Is it Photography?

[Torus34]

Man Ray blew the sides out of the photographic box almost a century before a scanograph was even considered. He took the idea of 'writing with light' ['graph' means write, not paint.] quite literally.

 

[Meysha]

I'm going to look at this from a linguistic point of view... and not a technical point of view. Just to give you all something else to ponder.

What result does photography give you? - a photo

ok next 2 questions....

What do we get from a camera? - Photo
What do we get from a scanner? - Pictures/Images


I think we've all agreed that from both instruments we can acheive visually appealing images. But... we can't really use the word 'photo' to describe something that comes from a scanner.... can we?
So if we can't use the word photo to describe something that comes from a scanner... then we can't exactly use the word photography to describe its process.

Maybe in the future, the word photography will mould its meaning to be incorporated into scanners as well. But I beleive that at the moment the word photography is limited to usage with 'camera'.

So... that's a linguistic point of view.

 

[Digital Matt]

By that rational, a negative, once scanned, is no longer a photo.

 

[Meysha]

Well it's not... it's a scan of a photo. hehehehe.

 

[Christie Photo]

I'm going to look at this from a linguistic point of view... and not a technical point of view. Just to give you all something else to ponder.

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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

photography

SYLLABICATION: pho·tog·ra·phy

NOUN: 1. The art or process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces. 2. The art, practice, or occupation of taking and printing photographs. 3. A body of photographs.

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If I had to define photography in court of law, my definition would be:

The process of making a two-dimetional representation of a scene or object by recording reflected or transmitted light.

Looks like I left out holograms. Hmmmmm.

Pete

 

[jkruppa]

Sidestepping the semantic issue, those look like photographs to me. I don't personally care about definitions, though. If you create an interesting, compelling or useful image, what does it matter how you do it or what you call it. Use every tool at your disposal to create.

Jason

 

[PNA]

All the arguments presented above are excelent, and here's my $.02 worth.

Photo = light.
Graphy = representation.

Photography = art of reproducing a presentation on photo (light) sensitive paper.

From The American Heritage Dictionary.......

Not a word about negatives or how light is used to generated a representation to be reproduced on light sensitive paper; ie. camera, box with cap or scanner.

My conclusion is: any way you can do it, it's photography!

Each of us, as photographers, are creators of images from the point and shoot family shots to the high end quality shots that evoke emotions.
If it looks good to your eye and you "snap" it, you are a creator and in my book, that's what counts.

Paul

Comments, pleese

 

[JJP]

That's really interesting, I personally wouldn't call that photography, but still, veeery interesting.

 

[Terence]

To me, photography is science taken out of the hands of the scientists by the artist - it is the means of painting with light. It is not digitalised or pixilated, it is light reflected, manipulated and captured on celluloid or glass. To call a 'Scan' a photograph is to distort the art completely, since to scan the image, means a negative or positive is required. In today's world may words are being 'adopetd' - such as "an Architect" was one who desigend buiildings - now that word has been adopted by IT. Photography is yet another word to bring technology into an art, in which it has no real place.

Is a scaned image a photograph - I would have to say no, no matter how pleasing the subject may appear.

 

[shaddy]

Interesting debate. For some of the arguments for "no", I'd have to ask how much scanning differs from using a digital camera?

I agree that it doesn't really matter, maybe you can even make up your own term.

Shaddy