Re: Talking vs Doing

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 21:21:45 -0500
>From: P3D Larry Berlin  <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: Talking vs Doing

>>Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997
>>From: P3D John Ohrt  writes:
>>
[in response to BTP's (Bob the Photographer's) claim that most technical
people are incapable of taking a good photograph, as reported by Mark Dottle]
>>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!

While I don't think John O intended this result, I'm concerned that this
statement is introducing an overgeneralization in the minds of many of the
readers, that being that technical people basically take photographs only
for their work, and that all their photographs are taken with the rules of
scientific photography in mind. John mentions counterexamples later in his
post, but the generalization seems to have propagated and become a basic
assumption in the subsequent discussion. In practice, I would guess that
a technical person on vacation would take photos that are at least as
artistic as those taken by an accountant or restaurant manager on vacation.

>******  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.

There seems to be a lot missing from this description. Did you seriously
propose to the scientists that they modify the *original data*??? I would
strongly disagree with that proposal - if you think an image may have
scientific value, it's important to preserve the original data as
accurately as you can. If your proposal was to produce processed versions
that have been modified in various ways, then NASA has been doing that
for at least 20 years, either for public consumption (the flyby animations
of the jovian moons), or for scientific analysis (the removal of the
registration marks on lunar photographs, and the exaggerated-height "imagery"
from Magellan's radar mapping of Venus - these modified versions can make it
easier for humans to detect patterns in the data). Where the geometry of a
scene is of interest, scientists may build up a geometric model using a
semi-mechanical method that depends on the original image's not being
modified - many of the excessive-interocular lunar stereo images come to mind.
Once you have the information as accurate as possible, then you can consider
making an artificially reconstructed image for human enjoyment.

Bear in mind that it's "humans with an active mind" that put the canals on
Mars, the numerous reports of bridges, cities, and giant spaceships on the
moon (now almost forgotten by the public), and some would say the "face"
on Mars. The scientific community has been burned many, many times by
"artistic correction" of original data, so I don't blame them for being
cautious.

For the specific case you mentioned, wouldn't the automatic application of
a reverse (distortion) transform function be more accurate than working
by hand?

[John O]
>>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.

Or you might say that technical people tend to have full time jobs, and
thus not as much time to mess around with camera and perfect their
photographic techniques. :-). But I don't accept the premise - isn't Dr. T
a technical person? I haven't seen any of his prize-winning photographs,
but some people seem to like them.

>*****  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. 

Hey - you've been peeking at my overhead transparencies. :-). But really,
I could make them more artistic if I had 20 times as long to do them.
Usually the best I can manage is to try to make the ideas as clear and
compelling as I can with limited custom artwork. If I throw in a PowerPoint
clip art of a striped bass and the caption "Fishing for answers?", would
that make my technical presentation more artistic? :-)

John R


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