What is a photograph?

melekalikimaka

Phototoxin wrote: »

I agree with animal rights here though... it looks more like a picture and less like a photograph.

Then again 'what is a photograph' is a different thread. [shoot film and avoid the argument!]

I actually prefer the original to the photoshopped version although I think it could be maybe darkened 5 notches and saturated up 5.

edit : looked at the side by side.. the middle tree looks off but I cannot place why... i think its the green beside the black whcih isnt' 'black' enough or something.

whats all this ' less a photograph more a picture' lark? is it the issue of photo manipulation?

Calina

It's been long enough, I guess, for a rehash of the war and there have been rumblings about it lately.

I'll add, before I let this into the air, that just because something was shot on film, doesn't mean an image couldn't be manipulated.

sineadw

*watches with interest*

Been pondering this myself the last while..

melekalikimaka

i agree, this attitude with photography, off hand, only cos i have had a debate before over it with him, that AH has, on flash...the 'raw image' and 'unedited' and so on... i don't quite understand it. no image every taken truely captures a moment, the moment the shutter clicks changes take place, the process of making this images more pleasing to the eye is frowned upon by many folk...for the reason its edited...

I'm film photography, manipulation of the image is expected... time in enlarger... agitation...pushing film... all are attempts to make the image betterthan it is... the there are the contrast filters...spilt grading.... dodging burning... and so on.... in a darkroom, one is nearly expected to do this to every image .... yet suddenly people start snapping with a digital camera and all this has become wrong???

Paulw

I had a discussion about this recently with a sports photographer. Obviously, since he supplies to the press, his take was that you can only do basic adjustments. But, cloning and editing (replacing parts, adding parts, etc) was outside the relm of photography.

Indeed, just because it was done on film (photo manipulation) and is much easier to do in digital photography, doesn't mean that it's photography.

I know for myself, I enjoy both photography and digital manipulation.

It certainly makes for interesting discussion and debate.

Rojo

In my opinion, all photography is manipulated and constructed. Whether it is during the process of taking a photograph or post processing, at the end of the day, it is someone's particular point of view and therefore constructed/manipulated. It's such a subjective medium that it is nearly impossible to be objective.

I think if you disagree with the above, then maybe you aren't taking the photographs and instead your camera is...

Paulw

Rojo wrote: »

In my opinion, all photography is manipulated and constructed. Whether it is during the process of taking a photograph or post processing, at the end of the day, it is someone's particular point of view and therefore constructed/manipulated. It's such a subjective medium that it is nearly impossible to be objective.

I think if you disagree with the above, then maybe you aren't taking the photographs and instead your camera is...

I disagree. You're still taking the photograph - composition, camera settings, when to press the shutter button, etc. All the camera is doing is capturing the light.

But, there's a difference between photo processing and photo manipulation, IMHO.

CabanSail

It all depends if the intention is to Record a moment or Interpret it as Art.

The camera, any camera, does not see the world as a human eye does. The eye also does not see what we think it sees either, as the human brain fills in the bits in between (apparently this is how we don't see Depth of Field like in a photograph)

melekalikimaka

CabanSail wrote: »

It all depends if the intention is to Record a moment or Interpret it as Art.

i don't see how you can ever truely record a moment... tho maybe thats another debate

Calina

Paulw wrote: »

I disagree. You're still taking the photograph - composition, camera settings, when to press the shutter button, etc. All the camera is doing is capturing the light.

But if you use your camera on fully automatic then what? You're still pressing the shutter, right?

DeVore

Coming from a world of image (not photo) manipulation before this, I kinda met myself half way when I got into photography. I have nothing against photomanipulation but its a different skill with a different "intent" in the final output.
Personally I will crop, saturate, sharpen etc quite happily. I keep note of pictures where I do more then that because I like knowing what I caught "in-camera" so to speak.

The thing most photographers dont notice (because they are coming from the world of photography) is that all manipulation needs a base image, even just a texture. Something to work with. Its not really possible to start with a white sheet and create the sort of images we see. So the photographer is looking for something else in that case. A picture with good texture or good lighting which he knows he will be able to adjust into something awesome.

I think the problem arises when people see all of this as a single art form. Its not, its at least two different art forms. Seeing the use of a computer as an "art form" is going to challenge some people but they are using a tool to create a piece of "art", whether its sub-classification should be "image" or "photo" seems to me simple semantics. I either enjoy the experience of viewing it or I dont.

The only thing I find a touch underhand are people who perform largescale heals or clones etc to sizeably alter the composition of the picture and pass it off as being captured in camera. Thats encroaching on the photographers territory and I can see why that would annoy them (us!).

Saying that post production is a new thing is simply nuts, tricks have been played with film for years before Adobe was even founded. The method has changed but its the same thing as was done in "dark rooms" of yore.

DeV.

Rojo

Paulw wrote: »

I disagree. You're still taking the photograph - composition, camera settings, when to press the shutter button, etc. All the camera is doing is capturing the light.

But, there's a difference between photo processing and photo manipulation, IMHO.

That's exactly what I'm getting at though! YOU are composing the shot and making changes to settings etc. So therefore, you are always going to be constructing the image before you. You choose what to include and exclude and therefore, it's always constructed and thus manipulated. At the end of the day, processing and manipulation are the same for me... I suppose one is perceived as more extreme than the other.

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i don't see how you can ever truely record a moment... tho maybe thats another debate

I think I was bringing that debate into this one... oopsie!

Phototoxin

whats all this ' less a photograph more a picture' lark? is it the issue of photo manipulation?

YES

It's been long enough, I guess, for a rehash of the war and there have been rumblings about it lately.

I'll add, before I let this into the air, that just because something was shot on film, doesn't mean an image couldn't be manipulated.

no but the REAL image is preseved on film. because the type of film never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever effects the actual image. Everyone knows that !! =p /sarc

I think its because we are used to seeing photos from film. Now digial stuff has 'contaminated' it so to speak. Its still in its infancy.

I'm film photography, manipulation of the image is expected... time in enlarger... agitation...pushing film... all are attempts to make the image betterthan it is... the there are the contrast filters...spilt grading.... dodging burning... and so on.... in a darkroom, one is nearly expected to do this to every image .... yet suddenly people start snapping with a digital camera and all this has become wrong???

its because these skills seem worthless when once they were valuable and now 'anyone' can 'shop and image and it looks good. I think the problem is over saturation (pun intended in retrospect as I often go ott on saturation) and the mentality is happy snap til it looks good then shop it to death. Also is it then actually photography which is the skill or digital imaging ? Before the development was part and parcel for a lot of people now it is also its own field.

...pass it off as being captured in camera.

that's the thing though. I personally have a lot of respect for my friend swampy-dave who doesnt photoshop.. not because he can't but that he's sick of photoshopped stuff. And to one extent I agree.. most of my best pictures were like that coming from the camera - weather it was the weather or ligthing or whatever OR they were done on film. So it does make me wonder.

Also people who are good at photography and not at manipulation may feel cheated as arguably less photographically skilled people output better looking images.

All I know is that if I'm ever photographing a crime scene use what they tell me and obey their reasons for it !! Some places use film so that they have the negatives and some use digital with a double backup of the data. Also digital images can be enhanced for court benefit.

DeVore

I'm going to be a bit controversial and say that if people feel like their skills with film have been outdated and that that makes them feel "cheated" because people with "arguably less photographic skills" are outputting "better" pictures, they need to suck it up and learn the new skills.

Good digital manipulation is a very complex skill in itself. Having the imagination to see what will look good with a shot and then to be able to produce that effect in Photoshop is just as tricky and skillful as learning dark-room techniques.

If people want to stick to film, thats great. Good for them (I presume they also make their own dairy products from first principles ). I admire people who say "I could do this the easy way but I decided to limit myself artificially for a challenge". A bit like that guy who only shoots (amazing!) photos with disposable cameras (wosshisname?). Thats awesome and I have a great deal of respect for the craft but nothing, *nothing* annoys me more then people who knock others to promote themselves. The digital guys are pushing the boundaries and doing some amazing things, to say its not "art" or not "skilled" is exactly like when people say "oh, photography, its just pointing a box and pushing a button". To the outsider it seems easy but its not.

The skilled practioners will rise to the top again. Those with an artistic eye for a shot PLUS the capacity to deliver any digital effect they had envisioned, with consistent quality are always going to stand above those who snap away and jam filters on bad photos in PP (not to mention those who stick to their guns (muskets?) and refuse the digital age).

DeV.

Anouilh

Suck up? Photography has left me with the lifestyle of an enclosed monk for the past year.

I posted a thread a few months ago here which was interpreted as that old chestnut,

The Film Versus Digital Debate.

In fact, I was just questioning whether film can survive in the current climate of fast and furious digital imagery.

In fact, although I use film and would like to use it more, I always have it processed by experts, including Neopan, which I could probably develop myself.

All post processing is done in digital photo editors, so the "mystique" of old techniques continues to be a closed book to me.

There is that sense, however, that a "real" photo is one printed up on paper that mimics genuine photo paper with all the nostalgia this involves.

Captured moments are just that. Snippets of reality, seen only for a split second, by one camera, that cannot ever be replicated. The philosophy of time is useful here...
all the chat about not stepping in the same river twice.

Calina

In some respects, I think the issue is that there is a fine line between digital art and digital post processing of photographs but no one really agrees on where that line actually is. Most people draw it in different places.

I second pretty much what DeV has said on this subject. It's easy to click buttons and lines in Photoshop in the same way as it's easy to press a shutter on a camera, but neither automatically imply the finished product is any good. There's a skill set required - and in Photoshop, that skill set is huge. We used to do digital post processing challenges here where someone would submit a photograph and everyone who was interested could have at it. Some people went down the digital art side, and did weird, weird stuff with the base images, some did more traditional photography post processing. Everyone came up with something different.

In principle, I think people who feel cheated about other people's talents/skills in areas where they are not so skilled/talented should not be complaining about other people's talents/skills but looking within themselves.

In a way, I don't think this is a debate about photography and digital manipulation at all; the debate was had when photography first arrived on the scene and the painters were up in arms. I think it's more a debate about the democratisation of artistic endeavour. The media are having similar fun with online media and some blogs, for example.

The world changes and develops and that's the way of it. My view is that the end product is what remains; years afterwards more people will be interested in what it looks like and not how you did it, unless of course, it's a pyramid.

Anouilh

I'm interested in your mention of the future recognition of work done today, Calina. I have over six years of work that has evolved from vague point and shoot to now quite conscious photos taken with a wider view of what is possible.

It will be interesting to see what future generations will make of the astonishing vastness of current photographic work. Will it be stored? There is an academic in Scotland whose work on value and digital storage interests me a lot:

http://erasehistory.blogspot.com/


There is a tradition of valuing conscious artistry above serendipitous image making, which is now being eroded.

Urban artists, whose work is spontaneous and open to disappearing within a short time, have become very fashionable and somehow this reflects current society.

One can make heavy weather of the film/digital debate, but it does help us think.

Anouilh

melekalikimaka wrote: »

whats all this ' less a photograph more a picture' lark?

This might help?

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2008/04/03/philosophy-of-photography-to-shoot-or-to-photograph/

M.T

I am a purist when it come to taking photographs. What I shot is my final picture.

Another way of translating that is that I have yet to grasp the concepts of Digital Dark rooming but I will get there ... :P

I think using modern tools to help display what you want others to see is OK. It has been done since photography began. It is all about what you want people to see after all. This excludes pure photo shopping. Like sticking someones head on another body type manipulation.

But you have to be above board about it. If you are doing some enhancing then there should be no shame it listing the manipulation applied. In the past in books I have read they will always list the lights, reflectors and what ever tools were used to get a final shot. That is not to say that if the shot appeared in a calender that said same information is listed but I hope my thoughts are understood.

I find going from this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58411034&postcount=470

to this

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58410612&postcount=467

is inspiring. Had I have taken that first shot I would have "removed from disk" using light room. Now I am keeping all photos due to those photos linked. There is hope for me yet!

melekalikimaka

Anouilh wrote: »

This might help?

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2008/04/03/philosophy-of-photography-to-shoot-or-to-photograph/

Not overly, that's not the question here, it's about the noun not the verb hehe

Anouilh

melekalikimaka wrote: »

Not overly, that's not the question here, it's about the noun not the verb hehe

I'm finding it difficult to focus on what the question actually implies.

Anouilh

melekalikimaka wrote: »

whats all this ' less a photograph more a picture' lark? is it the issue of photo manipulation?

Reality is always manipulated in a photograph.
The focus on one aspect of the scene in front of the camera above any other is the first step.

magicbastarder

Phototoxin wrote: »

Also people who are good at photography and not at manipulation may feel cheated as arguably less photographically skilled people output better looking images.

i think taps into the fact that photography and photoshoppery are related, but different skills. possession of one does not imply possession of the other - maybe people feel cheated because people with one skill are mistaken to have the other?

PixelTrawler

Maybe its because I come from a background developing websites and having used photoshop for reasons other then working with photos for the last 7 years or so but i don't have any distinction at all between this photograph or a picture business... its just a digital system of tools to use to achieve the image you want

Normally when I take a photo I know I'm going to do something with it later - not always but a lot of the time, whether its just a minor tweak or a fair bit of work...

Therefore its two sides of the same coin for me... step one use the digital hardware as in the camera, step 2 finish process with digital software....

I don't see a point in this process where i would stop and go, no this is cheating or I'm not capturing the real scene (which lets face it never really mirrors what the eye sees anyway)

I mean where do you draw the line, even setting the picture style in the camera is in essence digital manipulation of the real scene...

melekalikimaka

Solyad wrote: »

Maybe its because I come from a background developing websites and having used photoshop for reasons other then working with photos for the last 7 years or so but i don't have any distinction at all between this photograph or a picture business... its just a digital system of tools to use to achieve the image you want

Normally when I take a photo I know I'm going to do something with it later - not always but a lot of the time, whether its just a minor tweak or a fair bit of work...

Therefore its two sides of the same coin for me... step one use the digital hardware as in the camera, step 2 finish process with digital software....

I don't see a point in this process where i would stop and go, no this is cheating or I'm not capturing the real scene (which lets face it never really mirrors what the eye sees anyway)

I mean where do you draw the line, even setting the picture style in the camera is in essence digital manipulation of the real scene...

indeed, shutter priority... ap priority.... manual.... auto.... all give different results... which is the 'photograph setting and which is the picture setting? The more i think about it, the more it becomes difficult to define what in my opinion is right or wrong... we can all spot a photoshopped image...and we can all spot a tweaked image... sure we can all spot whats film and digital... once we know what we are getting shown to us.... its all gravy

Calina

melekalikimaka wrote: »

indeed, shutter priority... ap priority.... manual.... auto.... all give different results... which is the 'photograph setting and which is the picture setting? The more i think about it, the more it becomes difficult to define what in my opinion is right or wrong... we can all spot a photoshopped image...and we can all spot a tweaked image... sure we can all spot whats film and digital... once we know what we are getting shown to us.... its all gravy

This is assuming, of course, that there is really any right or wrong. It's a moral construct and for the most part, is out of place here.

Obviously for crime scene photos and newspaper, there are moral implications but...in general...

melekalikimaka

Calina wrote: »

This is assuming, of course, that there is really any right or wrong. It's a moral construct and for the most part, is out of place here.

Obviously for crime scene photos and newspaper, there are moral implications but...in general...

well theres always exceptions, a crime [photo even, may need dodging or burning to see details...

DeVore

While I love digital *everything* I hope (and expect) that film will persist in the same way that vinyl has survived the CD. I do *like* the idea of people taking the slow route and doing it all in analogue. Its not for me but I love the anacronistic element to it...

Also, there are some shots I have taken ina particular manner simply because I thought "that would look great if I blew out the whites and greyscaled the whole thing". I dunno if I would do that if I was using film. Actually, I probably wouldnt be into photography at all....

DeV.

melekalikimaka

DeVore wrote: »

Also, there are some shots I have taken ina particular manner simply because I thought "that would look great if I blew out the whites and greyscaled the whole thing". I dunno if I would do that if I was using film. Actually, I probably wouldnt be into photography at all....

DeV.

film makes you look at photography very different...not so much composition... more bout what you want to to look completed, i was a digi for years, got into film....and now i perfer it, theres something magical about it <tear runs down eyes>

XLR8

melekalikimaka wrote: »

What is a photograph?

When the shutter opens and the light hits the film or sensor... that, in my opinion, is a photograph (or captured image).

As soon as the the image is processed, whether in a dark room or in Photoshop, the image is no longer original. Indeed, even if a digital image is transferred directly to a computer, no PP work carried out, and the image is emailed to numerous people, unless each recipient has a calibrated monitor, the image will appear different to everyone.
The same applies to film. Give your negatives to different labs and you'll hardly ever get the same results.

This argument over digital v film and post processing of digital images is, in my opinion, merely sour grapes. It's the same as an engineer refusing to use a CNC machine and now that digital has surpassed film as far as quality is concerned, it's a no brainer.
I started out with film about 20 years ago but it wasn't until I switched to digital that I started to produce my best work. This was nothing to do with post processing, it was because I was able to experiment without the cost of processing.
There's nothing wrong with post production and image manipulation. As someone stated earlier in the thread, it's the end product that counts. Few people really care what steps were involved in the process, they merely like/dislike the final product... and that's what it is - a product, nothing more, nothing less and this applies to both film and digital images, regardless of what PP has been applied.

DeVore

XLR8, I agree but I would make one exception: people who photoshop pictures with Clone and such tools and basically *construct* a scene which never really existed (taking out and putting in stuff) to "improve" the composition and then pass it off as if they just took an awesome shot, those people should be punched in the face.

Removing a blemish from a face is one thing, radical restructuring is something else.

I object to that on the basis that they are using one skill to pretend to have a completely different skill or to pretend something happened which didnt. Thats dishonest.

DeV.

Fajitas!

DeVore wrote: »

XLR8, I agree but I would make one exception: people who photoshop pictures with Clone and such tools and basically *construct* a scene which never really existed (taking out and putting in stuff) to "improve" the composition and then pass it off as if they just took an awesome shot, those people should be punched in the face.

If they can pass it off, they should be bowed to, not punched in the face!!!

*runs from thread*

Phototoxin

KILL FAJITAS !! =p

just kidding.

I think a photo is the thing you actually physically hold in your hand btw. Its the end result that is important.

Calina

Fajitas! wrote: »

If they can pass it off, they should be bowed to, not punched in the face!!!

*runs from thread*

There's a part of me agrees with that.

That being said, however, somewhere in the mists of my memory was a description of how something was done and it was a photograph depicting a pollution laden background and it was done by combining a bunch of slide transparencies pretty much like we use layers today.

I'm being drawn to the fantasy artwork lately. Some of it is amazing.

Fajitas!

Give me 20 minutes in a darkroom, and I'll drop a sky into an image, drop a foreground into an image, etc.

The essentials are the same as photoshop. It's all thinking in layers to make the image.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it wasn't called digital manipulation 100 years ago, and I don't understand how it is now. It's just making of your image/photograph/whatever you want to call it. Personal vision should be one of the most important parts of making your photograph.

ThOnda

I don't give a second thought, most of the time. There are only two categories - I like the picture and therefore I am attracted to it and I may find a reason to go after the origin of the picture. Or the second one - I don't like the picture and I am trying to find out why.
I think that photography is a visual art like painting or drawing. But I must be repeating myself again and again. If you find it boring, please, don't read my post. Thank you.

melekalikimaka

Fajitas! wrote: »

Give me 20 minutes in a darkroom, and I'll drop a sky into an image, drop a foreground into an image, etc.

oh sounds like the next photo challenge... do it in colour and i'll be impressed hehe

Hugh_C

DeVore wrote: »

Removing a blemish from a face is one thing, radical restructuring is something else.

OK so I removed a person in the background of this shot below. Should I be punched dev, or are you being specious?

Fajitas!

Bowed to

DeVore

Did you pass it off as being caught "in camera" when that was important?

Obviously I was joking about the punching bit but if you entered that into a portrait competition without declaring you had manipulated it then thats underhand imho.

DeV.

Hugh_C

DeVore wrote: »

Did you pass it off as being caught "in camera" when that was important?

Huh? Don't understand.

challengemaster

Hugh_C wrote: »

Huh? Don't understand.

I think DeV means, did/do you ignore the fact it's been manipulated and claim that's how it was taken. i.e how it was on camera.

democrates

I think a central question is whether the meaning of a word can change or is locked to the original intended meaning.

The word photograph has greek roots:
Photo = light.
Graph = write, draw, describe, record.

The word photo(light) has expanded in definition beyond that part of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to ancient greek eyes, so now includes the infra-red band for example. For me that alone is a slam dunk, the full meaning of a word can change as knowledge and technology expand.

If we stuck with the greek roots for our definition of 'photograph' then a sketch, painting or even narrative describing a vision could be a photograph and the vision could be imaginary, but a new word can expand or reduce the meaning of it's combined roots without affecting them, so 'photograph' coined in 1839 by Sir John Herschel can be taken as more specific and originally intended to relate to the chemical processes of the day. The field was already exploding with different technologies and so the set of things fitting the definition of 'photograph' has expanded.

There are almost 8 pages on "photography" in Chambers's Encyclopaedia Vol VIII of 1891:

Photography, the art of producing pictures by means of the action of light on sensitised surfaces. It is usual to regard the observation by the alchemists of the 16th century that Luna Cornea or Horn Silver (native chloride of silver) is blackened on exposure to light, as the first chemical step in the history of photography, while the foundation of photographic optics was laid by Della Porta in the invention of the camera obscura (1569) at a somewhat earlier period.

The honour of having been the first to produce pictures by the action of light on a sensitive surface is now very generally conceded to Thomas Wedgewood, an account of whose researches was published in 1802 in the Journal of the Royal institution, under the title, 'An Account of a Method of Copying Paintings upon Glass, and of making Profiles by the agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver; with Observations by H.Davy.'

Wedgewood couldn't fix his images but there is a hint of experiments as far back as ~1791 in a letter from Watt (Chapter XIII) referring to "silver pictures".

Niepce however mastered fixing, so he is often credited with producing the first photograph using his heliograph (sun-writing) process (1825 image of an etching according to wikipedia, or 'A View from a Window' 1826 according to wikipedia, 1814 by Chambers's, 1816 by niepce.com). Strictly speaking his was the first photograph with 'good' persistance even when exposed to daylight, but not the first photograph.

On Jan 25th 1839 William Fox Talbot showed his 'Photogenic Drawings' at the Royal Institution and on the 31st described his process using paper coated with Silver Iodide to produce 'negative' and 'positive' images, though Herschel seems credited with coining those terms in that year. The Daguerrotype was also introduced that year, then subsequently the Chrysotype, Calotype, Ambrotype, Tinytype, the Collodion process, and it has kept expanding.

So the word 'photograph' covers things originally named silver picture, heliograph etc., and as the technologies continued to proliferate so has the full description of the word photograph, it has never been a static set.

Regardless of all the history, common use of the word among the upcoming bebo generation now assumes digital, you'd generally have to specify film or even print.

DeVore

challengemaster wrote: »

I think DeV means, did/do you ignore the fact it's been manipulated and claim that's how it was taken. i.e how it was on camera.

Yup, thats what I mean.


I edited out some people from this pic (badly ) :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78645925@N00/377917237/in/set-72157594514821726/

But I made a note that I had. In this instance, thats just my way of doing things, but a while ago we had someone query if a picture of a horse had been photoshopped (it had) as it was entered into a photograph competition which explicitly said no cloning etc.
Thats deceitful and dishonest. Punching time.

DeV.

Dragan

Generally speaking a photograph is whatever i want it to be.

Personally, i deal in the finished image and once that matches up to what i set out to do in the first place i am happy.

As far as i am concerned, drawing lines and implying you don't like or wouldn't do something simply means you are limiting your own creativity.

Don't get me wrong, everyone should have and discover and enjoy their own sense of photography is. The second you start telling me what mine should be is the day i tell you to **** yourself.

PixelTrawler

Sometimes its interesting to do a comparison of the "photograph" or what was captured in camera, and the finished manipulated image.

This image shows my "before" and "after" versions but when the actual photo was taken I already knew that wasnt the end of it...

Devore will be happy its noted on flickr in the comments what was done!



Sometimes its nice also to rescue an image from a washout sessions. Cold morning (out twice to try get a sunrise, no joy), bundle of dull grey shots, its nice to get some kind of result out of it

But to me the end result is what is normally only shown... how I got there doesnt really matter... although I agree with one thing said, i wouldnt pass it off as having been taken in camera

At the end of day once I'm happy with it, thats ok, if others like it its great, if not its up to them...

Anouilh

There are many groups on Flickr that could help refine ideas on this topic, notably:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/94837392@N00/discuss/

I have to admit that I seem to have outgrown many undergrad discussions which ultimately are more a means of bonding with other people than in coming to any decisions on life, photography and naming of parts.

A photography is probably an image captured in light, as anybody who joins the Light Painters Group will find.

The optics of digital cameras, optical glass and sensors have caused me to read a bit more, so as to understand what I am doing.

superflyninja

ummm Im probably totally wrong on this but when you take a digital photo processing has already been done to the image(excluding raw) on camera before it even reaches the PC screen/print out? Eg white balance, colour vibrancy etc. And digital images might often contain colour casts as a result of the method of capture that were not present in the original scene? So Id be of the opinion that practically all digital images would need some PP.

democrates

Anouilh wrote: »

There are many groups on Flickr that could help refine ideas on this topic, notably:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/94837392@N00/discuss/

I have to admit that I seem to have outgrown many undergrad discussions which ultimately are more a means of bonding with other people than in coming to any decisions on life, photography and naming of parts.

A photography is probably an image captured in light, as anybody who joins the Light Painters Group will find.

The optics of digital cameras, optical glass and sensors have caused me to read a bit more, so as to understand what I am doing.

Interesting link thanks, just had a quick read about Barthes punctum on wikipaedia.

I can't recall if we discussed this before, but a bard once pronounced "a writer writes for himself, or for no-one". Rather than an amoral call for selfishness, it recognises that a writer, or to extend - a photographer, cannot control the subjective perception of others, so should singly focus on personal satisfaction in his/her work. The only perception one can use as a guage is ones own, at least satisfy that or you may satisfy none. Personal change over time plays a role, I may be delighted with my work today, but not tomorrow, or visa versa.

This approach of promoting personal satisfaction with the work requires discipline, because of our innate desires to be fully understood and appreciated by others, deep emotional needs that crave satisfaction at every turn, particularly when neglected. Those needs are best satisfied in meatspace, online interaction even realtime audiovisual, is no substitute for physical contact for example, the simplest of things yet the most fulfilling.

Photography as an art then becomes primarily a subjective personal thing without apology, anything after that is a bonus.

elven

democrates wrote: »

a writer, or to extend - a photographer, cannot control the subjective perception of others, so should singly focus on personal satisfaction in his/her work.

But how many of us would continue to shoot in any way as profusely if we weren't sharing the results with anyone else?

Photography as an act, is very much like just pointing and saying "look what I saw". Would you do that if there was nobody to tell what you saw?

Sorry, a little o/t

democrates

elven wrote: »

But how many of us would continue to shoot in any way as profusely if we weren't sharing the results with anyone else?

Photography as an act, is very much like just pointing and saying "look what I saw". Would you do that if there was nobody to tell what you saw?

Sorry, a little o/t

No worries at all, I've no loyalty to this idea, just testing it out really. Your point is well taken, I'm not arguing against sharing as the last line in my post vaguely implies "anything after that is a bonus". I share photos myself both for feedback as I learn and hoping that others may derive some aesthetic satisfaction or what not.

The main point is that perfect communication is impossible, we are diverse in nature and nurture and changing over time. For example what I find appealing may not be so to others and visa versa, or what I perceive as important can be very different to the perceptions of others.

So for any given artistic expression, you cannot be in anyone elses mind like a Vulcan mind-meld to verify accurate reception, only your own. If your work gets the message through to you perfectly, that's the best you can do, then share it with the world and let people take it in their own ways.

I think Barthes was on a hiding to nothing in seeking the holy grail of punctum - the ability of a photograph to punch through and make the precise impact the photographer intended. Take any pulitzer photograph, ask ten people to write about it and you'll get ten different stories. There'll be overlaps for sure, but not the perfection of communication Barthes seemed to seek.

When he wrote camera lucida apparently half of it was about his grief having lost his mother. It suggests to me that he was unable to deal with his grief in the normal way, and in large part because he sought refuge in communication, as though someone else experiencing his state accurately were the solution. As the song goes, every form of refuge has its price. I think most people are happy if someone can empathise with them in their plight, but don't actually expect that person to have lived an identical life which is what is needed for identical perception. The closest I can imagine is Siamese twins.