Yes, I’m back with another photography-related info-rant.
This one is related to “information”. “Information” or “detail”, for some reason, has become an inseparable leech that has clung onto amateur-advanced photography enthusiasts and their posts.
“Leech” is a perfect word for it; since the introduction of the “Scene-referred / Display-referred” terminology (which, around here, we deem incompatible with photography), once thought to be incredibly useful, has sucked out depth, creative intent, variation, creative freedom and overall much of what made photographs pleasing.
I’m sure you’ve read something along the lines of:
“You’re losing information in the shadows”
or
“Recover detail in the highlights”
Both can be true and correct. However…
~ 𝐼𝓉 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈𝓃’𝓉 𝓂𝒶𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓇 ~
There is no “information” in the surface of the photograph beyond what is presented to the viewer. A photograph does carry artistic information (intent, backstory, a hidden message, you name it). But the surface that you look at begins and ends with the surface.
This is probably very confusing for advanced, pixel-peeping, histogram-gazing photographers, but is really, really intuitive for people who have done any sort of painting; or any other form of art, for that matter.
Let’s break that down into smaller, more digestible chunks…
1. “Mobile Photoraphy” / The technical reasons
You may have or haven’t read my previous rant about “mobile photography”, if you haven’t - just know that I use this tandem of words with great irony.
Many camera apps found on smartphones will boast their “HDR” or “HDR+” or “HDR Pro” or any other bullshit letter-soup combination. This is completely different to “HDR” display technology or encoding. “HDR” or “HDRI”, before the display marketeers absorbed the three-letter-combination, used to mean “High Dynamic Range” which was achieved by stacking multiple exposures (Bracketing), ranging from ‘underexposed’ to ‘overexposed’ and selectively (usually automatically) darkening the very light areas, and lightening the very dark areas.
Here’s is a simplified example I yoinked from Wikipedia that explains the process:
This, or similar, technique was also employed by many photography enthusiasts to create a style called “HDR photography”. I will not tell you what I think about it, and giving you examples would just turn me into a bully, so please use a websearch. Trust me, you’ll see them immediately.
So, HDR. Have you ever taken a picture of a person and found their skin looking a bit… Burned? Dirty, like they’ve been working in a coal mine? Sometimes looking a like a peach? Overall very displeasing, maybe even uncanny?
I keep using this example of myself (because it’s very uncomplimentary), but it illustrates my grievances rather well:
It takes the dark parts of the image and lightens them up, and it takes the light parts of the image and darkens them.
Which results into a much flatter, a sort of warped picture.
Let’s crystalize this effect a little bit more. Remember, a picture is a collection of gradients, ranging from “long” (think “sky”) to “short” (think “edge”).
Take this stack of gradients, which goes from extreme darkness, to extreme lightness:
Now, let’s apply our “darkening of the light parts and lightening of the dark parts” HDR process. Given that a simple “HDR” mode in a camera app will take 3 exposures…
Truly grotesque.
What if, we only do it on “the highlights”? What if…
“the sky is blown out”
Let’s bring those “highlights” down…
Do you see the apparent ‘warping’ of the surface? This is exactly what happens when you adjust “the highlights” (whatever that is) separately to the rest of the image.
Yes, you can see colours beyond the number 10 on the picture now. But is it a pleasing image? Is it easy to ‘read’?
(This is also the reason of why I’m hesitant to introduce ‘graduated neutral-density filters’ (or exposure gradients) in Saulala)
2. The creative reasons
Let’s go back to the “information” part of this rant. When you take a photograph, you are usually “limited” to a certain field of view. “Limited” is often used in a derogatory way, as if there’s something left out. Something out of reach. Something lost. But any prime lens aficionado will tell you that the prime lens they have on, is all they will ever need. But think about all the information that is lost and could’ve been captured!
If that mattered at all, 360° panoramas would be the peak of photography.
Yet, 360° photography is only a tiny niche, useful in 3D modelling or VR applications.
So when you take a picture, you pick an arbitrary ‘frame’ you want to capture, a thin slice of your (potential or otherwise) field of view. That already is a creative choice! But “photography” doesn’t even start there! It starts by you noticing something that you would like to take a photo of. Something, that might be worth of attention. The subject of your photograph. The reason why you chose to take a photo.
We, as brain transport, can only focus on so many things before it all becomes too distracting, too messy. That’s why the 360° panoramas feel… hollow. Empty. Aimless. There is nothing that guides our attention to that something that made you took that photo.
So why do people obsess with “lost information” in the “shadows” and/or “highlights”? Are they affected by marketing tricks? Have they been influenced by YouTube influencers that praise the newest Apple Android Pro Max Turbo that makes the sky blue, the grass green, the sun yellow and lays it all out for you as if it was a spreadsheet of “items in this photograph”?
When looking at “before” / “after” comparisons, you could say “ah well, but by focusing on the basin and the light, you’ve lost the painting in the background”.
Yes, but the paining in the background was never the reason I took the picture.
This is why I hate A/B comparisons! They skew the perception of the original work!
Okay, could you tell me what “information” is lost in this picture?
No! Because the artist did not choose to include it! Why? Because…
~ 𝐼𝓉 𝒹𝑜𝑒𝓈𝓃’𝓉 𝓂𝒶𝓉𝓉𝑒𝓇 ~
It didn’t matter to the artist, it shouldn’t matter to you (beyond curiosity of why it was framed like that, what’s in “the dark” etc.).
There is no “information” lost because that “information” has never been presented to you in the first place. It does not even exist for all you know.
3. The cognitive reasons
Exposure stacking / HDR / selective Lightening-darkening has another incredibly large, rarely mentioned, downside.
It messes with our ability to “read” pictures effortlessly.
Here’s something called “Depth map”, or “Z-Depth”, in 3D modelling world.
It’s basically a plot that uses ‘white’ to illustrate “near”, and “black” to illustrate “far”.
You’d probably agree that it was immediately clear that it’s a depiction of a torus-shaped object in 3D space. Notice how this depiction is mainly constructed out of “light areas” and “dark areas”.
Technically, there was no light source in the scene of this render, nor the are any “shadows”. It’s simply a plot of “near” and “far”. And that is perfectly easy for our brains to parse; it’s easy to understand that this a doughnut with one half of it “closer” to us, and the other half “farther”.
Interestingly, an “inverse” of this is also very intuitive to us. Simply because we’re familiar with ‘fog’ / ‘atmosphere’.
Things “far” from us are devoured by “fog”, things “close” to use seem more clear.
Now, let me mess with the very fragile, delicate balance of “light” and “dark”:
I have made the darker parts lighter, and the light parts darker essentially using the mid-point as pivot. This is what usually happens when you adjust “highlights” or “shadows”.
The picture becomes… weird. One can still understand that it’s a doughnut, but it becomes… sort of… unstable. It’s almost as if it requires and additional cognitive effort to parse.
I̶t̶ ̵b̸e̸c̵o̴m̷e̷s̶ ̵d̵i̸f̸f̴i̷c̶u̸l̵t̴ ̸t̷o̵ ̷r̴e̸a̴d̶
This especially happens often with landscape photography. “Dehaze” or “Clarity”, often times, messes with this layer of atmosphere that helps us understand which objects are in front and which ones in the back, and it creates this uncomfortable feeling.
Every picture becomes a some sort of M.C. Escher’s waterfall, a structure where if you focus on one thing, you become disoriented and lose track of the other areas you’ve just focused on.
Here’s an exaggerated example:
4. Finally, the conclusion
Stop scanning the world. It has already been done by a certain corporation. I do not want to see a spreadsheet-list of things that were in front of your camera. I want to attempt to experience an experience you experienced when you decided to take out your camera. And it will be an experience unique to me, that will likely have no relation to yours.
Art is not just about the output / result, no matter what “AI” shills will try to tell sell you.
It is about encoding an experience, a feeling, an emotion, a moment, and allowing a different person to decode it, sometimes in a way you intended, sometimes in their own, unique way. The best you can do is to be their guide, giving them precise, clear instructions on how to decode what you have encoded.