THIS is what photography is all about!

[Jim Walczak]

Looking at an oil painting hanging on a wall is a totally different experience to looking at a photograph of it on a website, but when it is digitised it is just another image.

If we are in fact talking oil paintings in the classical sense of say Caravaggio's "Calling of St. Matthew" as it hangs in the San Luigi dei Francesi, then yes...this is certainly a different "experience" than the way we perceive most images today. Even in terms of work that may be displayed in a gallery where the "space" (including the lighting) may be tailored to the piece, there is a certain something that may very well be lacking in "reproductions". That said however don't confuse "digitized" with reproductions. The reproduction of such work has been around LONG before the days of computers.

Consider the Mona Lisa...there are without doubt countless copies of the original and have been for a very long time. Certainly those copies, be it in print, on the internet or otherwise, don't compare to the "original"...regardless of where the original may hang (you can bet your britches that Leonardo didn't intend that painting to hang in the Louvre). However, your comment seems to be intended to belittle such copies. It completely over-looks the fact that without such reproductions, digital or otherwise, the vast majority of people on this planet would have little or no chance to see such work, let alone be inspired by it. Think about how many other notable artists have done their own interpretations of the Mona Lisa...people ranging from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol. And because of such reproductions, even lowly people like myself can, to this day, be inspired by such work...



That is my own rendition of da Vinci's famous painting...in this case, created as a vector illustration in Illustrator, with additional airbrush work (mainly the background) done in Photoshop. The piece was created to accompany a video I created for an art history class, also on da Vinci's work (I also created my own version of Vitruvian Man as well). Is viewing the image here on a forum as significant as viewing the print I did for the classroom, let alone da Vinci's original? Does it look as good here on my monitor as the matted print does? No...of course not. Does that make my work any less significant for what it is? I won't speak for others who do such work, but I take great pride in the work I accomplished...and I do have to take some offense to the suggestion that such work is "just another image". Whether I ever become famous or not, because I took something classical and re-created it in a rather unconventional way, that would seem to put me in good company with other notable artists.

Without access to reproductions, the simple truth is that I wouldn't have been able to create my own work with that piece...I just don't have access to a private jet to be able to fly out to the Louvre, let alone be able to sit there for 2 weeks in order to work from the original (if nothing else, I had a full load of classes that semester, LOL).

This is just my own opinion, however I think you have strongly over-looked the significance of reproductions...digitized or otherwise.

The software used to create or manipulate an image is irrelevant. The end result is important in the sense that the image is what the artist envisioned before they started. Various bits of software create images associated with that software, 3D software like Cinema 4D can create images that cannot be created with Photoshop or Illustrator, but my point is that someone who is very proficient in a certain piece of software will tend to use that software and that is a limitation.

Ok...again I think you're over-looking a few things. While I haven't used Cinema 4D (yet), I do have a fair amount of experience using Maya, Poser and Daz, and to some lesser degree Max and even Blender. Compare Poser and Maya...NO the software isn't "irrelevant" AT ALL. Not by a freakin' long shot. Compare Poser to Maya for example...Poser is a fun little software package for getting your feet wet (as is Daz), however in comparative terms, it's incredibly limited in it's capabilities. I recently did a commission where the piece required a total of 88 lights...you just can't do that in Poser. Then of course there's the issue of "learning curve"...a novice can open Poser and within a few minutes of poking at buttons and flipping thru menus and such, figure his/her way around some of the basics. Maya on the other hand, a novice can spend MONTHS poking at that software and be lucky to not break it! I've been using Maya for a few years now and there are days where I STILL feel as though I've only scratched the surface. And in terms of learning curves, Maya makes Photoshop look like MicroSoft paint!

As far as one's "comfort zone" regarding software usage, I will agree that it can be a limitation to some, however there's something to be said for those who specialize as well. Again consider a professional feature animation...you don't just have 1 person who does the "CG"...you have teams of people dedicated to modeling, rigging, textures, lighting, etc...people who specialize. I choose to pursue whatever catches my fancy as a freelance artist and as such, I do have experience with a variety of applications, however that shouldn't in any way suggest that every artist needs to be a "master of all hats". After all, some of histories greatest painters never did anything but paint. If someone uses just Photoshop (or Lightroom or Coral or Aperture or Gimp....) and they are happy with their results, I can't really fault anyone for that.

I will say that I am a big believer in "the right tool for the right job" and that one uses whatever one needs to get one where he/she needs to go, however to suggest that the software is somehow irrelevant seems rather naive at best.

 

[runnah]

Photography is just another way to make pictures. Not sure why everyone is so uptight about it. Insecurities maybe.

 

[PropilotBW]

There's no way they created that Namib desert photo without photoshop. If it was a night photo created with a long exposure, then there should be star trails.
It's on the Internet, so it must be fact.

 

[runnah]

There's no way they created that Namib desert photo without photoshop. If it was a night photo created with a long exposure, then there should be star trails.
It's on the Internet, so it must be fact.

Yeah this list is baloney

 

[limr]

Why the resistance to calling something "graphic art" instead of "photography"? Changing the label doesn't stifle creativity - it simply assigns a more precise name to an image that didn't start its life in a camera. It's not a judgement on the quality or validity of the image, either. For me, the only muddied water is when an image starts as a photograph and then becomes so heavily manipulated that it becomes something more akin to graphic or digital art. There's no good word for that kind of hybrid.

For myself at least, the "resistance" is because what I do as a graphic artist, even if my art work includes photography, is different from what I do as a photographer. In other words...

This...



...is different than this...




...which is different than this...



...which is completely different than this...



The first is a photograph (albeit a creatively captured photograph using a "painting with light" technique), the second is a vector illustration, the third is a 3D render (just fired off this morning for the sake of this conversation) and the last is a photo manipulation. If we simply choose to lump all such pictures under the category of "graphic art", then essentially all we have are 4 pictures of guitars....which for some people is fine. After all, it's all just CG right?? As a freelance however, for myself at least, it's important to distinguish such differences...what I do with vectors as a graphic artist is quite different than what I do as a photographer which is quite different from what I do in 3D. They are distinct and unique disciplines. From that perspective, again it's no different than traditional artists...a person who paints does something quite different than someone who draws/creates sketches, which is a different discipline still from someone who does sculpting. All may loosely be considered "artists", but you generally wouldn't call someone who paints a sculptor (unless of course they do both, LOL).

In very loose definitions, I do in fact consider all of those images to be "digital art" and likewise consider myself to be a digital artist. If I were doing a mixed exhibition of my work (as apposed to an exhibition featuring just my photography), I would label it as such ("The Digital Art of..."), however when I'm dealing with clients (or even other artists), such distinctions are in fact quite important. If someone hires me for my photography work, they are not hiring me as a graphic artist to do vectors and vice-versa (and I do typically charge different rates depending on the gig).

For myself at least, I hope the explains why I feel such distinctions are important.

I think you misunderstood my point. I did not mean everything that didn't come out of a camera should be called graphic art; I was saying that there should be distinction between photography and other forms of digital art depending how the image was created. And I wondered why some people get their panties all in a bunch if someone says, "No, that's not really photography; it would be more accurate to call it graphic or digital art or [insert term for finer distinctions here]." They seem to argue that the term "photography" should be expanded. I argued that it should not be expanded, but that other terms be used to describe them more precisely.

 

[Scatterbrained]

There's no way they created that Namib desert photo without photoshop. If it was a night photo created with a long exposure, then there should be star trails.
It's on the Internet, so it must be fact.

At night, in the desert, under a full moon, you can get stars and well illuminated foreground without trails, so long as you use a very wide, fast lens. Granted I imagine there may be some stacking or other work going on in that image, but you can get a well illuminated foreground without star trails if you have a full moon.

 

[Achaicus]

@Jim Walczak

Those kinds of questions were what I had in mind to generate by stating the process that happens because of the usual visual laziness ingrained in society and evidenced in the expressions used about images. Why would it matter that a picture is "worth a thousand words" if those words weren't assumed to be true? It is that assumption that often gets tripped over and we are shown to be wrong over and over concerning images. It is as much a commentary about us as it is about any photograph. We all have varying reactions to that process of moving past laziness and into a critical assessment of our own perceptions of reality.

This thread's start of bashing photoshop is one more example of that laziness. Worse it is an assertion of the "truth" of the images which oversteps anyone's right to judge the degree of veracity of the images for themselves.

The one that stands out to me as being a composite image is the one titled "An autumn forest. 50% downloaded". Was the landscape like that? I highly doubt it, but I still like the image with that knowledge that it is probably a composite. But if whoever wants to claim that was the scene in front of the camera I'll think they are lying. Don't lie to me, don't hate me like that.

 

[407370]

Sorry Jim you lost me.
I would never show disdain for anyones artistic interpretation of anything. That is an assertion that you made.
If I took a picture of the Mona Lisa then that photograph is in fact a digital image to be manipulated to the users requirements with no more or less options than any other digital image.
My friends dont care what software I used to create an image. Whether they like it or hate it has no reference to the process used to create it. If I stick a few images on a website no mention is made of creation process, just that I am interested in peoples reactions to the image. PROCESS is totally irrelevant to me.
Jim, you seem obsessed about the technicalities of creating an image and thats fine, but I have a different viewpoint.
Each to their own.

 

[407370]

.

.NO the software isn't "irrelevant" AT ALL. Not by a freakin' long shot. Compare Poser to Maya for example...Maya on the other hand, a novice can spend MONTHS poking at that software and be lucky to not break it! I've been using Maya for a few years now and there are days where I STILL feel as though I've only scratched the surface.

You truly are missing my point.
The viewer does not need an explanation of how long it took you to learn a technique or how difficult the software is to use. They just have to look at the image.

 

[Achaicus]

Just looking is a mental process which is affected by what we know and assume. Is it necessary to know anything about the image to view it? Of course not. But that is a shallow look. If I am to understand more than just the image, to begin to understand the image creator knowing how much time you spent creating it and the process does carry some weight. That information is part of the "context" of the image and is relevant as such. Some want context and others don't care. I don't need that information to look at your stuff, but I want it, and if you want to tell me my wants are irrelevant I don't need to look at your stuff.

 

[Buckster]

The ongoing obsession by some that everything MUST be fit neatly into a particular taxonomic category seems pretty ridiculous to me. Taking that further, anyone who thinks that anyone else who thinks that some particular 'thing' belongs in a little box that's different than the little box they themselves decided it should fit into needs to be straightened out on that issue - probably needs help - before it turns into an uncontrollable twitch accompanied by an obsession to touch door handles 3 times before opening or closing one, along with serious hoarding.

Arguing endlessly about things as insignificant as whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable is pointless. It doesn't change the way a tomato looks, smells, tastes or is used, no matter WHICH labeled box it's put into, no matter who agrees or disagrees with that label that makes no significant difference.

"This is what photography is all about"? No, I don't think it is.

I think instead that thread titles like this is what trolling is all about. It's just a pity that it works so well.