Going too far digitally?

[panzershreck]

convention is to turn left, when the road goes left, and to turn right, when the road goes right, and not turn at all, when the road isn't turning

*but* there is no exact way to drive

though knowing the conventions is a good start than building on nothing at all (unless you enjoy exploding cars driving off cliffs - i know i do)

 

[alexecho]

marctwo, a hologram is a 2d rendering of a 3d, er, thing! As such I say it qualifies as an image.

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.

Then I'll make one! Serously, once you've finished your ten years work, is it available for disecti... I mean, reading? You're right of course, but I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures.

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.

I'll accept any semi-permanent image made by light... (heliograph?) How do I phrase this? I'll accept distorted light, following it's natural path through obsticals such as lenses and filters, but not clusters of light caught at different times, or in different places patched together.

*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?

:blushing: No comment? That really wasn't what I meant, was it?!
It is only a photograph if the light that forms it is from a single source, which can be distorted but not fragmented?
You didn't give your opinion of a laser, Hertz.

 

[ksmattfish]

I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures.

The gelatin silver prints I make in my darkroom are made with a series of exposures: 1 on the film and 2 or more on the paper (the main print exposure, and usually a burn exposure; possibly several seperate exposures at different contrast grades).

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures. I'll accept any semi-permanent image made by light... (heliograph?) How do I phrase this? I'll accept distorted light, following it's natural path through obsticals such as lenses and filters, but not clusters of light caught at different times, or in different places patched together.

(Firstly, I didn't say 'semi-permanent', I used the expression 'reasonably permanent'. There is a significant difference between the two and I was careful in my choice of words.)

What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?
One is an image produced by photographic means and the other is an image produced by photographic means.... Hmmm.

So according to your hypothesis there is a difference between images made from one exposure and images made from multiple exposures.
Example:
I construct a still life in the studio lit by flash.
I set the camera up, turn the lights off, open the lens and expose the image by firing off the flash.
I repeat the exposure but this time I close the lens aperture down 1 stop.
This means I have to double the amount of light on the subject to get the same exposure in the camera.
I do this by firing the flash off twice at the same power.
There is a significant time lag between the two flashes as the power pack has to recharge.
This gives me a photograph that is technically made from a series of exposures.
The end result is the same, though. I get two photographs that are identical. They are indistinguishable to the naked eye and by any test known to Science.
But according to you, they are different. One is a photograph and the other isn't.
If the difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?

It is only a photograph if the light that forms it is from a single source, which can be distorted but not fragmented?

That is an even more untenable hypothesis.
I go out at night and take a photograph of the night sky and record the stars, each one an individual light source... (the light from them having taken many years to reach the camera, by the way).
I go into the studio and light my subject using three lights...
At night I photograph the City, which is ablaze with light fom hundreds of street lights and neon signs...
These scenarios would all result in photographs formed by light from multiple sources.

Then I'll make one! Serously, once you've finished your ten years work, is it available for disecti... I mean, reading?

It will be published when it is finished and submitted - whenever that is.
The end product will be a thesis proposing a possible framework within which a critical photographic theory can be constructed.
I fully expect it to be examined, debated and tested by anyone who cares to read it. That is the usual fate of theories.
So of course you may 'disect' it if you wish. But I suspect you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using to dig yourself a hole. :lmao:

 

[alexecho]

Hertz, I can say only that I am fully aware that I am digging a hole, but I am enjoying doing it. I worry that you may feel I am questioning your logic, trying to debate your ten years of work. That is not the case. I will say again what I said before: I know you are correct.

But... I feel the question 'what is a photograph' is a debatable point. So I debate my point, shovel in hand, not to try to show that you are wrong, but to help me understand why I am wrong. I hope that, at least, makes some sense?

"What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?"
A photograph shows something that is real, in some moment of time it exsisted, though not nececcerily exactly as it is seen as it can be manipulated by different lenses or filters. A photographic image adjusts reality in some way, moves or duplicates components of the image.

"...difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?"
For me it all comes down to if what you are showing is true to life... I can't find the right words to express my thoughts.

Finally, just to (try to) clarify my terrible phrazing, when I said "the light that forms it is from a single source" I didn't mean a single physical source, such as a single lamp, I meant that you wern't capturing a little bit of something over there and adding it to a little bit of something else over here...

"...you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using..."
The shovel is the best tool I have and I use it to the best of my ability. Thanks for the debate - I realise you think I've mearly made a fool of myself with my half-witted comments, but I've enjoyed the mental excercise!

 

[panzershreck]

a "photograph" is a record, a "photographic image" is information recorded by means of light and lack of light

that's my opinion, but most things are not absolute

conventions are meant to have something you can build on, if we didn't have conventions, no matter how arbitrary they were, then a photograph in the total sense of the word, could be anything from the peeling paint on the side of a house, to a sunburn

but that isn't helpful in the real world

so to me, a photograph is a record of light in the form of a visual image (as defined by past conventions of art)

there is no slippery slope of course, even if you said all things are photographs, then you would still have to subdivide photographs into various crafts, so in the end, a photograph is still and only something recorded with light in the form of information resulting from a "device"

 

[ksmattfish]

For me a photograph is linked to a camera, but I consider X-ray machines, copiers, scanners, enlargers, etc... as variations of a camera. In many ways they are not as far removed from what most folks think of as cameras as some of the weirder cameras in my collection. As camera designers move away from the rules that they were bound to due to the restrictions of passing a roll of film through a camera I think that what we perceive as a camera will change quite a bit.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

I feel the question 'what is a photograph' is a debatable point.

It is only a debatable point because it has not yet been properly defined.
If you ask an Architect (and I have!) 'what is a building?' he will give you a succinct definition that sums it up perfectly. It's just that photographers have never bothered and have taken it on trust ('we know what a photograph is' - but if you question them they don't really have a clear idea. See this discussion.).

"What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?"
A photograph shows something that is real, in some moment of time it exsisted, though not nececcerily exactly as it is seen as it can be manipulated by different lenses or filters. A photographic image adjusts reality in some way, moves or duplicates components of the image.

You are getting confused through semantics, here. A 'photograph' is a distinct physical object. A 'photographic image' is a broader definition that would include projections formed by light as in projecting an image onto a screen.

"...difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?"
For me it all comes down to if what you are showing is true to life... I can't find the right words to express my thoughts.

I know what you are trying to say - but to answer my own question, the difference is in the mind. It does not have a physical reality. If I presented you with two photographs, one formed by multiple imagery, and did not tell you then you would not know and you would look at them equally. If I then told you that one was a multiple image then your perception of it would change - but the image wouldn't.

Finally, just to (try to) clarify my terrible phrazing, when I said "the light that forms it is from a single source" I didn't mean a single physical source, such as a single lamp, I meant that you wern't capturing a little bit of something over there and adding it to a little bit of something else over here...

Now you see how difficult it is. It is no good knowing what you mean if no one else does. And it is no good having a 'definition' that has exceptions - it ceases to be a definition. In this idea you are again becoming confused between the process and the end product. They are distinctly seperate.

"...you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using..."
The shovel is the best tool I have and I use it to the best of my ability. Thanks for the debate - I realise you think I've mearly made a fool of myself with my half-witted comments, but I've enjoyed the mental excercise!

Not at all. A lot of your thinking is just lazy because you haven't worked through your ideas enough - and you have taken what you 'know' and understand to be how things are (the first and hardest thing I had to to was jettison all my pre-conceived notions and ideas - most of them had no foundation but were just convention). All theories and ideas have to be tested. If you can find just one small case where the theory does not hold up then the theory is wrong. This is normally caused by something that hasn't been thought of in the first place - a 'blind spot'. I am still not convinced that my ideas are correct and am still checking. Discussions like this help me to refine and test my theories - and you have the same chance of finding a flaw in my thinking as anyone else. I'd sooner find it now than when I'm published. Read up about the history of Bertrand Russel and set theory to see what I mean - he wrote a book and it had been published before he found he was completely wrong. All he could do was insert an addendum saying that his theory - and thus the book - was rubbish!

 

[Rob]

These are all pretty narrrow-minded definitions aren't they:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define:+photograph&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

 

[Marctwo]

A picture produced by photography.

:meh:

 

[alexecho]

the difference is in the mind... If I then told you that one was a multiple image then your perception of it would change - but the image wouldn't.

You're right, that is what I meant. The only thing I can equate my theory to is the way people in the past have paid excessively large sums of money for a painting by a 'grand master', then found it to be a fake. Overnight that painting loses it's value. It hasn't changed except in perception though. My personal defination of a photograph works along the same lines of logic. Basically, my point comes down to the fact that you can't know if something is a photograph or not... which makes a terrible definition, and is why I freely admit I'm wrong...

And it is no good having a 'definition' that has exceptions - it ceases to be a definition.

So your work will be just a couple of lines with no "if's" or "but's"? I must mis-understand you. Surely a definition can have exceptions, as long as they are themselves clearly outlined? In which case (I'm pushing my luck here!) my theories are not certainly wrong, just as yet under-developed? They would only fall apart completely (I imagine) when I tried to tie in all the exceptions...

 

[Jeff/fotog]

My personal problem with some digital photography is that the images are all about increased saturation (tough to look at a long time) and the exploration of the medium beyond the image's basic strengths. While it's good to privately explore the dimensions of a particular medium, each image should stand on its own merit, no matter the technology that is being utilized.

I have shot some digital images in B & W and found the grey scale better in some cases and worse in others than in properly worked analogue photography. However, if it is all about technology, often times the image itself suffers.

My advice is make the best image you can with the technology you have when you are showing to others, and all the rest follows.

Hopefully this is helpful?

www.jefferyraymond.com

 

[ksmattfish]

My personal problem with some digital photography is that the images are all about increased saturation (tough to look at a long time)

I have the same problem with the popularity of Velvia.

 

[panzershreck]

as for digital, you could say that going by my idea of what a photographic image is (information via light and lack of light), that a digital photographic image, processed through a non-light oriented system, is no longer a photo

and same goes for film photography, where in the darkroom, things can change with the medium, rather than just light

i guess there would have to be a general "convention", that say, if manipulation is beyond say 30% of the total information of the original photographic image, then it is no longer a photographic record, but instead relegated to the category of photographic art (not in the field of subject, composition, or etc., but craft/material), and that a distinction between the two should be made

neither change that the photographic image is a thing produced via light, using a device (machine - simple or complex), it is not produced by eyesight, but by the physical objects themselves, and a photographic record is not pencils or paint, but a physical object, that say - does not require the person to be there at that moment to view the image

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Basically, my point comes down to the fact that you can't know if something is a photograph or not...

So you can't tell the difference between an oil painting, a photograph and my Aunt Mimi's feather boa?
But that's silly, isn't it? So you can exclude all the things you know aren't photographs and try seeing what you've got left.

So your work will be just a couple of lines with no "if's" or "but's"? I must mis-understand you. Surely a definition can have exceptions, as long as they are themselves clearly outlined? In which case (I'm pushing my luck here!) my theories are not certainly wrong, just as yet under-developed? They would only fall apart completely (I imagine) when I tried to tie in all the exceptions...

A definition, by definition(!), defines accurately what something is - and thus of necessity also defines what it isn't.
If you find exceptions it is usually a good indication that the criteria have been set too narrowly or that you haven't identified the underlying principles correctly.
Suprisingly, once you analyse things down to a basic set of criteria it takes very little to accurately define most things. What takes the time, effort and research is substantiating the definition.
Defining the photograph actually came about as a by-product of trying to define Photography. And that only came about by accident. My researches were on something else entirely - but photo related - and I discovered that no-one had produced a succesful definition and I needed one.
So far it's the whole first chapter...