Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Technology

Ideas about the mechanics, techniques, and technology behind image making.

Ethics of Editing
I thought this question was completely discussed and laid to rest. But just in the last week I have seen 3 posts questioning the ethics of editing images. Not really saying it is wrong, just questioning it in general.
Let me give you my conclusion so you can stop reading if you disagree: the question is wrong. It is not an ethical issue for art.
Are photographs special?
Because of its nature of recording the scene in front of the camera, some people still assume that photography is some kind of “pure” imaging form. That is, that what you see is reality. It is not and never has been.
You would never make that assumption of a painting. It is clear to everyone that it is a constructed image. Even if it was painted as “plein air”, the artist would leave out things that distract and freely put in things that “should” be there.
Just because the sensor (or film) images everything in the field of view of the lens does not certify that the resulting image is “truth”. And speaking of the field of view, changing it is a valid and common way to change the story you are telling. Zooming in on a small part or moving to the side a little may completely alter the message of the image. Is that ethical?
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Modifying darkroom prints
Prints were routinely modified even from the days of film and darkroom printing. Filters made serious modification to tonal renderings in the captured negatives. Negatives were spotted to remove dust (or distractions). Dodging and burning further altered the tonality of the original scene.
If you are familiar with Photoshop, you know that one of the layer blend modes is Screen. Do you know where this name came from? A way of compositing film images was to project 2 images together onto a screen, then re-photograph the resulting combined image.
Photographers are resourceful. They find a way to make the image they need or want to make. Even if the result departs from the original.
Modifying digital images
But it is so much easier to alter digital images. Does that somehow make it unethical to do it?
We have wonderful technology in our computers and image processing software. But would we be better artists if we printed our images “straight” – unmodified in any way?
No, we would not. Digital sensors are amazing, but the straight output of a RAW file is bland, low contrast, probably with a bad color cast, and it has dust spots and distractions. You could never sell an image like this, and it would be foolish to even show it to viewers in this state. Other than to make a point about how important correction is.
Even black & white prints are an advanced modification of color images. It is no longer a throwback to simpler and more pure times.
We are expected to correct the color and contrast, to remove spots and distractions, to alter the lighting and tonality to make it more pleasing. You could never win a contest or be admitted to a gallery without doing at least those steps.
Beyond that, pixels can be processed and combined much more freely than film images ever could. To say that it is wrong to do that with digital images is like saying that writing should only use the grammar and vocabulary of 19th Century English, because it was more pure.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Why do it?
Is it too simple to say “because we can”? Simple but true. We can. Pixels are raw material. They can be modified or combined or stretched or colored at our will. The same way that a painter can use any colors or put any brush strokes down on his canvas.
What we choose to do depends on the image. Sometimes we compose the “final” shot almost entirely in camera. We recognize what we want to do, and we can make it happen in the field. These images still need a lot of work to bring out the quality we want, but the final result may be very close to the scene as shot.
But sometimes I go out shooting what I call “raw material”. These images are deliberately not intended to be a finished image by itself. They become parts blended or composited together with other parts to form a final image concept. Is that valid? Is it ethical? To me, completely.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
When not to do it
There are times that images should be labeled as “truth”. If you are representing the work as photojournalism or documentary, it should relatively unmodified. Relatively in the sense that it may be cropped or spotted or exposure balanced. Things like that that do not seriously alter the result that is presented to the viewer.
Even so, there are the issues of point of view and field of view. I discussed field of view. For journalism what the photographer chooses not to show may completely change the ‘truth” of an image. And anyone, even a seasoned journalist, has a point of view they bring to the shoot. That POV determines how they represent the scenes, what to feature, how to frame it, etc.
So, we have to accept that what we see is the truth from their point of view.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Ethics?
One of the articles I read recently asks “how much we can ethically alter a photograph?” My response is that only photojournalists and documentary photographers should be expected to “tell the truth”. Other than that, there are no ethics involved. The concept does not even apply to art.
All other photographers are creating something artificial. The resulting image is a creative work of fiction. Trying to say that there is some artificial ethical limit on what they do is like saying all writers must only tell the absolute factual truth. I hope not. I like reading fiction.
There are many reasons for creating images. A few uses of them should maintain a semblance of truth. Most do not have any link to truth.
My images are only truth in the sense that I created them (no AI involved), they are my product, and they represent what I felt or believed at the moment. Any ethical questions are within my mind and based solely on my values. If anyone else raises an ethical concern about my work, I thank them for being interested, I might want to find out their concerns, but I would tell them to apply their ethical anxieties to their own work.
Of all the things there might be to worry about in the world, the ethics of altering my images is not one of them.
The real ethical dilema
There is a serious ethical issue that needs a lot more discussion. That is AI generated work and creating images that deliberately lie about events. But I am out of room here.
June 18, 2025
Know Your Masks
We all put on masks (not Covid ones, thankfully) all the time. Our masks make us look better to other people. But I’m not talking about our social interactions. We are image makers, so we also use masks in our editing tools to make our images look better. Both Photoshop and Lightroom have masks, but they are very different. Understanding the differences helps us better understand our craft.
What are they
In their simplest form, masks limit the extend of the edits we make to an image. All of our editing software lets us make global adjustments to an image, like increasing or decreasing the overall exposure. Most of our editors also allow us to restrict edits to selected parts of the image by masking.
You know the situation. After we get the overall look of an image balanced the way we like we often have to “drill in” and work on smaller parts. For instance, maybe a part needs to be brightened to make it stand out the way we want or darkened to call less attention to itself. No matter what your software calls it, masks are used for this.
But how we do it and how they work on the image can vary greatly.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
A mask
In the general sense, a mask allows us to isolate part of an image so that we can make selective edits.
Without masks all of our edits would be global. That is, what we do would affect the entire image. To selectively modify only parts of the image, though, we need the ability to restrict the area to be edited. In a sense, a mask is kind of like a stencil that keeps us from painting outside of an area.
For photography, the concept of masks comes from the darkroom. In the traditional darkroom, printers used bits of paper or sheets with shapes cut out to hold light back from selected areas or to add light to selected areas during exposure of a print. This was called dodging and burning. It required a lot of planning, and it was a very tedious and labor-intensive process. One mistake and hours of work could be ruined. I personally am very glad we do not do that now.
Lightroom vs Photoshop
I’m going to use Lightroom Classic (which I will just call “Lightroom”) and Photoshop as my examples. They are what I know, and I think they are the most commonly used editors of their specific kind. Yes, kind, because for all their similarities they are 2 different kinds of thing. These differences are important to us, and we need to have some understanding of how they work in order to use them better.
The most fundamental difference is that Lightroom never modifies pixels while Photoshop will gladly do anything you want to your pixels. Because of this basic difference, the way they deal with masking and editing is also completely different.
In a sense, Adobe has created a problem for their users. They sell the 2 premier image editors. The products are tightly linked, and users often have to use both of them to accomplish their goals, but they are so different that it causes confusion.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Photoshop
Photoshop was the first capable and widely used image editor. It springs from the days when images were only pixels. It is a pixel editor, even with adjustment layers and blending modes.
Photoshop is a bare knife. It eagerly does whatever you tell it to do to your image. Like a sharp knife in skilled hands can do great work, the same knife in unskilled hands can be dangerous. Photoshop will shred your pixels with no remorse.
Inside Photoshop, a mask is a black & white image that is attached to a layer. Whatever adjustment you do on the layer is restricted by the mask. The mantra is “white reveals and black conceals”. That is, where the mask is white the adjustments are made on the underlying image. Where the mask is black, the adjustment is ignored.
But note that the mask is just another bitmap image. It can contain any set of pixels including shades of grey. For instance, sometimes frequency separation editing is done by doing something like taking, say, a copy of the green channel and pasting that into an adjustment layer as a mask. That is a complex mask, but Photoshop handles it easily.
Also, we modify images by building up layers of changes. The order of the layers is very important in Photoshop. The changes are always applied in the order you specify in the layer stack and the results will probably change if the order is changed.
So in Photoshop you can do anything you want to the pixels. They can be stretched and blurred and painted over and, well, there is little limit. Masks are just another kind of bitmap that lets us limit the area modified by a layer.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Lightroom
Lightroom Classic is the newer product and it brings a completely different design and technology approach. It is specialized to be the editor of RAW images like Photoshop is specialized to be the pixel editor.
Lightroom has become my first and often only step in editing images. One reason I go to Photoshop less is because Lightroom has added very capable masking ability and they continue to enhance it.
But masks in Lightroom are a totally different thing from Photoshop. Since Lightroom is designed to be incapable of destroying pixels, they have adopted a technology of keeping track of descriptions of the edits to be done rather than actually doing the edits. Same for masks and their edits. These descriptions are separate from the image. They are applied to the original RAW file whenever it needs to be viewed. And the order of edits usually does not matter.
Generally, Lightroom masks are constructed by combinations of gradients and shapes and range selections and brush strokes. The shapes can be composed together to make complex and useful masks. Some “AI” aids are available as shortcuts for selecting the sky, or people, for instance.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Lightroom markup example
The edit descriptions are just text that is kept separate from the image and is processed by Lightroom as needed. Here is a sample of the instructions for one of my images. This is only part of the text file, it defines one mask:
<crs:MaskGroupBasedCorrections>
    <rdf:Seq>
     <rdf:li>
      <rdf:Description
       crs:What=”Correction”
       crs:CorrectionAmount=”1″
       crs:CorrectionActive=”true”
       crs:CorrectionName=”Mask 1″
       crs:CorrectionSyncID=”4F05D072D78C40239D264FC0F8F45469″
       crs:LocalExposure=”0″
       crs:LocalHue=”0″
       crs:LocalSaturation=”0″
       crs:LocalContrast=”0″
       crs:LocalClarity=”0″
       crs:LocalSharpness=”0.215228″
       crs:LocalBrightness=”0″
       crs:LocalToningHue=”0″
       crs:LocalToningSaturation=”0″
       crs:LocalExposure2012=”0.27395″
       crs:LocalContrast2012=”-0.100282″
       crs:LocalHighlights2012=”0″
       crs:LocalShadows2012=”-0.188717″
       crs:LocalWhites2012=”0.127177″
       crs:LocalBlacks2012=”-0.061475″
       crs:LocalClarity2012=”0.730341″
       crs:LocalDehaze=”0.631532″
       crs:LocalLuminanceNoise=”0″
       crs:LocalMoire=”0″
       crs:LocalDefringe=”0″
       crs:LocalTemperature=”0.274462″
       crs:LocalTint=”-0.102011″
       crs:LocalTexture=”0.169762″
       crs:LocalGrain=”-0.100026″
       crs:LocalCurveRefineSaturation=”100″>
      <crs:CorrectionMasks>
       <rdf:Seq>
        <rdf:li
         crs:What=”Mask/CircularGradient”
         crs:MaskActive=”true”
         crs:MaskName=”Radial Gradient 1″
         crs:MaskBlendMode=”0″
         crs:MaskInverted=”false”
         crs:MaskSyncID=”780243712C904039AF01C58DADCB61FA”
         crs:MaskValue=”1″
         crs:Top=”0.219066″
         crs:Left=”0.694605″
         crs:Bottom=”0.301111″
         crs:Right=”0.787517″
         crs:Angle=”0″
         crs:Midpoint=”50″
         crs:Roundness=”0″
         crs:Feather=”34″
         crs:Flipped=”true”
         crs:Version=”2″/>
       </rdf:Seq>
      </crs:CorrectionMasks>
      </rdf:Description>
     </rdf:li>
    </rdf:Seq>
   </crs:MaskGroupBasedCorrections>
It looks intimidating, but it is not made for us to read. We never see this unless we go looking for it. Computer Science people call this a markup language. Computers process it efficiently.
It’s our technology
Photoshop deals only with pixels, and it can change the actual pixels of your image in any way you would like. There is no limit, and it can make changes that are unrecoverable. Lightroom edits are more limited in scope and only deal with information about the adjustments you would like made to your image. A benefit of Lightroom is that it refuses to destroy any pixels.
This applies to masking, too. Masks in Photoshop are bitmap images that can be as complex as the image itself. The mask is another layer to paint or edit like other images in Photoshop.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Masks in Lightroom are more limited, but still absolutely useful. The masks are combinations of the shapes Lightroom knows about and lists of changes to make within the shape. It does not matter what order you do adjustments in Lightroom.
We need to be aware of these basic design features as we are using the products. Photoshop works directly on pixels. Lightroom keeps information about how to change the look of pixels. They are fundamentally different in design. When we do not keep these behaviors in mind, we can become frustrated when switching between the tools.
It is part of the technology we use to create our art. The better we understand how it works the more skilled we can be at using the tools.
June 11, 2025
Photography is About Light
Stating the obvious? I think we sometimes forget the fundamentals of what we are doing and working with. No light, no photography. Photography is about light.
Writing with light
Remember that our word “photography” comes from 2 Greek words that together mean “writing with light”. So, from the beginning of our art form, it was understood that we were recording light on some type of photo sensitive material. Glass plates or tintype or film back then. Mostly digital sensors now.
Technology changes but still we are recording light.
Embrace that. It is what we are all about as photographers. Photography is about light.
Low light is not no light
Our technology improves all the time. It is possible to get sensors that do a fair job of imaging at 250,000 ISO. Maybe more. I don’t track the latest. The highest ISO I found with a quick scan was the Nikon D6 at 3,280,000!
A 250,000 ISO is about 11 stops of additional exposure above a nominal ISO 100 setting. Eleven stops is a huge amount as exposures go. I haven’t tried it, but at ISO 250,000 I bet you could make a properly exposed landscape shot lit only by starlight.
But the point is that very low light is not the same as no light. Have you ever been in a cavern deep underground where they turned off all lights at some point? Then we encounter the eerie experience of actual, total blackness. In those conditions it is impossible to see anything. Put your hand right in front of your face and you can’t tell it’s there. There are absolutely no photons to impinge on our retina.
We could do no photography in total blackness. Of course, other artists would be almost equally disadvantaged. I suppose, theoretically, painters could make marks on their canvas in total blackness, but they would have no way to know what they were creating. Sculptors could mold clay by feel, but they would have very limited feedback on what they were doing. But photographers cannot do anything without light.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Computational photography
One clever way to get better results in low light is used in your cell phone and by astronomers. It is generally called “computational photography”.
Computational photography does not rely on the result of one frame. Instead, tens to thousands of shots are taken and processed by computer to bring out detail.
This is how your phone takes decent pictures in low light despite having a tiny sensor. It is actually shooting bursts of dozens of frames. Then it quickly processes them in the phone. It uses averaging and other more sophisticated techniques to reduce noise and bring out the desired detail. I am surprised at how well it works.
Astronomers have special needs in photographing distant galaxies. The light levers are so low that there is nothing to see with our eye. So, they instead take hundreds, maybe thousands of images with the regular sensor on their telescope and run them through dedicated processing software. Using combinations of specialized image processing algorithms and AI, their computers “reconstruct” what is probably there.
My astronomer friends have shown me some of their new “telescopes” they got recently. These surprising instruments are generally about the size of a moderately thick hard cover book. They rely on small, cheap optics and lots of computation, but produce amazing results.
Techniques like these let images be created in what seems like black conditions. But the reality is, it is not black. Just very low levels of lighting. If it was actually black, no photography.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
See the light
As I said, the purpose of this is to remind us that our art is based on light. We need to develop a heightened awareness of the light around us, because it is critical to our art. It changes all the time and is different in different conditions.
it has been observed that a fish probably does not think about water. But we need to think about light, which is almost as important to us as water is to a fish.
Light has many characteristics and most all of them affect our photography.
We need to be intensely aware of the quantity of light at any time, its color, is it direct or diffuse, its angle, whether it is steady or changing, is our subject lit directly or indirectly, and many other properties. It sounds complicated. But learning the light is part of the craft. Learning to apply it creatively is part of the art.
For instance, it is almost an axiom of photography that you do not photograph in the middle of the day. Like the “rule of thirds”, this is one of those rules I take pleasure in violating. The reality is that it completely depends on what subjects you are shooting, the nature of your light source, and what your goals are. Shooting at midday often enhances the texture of materials. In a dense forest it can create interesting dappled light patterns. In a slot canyon or a cathedral, it can create beautiful light beams. And diffuse overcast light may be perfect for many subjects, with high brightness and soft, even illumination.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
And as a practical matter, I am not a National Geographic photographer on assignment. I can’t spend a week in the field waiting for the “perfect” shot I went out to find. I have to be creative enough to make the best use of what I find at the time I’m there.
There are no rules, only what you can do with what you have.
Tonality
Tonality is one of those important things we need to think about and know how to use. It simply refers to the difference of luminance of the parts of our image. The tonality is what lets us distinguish all the parts. It creates separation of various areas.
Think of a blank white piece of paper. This effectively has zero tonality. There is no image, because without tonal separation we cannot resolve anything. Any actual image we create has a range of tones.
If the tones are squished together, our image is low contrast. Not much tonal separation. Maybe this is what you want, like a foggy scene.
On a sunny day there is a wide range of tones. We refer to it as high contrast. Sometimes it can be too much. Do we need to use exposure or editing techniques to tame the contrast? But that is our creative choice
A low-key image involves pushing most of the tones down towards dark. But the remaining light tones stand out. Likewise, if we create a high-key image, with most of the tones pushed toward light, the remaining dark tones stand out.
Our eyes are very sensitive to tonality. We perceive tiny differences in illumination levels. Use of tones is a creative process. It should be part of our thought process and toolbox.
One of the ultimate expressions of pure tonality is black & white photography. All color is stripped away, leaving only tonality to create the image.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Color
Our eyes are an incredible design. The rods and cones have different purposes but work together to give us sight. But overall, our eye is less sensitive to color than to illumination levels.
Think of being in a dim room at night. We can make out the objects around us, but the colors are hard to distinguish. Turn the light on fully and the colors pop.
Similarly, in our images, good color requires good light. We can’t see vibrant, saturated color in dim light. I mentioned low key art. Have you noticed that most of it is black & white? This is a practical result of not being able to see much color in low light.
I believe some people’s artistic vision is drawn to color and some to black & white. If you are a color person you have to be doubly aware of light. Not enough and our brilliant colors fade.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Creativity
All art processes are defined by their technology. Photography is based on light. We cannot do photography without light. To be a photographic artist, we need to be intensely aware of light and how to use it to our advantage.
Recognize it not as a limitation, but as a creative tool. Light is a marvelously varied thing. We are artists. We paint with light. Learning it and being constantly aware of it and deciding how we want to use it for any image is part of the art.
We are seldom in a place where there is no light, like the underground cavern I mentioned earlier. There is always light around. It may just be moonlight or city lights or a flash. We may decide there is not enough light to make the image we want sometimes, but there is always light to work with. Recognize it. Use it creatively.
Light is fundamental to photography. Learn to see it for what it is and learn to use it creatively. It is what you are photographing.
May 7, 2025
Photography is Technology
There is no separating photography from technology. That is its nature. Photography is technology as much as it is art. It is one of the most technical art forms.
What is technology?
One definition of technology is “the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life.” Other definitions I like refer to applying knowledge to achieve practical goals.
There is no getting around the fact that there is a tremendous amount of scientific and engineering knowledge packed in all the devices and tools we use in our photography.
Technology pervades most things in all parts of our life these days. But photography is steeped in it.
The technologies we use
When you step back and look at it, every part of the chain from initial image capture to a final print or post relies heavily on technology.
Our camera is a wonderfully crafted marvel. From the lens to the camera body and all that goes on in it. None of this would be possible without the almost magic technology behind it.
Just consider the sensor. It can convert incoming light into electrical signals in a tiny fraction of a second. These signals are read out and converted to digital data (yes, the sensor captures analog data) in milliseconds. Our tiny memory card takes in all this data, again in milliseconds.
And it does all this reliably and repeatably, day in and day out, in all kinds of weather, wherever we are.
And it is almost impossible to work with images today without a good computer and great software tools. Again, these are technologies that are marvelously better than what anyone had just a few years ago. We regularly and quickly color correct, remove distractions, change tones, and sharpen our images – with far better control and precision than in film days. If we choose, we can bend and stretch pixels in ways that could not have been imagined a few years ago.
Do. you post your images on social media for your followers to comment on? The scale and extent of the technology behind this is almost unimaginable. That post requires billions of dollars of cutting edge technology to happen.
It is impossible to do anything photographically without technology.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Shiny things
This great technology that benefits us so much can be a liability. It is all too easy to get tangled up in the learning and the process of what is happening. A lot of specific knowledge is required to do our craft well.
So we get trapped in chasing the technology itself. There are always raging arguments about how many mega pixels we need. Or which sensor has the lowest noise and best dynamic range. And are zoom lenses evil? Do we have to only use prime lenses?
Is Lightroom Classic the best place to be managing and editing our images or should we use Capture One? And Photoshop is a life-long learning experience all by itself.
Resolution, color accuracy, modulation transfer functions, RAW image processing – it can make our heads ache.
A good or bad thing about technology is that there is always more of it we “need”. Studying reviews and specifications of gear can become an obsession. So much so that some spend all their time thinking about what they would do with the next big thing if they could get it and little time actually going out and making images with what they have.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an Engineer. I love to compare specs and I can swim in data all day. It would be a pleasant journey for me to spend a day lost in details of acutance or chromatic aberration or dynamic range. For nerds like me, comparing lenses is kind of like shopping for cars. We could talk all day about which one is best and go into great detail about why, even if we do not intend to buy one.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Accumulating
A problem with this focus on technology for its own sake is that we feel the need to always be searching for the “best”. New equipment always comes out and it is a little better than the old. We believe that to do the best job of our photography, we need the best new stuff. So it is an endless treadmill of acquiring shiny new things that will make us a better photographer.
And it can get to the point where we get into a state of analysis paralysis. Have you seen someone out in the field lugging a huge, heavy pack with most of their “must have” gear? After all, no telling what we may encounter. So we bring the full range of ultra fish-eye to extreme telephoto lenses. And, of course, macro and perspective control lenses. A backup body (or 2) is a must. And a computer for checking our images on a larger screen and maybe doing a quick edit. Just to be safe.
This person may spend more time trying to decide what to use and fiddling with equipment than they do finding subjects and composing and capturing images. Yes, “fiddling” is a technical term. ☺
From what I have seen, when painters and sculptors get together with their peers and “talk shop”, there is a certain amount of discussion of technology and tools and equipment. But not like photographers. It can be an obsession with us.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make it disappear
I don’t want to paint a gloomy picture of technology. I like it and need it, at least when it works right. It would be impossible do my art without technology.
But go back to that original definition that technology is about applying knowledge to achieve practical goals. Its purpose is to help us do things better. It should not become an end in itself.
Great technology used right should “disappear”. It is not about the wizard’s wand or the warrior’s sword. It is about what they can do with them. One way to make it disappear is to learn to use it so well that it is fluid and natural.
I recommend that we choose a small set of equipment and learn it well. Learn its strengths and weaknesses. Yes, weaknesses can become strengths if used artistically. Think of film grain for example.
Have you noticed that a lot of music pushes an instrument to its highest or lowest range? Pushing the limits can lead to interesting effects. And it tests the skill of the performer. Our photography can be a little like that. Push the limits.
Practice with your equipment frequently. Go overboard with it. Pick up your camera every day and run through scenarios. It should be automatic. Learn to operate it in pitch dark, relying on familiarity and feel to guide you. Even if you only use one lens, get to know what it can do and learn to see like it sees. You do not always need to carry a full range of lenses. That is what feet are for. Move.
If we develop this intimate knowledge of our technology, it becomes a tool we can wield for our creativity. It “disappears” in our creative process. Great things happen.
I love the technology we have available today. It allows us to create great things. Always remember that the technology is for us to make art. Use it. Don’t be controlled by it.
April 16, 2025
It’s Just a Camera
That piece of technology we use to make images, it’s just a camera. Not magic or sentient or automatic. It still needs someone to take the picture.
Brushes
I really like my camera. It is a good tool to use to make images I like. When I’m in the field, my camera is the vehicle for my creative expression.
Have you ever had someone look at one of your pictures and say “Wow, you must have a great camera”? Or see you taking pictures and say “You must be a professional, since you have a big camera.” I have. Many times. Now, I basically just smile and go on.
But if you see a painting hanging in a gallery, who looks for the artist and tells them “Man, those must be some great brushes you have.” Or, seeing a nice wood carving, tell the sculptor “you must have some really sharp chisels”.
The public has a tendency to attribute a good photograph to the camera more than to the photographer. Being a piece of technology, somehow there is the implication that the camera somehow made the picture.
As artists, we should not encourage this attitude.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
A box
At it’s most basic, a camera is a box that keeps out light. The name comes from “camera obscura”, which was a dark space, often a room, with a small opening to let in light. This caused an inverted and reversed image to be projected on the back wall. It is believed this technique has been used since 500 BC.
The first “modern” cameras were wooden boxes that had a lens on one end and a holder for coated glass plates on the other. This is how many great historical photographs were exposed.
They have certainly become much more sophisticated now, with auto focus, camera shake compensation, exposure measurement, ability to automatically set exposure parameters, etc. Too much to list. The user manual for my Nikon Z7 II is 823 pages. Astounding, but it still doesn’t take the pictures. At it’s most basic, it is still a closed box to keep light off the sensor until time to record the image.
I appreciate many of the features in modern cameras. They make my art easier and extend the range I can operate in. It is great to have our little “dark spaces” getting smaller all the time. Even to becoming little flat things we can put in our pocket (phone).
I fear there will come a point where we will face some major decisions.
It’s still a tool
Right now our cameras and phones have amazing capabilities. Some of them are just basic technological advances. Some are deemed “AI”. Many of the best features are appearing first in our phones.
The ability to “sweep” our phone across a scene and have it automatically stitch together a panorama is very useful. Face detection is common now and can be useful for some types of work. An interesting feature I have seen is where, when taking a group shot, some cameras actually take many images and pick out and merge together the “best” look for everyone. At least, ones when they are smiling and their eyes are open.
Features like these make shooting pictures less technical and less stressful. Anyone can get “professional” level results. That is probably a good thing. It is an aid.©Ed Schlotzhauer
A coming “revolution”
There are still some of us who want to make the artistic decisions ourselves. Even if it is difficult and requires lots of training. Even if we make mistakes and bad choices. Those don’t matter. It is our art, our decisions, our responsibility. The technology is likely to get a lot more intrusive.
Probably right now most major camera manufacturers and all phone makers have teams of smart people trying to go all in with AI. People who actually believe in it and confidently think AI actually is or will become intelligent. Some who actually think AI can do art.
I can imagine one of the user stories they are working from: “(Camera speaking) Attach the 24-70 lens. It is best for this shot. Move me 34.7 inches left and lower me 9.3 inches. I detect a glare. Attach the lens hood. Place the subject at the Rule of Thirds point I am illuminating in the viewfinder. I will shoot it now and remove the non-subject person traversing the frame. I am also correcting the 3° tilt to the right and the overall color. Done. “
To me, this is a dystopian scene. I do not want to relinquish my artistic vision to anything, especially a machine. I am very willing to use smart tools to assist my work. In-camera features like eye identification and focus tracking can be very handy. On the computer, making it easier to make selections or to remove distractions is useful. But I do not plan to give control over to the camera to make it’s own decisions
Plasticity.
In The Interior Landscape, Guy Tal states
For any medium to be useful to an artist, it must allow a generous degree of plasticity. It must lend itself readily to subjective expression of concepts and feelings originating in the artist’s mind and not just those inherent in or commonly associated with the subject.
Mr. Tal was not referring to AI here, but I believe it applies. An AI controlled camera could probably expose images that would be regarded by most consumers as pleasing. The pictures would be a faithful and well exposed depiction of the subject. Most users would be happy. Unfortunately, the AI could not know the subjective expressions that are in my mind. It cannot know my vision and intent.
Again in The Interior Landscape, Guy Tal states
There are well-established compositional templates knows to impress viewers, requiring only mechanical skills but no expressive intent. Art raises the bar. Art requires from the artist a degree of emotional investment and an elevated subjective experience, as well as the skill to express visual concepts beyond “here’s something pretty,” “look where I’ve been,” or”see how lucky I was”.
I resonate with this concept of plasticity. It gives structure to my desire to create images that are not simply representations of what is there. I want to use the camera and other parts of the technology of photography simply as tools to help me capture what I visualize and feel.
©Ed Schlotzhauer
Make art
You might get the impression that I am not a fan of AI. Well, I definitely am not a true believer. It could be a useful tool for some things. One of the big problems is that most people do not understand its limitations, so they believe it is something it is not.
By it’s nature, AI cannot be creative. It is a compendium of what it has been trained on. The output of AI is a statistical prediction of a response given an input. So, at best, it is an average of what it has been given. It cannot think or feel or have inspiration.
I am a human. I do think, get depressed, find inspiration, feel love, and see things in my own quirky way. If those are faults compared to AI, then I readily admit to being deeply flawed. But from those flaws, and all the other strange bits of my makeup, I can create art. Because my art comes from my unique human understanding and viewpoint.
I like my camera. It is a great tool. I have actually read most of the user manual in order to know what features it has and to pick which I choose to use. The reality is that I probably only use, I would guess, less than 20% of its capabilities. That’s OK. It’s a tool, not the center of my attention.
I know that designs have gotten so good that camera manufacturers are up against boundaries of physics. It is easier to add value through new “intelligent” tricks than to expand resolution or dynamic range or reduce noise. AI is a hype magnet and a path of least resistance. I get it.
Who/What is in charge?
But if the next camera I select is bloated with AI features and the price is double because of that, I will pass. I can even envision them wanting me to pay a monthly subscription to use the features in my new camera. If these things happen, my next camera is likely to be an older, used camera with less features but better raw performance and easier manual operation. Yeah, I’m an old curmudgeon. I get to be. I’m the artist in charge.
The camera does not make images. The artist does. It will continue that way for me as long as I have something to say about it. And I do. 🙂
So modern cameras are wonderful tools. I would love to have a new one. But are you an artist or just someone who takes pictures? If you are an artist, do not forget that the camera is basically just a dark box that holds the lens and sensor in the right positions. It is an instrument allowing us to create art. The artistic intelligence is in you. Do not surrender your artistic vision to a machine.
Photography is based on technology more than most other arts. That does not mean the technology makes the art.
“The equipment of Alfred Stieglitz or Edward Weston represents less in cost and variety than many an amateur ‘can barely get along with.’ Their magnificent photographs were made with intelligence and sympathy – not with merely the machines.”
Ansel Adams
February 12, 2025