When is a photo not a photo ?

In the age of digital photography and image manipulation, when does a photograph stop being a photo an start being hmm i am not sure what, maybe "electronic or graphic art" ?
I know most digital photographers will apply sharpening, colour corrections and retouching to images, and this is considered to be the original image, but when and where is the line crossed ?

I don't think there is a real answer to this, but if the image is digitally changed from what the original is intended to be, given the tools available today. If it was that changed I think that is when the line is crossed. If it is changed just to correct a few minor issues then that is the same as what would probably be done with normal film processing in the old days, like dodging and burning etc, even colour corrections as well.

This has been asked before, so I would expect there will be some normal discussions going on about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skyman

In the age of digital photography and image manipulation, when does a photograph stop being a photo an start being hmm i am not sure what, maybe "electronic or graphic art" ?
I know most digital photographers will apply sharpening, colour corrections and retouching to images, and this is considered to be the original image, but when and where is the line crossed ?

---

This is an old topic that generates enough heat to keep a city warm in the dead of winter. IMHO, the final result is what counts, not the mechanics of how you got there. Photography is subjective and emotional, it's not a rigorous science. If you like what you see, it was done "correctly."

The reason I was asking is that i have been asked to lecture my local camera club on photoshop. one of the current gripes at the club is that heavily manipulated images are taking out all the categories in regular club competitions. This has disgruntled many members of the club who are claiming that the manipulation being done goes beyond what is reasonably achievable in the darkroom and should therefore not be allowed into the competitions. I need to come up with some theories either way, maybe not answers but thesis on the concepts. i am thinking along the lines of "the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction" by Walter Benjamin, although this text deals with the concept of photography as art in a time when it was in its infancy and the photograph was considered "reality" rather than a reprisentation of reality that a painting would be.

Here's a thread that had quite an extensive discussion on that very subject last year:

http://forums.photographyreview.com/...ead.php?t=4073



I started the thread, and the arguments within helped me settle it in my own head. Hope it helps you. :)

Skyman, as long as there is Digital and Film being presented together in photo clubs you are always going to get this argument. The clubs should start to have digital divisions only and film divisions only to distiguish from them both, that way the argument goes away.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skyman

This has disgruntled many members of the club who are claiming that the manipulation being done goes beyond what is reasonably achievable in the darkroom and should therefore not be allowed into the competitions.

---

People get mad when I say this but I call this attitude "Amish Photography." What makes the old days of chemical processing the"gold standard"? Why should new and obviously better technology be condemned for being much more versatile than an old-fashioned darkroom? The chemical darkroom was/is extremely limited, tell them to get over it!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skyman

The reason I was asking is that i have been asked to lecture my local camera club on photoshop. one of the current gripes at the club is that heavily manipulated images are taking out all the categories in regular club competitions. This has disgruntled many members of the club who are claiming that the manipulation being done goes beyond what is reasonably achievable in the darkroom and should therefore not be allowed into the competitions.

---

Does the club require that competitors must print their own shots? If not, the images probably already include shots that have been digitally manipulated by people in a lab some place. That's the way photos are printed nowadays. What is it that is being done in PS that some are objecting to?

The reason people use PS is to make the processing decisions themselves, rather than some kid in a lab deciding what they should look like. In the chem days, this was the same reason that some photographers did their own processing and often ended up with shots that would look better than the general run and probably took most of the awards in club competitions. I don't think there is much possible in PS that can't be accomplished by other means.

Quite a bit of PS is just mimicing wet processes. It's just one hell of a lot easier now. Posterizing, solarization, unsharp masking, contrast masking, color shifts, perspective control, spotting, mulitple exposures, contrast control, and many more things were all being done a generation ago by the people who wanted the final product to be something other than what the camera settings and the drugstore lab could give them.

Go to some good library and look through the back issues of Darkroom magazine and others and see the processes being described 20 - 30 years ago and you'll find a lot of them are familiar ground to a PS operator. We just have an easier way of applying the same processes, much like those 30 years ago had an easier time of it than those 60 years ago because of the technical advantages of their day.

I don't think we have reached a point yet where digital processing is capable of producing a better photo than chemical processing, but it is able to produce a really good print a heck of a lot easier.

Good photographers are always going to use the tools that best present their work in the way they visualized it. There is always going to be an investment in effort to learn how to use those tools. Those who don't think they should have to put in that effort will always be crying 'foul' rather than admitting that it's a matter of their own choice to limit the tools they use.

The Club is starting a digital section, however many photographers who have been shooting exclusively digital for years and are not adverse to extensive manipulation are claiming we have crossed the line from photography to art as these images "don't look like a photo" so what i am trying to get a handle on is not whether digital manipulation is ok, but at what point does our manipulation stop being a photograph and start being graphic art.

I recommend you check out this link
http://www.marxists.org/reference/su...e/benjamin.htm
Walter Benjamin's paper was written at a time when photography was not considered an art form, but rather a method of reproducing reality along the lines of a crime scene photo being used as evidence in a courtroom. what Benjamin was saying was that the choices about exposure, aperture shutter speed, focal length angle of view and composition are all ways of excluding some elements of reality and enhancing or highlighting others and that the photograph should not be considered as reality but merely a reprisentation of reality. I guess what i am asking is when does an image digital or not stop being a reprisentation of reality and start being an artists fantasy. hmm i think i just worked out how to approach my lecture. And all i am suppossed to be talking about is (very) basic photoshop techniques.
thank you all

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skyman

The Club is starting a digital section, however many photographers who have been shooting exclusively digital for years and are not adverse to extensive manipulation are claiming we have crossed the line from photography to art as these images "don't look like a photo" so what i am trying to get a handle on is not whether digital manipulation is ok, but at what point does our manipulation stop being a photograph and start being graphic art.

I recommend you check out this link
http://www.marxists.org/reference/su...e/benjamin.htm
Walter Benjamin's paper was written at a time when photography was not considered an art form, but rather a method of reproducing reality along the lines of a crime scene photo being used as evidence in a courtroom. what Benjamin was saying was that the choices about exposure, aperture shutter speed, focal length angle of view and composition are all ways of excluding some elements of reality and enhancing or highlighting others and that the photograph should not be considered as reality but merely a reprisentation of reality. I guess what i am asking is when does an image digital or not stop being a reprisentation of reality and start being an artists fantasy. hmm i think i just worked out how to approach my lecture. And all i am suppossed to be talking about is (very) basic photoshop techniques.
thank you all

---

As you stated, there has never ever been anything "real" about photography. The answer to your question is both simple and unsatisfying: it's all in the eye of the beholder.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Skyman

In the age of digital photography and image manipulation, when does a photograph stop being a photo an start being hmm i am not sure what, maybe "electronic or graphic art" ?
I know most digital photographers will apply sharpening, colour corrections and retouching to images, and this is considered to be the original image, but when and where is the line crossed ?

---

Im a bit confused with your question..But il try to answer that. In my opinion, a photograph can be called a real photo if it follows the principles of photography and if it was taken/captured for a cause.

I think the line is where the photo doesn't look "natural", or where it is obviusly different from viewing the scene with the naked eye. But always is some kind of modification to a photo to make it look better, for example: contrast and saturation. After all, you lost an entire dimension from viewing an scene, and viewing a photograph of the same scene, so you need to compensate in some way.
And to be honest, even images taken by your eyes are heavily (beyond human technology) processed :) Otherwise we would see everything upside-down, more things out of focus, etc.

Atefr all, you can raed tihs wried eyercpntd txet, rgiht?