# Would you consider that as photography?



## Yuri_ii (Jan 26, 2014)

Hey guys, I just want quick feedback.

I've created this piece of "art" today. I shot the photo of the eagle and then edited.

But I came across a kind of problem. How would you categorize this kind of picture? I mean it is not a photo anymore, is it? And it's obviously not an illustration. So what is then?


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## wyogirl (Jan 26, 2014)

Graphic art maybe.


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## Braineack (Jan 26, 2014)

Digital art


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## tecboy (Jan 26, 2014)

Mixed Media?


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## vintagesnaps (Jan 26, 2014)

Maybe a photo illustration (I've seen that term used in newspapers).


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## 407370 (Jan 26, 2014)

it is a picture taken with a digital camera with a little more processing than is regarded as "normal" but it is still a photograph.

Editing begins with the button press using the processes you have preset and ends when you want it to.


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## MGRPhoto (Jan 26, 2014)

It's called a photo manipulation.

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk


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## runnah (Jan 26, 2014)

It's a bird.


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## JG_Coleman (Jan 26, 2014)

Your question is a magnet for highly subjective answers.  The answers will range from...

*"Everything is a photograph that started as photograph, no matter how edited it may be."*  (If you took a photo into Photoshop and decreased brightness until the entire frame turned featureless black, these folks might _still _cringe at the thought of admitting that it's no longer a photograph.)

... to...

*"Real photographs are only straight-out-of-camera JPEGS... and even THAT is pushing it!"*  (These folks are so pointlessly obsessed with achieving a painfully-verbatim reproduction of reality that a photograph becomes inherently flawed by its mere existence apart from the scene it was intended to portray).

Both of these extreme viewpoints are rather silly and difficult to take seriously.  Thus, the vast majority of folks generally adopt a moderate position somewhere between the two.  Even these moderate viewpoints occupy a wide range along the spectrum though, leading to major disagreements even among industry professionals about "what makes a photo a photo".

In truth, there's no hard and fast answer with regard to how your art could be categorized.  Suffice to say, it would generally be unacceptable as a photograph in a wildlife photography competition, for example.  That's not to say that wildlife photography competitions are the end-all, be-all; it's just one way to sort of gauge where your work would fall with regard to today's prevailing standards in the world of photography.  I could certainly see the piece being acceptable in more alternative forms of photography exhibitions and contests... that is, those with themes like "photographic art", "photo illustration", "photographic mixed media", "image artistry" (just to name some terms that I've seen).

Your piece falls somewhere on the hazy spectrum and there's simply no universally accepted categorization for it.  That being said, the impression that I get of the current state of photography is that this piece tips the scale more towards "digital illustration" than "digital photography".  That is to say, if you could average together all modern viewpoints, I think your piece would be seen as a "digital illustration incorporating elements of a photograph" rather than "an enhanced digital photograph".

Whether or not prevailing views are of relevance is up to anyone to decide for themselves, but that's just the way things are at this point in time.


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## robbins.photo (Jan 26, 2014)

Well I know it's generally considered bad form to answer a question with a question, but in this case it's the only thing that seems appropriate.

The only answer I can think of to your question is, what difference does it make?


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## bribrius (Jan 26, 2014)

photographs stopped when we went to digital. it is a digital image that has been reprocessed for added effects.


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## Derrel (Jan 26, 2014)

I call such works "photo illustration". You can call it whatever you want to call it, and consider it whatever you wish.


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## Gavjenks (Jan 26, 2014)

I think the clearest term to use for people to instantly grok what you made is "mixed media" followed by what media were mixed (photography, digital editing, and maybe ink or whatever if you made those textures)


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## vipgraphx (Jan 27, 2014)

Photography + Graphics = PhotoGraphic Art:thumbup:


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## Yuri_ii (Jan 27, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Well I know it's generally considered bad form to answer a question with a question, but in this case it's the only thing that seems appropriate.
> 
> The only answer I can think of to your question is, what difference does it make?



It is not that I care, but other people often do. So I wanted to know how you guys think about it, so I can avoid posting it somewhere wrong/categorizing it wrong.
For example in forums like this there are often Sections called "Graphic Design" and "Photography", and it would be a pain in the ass to make the decision where to post it.


Thanks for the great answers!

Just one more question: If you want to search for more pictures in this style, where and how would look?


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## Newtricks (Jan 27, 2014)

Yuri_ii said:


> I've created this piece of "art" today... How would you categorize this kind of picture?
> 
> View attachment 65384



 ART.


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## Braineack (Jan 27, 2014)

categories are cliche.


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## DSRay (Jan 27, 2014)

I have to wonder why it matters what it's called.


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## Yuri_ii (Jan 27, 2014)

DSRay said:


> I have to wonder why it matters what it's called.



I've already tried to answer this question 

"It is not that I care, but other people often do. So I wanted to know how you guys think about it, so I can avoid posting it somewhere wrong/categorizing it wrong.
For example in forums like this there are often Sections called "Graphic Design" and "Photography", and it would be a pain in the ass to make the decision where to post it."

In spoken words it's easy to describe and the category doesn't matter, but in the online world you often have no other choice than categorizing it


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## jenko (Jan 27, 2014)

Digital mixed media.


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## tecboy (Jan 28, 2014)

It's just a picture.


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## MGRPhoto (Jan 28, 2014)

MGRPhoto said:


> It's called a photo manipulation.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk



This is such a strange thread... I'm not sure why all the guessing is taking place when this has had a widely accepted term for ~15 or so years now. Photo Manipulation is the correct answer...

Photo manipulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I've seen it called this in many books, classes, articles, just about every photography community site...


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## Braineack (Jan 28, 2014)

to maniuplate is a verb.

could he not have used photo manipluation to create digital art (n.)?


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## MGRPhoto (Jan 28, 2014)

Braineack said:


> to maniuplate is a verb.
> 
> could he not have used photo manipluation to create digital art (n.)?



Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not but as with anything dealing with art there can be a great deal of subjective variance to the classification in any given piece. The generally accepted term of Photo Manipulation describing a photograph that has been altered to achieve an end result that cannot be done with a photograph alone still stands. Can you create a Photo Manipulation from scratch in editing software is what I think your question was and the technical answer would be no.


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## Braineack (Jan 28, 2014)

I reject your terms.


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## MGRPhoto (Jan 28, 2014)

Braineack said:


> I reject your terms.



They aren't mine.


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