Going too far digitally?

['Daniel']

What about a projection on a screen?

 

[ksmattfish]

If you only produce 'pure' photographs then classify your works as 'photographs'. If some of your works will not fit comfortablly with that then classify your works as 'prints', 'images', 'layouts', 'jobs' or even 'fish' if it makes you feel better.

I don't believe in "pure" photographs, because the definition of "pure" photography is an opinion. How does any particular photographer define "pure"? There are many ways, I'm sure.

Is it photography as it was very first practiced? That would eliminate film and color from photography.

Is it photography that is accurate to reality? That would eliminate BW, anything shot with filters, contrast manipulation, etc... How accurate to reality does it have to be? Is BW okay, but using a fisheye lens going too far?

People have apparently assumed that photographs were the absolute truth in the past, and digital is new technology that allows photographers to bend and distort reality. This isn't true at all. The new technology has only exposed the amount of bending and manipulation that has always gone on, but behind the closed doors of the photography studio/lab.

In my mind photography is manipulation of reality from the beginning; to me there is no such thing as an unmanipulated photograph. Framing the world within a rectangle or square manipulates reality. Setting the shutter speed manipulates the flow of time. Using a wide angle lens manipulates reality. Choosing BW film or Velvia manipulates reality, and so on.

Add in that people may perceive reality quite differently from one another, and nailing down what "pure" or "straight" photography is becomes quite a task, unless we accept that it can mean different things to different photographers.

 

[danalec99]

bravo Matt!

 

[terri]

bravo Matt!

:thumbup: That's what I was thinking.

 

[Marctwo]

I don't believe in "pure" photographs, because the definition of "pure" photography is an opinion.

That's the point! It's also why I quoted 'pure'.

Everyone has their own idea of how much manipulation is acceptable within the classification of a 'photograph'... but why is this important when you can simply call them all 'prints', 'images', etc...

<edit>BTW, why would you pick on one word from my post to disagree with and completely ignore the meaning behind my post? </edit>

 

[Hertz van Rental]

What about a projection on a screen?

It's a projection. Turn the projector off and the image vanishes so it doesn't form a 'reasonably permanent' image.
If, however, I were to stick a stencil on my skin and sunbathe so that I tanned but the stencil left pale marks... that would qualify as a photograph

 

[Marctwo]

I came by a load of old computer gear from an old wearhouse and on testing one of the monitors it had a graphical band clearly burnt across the bottom of the screen. Seems they hadn't heard of screen savers.

Needless to say, this is one photograph I didn't bother keeping.

 

[montresor]

I tend to use film. It's what the cameras I have are designed for. I wonder if my first camera had been a digital SLR would I have gone to film at all. Not much inclination to do much in the way of manipulation, though, beyond finding exactly the right place to stand when taking the picture and, after processing, cropping if I think it would help. Oh, and discarding the ones that didn't work! That may be the most valuable manipulation of all.

 

[ksmattfish]

BTW, why would you pick on one word from my post to disagree with and completely ignore the meaning behind my post?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to pick on you. I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was just voicing my thoughts triggered by the phrase "pure photography".

 

[Rob]

How about a thing carved with a laser, Is that a photograph?

 

[alexecho]

You are half-right.

Well, that's not too bad when you consider I'm nine years, 364 days, 23 hours and fifty five minutes behind on the thinking time!

The double exposure either in the camera or in the darkroom is still using light to make an image.

Then I would argue that the light has to hit the paper direct from a single piece of film, showing an image distorted only by lenses, filters and time... I'm still best part of ten years behind on the thinking time, but I hope you see the general direction I'm coming from even if I'm not wholey accurate.

As for digital, it's harder to difine with my explanation. I'm seemingly pushing towards no digital image being a real photograph, but that's not right, so with the next best-part-of-ten-years I'll have to write in some provisos about that...

My definition means that any image produced by the action of light is technically a photograph so a double exposure is one as well.

I really don't want to agree with you - I desperately want to stick with what I've just said, but the more I consider it, the more sense what you say makes! I guess I just like to think that an actual 'photograph' is a capture of a moment in time that however briefly, really exsisted. A double exposue kills that thought.

A multiple exposure could theoretically allow Big Ben and the Eifal Tower to stand next to one-another in Times Square... (Well, probably not, but it does make things look to be different to how they really are. )

The Photoshop thing is done to the image after it has been 'made' and should be seen as being like taking a pair of scissors to some prints and cutting and pasting things together.

Ah! Now we agree. :mrgreen: It would have been so much easier I'f I'd just accepted all you said though, because I'm sure my comments won't stand up to your ten years thinking!

But then if you send the computer file to a laser image setter you get an image formed by light and so...

Argh! STOP! I'm getting a headache. It is only a photograph if the light that forms the image comes initially from reality. Distortion of time and light are 'acceptable' modifications, but movement of image components...

OK, OK, you win - but thanks for your thoughts, you've given me a lot to think about!

 

[Marctwo]

How about a thing carved with a laser, Is that a photograph?

Nice one. I think we need a definition of 'image' now.

 

[alexecho]

A thing carved with a laser is not a photograph because it is not a recording of the physical made by light? It is merely focussed light used as a drawing implement.

An image is any two dimentional rendering of 3d materials? :greenpbl: (D'ya ever wish you never asked?)

 

[Marctwo]

An image is any two dimentional rendering of 3d materials? :greenpbl: (D'ya ever wish you never asked?)

What about a hologram? I'd have thought that was an image.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

A hologram qualifies as a photograph.
As for multiple images, there is no law that I know of that says you can't make 1 photographic image up from a series of exposures. I was shown how to do it in the camera straight onto film by Micky Moulton - he used a series of mattes inside the camera to cover areas over. And advertising photographers commonly expose the film by using a sequence of flash firings. Technically all multiple exposures but all finishing as a single image.
The thing that you need to remember is that it is not the process that is important - just the end product.
If you have never seen a photograph produced by the camera at a racecourse for photo-finishes then you are in for a shock.
Multiple images are produced on the one film. The horses heads appear in the same horizontal position but each suceeding one is further up the vertical. The distance vertically is determined by the time diference between the horses.
It is a photograph, Jim, but not as we know it.
It is important when thinking about Photography and the photograph to get away from the notion that a picture can only be produced by a camera in the 'traditional' way. Nor does the process have to be silver based.
And there is nothing in the simple definition that dictates that the image has to be recognisable to the unaided eye to qualify.
The first thing you need to do is get rid of your pre-conceived notions. They are often wrong and they just shackle your thinking.

*Edit* 'And it's only a photograph if the light that forms it comes initially from reality'?
ALL light comes from reality - where else could it come from?