3-6-13 – Software Hootenanny 3

http://www.fark.com/comments/7627604/

Anyone know what the deal with this fake farktography thread is? I thought it was a joke, but it popped up again tonight:
http://www.fark.com/comments/7629624/

Elsinore in my haste i may have missed enabling voting and can’t tell. when you get a chance please check here http://www.fark.com/comments/7629644#c82899501

thanks

Linguine, your Yosemite HDR is fantastic!

I don’t want to sound like a stodgy old stick in the mud, but I’m going to be a stodgy old stick in the mud for a few minutes. I don’t like some of the entries in this contest. I think we’ve strayed too far off the beaten path, and some of the entries reek of photoshop threads. That being said, there’s also some amazing things here.

Farktography has always been about what can be done with the camera. The original software hootenanny threads were about unleashing the photographic goodies that were normally verboten – double exposures, stacks, heavy topaz, HDR, animated stereograms, layered scenes (a la elsinore meeting herself or NBDs self-supervised brake-job), and so forth, but at the core was still the simple concept of a photograph.

Some of the entries this week are just plain gaudy, but they’re within the spirit of the theme as they’re nothing more than layered filters applied over a single photo. Most of the stacked photos are very well executed, and again perfect for this week. But the cut-and-paste entries are just too far in my opinion. I mean, if we wanted a collage theme, we should have a collage theme. I’ll sit that week out. Can we go ahead and disallow that now for the next time we do this? Seriously, if there’s that much of a need to flex the nitty-gritty PS basics, let’s have another round of “free to good home” and let the big dawgs play, too. That was fun. This is revolting. I’m just glad that for the most part, the voters do seem to be sorting it out.

I guess I’m just old school at this point, but can we get back to keeping the ‘tography in farktography? Please?

Well, I thought the consensus was that you guys wanted more leeway to truly go hog wild. I’m not sure how to draw the line between allowing stacked exposures and some of the photos I’m guessing you find most objectionable. I’m open to whatever for next time, but I’m not sure why this theme would be so bothersome when it’s the only theme like this we do, and we haven’t done it in two years. We’ve hardly strayed from keeping the ‘tography in farktography’ in that regard. Just my 2 cents.

/feeling a little damned if I do, damned if I don’t here…

I know, and I don’t envy your position. But I was also one of the ones before hand arguing for recycling the original ruleset. Copy and paste doesn’t belong in photography, imo. I guess I should also disclose that I’m a little spun up from outside influences yesterday and today, and I certainly don’t mean to take it out on you guys. I was outvoted, so that’s okay, just mostly expressing my disgust while it’s easily visible in the hopes that it’s remembered next time.

/feeling a little damned if I do, damned if I don’t here…

Please don’t. You did exactly what a mod should do – open the topic for discussion, gather a consensus, and let us abide by it. Since I’m likely the source of all this mess, let me try to address some of orionid’s & Curious’ concerns.

I understand you guys are coming from a purist’s standpoint, and I respect that. I don’t take personally any of the issues you’ve raised but rather consider it genial discourse about the topic under debate, so I hope y’all will see my words in the same light.

This theme isn’t really about technical photography; it’s about photographic art. It comprises at most 1 out of 104 contests. And it’s not as if these techniques aren’t represented in both commercial and art photography; look at any magazine cover, print ad, original art on places like deviantart – most have been manipulated and combined to varying degrees to create new pieces from multiple sources or to create realistic representations of things that are physically impossible to photograph.

We have HDR themes. We have filter themes. This theme is “Software Hootenanny” where we encourage creative use of techniques not normally allowed in our other contests. Why should we limit that creativity? What’s wrong with allowing the photographer to make something new and unique from his original content (as long as it’s all his original content)?

What makes this different from PS contents is that everything still has to be the photographer’s original source material, and if that’s crap, no amount of filters, HDR, or cutting and pasting is going to change that.

Curious specifically mentioned one of my example photos, the one of the 3 boys behind the tree (note that that’s not my creation, I just found it on the web). Personally, I think that required a lot more creativity, foresight with a specific end result in mind, and photographic talent than simply taking a photo and running through a list of filters on a menu until you find one that looks cool (unless you personally wrote the filter).

Linguine, your Yosemite HDR is fantastic!

Thanks