Had a terribly interesting thought a moment ago, thought I'd share it with you and see what you think.

Wouldn't share all the following technobabble with you for its own sake, but its ultimate point seems potentially useful for any artist to think about.

This thought is the culmination of a subconscious path I've been on for years, but just now realized:

I don't think black is photorealistic.

Emphasis on the "I" there - it's an opinion - but ponder the magnitude of that while I explain myself...

And keep in mind I have no artistic training, so if I'm stating the obvious, please forgive me.


First off, for anyone unclear on my idea of "photorealism:"

Some people, justifiably, would ask, "how is it meaningful for a photographer to consider himself a photorealist?, when a (decent) photograph is photorealistic by definition?"

It's that the camera itself imposes a lack of reality, because by necessity it captures a more dramatic contrast that we see with our own two eyes. Our eyes adjust to changes in brightness so quickly that we can see much more dynamic range "on the spot" than a camera can often capture in a whole scene. (Have actually become sensitive to this optical quick adjustment in my own vision - it's kinda strange!)

My goal as a "photorealist," then, is to put the reality back into the photo, in effect making the tone (if not the color) more like we'd see with our own two eyes. (Honeymoon Is Over and End of the Tunnel being prime examples.) Think, emphasis on the "realist" rather than the "photo." And what I've been doing for years, long before ever thinking about this consciously, is spending much more care on my midtones than is common, besides which pulling in detail from my extremes.

I think it was quite accidental to begin with, driven by necessity - rich midtones hold color better - but then became a learned behavior once I got more obsessed with form, and eventually among my highest goals.

But this has been contrary to much of Photoshop tradition, which has tend to make contrast more dramatic than the captured shot. It's tend toward this for a number of reasons:

First, because higher contrast is simply more attention-getting optically;

Second, because higher contrast is frequently more iconic, reducing a subject to a more stark rendition and therefore more direct representation of itself, in effect "boiling out" the reality to portray something more directly conceptually (i.e., the "Charlie Brown everyman effect," but less extremely);

And third, because Photoshop's own commands favor expanding contrast, much more than they do compressing it without throwing away detail.


Have been especially aware of this latter point because of a recent tech leap, in which I create a "fillet" of a contrast, "chopping up" or pulling its brightest and darkest detail inward toward 50% grey but maintaining all suitable detail distinction. (As near as I can tell, it'd be impossible to do with a Curve, and certainly not to the same quality.)

This "pulling in," incidentally, without running High Pass (that I'm so obsessed with lately) or any other filters (cause I don't allow myself any others), so it offers many benefits of High Pass - bringing detail into a more even playing field - but with no halos whatsoever. (It then, in turn, becomes a fabulous basis for High Pass, but with tons of its own value regardless.)

(It's basically a counterintuitive blend operation, used twice subconsciously (in both Eye on the Prize and Promise to Keep) before noticing its significance. Used it quite consciously in Ever Since Forever After to restore form to his blown out face and the jacket from the shadows. It seems to offer benefits similar to superluminosity, which has been my shadow-detail/dark-hair godsend for nearly two years, but on both ends rather than just pulled up from shadows.)

And I have found this contrast a revelation to work with. That is, it creates a whole different basis on which to shape light and shadow. (Not to mention a whole different quality of edges.) Have long been theoretically intrigued with working "outward" from gray rather than up or down from an extreme, but lately have finally figured out how to make it practical.

(Ironically to this discussion, however, the fillet "pulls inward" all of a contrast except pure black and pure white, which it leaves alone. So it definitely benefits from a proper exposure to begin with. But the reclaimation of form from very-near-white and very-near-black is beyond belief.)

So as I've been experimenting with this, finessing the contrast back out, I keep noticing that when I push back out to some blackness is when I feel I've "gone too far." Am sceptical of pure white too, of course, for its loss of detail, but not nearly so much as I'm "threatened" by pure black.

In "the real world," there are things too bright to look at (and see detail), but virtually nothing (in lit conditions) too dark. It's amazing, if you notice, what we can discern out of even deep shadow.

Grasping this consciously just now inspired the thought.


Been having a good note exchange with =althepal99 (check him out!) ever since Eye on the Prize. All over the map about lots of things, but often about the nature of contrast itself.

I was 90% done with a reply today when it was time to leave work, but I was asserting a basic dilemma I struggle with:

1) I resist "higher contrast" as "too easy," but
2) I feel I should explore it artistically because of its inherit power, but
3) I run into a powerful mental roadblock every time I start to throw detail away, and I almost always "wuss out" from doing that.

(Life by the Horns and From This Day Forward being prominent exceptions, of course, and I don't mean it as an absolute anyway, but just a strong tendency. Cliches Because They're True was more typical, compulsive about not "throwing anything overboard." All the source detail is still there.)

But it was only just now during some research that I figured out where this "stall" is coming from:

Assuming a scene is lit (rather than unlit or nighttime), we don't generally see black with our own two eyes. We see some quality of detail or reflection once we both to look straight at it, rather than an empty vacuum of space. Even black things have texture, or shine.

And I feel like suddenly I understand so much of what I've been doing for ages, and so many values I've been striving for, even when I couldn't technologically achieve them yet. (Not until lately, when my new "silver lining" technique makes it easy to pull blacks into silver and then gently back into suitable shadow).

Was just drafting on a piece called Valentine Wishes. I spent over a hundred hours last year trying to pull off a certain "shiny photorealistic" look that constantly elude me, until I finally gave up in frustration. But, worth noting, more focused than ever on learning how to do what I then clearly didn't know how to do. That failure drove the year of research that's led up to the payoffs ever since (the Finishing Rinse, Silver Lining, the Fillet, which are all easy now, and Deep Depth, which is still a struggle but getting there).

Popped open Valentine Wishes' source shot and brewed up "the proper look" in about an hour. Which a hundred hours couldn't achieve before.

But it seems to "teeter over the line" as soon as I allow almost any true black.

(Not that it didn't have countless other problems last year, but "true black" may have been the last one.)


Have long been enamored of black and white film prints from the 50's and 60's. Not even necessarily "the real thing," but rather my conceptual memory of them: as silvery midtone renditions without a lot of bottom body to them. (I.e., the impression they've made on me has been more central to my thinking than the actual truth of that observation. I expect it's a drastic oversimplification to recall that era of photography that way. But, rightly or wrongly, it's what I remember most about it.)

For ages, if you'd asked me about my goals for digital photographic development, I would have point you back toward that ideal as represented in the film tradition. I'm purely digital, with no interest in actual film whatsoever, but terribly interested in those results. I've always know that was the kind of quality I was after.

So now I suddenly feel like a bunch of different threads in my thinking are coming together into a unified theory...

True black isn't photorealistic?

What do you think?