Re: Talking vs Doing

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997
>From: P3D John Ohrt  writes:
>
>P3D Mark Obusek wrote:
>...................
>> He laughed out loud and told me that he would love to see the work of
>> many who posted technical notes on the list
>> claiming that " science oriented people more often than not are lousy
>> photographers and do all theoretical dreaming and speculation....and
>> can't create a good image to save their lives!"
>
>Frankly, this is scarcely a new allegation.  However, a few things are
>being overlooked.  The scitech people are not artistic in their work, in
>fact it is frowned on.  People that manipulate data for a pleasing
>presentation are viewed with the same distaste as those who cheat the
>elderly with roofing scams!

******  This includes NASA staff astronomers who have the mistaken attitude
that existing space images, especially a few stereo moon images, are more
scientifically accurate in their current extremely distorted state, than
they would be if the distortions were corrected by hand manipulation.
Despite that particular attitude being held by *devout* scientists, I find
it to be a singularly unscientific attitude. The stereo images in question
show the distant horizon warping forwards and being closer to the observer
than obviously nearer objects and crater edges. It's a long ways from
scientific accuracy to leave them in their current distorted state, by
either scientific or artistic consideration. It was explained to me that the
distortions happened as a result of certain *automatic* image stretching
processes. The attitude expressed in response to the idea that humans with
an active mind would be able to undo the distortions was on the order of,
machine induced errors are more accurate than any human could possibly be by
direct manipulation. Even when the distortions are grossly out of proportion
to the rest of the image.

>..............................
>So what you have is a body of people who have no inherent use for "artistic
>merit", but whom nonetheless do practise amateur photography for their own
>pleasure.  It is no big shock if their quality as a group may be below
>average.

*****  And when their scientific imagery suffers as a consequence of their
misplaced abhorence of artistic endeavor (interpreted to mean any effort
involving one's own mind and hands), it's truly very sad. Some (hopefully
only a few) of them are obviously unqualified for their scientific jobs, no
matter how long they studied or which school they attended. They failed to
learn the basic scientific principles. 

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


------------------------------