Too sharp, too much resolution, new paradigm

I was in the bank the other day and they had huge photos that had large out of focus areas. And fifteen or twenty years ago, we started seeing photo-realistic painting that showed every detail. New technologies do make it possible to display more information - there was a time when this was prized. Maybe it's just a pendulum effect.

"Or should I just have a cup of coffee and fuggedaboudid?"

Instead, run with it.

We all have choice. Detail or no detail. I've found they're part of the pallet of choices, we as artists have to choose from.

A wonderful, yet limited beauty as an example is the Canon D30. Three MP's of pure dynamic photographic power but limited both in pixels and dynamic range. Wow!, the images it can kick out. On the other hand, something I've never had my hands on, is a thirty-nine MP MF back and they're backs up to a hundred and sixty MP and then of course, there's image stitching where the sky's the limit as to how many images and MP's one wishes to stitch together.

Everybody has free choice, so run with it. Use some, use all but what ever it is you do, make sure you use those darn pixels..... or they get lonely:)

My pixels got used today but I'm afraid they go sick because of the mediocrity of today's effort:O Almost afraid to even screen them.

Example below where I used a guassian blur a couple years back to reduce detail an the image made with a D30.

Thomas Gardner, "... run with it. We all have choice."

I agree 100%. The good news about improving technology is that the proverbial ball is back in the artists court. It's easy to remove information (ex. detail or dynamic range) after the fact, but impossible to add it. I would much rather start off with too much detail and dynamic range, so that the choice is mine about what to remove in order to achive the effect that I want in a given image.

Cheers,

Geoff S.

I agree with the OP

geoff,

this whole do it after the fact is what drives me crazy. that sends the wrong message to people. digital is different than film and you cannot make digital look like (for instance) a type 665 polaroid negative. you just can't. if one has the inkling to think about what they want from the shoot and use the appropriate materials in response, then that's using tools to your advantage. if a client wanted a super sharp image i wouldn't use polaroid or 3200 speed film or or or... i would use digital. if a client wanted something funky and not so over the top "perfect" i wouldn't use digital, i'd use film. I would get it right first and then think about post production.

Ironic, isn't it, that with our greater technological control of the image, we sense we're possibly going too far from the essential abstraction of artistic photography. Isn't that a large part of our appreciation of B&W images? A classic example of "less is more." In an age of explicicity, perhaps we're retreationg (or regressing) to an earlier era when works of art were more suggestive and provocative. Suppose we'll get as far as the style of photography when everything was misty and blurry and a bit mysterious?

back to pictorialism?

"I would get it right first and then think about post production."

Your above is an example of chained thinking.

There is no "right" in the case of artistic expression. Any thing I want to do, and what ever I want to to is "right" in digital or film. If I want to jump up and down all over the neg and then the final print, that's the right thing to do. There are no rules.

When I make an image, digital or film, I know what I'm wanting to do with the image before I trip the shutter. The final print is all that matters as how I get there, doesn't. If that bothers some, there's always counseling for these troubled individuals.

Go with it dude, you can do it. Don't let the zoo keepers chain your feet until a fine thin thread will do the job in the place of the big heavy metal chain as your artistic mind was made to be free:)

And there's a reason why someone can't do both, sharp and restricted?

Why the worry of limits?

Geoff put it well in his comment:

"It's easy to remove information (ex. detail or dynamic range) after the fact, but impossible to add it."

The above is healthy fluid intellectual thinking.

Ex: Just because it's raining, doesn't mean you have to come in. Why? Cause one might get wet? Now there's a scary thought. What happens when I go swimming in the cold 58F waters off the Santa Cruz coast? I get cold and wet:)

The point, have fun with photography, enjoy, it's okay to get cold and wet. Besides, cold and wet makes the hot chocolate taste better. :)

FWIW, too much details is less of an issue. Too much contrast ofen go with the details can be problematics. Lost shadow details are gone forever. Supressed flare are supressed. Gone forever, good looking or bad. Is a perfect sounding piano perfect?