'no individuality exists in the creation of digital images'

magicbastarder

The social media photography-sharing site Instagram has been forced to deny that it plans to sell people's snaps, after a change in its terms of use provoked some users to close their accounts. As these typically anodyne pictures illustrate, it is hard to see what people feel is so personal or precious about the images they upload to Instagram – that was my sink, those are my clouds, that's my view from the plane window. Not only does Instagram share pictures, it offers filters and a Polaroid-style formatting to make them look special – the catch being that every picture looks special in the same way. Since the site shapes the pictures, is it not, indeed, their co-author? But even that is to understate the death of the author in modern photography.

more at the guardian

curlzy

What a load of waffle IMO. Whereas the creativity used to take place in the darkroom it now takes place on computer. I think people that don't believe it's "real photography" are either misinformed or snobby. I love both the dark room and photoshop and I think photoshop is a million times harder to master. Instagram not quite as creative but there's definately some creativity in that too.

melekalikimaka

curlzy wrote: »

I love both the dark room and photoshop and I think photoshop is a million times harder to master.

really?

as for instagram, I would call it photography, but i would not consider it creative at all. Its a novelty trend, bit like those polaroid mini photo sticker things, the pogo i think. I dont mind people showing their images, but I wouldnt consider someone a creative photographer that uses instagram as their medium at all. The images are a step above a passport photo booth imo

melekalikimaka

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/10/opinion-filter-free-photography-democratization/


good article on the issue

DaireQuinlan

ach, having read it, it's just effectively a troll article. It's designed to get people all riled up. Here's a précis:

Man feels upset because people are all taking the same photograph he's taking. Man no longer feels special. Man gives up photography and blames everyone else for it. MAN IS SAD AND ANGRY.

DaireQuinlan

melekalikimaka wrote: »

really?

as for instagram, I would call it photography, but i would not consider it creative at all. Its a novelty trend, bit like those polaroid mini photo sticker things, the pogo i think. I dont mind people showing their images, but I wouldnt consider someone a creative photographer that uses instagram as their medium at all. The images are a step above a passport photo booth imo

I beg to differ. I.E. http://www.todayintheoffice.com/

Of course it's photography. So 98% of it is completely boring totally derivative crap. I'd say 98% of pictures taken with a Nikon D3 are completely boring totally derivative crap, or 98% of pictures taken with a Canon (whatever-the-equivalent-is) or, indeed, 98% of pictures.

magicbastarder

one thing he's right about is that photos have become like water. and it's much harder to keep up with the good stuff, considering how many avenues and websites they are delivered through.

instagram seems more like a diary to me (who is not an instagram user) than a method for people to take beautiful or meaningful photos.

there is a certain amount of 'it was all so much EASIER when all we had was radio 1 and 2 but now we have all these podcasts to check out' from the article.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

one thing he's right about is that photos have become like water. and it's much harder to keep up with the good stuff, considering how many avenues and websites they are delivered through.

That's for sure. We need coping mechanisms :-D

instagram seems more like a diary to me (who is not an instagram user) than a method for people to take beautiful or meaningful photos.

While I'd agree with this, in that it's form and process kind of encourage this as a usage, it doesn't immediately serve to dismiss it entirely as being un-creative or not proper photography or whatever. Photographers have been using photography to document their own lives and what's going on around them since the advent of photography. More so when smaller lighter cameras started becoming common of course, and nowadays it's completely ubiquitous because most people have a connected smartphone of some description. It just means the volumes are greater, leading to the problem above.

magicbastarder

i've wondered occasionally about how many reasonably distinct photos there can be. it's a stupid concept, but to crunch some numbers - let's say that a two photos are insufficiently different, to the point they result in the same image rendered at 640x480 with 256 colours; and that's giving quite a bit of leeway as regards similarity.

so the total number of distinct photos, using the above, is 307200^256. that number is roughly 1405 digits long. we've a long way to go before we run out of photos.

nonsequitir

magicbastarder wrote: »

one thing he's right about is that photos have become like water. and it's much harder to keep up with the good stuff, considering how many avenues and websites they are delivered through.

Depends on what you consider good stuff! And if you're not a fan of Insta/Hipstergrams then you've reduced your field of view by a billion or more images.

nonsequitir

magicbastarder wrote: »

i've wondered occasionally about how many reasonably distinct photos there can be. it's a stupid concept, but to crunch some numbers - let's say that a two photos are insufficiently different, to the point they result in the same image rendered at 640x480 with 256 colours; and that's giving quite a bit of leeway as regards similarity.

so the total number of distinct photos, using the above, is 307200^256. that number is roughly 1405 digits long. we've a long way to go before we run out of photos.

Bad maths. It's a combinatorial explosion as the pixels can also be seqenced randomly and most modern phones shoot at a much higher pixel density (colour and extent-wise). By extension, the same can be said of the arrangement of cells in your body that make you distinctive - could there really be a repeating you somewhere? **shudders** :-)

dakar

We are all individuals.

How do you want to define creativity or individuality?

The photographs on my blog (thanks for the link love Daire) are only individual in that only I'm in the position to take those photos there and then. Some of them are a bit quirky because of my own skewed way of looking at things. More of the are pretty derivative and like everybody else's instagrammy sunset/sunrise/misty landscape shots. Then there are ones that are records of things and places and ways of doing things that might not be around for much longer.

I deliberately chose the fake polaroidy app to take them with (and they're all taken with my phone) because they're not meant to be taken 'seriously'. They're fleeting moments, ephemera, snapshots. A memory box for me that I'm happy to have other people look at and compliment me on occasionally.

Creative? Well, I created them. Individual? A bit anyway. I hope

magicbastarder

nonsequitir wrote: »

Bad maths. It's a combinatorial explosion as the pixels can also be seqenced randomly and most modern phones shoot at a much higher pixel density (colour and extent-wise).

granted, i didn't account for the photos which would end up looking just like noise. but they'd be *art*.
but the pixel density and depth issue was dealt with by reducing them all to 640x480, at 8 bit; a photograph displayed at 4000x3000 pixels at 16 bit is essentially the same photo when reduced to the smaller size.

EyeBlinks

dakar wrote: »

They're fleeting moments, ephemera, snapshots.

I'll take snapshots over your "fine art" any day of the week

nonsequitir

magicbastarder wrote: »

granted, i didn't account for the photos which would end up looking just like noise. but they'd be *art*.
but the pixel density and depth issue was dealt with by reducing them all to 640x480, at 8 bit; a photograph displayed at 4000x3000 pixels at 16 bit is essentially the same photo when reduced to the smaller size.

No it's not, that's also bad math. By virtue of reducing and image you've invariably lost information (bicubic sharpening etc). Sharing the image with you online also loses information because only the sRGB colourspace is used. Loss, loss, loss. But I digress.

nonsequitir

Photograph: From the Greek φῶς (phos), meaning "light", and γραφή (graphê), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Nothing to do with devices, digital or otherwise. There is, to all intents and purposes from a human perspective, an infinite variability in the output from initial capture (device) to processing through to print (paper, collodion etc). All forms of "drawing with light" are equal in my eyes. Of course, 98% of the results are ****e from my perspective. But then 94.36% of stats are made up on the spot.

melekalikimaka

nonsequitir wrote: »

Photograph: From the Greek φῶς (phos), meaning "light", and γραφή (graphê), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light".

Nothing to do with devices, digital or otherwise. There is, to all intents and purposes from a human perspective, an infinite variability in the output from initial capture (device) to processing through to print (paper, collodion etc). All forms of "drawing with light" are equal in my eyes. Of course, 98% of the results are ****e from my perspective. But then 94.36% of stats are made up on the spot.

i think taking the latin translation of the word its taking things a bit too literally.

magicbastarder

nonsequitir wrote: »

No it's not, that's also bad math.

you're trying to take apart a concept i've already admitted is ludicrous.

but as i said, it's essentially (i.e. in essence) the same *image*. i'm not trying to claim it's the same set of information. a thumbnail of eddie adam's execution shot is the same image as a massive high definition poster of it.

EyeBlinks

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i think taking the latin translation of the word its taking things a bit too literally.

Maybe, but the Greek makes sense :rolleyes::)

melekalikimaka

EyeBlinks wrote: »

Maybe, but the Greek makes sense :rolleyes::)

i think the meaning of photography is different depending on your exposure to it. To define it rigidly like that doesnt really suit it imo. What i considered photography was 8 years ago when i started posting on this forum, and what I would define it now, are vastly different, of course you can justify any photograph as photography, very easily done, but really would you consider it a photo as in an image on the screen, or a photograph as a peice of creative expression. I think that is the issue here, and how people cross that point, and the belief that a filter on instagram does that with a click of a button

EyeBlinks

Have a re-read of the post maybe and you may well figure out what I meant. :P:pac:

nonsequitir

magicbastarder wrote: »

you're trying to take apart a concept i've already admitted is ludicrous.

but as i said, it's essentially (i.e. in essence) the same *image*. i'm not trying to claim it's the same set of information. a thumbnail of eddie adam's execution shot is the same image as a massive high definition poster of it.

LOL. It's all nonsense really - what's wrong with just liking photographs you like rather than dismissing the mode by which it arrived to be liked or disliked?

nonsequitir

melekalikimaka wrote: »

i think the meaning of photography is different depending on your exposure to it. To define it rigidly like that doesnt really suit it imo. What i considered photography was 8 years ago when i started posting on this forum, and what I would define it now, are vastly different, of course you can justify any photograph as photography, very easily done, but really would you consider it a photo as in an image on the screen, or a photograph as a peice of creative expression. I think that is the issue here, and how people cross that point, and the belief that a filter on instagram does that with a click of a button

An instagram merely creates the illusion of something that used to happen in the past just because the "devices" were not sufficiently technically advanced. It adds, if you like, a certain nostalgia and as humans we like nostalgia. That's probably why so many of the early works in photography are considered greats (not because they are, just because they possess nostalgia)

Even today, we wrestle with the basics of dynamic range and colour management and actively use filters to simulate "Faithful, natural or, god forbid HDR shots of swans in lakes". If you look at advancements in movie making (The Hobbits 48fps) then we'll look back at our D700's, 5DmkII as nostalgia in no time at all and there'll be an instagram filter for them too!

What's important is the output and how it affects you. Art is something that moves you - if it doesn't then, for you, it's visual noise. Once man's noise is another's Lara Croft. However, there are no winners or losers only producers (talented or otherwise) and consumers (appreciative or other wise).

Now if I only had a new lens I'd be awesome :-)

nonsequitir

magicbastarder wrote: »

you're trying to take apart a concept i've already admitted is ludicrous.

but as i said, it's essentially (i.e. in essence) the same *image*. i'm not trying to claim it's the same set of information. a thumbnail of eddie adam's execution shot is the same image as a massive high definition poster of it.

I'm an engineer. Reductive discourse is an automatic response. I must bite my lip some more ;-)

melekalikimaka

nonsequitir wrote: »

An instagram merely creates the illusion of something that used to happen in the past just because the "devices" were not sufficiently technically advanced. It adds, if you like, a certain nostalgia and as humans we like nostalgia. That's probably why so many of the early works in photography are considered greats (not because they are, just because they possess nostalgia)

Do you really this most users understand the orange cast across the middle is a light leak, the cross processing is caused by developing neg in slide chem etc? I dont think these effects really 'add' anymore that the old myspace effects of sticking overlays of flowers or text across the image. I would certainly not say IMO that early works are considered great as a result of the developing or printing flaws, in fact most early great images would be some of the best developed and clinically shot images around, early work was very much a precision art (dare i say it, even a skill moreso) to make things 'perfect'

nonsequitir wrote: »

Even today, we wrestle with the basics of dynamic range and colour management and actively use filters to simulate "Faithful, natural or, god forbid HDR shots of swans in lakes". If you look at advancements in movie making (The Hobbits 48fps) then we'll look back at our D700's, 5DmkII as nostalgia in no time at all and there'll be an instagram filter for them too!

TBH i think the whole 'retro' look thing is a passing fad, its filtered into fashion, music and culture in general, I doubt it will hold fast, given the current generation is awash with bits and bobs style wise from different art movements at the moment, I sometimes wonder how future generations will look at our time in a creative sense

nonsequitir wrote: »

What's important is the output and how it affects you. Art is something that moves you - if it doesn't then, for you, it's visual noise. Once man's noise is another's Lara Croft. However, there are no winners or losers only producers (talented or otherwise) and consumers (appreciative or other wise).

Now if I only had a new lens I'd be awesome :-)

this is would agree with at the end of the day if one person considers your image art, you've created art, but really creating something with that as a goal isnt really setting the bar very high

But even that is to understate the death of the author in modern photography.

Hilarious. I find that the type of person who tends to think like this is the type of person who has little to no talent in the first place, and as such feels the need to defend their lack of talent. The modern age has democratized the processes of recognition - if you're crap, people simply won't enjoy viewing your photos and you will find it far more difficult to construct a name/career for yourself.

The only way to put your photos out there, so to speak, in the olden days was to go through some other source such as a paper or magazine, perhaps even an exhibition - but these all required, in the past, that you have some sort of inroads made into the industry, a skill which has nothing to do with taking a good photo.

As for Instagram, it's a photo sharing app with filters. I have never, ever, encountered anyone who was particularly proud of their Instagram skills. And they would most definitely not consider themselves a full on 'photographer' because they have taken a few fun photos on their phone. If, on the other hand, you dismiss Instagram as being too easy to use, hence making your photography redundant - then your photography was probably shíte in the first place.

nonsequitir

melekalikimaka wrote: »

Do you really this most users understand the orange cast across the middle is a light leak, the cross processing is caused by developing neg in slide chem etc? I dont think these effects really 'add' anymore that the old myspace effects of sticking overlays of flowers or text across the image. I would certainly not say IMO that early works are considered great as a result of the developing or printing flaws, in fact most early great images would be some of the best developed and clinically shot images around, early work was very much a precision art (dare i say it, even a skill moreso) to make things 'perfect'

Yes, you could argue that for "some" images. A lot of it was crap though, just like today.

TBH i think the whole 'retro' look thing is a passing fad, its filtered into fashion, music and culture in general, I doubt it will hold fast, given the current generation is awash with bits and bobs style wise from different art movements at the moment, I sometimes wonder how future generations will look at our time in a creative sense

Fads come and go - look at flares, they'll never feicin' die off!

this is would agree with at the end of the day if one person considers your image art, you've created art, but really creating something with that as a goal isnt really setting the bar very high

Depends, the perception of the height of the bar you see or the height you should think it should be set. If we had to live to that critieria you'd extinguish the hopes and dreams of artists yet to come. It's just another personal criteria as much as defining talent or appreciation are.

melekalikimaka

nonsequitir wrote: »

Depends, the perception of the height of the bar you see or the height you should think it should be set. If we had to live to that critieria you'd extinguish the hopes and dreams of artists yet to come. It's just another personal criteria as much as defining talent or appreciation are.

you mean to say people determine their artistic value on their own preceptions as opposed any external opinion? I would say the opinion of your peers would overshadow any personal views unless it was a personal topic with a challenging concept to grasp. I don't think you would ever improve if you only didnt take into account what others think og your work... unless i suppose you only took photographs for yourself to look at

the bar can be set at any height, it doesnt mean you 'extinguish the dreams and hopes of artists to come... you merely set a goal to improve to?

nonsequitir

melekalikimaka wrote: »

you mean to say people determine their artistic value on their own preceptions as opposed any external opinion? I would say the opinion of your peers would overshadow any personal views unless it was a personal topic with a challenging concept to grasp. I don't think you would ever improve if you only didnt take into account what others think og your work... unless i suppose you only took photographs for yourself to look at

the bar can be set at any height, it doesnt mean you 'extinguish the dreams and hopes of artists to come... you merely set a goal to improve to?

I would respectfully disagree. The consensus views of my peers would have absolutely no place in determining whether an image is good or not, it would merely define the like-ability of that image within that group. I would however be appreciative of the feedback, and may even react to it.

It's that kind of guff (levels, peer review and such) that has created a world over filled with wine and cheese consuming "Art Critics" and camera clubs with their LIPFs.

All that said, once I get my new camera, all of my images will be excellent, because it's totally down to the quality of the gear ;-)

melekalikimaka

nonsequitir wrote: »

I would respectfully disagree. The consensus views of my peers would have absolutely no place in determining whether an image is good or not, it would merely define the like-ability of that image within that group. I would however be appreciative of the feedback, and may even react to it.

It's that kind of guff (levels, peer review and such) that has created a world over filled with wine and cheese consuming "Art Critics" and camera clubs with their LIPFs.

All that said, once I get my new camera, all of my images will be excellent, because it's totally down to the quality of the gear ;-)

well fair enough, everyone views art differently, and with regards your new gear, of course they will be excellent...provided its Nikon yeah?

sarkozy

I'll wade in here. I tend to feel the valuable point made by the author, whether the rest of his article is agreeable or not, is that the environments in which people experience photographs is both influencing how they're read/interpreted and, more importantly, how they're made (in terms of aesthetic quality, not technology).

It's a trite point because every era and every photographer has engaged with this inescapable aesthetic conundrum whether they're photos to be shot on glass plate, contact sheet, art paper or digital sensor, or whether they're displayed (intentionally or not) in a home on a wall, in an old fashioned photo album, a white cube gallery space or a virtual space like a website, or shared via social media.

The only points to be made are that photographs are made in some kind of undefinable wider photographic awareness of the photographer, and that they are (usually) collected or displayed in a particularly context or other, the newest one being various kinds of virtual, sharable digital space.

In other words, the technology used to capture light in a particular way and the technology used to archive or display it affects how photos are not only perceived but composed in the first place because it is much easier than ever to be influenced stylistically, compositionally, etc. by images we find and share via the internet.

Is this bad? No, because it's always gone on, but happens more quickly, so the author's point isn't remotely controversial. But if I was an artist who found this dilemma interesting and worthy of artistic reflection and experimentation, I'd probably push the boundaries of the dilemma and see what statement I could make about it. Again: hardly controversial.

It's also worth reminding the author and some here that 'Lomography' - i.e. the company set up by some Austrians to flog obsolete Soviet knock-offs of Western camera models - became quite the craze in the post-communist, early-digital camera era as some hip luddites ditched their CCDs for clunky, mysterious Soviet cameras and their delightful inconsistencies in search of a more personal, diaristic and nostalgic photographic style. (I was one of them.) What made Lomography contagious was its early adoption of social sharing and the 'snapshot ethic' which, thanks to people like Martin Parr, was all the rage then (and already visual vernacular in both film and digital photography). The genius of this marriage of social sharing and snapshot was that it was impossible to take a 'bad' photo and, therefore, easy to join a global photography cult that felt exciting. In any case, as Parr would himself say, a bad picture is a bad picture and there's no getting around it, but it was the beginning of something new. Instagram is, essentially, applying this model to the smartphone era by making sharing even easier and literally mimicking the photographic quality of many of these now defunct cameras.

So, nothing controversial and certainly nothing new.

The second point is one about intellectual copyright, and that's an important issue.

Does any of this escape the author's other point that it's still bloody hard to be original as a photographer? No. Again, as Parr said, photography is one of the most difficult mediums in which to develop an individual style. And is it a surprise that the way in which digital cameras and Instagram/Flickr are marketed focuses on the message of 'seeing the world your way'? But within a very difficult medium to capture that individuality?

Again, nothing new and nothing controversial.