approach.

The other thing that's interesting to me is how the vast majority of contemporary photography exists principally as discrete clusters of pixels appearing in the digital space only, rather than the old school method of ink and paper. If you know how to excel at the latter, all the better for you - certainly that experience has a lot to bear on how your digital work comes across. But in the social worlds, pixels and displays rule. It's probably fair to say that making a picture look great in digital is far easier to do than its analogue equivalent. Run some levels, up or down the clarity, slap a vignette on and press "post" or "attach." Done!

That said, it still fascinates me how many souls out there are image-illiterate - no real understanding of even the most basic of adjustments to make a given image look presentable. In many ways, images are moving past words now; we resort to and rely more on them, less on long tracts of words (like, ahhhh, this one). Bottom line: if you speak pidgin photography, you are increasingly at a disadvantage in the social realm. Social looks to be marketed advertisements of our idealized selves... but that's a whole other topic.


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

Max said:


> Screature: thanks.
> 
> ...
> In many ways, images are moving past words now; we resort to and rely more on them, less on long tracts of words (like, ahhhh, this one). Bottom line: if you speak pidgin photography, you are increasingly at a disadvantage in the social realm. Social looks to be marketed advertisements of our idealized selves... but that's a whole other topic.


How McLuhanesque!


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> Screature: thanks.
> 
> About displays and calibration: I consider myself fortunate to no longer be in a line of work where colour correction and exacting agreement of printing/proofing profiles is critical. It runs against the grain for me anyway and I'd have a tough time of it. Too dry for this man's approach.
> 
> ...


Indeed, even though "a picture speaks a thousand words".

As an aside, I have no idea how it would work, but I have often thought of how cool it would be if instead of using words to search for related images, you could search for images only with a relevant/related image as the beginning of the search. 

I can't count the number of times I have had to search for a certain image using only words and how frustrating an experience it is.

In my mind it would work something like this:

Instead of typing in a word in a search field you would enter an image location (url) that would result in a query, "show me images that look like this" and by digital magic it would spit out possible results.

I know it is a dream, but it is something that I have thought for some time could be really cool and useful.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Reminds me, Screature, of TInEye... A reverse lookup tool. Not quite the same thing, of course. Enter an image, then watch it come up with other images across the net that are very similar. I've heard anecdotal tales of it being useful to discover who is pirating your photography. Neat search function, though. Cool idea - bypass the myriad pitfalls of words, however seductive they might be, and go right for the jugular of the image itself - which, to my mind, has the same primal, proto-language power as music.

Going back to social for a minute... since images would appear to be rising in dominance at text's expense, does the development amount to evidence of incredibly shallow personal advertisements as an emergent trend? What is being shared, after all - anything of substance? Or is it more like an avalanche of disparate shout-outs to people who are busy doing just about anything other than listening? Just how social is this stuff? Is it really any more social than old-school forums like this one? I think not. We already know that this platform is both social and antisocial - definitely a mixed bag. Lots of noise, lots of lost signals.


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

Max said:


> ...
> 
> Going back to social for a minute... since images would appear to be rising in dominance at text's expense, does the development amount to evidence of incredibly shallow personal advertisements as an emergent trend? What is being shared, after all - anything of substance? Or is it more like an avalanche of disparate shout-outs to people who are busy doing just about anything other than listening? Just how social is this stuff? Is it really any more social than old-school forums like this one? I think not. We already know that this platform is both social and antisocial - definitely a mixed bag. Lots of noise, lots of lost signals.


Images have dominated advertising at least since the advent of television, and probably before. The 'put a woman in front of anything' mode of advertising appeals to to 'lower-level' processing and desire that is supposed to become associated with the article to be sold. Images of masculinity, wealth, celebrity, etc. are supposed to have the same effect, without any words. McLuhan theorized that in the global village literacy will not be a common skill and will not be valued. Communication will consist of spoken language and images.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Reminds me, Screature, of TInEye... A reverse lookup tool...


You can do the same with Google image search--just drop an image into the search bar and it will search th'net for something the same or similar. Some of the "similar" can be interesting.

I'm getting a little tired of the desaturated look I see in most films these days. If an alien saw these images, he would construct a different model for the sun and Earth's atmosphere.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> You can do the same with Google image search--just drop an image into the search bar and it will search th'net for something the same or similar. Some of the "similar" can be interesting.
> 
> I'm getting a little tired of the desaturated look I see in most films these days. If an alien saw these images, he would construct a different model for the sun and Earth's atmosphere.


Not what I would call a raging success:


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

But still interesting! Do you know for a fact that the image is online already?


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Macfury said:


> But still interesting! Do you know for a fact that the image is online already?


The image itself could not already be online. I was hoping someone had posted a similar image of the same church which would help me pin down the location.

If i were searching for the same colour mix the results might be mildly useful. It does make me suspect that Google borrowed its algorithms from the Global Warming crowd.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Keep your anti-agw crap out of the photo forum....
otherwise consider it open season.....


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Kleles said:


> Images have dominated advertising at least since the advent of television, and probably before. The 'put a woman in front of anything' mode of advertising appeals to to 'lower-level' processing and desire that is supposed to become associated with the article to be sold. Images of masculinity, wealth, celebrity, etc. are supposed to have the same effect, without any words. McLuhan theorized that in the global village literacy will not be a common skill and will not be valued. Communication will consist of spoken language and images.



Kind of gratifying, then, that McLuhan's ideas still have some currency. With social, especially in terms of introductory splash screens for our user pages, we are being encouraged to make glamorous stylized commercials for ourselves. It makes me wonder how much of the presentation of our online selves is thinly-disguised wishful thinking. What we don't put on our user pages Is probably just as suggestive as what we do include - possibly even more so, because that speaks of our fears or perceived inadequacies.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all. Just coming off of a nasty Xmas gastro bug that's played havoc with myself, my wife and her family. Two days in bed, sleeping away with fever dreams aplenty. Hoping to feel well enough to drive home tomorrow. I consider myself lucky, having miraculously avoided the incessant projectile vomiting my wife and brother-in-law endured. Just glad to be getting better, however slowly.





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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> Keep your anti-agw crap out of the photo forum....
> otherwise consider it open season.....


It was a joke--"Al Gore-ithms." Lighten up.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Hmmm back to the original focus.

What I was referring to was images so greatly exaggerated that they come off as more fantasy than photography. 

Generally I see nothing wrong with trying to make an image match the feeling a scene created. I certainly see the value in taking an image into the realm of art. However I do have problems when my reaction to what is presented as a photo is: "No way is that real" and that is more or less a prevailing trend.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Kind of gratifying, then, that McLuhan's ideas still have some currency. With social, especially in terms of introductory splash screens for our user pages, we are being encouraged to make glamorous stylized commercials for ourselves. It makes me wonder how much of the presentation of our online selves is thinly-disguised wishful thinking. What we don't put on our user pages Is probably just as suggestive as what we do include - possibly even more so, because that speaks of our fears or perceived inadequacies.
> 
> Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all. Just coming off of a nasty Xmas gastro bug that's played havoc with myself, my wife and her family. Two days in bed, sleeping away with fever dreams aplenty. Hoping to feel well enough to drive home tomorrow. I consider myself lucky, having miraculously avoided the incessant projectile vomiting my wife and brother-in-law endured. Just glad to be getting better, however slowly.


Sorry to hear you're unwell.

I think the default position on social media is that unless you present as brilliant, handsome/beautiful, artistic, loved by millions and wildly successful, you must be some sort of loser.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Indeed. There is great pressure to indulge in the superficial, to exaggerate some aspects of our individual selves and gloss over or completely omit certain others. Everyone wants to be a media star. I get it, I really do, but there is a bottomless emptiness looming beneath it all. Social promises a great deal but it's no panacea. Nor it a replacement for real friends, real accomplishments.

What to do? For starters, pull back and try out other activities to take up your time. The social net will go on regardless of your post or friend count; the machine is utterly indifferent to individual needs. It's attuned to growing itself, amassing ever greater numbers... to say nothing of what it is doing to our collective notions of privacy.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The format itself cleverly confuses interaction and competition. FaceBook members compete on appearance, breakfasts eaten, numbers of Likes, numbers of friends, etc. and call it social discourse. When everyone's a star, however, no one is a star. They are fighting just to avoid being called out as "non-players."


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

Max said:


> Kind of gratifying, then, that McLuhan's ideas still have some currency. With social, especially in terms of introductory splash screens for our user pages, we are being encouraged to make glamorous stylized commercials for ourselves. It makes me wonder how much of the presentation of our online selves is thinly-disguised wishful thinking. What we don't put on our user pages Is probably just as suggestive as what we do include - possibly even more so, because that speaks of our fears or perceived inadequacies.
> 
> Or maybe I'm reading too much into it all. Just coming off of a nasty Xmas gastro bug that's played havoc with myself, my wife and her family. Two days in bed, sleeping away with fever dreams aplenty. Hoping to feel well enough to drive home tomorrow. I consider myself lucky, having miraculously avoided the incessant projectile vomiting my wife and brother-in-law endured. Just glad to be getting better, however slowly.


That sounds like a nasty bug. Hopefully you will all recover quickly.

Some of McLuhan's thinking was prescient, and certainly "the medium is the message" echoes your thoughts about "... pressure to indulge in the superficial." We present ourselves to others in ways that reflect our idealized self-images. I agree: the quality of social interaction afforded by this medium, especially enhanced by anonymity, is superficial. But all social relationships are infused with unreality. Even our most intimate relationships are not totally honest (a better word would be veridical). We are our thoughts, which can never be fully known by another.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Kleles said:


> We are our thoughts, which can never be *fully* known by another.


And that's actually a good thing!


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Agreed, gentlemen, in spades.


And yes, it's a nasty bug; I'll spare you the details,

Later on, some thoughts about forums vs. the new social worlds. Maybe in a separate thread,


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## whatiwant (Feb 21, 2008)

Some really good thoughtful discussion going on here. Nice to see Max posting again. With regard to social (media) existence and the looming empty, the thing I've noticed with it, with regard to music is that it can propel forward, rather quickly (likes, tweets etc etc) whether it is deserved or not. Whether there is process behind the work (photography, art, music) doesn't seem to matter to the social machine, which can love you one day and spit you out the next. A lot of empty aura out there in the reproductive churn. Not a whole lot of readily available origin. 

Sorry if this makes no sense. It's something I'm constantly struggling with, identifying & immersion.


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## whatiwant (Feb 21, 2008)

Oh and I've been reading, listening to, trying to absorb a lot of information (in part) relating to Benjamin and Adorno around the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction lately again. (A revisit from my bfa over a decade ago) that's where my previous post is coming from. I see a lot of parallels to their work.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> Reminds me, Screature, of TInEye... A reverse lookup tool. Not quite the same thing, of course. Enter an image, then watch it come up with other images across the net that are very similar. I've heard anecdotal tales of it being useful to discover who is pirating your photography. Neat search function, though. Cool idea - bypass the myriad pitfalls of words, however seductive they might be, and go right for the jugular of the image itself - which, to my mind, has the same primal, proto-language power as music.
> 
> Going back to social for a minute... since images would appear to be rising in dominance at text's expense, *does the development amount to evidence of incredibly shallow personal advertisements as an emergent trend? What is being shared, after all - anything of substance? Or is it more like an avalanche of disparate shout-outs to people who are busy doing just about anything other than listening? Just how social is this stuff? Is it really any more social than old-school forums like this one? I think not. We already know that this platform is both social and antisocial - definitely a mixed bag. Lots of noise, lots of lost signals.*


Personally I would have to say that the vast majority of today's "social" stuff is simply like the old days of the Kodak Instamatic or Polaroid cameras. Mostly just the stuff of snap shots with very little real creativity on the part of the shooter. The difference of course being the vast dissemination of the image and consequent vain self promotion.

It doesn't mean there can't be some good outcomes but in general not so much.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> *Reminds me, Screature, of TInEye...* A reverse lookup tool. Not quite the same thing, of course. Enter an image, then watch it come up with other images across the net that are very similar. I've heard anecdotal tales of it being useful to discover who is pirating your photography. Neat search function, though. Cool idea - bypass the myriad pitfalls of words, however seductive they might be, and go right for the jugular of the image itself - which, to my mind, has the same primal, proto-language power as music.
> 
> Going back to social for a minute... since images would appear to be rising in dominance at text's expense, does the development amount to evidence of incredibly shallow personal advertisements as an emergent trend? What is being shared, after all - anything of substance? Or is it more like an avalanche of disparate shout-outs to people who are busy doing just about anything other than listening? Just how social is this stuff? Is it really any more social than old-school forums like this one? I think not. We already know that this platform is both social and antisocial - definitely a mixed bag. Lots of noise, lots of lost signals.
> 
> ...





Macfury said:


> You can do the same with Google image search--just drop an image into the search bar and it will search th'net for something the same or similar. Some of the "similar" can be interesting.
> 
> I'm getting a little tired of the desaturated look I see in most films these days. If an alien saw these images, he would construct a different model for the sun and Earth's atmosphere.





eMacMan said:


> Not what I would call a raging success:
> 
> View attachment 39154


Interesting stuff.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Max said:


> Indeed. There is great pressure to indulge in the superficial, to exaggerate some aspects of our individual selves and gloss over or completely omit certain others. Everyone wants to be a media star. I get it, I really do, but there is a bottomless emptiness looming beneath it all. Social promises a great deal but it's no panacea. Nor it a replacement for real friends, real accomplishments.
> 
> What to do? For starters, pull back and try out other activities to take up your time. The social net will go on regardless of your post or friend count; the machine is utterly indifferent to individual needs. It's attuned to growing itself, amassing ever greater numbers... to say nothing of what it is doing to our collective notions of privacy.
> 
> ...





Macfury said:


> The format itself cleverly confuses interaction and competition. FaceBook members compete on appearance, breakfasts eaten, numbers of Likes, numbers of friends, etc. and call it social discourse. When everyone's a star, however, no one is a star. They are fighting just to avoid being called out as "non-players."





Kleles said:


> That sounds like a nasty bug. Hopefully you will all recover quickly.
> 
> Some of McLuhan's thinking was prescient, and certainly "the medium is the message" echoes your thoughts about "... pressure to indulge in the superficial." We present ourselves to others in ways that reflect our idealized self-images. I agree: the quality of social interaction afforded by this medium, especially enhanced by anonymity, is superficial. But all social relationships are infused with unreality. Even our most intimate relationships are not totally honest (a better word would be veridical). We are our thoughts, which can never be fully known by another.



Yup, I agree. Overall IMO social media panders to the most superficial tendencies in all of us. That is why I avoid it like the plague.

Hope you are feeling better Max. I don't know if what my wife and I had over the last week was the same thing but it sure wasn't pleasant. The non stop stomach pain I had over the previous two days was some of the worst I can remember.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

eMacMan said:


> Hmmm back to the original focus.
> 
> What I was referring to was images so greatly exaggerated that they come off as more fantasy than photography.
> 
> Generally I see nothing wrong with trying to make an image match the feeling a scene created. I certainly see the value in taking an image into the realm of art.* However I do have problems when my reaction to what is presented as a photo is: "No way is that real" and that is more or less a prevailing trend.*


I have no particular problem with that. It is really a matter of personal aesthetic and what you like or don't like.

Since the beginning of photography it has never been "real". Daguerreotypes, cyanotypes, silver halide, gum bichromate, kodachrome, polaroid, digital etc etc.

None of these are actually "real" representations of the world around us, the out comes are are all relative to the processes involved in the "picture making".

Digital just provides a vast multitude of possible out comes both in the picture acquisition and in the post production process.

If one wants to make their picture look as much as possible like the image that is formed on the retina of their eye, that is just one of a multitude of possible aesthetic outcomes and it is up to the photographer to decide what they want that final outcome to be.

IMO It all comes down to the intent/vision of the photographer/artist.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I agree, screature. I have seen photos involving no trick photography at all that look absolutely surreal. Just the selection of focus, scope and subject matter alone make hem other-worldly.


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## dian11 (Jan 9, 2014)

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