Helping “Master” Photographers

I’m not one to disregard everything that has come before me, but let’s face it, a lot of so called “master photographers” weren’t all that great. And the reason is quite simple. They were born before the advent of Photoshop. Thankfully there are people, such as myself, who can help them out.

Ansel Adams

Look, Ansel, you’re a master of controlling values, but anyone can hop in an RV, tool around some national park and take the same basic photo. If only you weren’t so confined by reality, maybe you could have shown us something truly spectacular and worth talking about. Something like…

Boom. I don’t care how many times you’ve been to Grand Teton National Park, you’ve never seen it like this.

Update (1/18/09) I made this a desktop wallpaper. Choose your size. 1600 x 1247 ¦ 1280 x 998 ¦ 1024 x 798 ¦ 800 x 624

Walker Evans

Walker, the photos you took in the 30′s for the Farm Security Administration really bring home the suffering caused by the Great Depression. But at some point during your journeys, you must have thought, “Why do they all have to be so gosh darn ugly? And their skin, my god, have they never heard of moisturizer?” At the time, you couldn’t fix these glaring problems, but I am more capable than you…

I’m sure Allie Mae Burroughs had a delightful personality, but look how much more delightful her personality is with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos-O’Connell’s face.

Brassaï

Hey Brassaï, nighttime photos of Paris are nice and all, but it’s called La Ville-Lumière, not La Ville-Too-Dark-To-Tell-What-You’re-Looking-At. Your darkroom must have had some serious light leaks, but don’t worry, I’ve fixed it for you.

It’s called a Curves adjustment layer, and you’re welcome.

Man Ray

Oh, look at me, I have a crazy name and I do crazy things like expose my prints to bright lights during development so that dark areas become light and light areas become dark. Those sorts of shenanigans may have impressed the fine art world in the 30′s, but you’ve got to step up your game. Have you considered…

Lens Flares! Now we’re cooking with avant-garde.

Alfred Eisenstaedt

Jeeze, your photo editor at Life must have been sleeping on the job the day you turned this photo in. We just declared victory over Japan and all you got was a drab black and white photo. Where’s the razzle dazzle, Al?

Now I know I’m supposed to be happy. Also notice my subtle use of hearts, which help to reinforce the feeling of cheer without drawing undue attention to itself.

Robert Frank

Hey Bobby, what did they teach you over there in Swiss photo school? Don’t you know the most important part of a person is their face? You totally covered it up by the tuba. Otherwise it’s a pretty decent photo, so let me help you out…

All better. And if you look closely you’ll see I made the tuba player Dizzy Gillespie. Sure it probably wasn’t Dizzy playing the tuba (I think he played the trombone or something), but it makes for a more interesting photo to have someone famous in it.

Diane Arbus

What is going on here? Photos of kids are supposed to be cute and adorable, Diane. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this an F. Lucky for you, all is not lost…

There’s a smile! I also Steven Spielberged out the grenade and replaced it with a bunny, so you can sell it to Hallmark. Thank me with a 20 percent cut from any subsequent sales.

Tom Kelley

Who knew when you were taking nude photos of a young starlet that she would one day become the world’s greatest sex symbol? To bad that by today’s standards, Marilyn Monroe’s proportions make her a fat cow. But all is not lost…

Va-va-voom! Now that’s something the kids today will go for.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many terrible, awful photos from history that are in dire need of my help. But I am only one man; there is only so much I can do. Perhaps in the future I’ll do more to help, but for now I must go sleep the sleep of the righteous and just.

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Nerd Shirts

Happy Porn

Lost Symbol

Tags: Alfred Eisenstaedt, Ansel Adams, Brassai, Diane Arbus, featured, Man Ray, Master Photographers, Photoshop, Robert Frank, Tom Kelley, Walker Evans

Art, Photoshop, Pictures, Writing | Adam | January 13, 2009 1:05 am

48 Comments

By Christina Rodriguez, January 13, 2009 @ 11:21 am

This is hilarious, Adam. Love your sense of humor. Keep up the good work!
By paul, January 13, 2009 @ 11:44 am

“my God, it’s full of lens flare”
By Yuliya Parshina, January 13, 2009 @ 3:47 pm

The only thing missing from Ansel Adam’s photo now is a nice, plump hobbit in the foreground!
By Alf, January 13, 2009 @ 5:17 pm

Adam,
The Bridger-Teton-Barad-dur National Park Ansel Adams mashup image deserves not only to be a postcard, but a full-size screen background. Would you mind posting a higher resolution version?
By Adam, January 13, 2009 @ 5:23 pm

I’d love to make it a screen background. Right now the limiting factor is the resolution of the Mordor image, but I’ll search some more and see what I can do.
By athena, January 13, 2009 @ 6:20 pm

more more!

do the rolling stone cover with yoko and lennon!
By erin, January 13, 2009 @ 6:29 pm

Thank god someone finally retouched that Walker Evans photo. Ugly poor people are SOOOOOooooOoOo depressing. So are depressions.
By irspariah, January 13, 2009 @ 6:40 pm

Reality will ALWAYS trump manipulation such as photoshop.
By Adam, January 13, 2009 @ 6:44 pm

If that was true, how do you explain such amazing movies as The Polar Express, Star Wars Episode III, and Frost/Nixon?
By Rachael Earl, January 13, 2009 @ 7:28 pm

Truly amazing! You’re going to be epic one day.
By Erin C, January 13, 2009 @ 9:05 pm

Oh man, if only I could show this to my History of Photography professor….! hahaha I might have to dig and find his email, he would get a good laugh out of this one! Although… on the other hand, he might just cry and quit teaching so maybe not such a good idea.
By Carley Mac, January 14, 2009 @ 12:44 am

oh man im laughing my ass off over here…..SO hilarious
By Marmalade, January 14, 2009 @ 6:14 am

dude, you rock. love your blog–it made me laugh out loud. not many photog blogs do that.
By ashley mcnamara, January 14, 2009 @ 10:01 am

That is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. The “smiling” kid almost made me pee myself. haha
By mary jane, January 14, 2009 @ 11:08 am

fat cow? what an asshole
By jess, January 14, 2009 @ 8:01 pm

he’s being facetious; if you don’t get the marilyn example isn’t the rest of the blog lost on you as well?
By Ki., January 14, 2009 @ 9:10 pm

This is amazing. I laughed so hard I Gaussian Blurred myself.
By Kat, January 16, 2009 @ 10:54 am

Ha. This made my day. Good show.
By Jen M, January 16, 2009 @ 4:02 pm

Oh that was awesome, thanks so much for the giggles!
By Cyndee, January 16, 2009 @ 4:18 pm

WOW – heelahreeoos!!! THanks for sharing .
By MaryAnn, January 16, 2009 @ 4:33 pm

Freakin’ hilarious!!!
By Jana Kunz, January 16, 2009 @ 4:41 pm

Very funny stuff. )
By Flora, February 6, 2009 @ 4:51 am

Great job. Thanks your.
By rob van pol, February 9, 2009 @ 1:06 am

“There are so many terrible, awful photos from history that are in dire need of my help.”

your help???

those pictures where made bu ARTISTS!

your ‘help’ is Aweful, Terrible and not just bad, but Bad bad

see http://www.worth1000.com how it’s done!

.
By Alberto, February 9, 2009 @ 10:28 am

Sorry, but whoever says that Marilyn Monroe was fat on that picture is 100% gay. For nowadays standarts she could be a little bit overwheighted for catwalks, but who cares… she’s still perfect as a woman.
By Ms. B., February 9, 2009 @ 10:23 pm

what total crap. nothing remotely funny.

pls. tell us that you just started photoshop, because this looks like the first attempts of a beginner.

and maybe you should atleast have a good look at artists you make fun of.
they made b/w pictures on film, not digital and then photoshop them.

go and practise
and come back in a year

or 2

3
By Adam, February 9, 2009 @ 10:46 pm

You’re obviously blind, Ms. B. The Photoshop work I display here is of the highest quality. Also, if these so called artists really cared about their work they wouldn’t have used such an antiquated medium as “film,” if that’s even a real thing.
By Mike Damanskis, February 9, 2009 @ 11:04 pm

Awesome post, Adam. And even awesomer responses to the haters.
By Ms. B., February 13, 2009 @ 10:09 pm

Geez, you have NO idea what ART is!

and your ‘Photoshop work’ here is of the highest quality ???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

no THAT was funny !

no that man with a giraffe neck
or a boy with a very badly done rabbit in his hand.

please please show us MORE of your fine art.

I’ll be back !!
By Adam, February 13, 2009 @ 10:27 pm

Man with a giraffe neck? I assume you mean the fantastic Dizzy Gillespie picture. Of course, I wouldn’t call him a giraffe because I’m not a raging racist like yourself. In fact, I even purposely made his head slightly larger than it would normally be, just to symbolize how smart he is and show off how not racists I am. But I wouldn’t expect a philistine such as yourself to appreciate such subtly.

And if you want to see more amazing fine art, poke around the site a little bit more. AdamThinks.com is like the Louvre, if the Louvre didn’t suck by having so much old stuff in it.
By ms. B., February 13, 2009 @ 10:31 pm

NO, I meant the man above with the tuba

and then there is that picture of the sailor kissing the girl (one of the most iconic of the 20th centuary)
yours looks like a 5 y.o. coloured it in

see how people who know photoshop do it

http://www.worth1000.com/cache/gallery/contestcache.asp?contest_id=356&display=photoshop
By Adam, February 13, 2009 @ 10:42 pm

The man with the tuba IS Dizzy Gillespie. God, all black people look the same to you, don’t they? What’s the B stand for Ms. B? Blackhating?

And it looks like a 5 year old colored the Alfred Eisenstaedt picture? Preposterous. A 5 year old wouldn’t have been able to expertly set up a custom brush to paint hearts, like I did. Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.
By April Ward, August 31, 2009 @ 7:03 pm

Which is funnier: these photos or the people who don’t get the joke?
Love your sense of humor and reading comments by the poor photo shop defending souls who don’t understand.
By Tia, September 6, 2009 @ 5:04 pm

Oh gawd. Xcellent photoshoppin’ skillz Adam. I knew my old history of photography teacher would love the improvements. He had a great sense of humor and so do you and I cannot believe the absolute morons who don’t get a joke, can’t read sarcasm, and have to capacity to understand wit.
By rizitis, October 14, 2009 @ 11:03 am

excellent !!!
By Dom, October 20, 2009 @ 4:36 am

I just found this post while researching Walker Evans. Absolutely hilarious!

Off now to look at some more of your thoughts…
By jeff, October 20, 2009 @ 9:38 am

yeah for stupid people!!!! Mr. Sacks is funny……Ms. B is an idiot
By jenna, October 22, 2009 @ 12:19 pm

Dude. you’re idea of women are so fucked up. and your edit of Marilyn Monroe?!?!?!?! She wasnt a fat cow! sorry shes not fucking Kate Moss sprinkling heroin in her Corn Flakes each morning! you need to take better editing classes and Life Drawing classes because the edit you did of her is physically impossible. nice try you fucking jackass. i bet you Never looked as good as marilyn monroe in that original picture. Women are a subject to be appreciated, not torn to shreads you stupid piece of shit.
By braverydanger, October 22, 2009 @ 1:19 pm

Jenna,
Do you maybe want to have dinner sometime? You sound hot!!!

Love,
Your secret admirer
By Digitante, December 4, 2009 @ 10:37 am

Wow, I don’t know which was more disturbing — those photo manips or the idiots who thought you were for real.
By Stephanie, December 10, 2009 @ 11:22 pm

Ansel Adams was my favorite, not sure why. You are funny. Thanks for making me laugh, but I like MM original style. =)
By Stephanie, December 10, 2009 @ 11:23 pm

Oh, and Walker Evans! Classic. If I send you a picture, can you fix me too?
By paul., January 13, 2010 @ 11:34 am

I, personally, like the one with the boobies.
By Laura, February 8, 2010 @ 3:44 pm

You’re amazing.

“now we’re cooking with avant garde”
MARRY ME
By Paul, May 5, 2010 @ 2:38 pm

I haven’t been here in a while and just had to comment. How do people come to this site and not understand that it is for HUMOR. Marilyn, fat=joke, Iconic WWII photo color=joke. Chill out people. Glad to see your are doing well. Keep it up Adam.