[photo-3d] Accuracy Debate

["Oleg Vorobyoff" <olegv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Talbot wrote:
>Not to start a huge philosophical debate, but as an aspiring
>artist I'm more concerned with pleasing colors than accurate
>colors.

I'll bet the accuracy versus pleasantness debate began with the first
photograph ever taken.  But I think it is worth having since it cuts to the
essence of photography.  I have no problem with photography openly being
used as a tool in the production of works of art.  What distinguishes
photography from other arts, however, is its documentary capability.  A
useful document must have credibility.  To maximize credibility, every
effort should be made to keep it accurate.  So it bothers me when a
photograph rings false.

>In most of my pictures, that's what I want to see, not the
>disgusting grey that man and his machines and his pollution
>have made most of today's skies.  Kodachrome gives me the ugly
>skies I see almost everyday when I go outside, and I just don't
>need to see that ugliness in my photos.

True, beauty is becoming scarce.  That makes it all the more valuable.
The photographer me wants to record beauty, not create it.  The
process I like to use is more one of recognition than of manipulation.
I avoid taking any picture until something I see in my viewfinder looks
truly beautiful.  Then I full well want to see on the slide what I saw in
the viewfinder.

>Furthermore, no film can come close to matching the dynamic
>range of our eyes, so to say any film "accurately" records
>colors is just a question of whether the film lies more or
>lies less.

Agreed.  But for my purposes, the less lying, the better.

>Maybe it's badly processed Kodachrome, but maybe there is
>really no such thing as well-processed Kodachrome anymore.

Please God, give me a sign that it isn't so.

>Gary Nored likes to say of his love for Velvia, "If it's worth
>doing, it's worth doing to extreme."  I don't agree in every
>respect, but I'm more in that camp than in the "accuracy" camp.

Actually, I can visualize the extreme - it looks a lot like the set from the
Tele Tubbies.  I would hope there would be place for both camps.  But it
is getting to be awfully lonely here in the "accuracy" camp.

Oleg Vorobyoff