✖ Via
Conscientious: “Photoshop before there were computers:
The Art of Retouching and Improving Negatives and Prints (1941)”
From the book: “The photographic lens is an instrument of great precision, but it does not discriminate between the essential and the unessential, and so when the lens is used un such a way as to give clear definition of detail where it is wanted, there is often equally claer definition of detail where it is not wanted. The lens does not create lines and wrinkles and blemishes on the face, but it merely reproduces them when they are and makes these unimportant details just as prominent as the important ones. Therefore it is sometimes necessary to subdue such imperfections or to remove them entirely by means of the knife or the pencil.”
This book is freely available online via the Internet Archive
It made me think about many comments I read lately related to a photo by Richard Avedon showing numerous and detailed instructions to his printer (follow this link to see both the original and the instructions). Similar comments can be found on Errol Morris’ blog (see for example his seven-part series about The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock and, more recently, his two-part series It Was All Started by a Mouse; Errol Morris’ analyses are a must read). They all revolved around the same topic : the truthfullness or honesty of the photographic medium (and, by extension, of the photographer’s work). On the same subject, Eva Baines wrote a short piece on “An Abbreviated History of Photo-Manipulation” (Jan. 24th, 2009) reminding the reader about Dorothea Lange’s manipulation of “The Migrant Mother” (1936).
Conscientious is Jörg Colberg’s weblog about fine-art photography (and more).
