# Going too far digitally?



## CDG (Sep 27, 2005)

This thread could coincide with the rules thread, but I want to make the distinction here.  Where the rules deals with, what constutes a "good" composition or photograph, I want to ask the simpler question.  What is a photograph?  My love of the feel of film, drove me to continue with the format, but my last two years of photography courses allowed me to experiment with the bizzare, the abstract in the world of digital.  So with the digital darkroom you can take things may ways.  I can make a black and white Sepia with a click of a button.  I can falsely color an image, I can add the sun or the moon, I can paste multiple pictures into one, adding a good foreground and a good background to make a nice looking photo out of otherwise mediocre shots.  

However, I like to stretch the limits beyond what is acceptable.  I like to do things that are "wrong", then try and throw my mind at the result, trying to "bend" my way of thought rather then the image.  That to me is the beauty of abstract art.  You get to bend your mind, rather then changing the art.  As a result, my favorite piece of art would have to be Scream.

I would post an example of my work if I could ever figure out how to post a flippin picture here!  :x


----------



## Don Simon (Oct 7, 2005)

Learning the 'rules' (I prefer 'conventions') of composition can obviously help, but personally I'm a big fan of trial and error, and instinct, over prescription and proscription. I'm now looking into the various principles in more detail, but I'm glad that for a good while I was blissfully unaware of them and got a chance to develop a 'feel' for composition. This resulted in many extremely poor shots, but also a handful of ones with which I was very happy. Ignoring the principles of photography can result in images that appear 'amateurish', but then sticking rigidly to them can give you photos that look pretty workmanlike i.e. unexceptional. Learn the 'rules', but remember that not only can you break the rules, but also that you don't have to follow any 'rules of how to break rules'. In short, don't be afraid to abandon convention and theory for the "That could be kinda cool" instinct.

Of course, that's just my view. If you were attempting photography as a profession my advice would be different, but if not then where's the harm? After all this isn't architecture; no-one's going to fall and die if you fail to observe the major principles of the art (well, I guess if someone was standing on the edge of a cliff and you had a powerful flash, but anyway...) That's just my two units of currency.



			
				CDG said:
			
		

> my favorite piece of art would have to be Scream.


Yes, but surely you agree *two* sequels was pushing it a bit far?


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 7, 2005)

CDG said:
			
		

> I can make a black and white Sepia...  I can falsely color an image, I can add the sun or the moon, I can paste multiple pictures into one...



While maybe not as easily, all of these things can be, and have been done in the traditional, chemical darkroom.

Check out Jerry Uelsmann.

http://www.masters-of-photography.com/U/uelsmann/uelsmann.html


----------



## Don Simon (Oct 8, 2005)

Yup, and somehow, multiple exposure on film is much more satisfying than trying to achieve the same effect in PS


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 8, 2005)

Well, that's up to the individual photographer.    I'd probably be more likely to try something like multiple exposure in Adobe PS than in my darkroom; it's just not my thing.

I was just saying the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The tools get fancier, but the real change comes from within the photographer.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 9, 2005)

What is a 'good' photograph? One that does the job it is intended for is the simple answer.

What is a photograph?
Now _there_ we have it.
I have spent the last 10 years working the definition of that out as the mainstay of my PhD submission. Actually 'what is the definition of Photography?' is the basis but you can't define the one without the other. It was quite an eye-opener to discover that no-one had actually come up with an adequate or accurate definition.
Taking the opportunity to sound smug I'm almost there - it touches all bases and stands up to scrutiny - but no-one is hearing it until I have the language nailed down. So don't ask.

There is a simple and very useful definition, though. It encapsulates the whole thing quite nicely:
"A photograph is a reasonably permanent image that is, in some way, produced through the action of light."
It can be seen that this covers digital but it also includes x-rays and photocopies. I think that they have as much right as anything to be considered as photography.


----------



## Mumfandc (Oct 9, 2005)

ZaphodB said:
			
		

> Yup, and somehow, multiple exposure on film is much more satisfying than trying to achieve the same effect in PS


I really think it's pointless when people try to "simulate" film/darkroom effects onto digitally shot images. I mean...you don't see film users trying to simulate "mosaic tile effect setting" in their darkrooms!

"Digital cyanotype/sepia/split-tone/film infrared/added grain"...doesn't really make sense to me. If your going to use digital (which I think is fine, if it works) I say "out with the OLD, in with the NEW".

It just goes to show that people are still holding on to the qualities of film. In 100 years, when film is LONG dead...then maybe people will have a longing for photos with the "rustic digital Photoshop" look.

That's just my opinion.


----------



## danalec99 (Oct 9, 2005)

Mumfandc said:
			
		

> I really think it's pointless when people try to "simulate" film/darkroom effects onto digitally shot images. I mean...you don't see film users trying to simulate "mosaic tile effect setting" in their darkrooms!
> 
> "Digital cyanotype/sepia/split-tone/film infrared/added grain"...doesn't really make sense to me. If your going to use digital (which I think is fine, if it works) I say "out with the OLD, in with the NEW".
> 
> That's just my opinion.


There are some of us who have not had the chance to play in a traditional darkroom; but yet LOVE that film look. 
Attempted 'simulation' it might be, but at the end of the day it makes me happy.

Just my opinion!


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 9, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> What is a photograph?
> 
> There is a simple and very useful definition, though. It encapsulates the whole thing quite nicely:
> "A photograph is a reasonably permanent image that is, in some way, produced through the action of light."
> It can be seen that this covers digital but it also includes x-rays and photocopies. I think that they have as much right as anything to be considered as photography.



That works for me.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 9, 2005)

Not bad for ten years work, eh? That definition is actually mine.


----------



## RobotJam (Oct 10, 2005)

I find digital photo's kind of strange, to me being in the computer graphics industry for the last 12 years they are just another digital image. If it's in digital form its just a collection of pixels like any other digital image be it a 3d render or a digital painting.


----------



## craig (Oct 10, 2005)

I think a photograph is capturing a moment and saying "hey world this is what I saw and or felt". The responsibility of that action can be taken on a million different levels. Some feel that a well thought out photo with correct exposure and depth of field is the way to go. Others feel that if you have 9 family members in one place that is worthy of a shot. 

I think the key is understanding what you are trying to capture and convey. The medium can be anything. It is the thought that counts.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 10, 2005)

Heading back to the original question, as I interpret it:

A photograph, whether digital or on film is an image created by light, summed up beautifully by Hertz. These images can be cropped, tinted or toned and still be a photograph. Just one that has been edited.
I would say (contentiously) that any double exposure (in the darkroom), or photo-shopped together (the digital equivelant) image - anything that affects the natural 'image made by light' is no longer a photograph. It is a montage that may or may not be indistinguishable from a 'real' photograph.
A 'joiner' (for want of a better term), made from many seperate images patched together, is however, in my opinion, still a photograph! Why? Because the physical light, as recorded, has not been altered.

Someone mentioned photoshop stuff like mosac effects. Is that really much diferent to artists who take several copies of a print, chop them up and glue all the bits back to a piece of card? I really do think it's all been done before - it's just must simpler now, with computers.


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 10, 2005)

Does a photographer produce only photographs?  Well, I guess some do but many will produce at least some photographic based works that couldn't be fairly classified as photographs in a pure sense.

Surely the emphasis for classification should be placed on the finished work not the base ingredients.  The finished work in this case being a print (including electronic represetations) or an image or a job.

My solution:  If you only produce 'pure' photographs then classify your works as 'photographs'.  If some of your works will not fit comfortablly with that then classify your works as 'prints', 'images', 'layouts', 'jobs' or even 'fish' if it makes you feel better.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 10, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> I would say (contentiously) that any double exposure (in the darkroom), or photo-shopped together (the digital equivelant) image - anything that affects the natural 'image made by light' is no longer a photograph. It is a montage that may or may not be indistinguishable from a 'real' photograph.


You are half-right.
The double _exposure_ either in the camera or in the darkroom is still using light to make an image.
My definition means that _any_ image produced by the action of light is technically a photograph so a double exposure is one as well.
The Photoshop thing is done to the image after it has been 'made' and should be seen as being like taking a pair of scissors to some prints and cutting and pasting things together.
But then if you send the computer file to a laser image setter you get an image formed by light and so...
You can see why it's taken me 10 years...


----------



## 'Daniel' (Oct 10, 2005)

What about a projection on a screen?


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 10, 2005)

Marctwo said:
			
		

> If you only produce 'pure' photographs then classify your works as 'photographs'.  If some of your works will not fit comfortablly with that then classify your works as 'prints', 'images', 'layouts', 'jobs' or even 'fish' if it makes you feel better.



I don't believe in "pure" photographs, because the definition of "pure" photography is an opinion.  How does any particular photographer define "pure"?  There are many ways, I'm sure. 

Is it photography as it was very first practiced?  That would eliminate film and color from photography.

Is it photography that is accurate to reality?  That would eliminate BW, anything shot with filters, contrast manipulation, etc...  How accurate to reality does it have to be?  Is BW okay, but using a fisheye lens going too far?  

People have apparently assumed that photographs were the absolute truth in the past, and digital is new technology that allows photographers to bend and distort reality.  This isn't true at all.  The new technology has only exposed the amount of bending and manipulation that has always gone on, but behind the closed doors of the photography studio/lab.

In my mind photography is manipulation of reality from the beginning; to me there is no such thing as an unmanipulated photograph.  Framing the world within a rectangle or square manipulates reality.  Setting the shutter speed manipulates the flow of time.  Using a wide angle lens manipulates reality.  Choosing BW film or Velvia manipulates reality, and so on.  

Add in that people may perceive reality quite differently from one another, and nailing down what "pure" or "straight" photography is becomes quite a task, unless we accept that it can mean different things to different photographers.


----------



## danalec99 (Oct 10, 2005)

bravo Matt!


----------



## terri (Oct 10, 2005)

danalec99 said:
			
		

> bravo Matt!


 :thumbup: That's what I was thinking.


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 10, 2005)

ksmattfish said:
			
		

> I don't believe in "pure" photographs, because the definition of "pure" photography is an opinion.


That's the point! It's also why I quoted 'pure'.

Everyone has their own idea of how much manipulation is acceptable within the classification of a 'photograph'... but why is this important when you can simply call them all 'prints', 'images', etc...

<edit>BTW, why would you pick on one word from my post to disagree with and completely ignore the meaning behind my post? </edit>


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 10, 2005)

Daniel said:
			
		

> What about a projection on a screen?


It's a _projection_. Turn the projector off and the image vanishes so it doesn't form a 'reasonably permanent' image.
If, however, I were to stick a stencil on my skin and sunbathe so that I tanned but the stencil left pale marks... that would qualify as a photograph


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 10, 2005)

I came by a load of old computer gear from an old wearhouse and on testing one of the monitors it had a graphical band clearly burnt across the bottom of the screen.  Seems they hadn't heard of screen savers. 

Needless to say, this is one photograph I didn't bother keeping.


----------



## montresor (Oct 10, 2005)

I tend to use film. It's what the cameras I have are designed for. I wonder if my first camera had been a digital SLR would I have gone to film at all. Not much inclination to do much in the way of manipulation, though, beyond finding exactly the right place to stand when taking the picture and, after processing, cropping if I think it would help. Oh, and discarding the ones that didn't work! That may be the most valuable manipulation of all.


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 10, 2005)

Marctwo said:
			
		

> BTW, why would you pick on one word from my post to disagree with and completely ignore the meaning behind my post?



Sorry, I wasn't trying to pick on you.    I wasn't disagreeing with you.  I was just voicing my thoughts triggered by the phrase "pure photography".


----------



## Rob (Oct 11, 2005)

How about a thing carved with a laser, Is that a photograph?


----------



## alexecho (Oct 11, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> You are half-right.


Well, that's not too bad when you consider I'm nine years, 364 days, 23 hours and fifty five minutes behind on the thinking time! 



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> The double _exposure_ either in the camera or in the darkroom is still using light to make an image.


Then I would argue that the light has to hit the paper direct from a single piece of film, showing an image distorted only by lenses, filters and time... I'm still best part of ten years behind on the thinking time, but I hope you see the general direction I'm coming from even if I'm not wholey accurate.  

As for digital, it's harder to difine with my explanation. I'm seemingly pushing towards no digital image being a real photograph, but that's not right, so with the next best-part-of-ten-years I'll have to write in some provisos about that...



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> My definition means that _any_ image produced by the action of light is technically a photograph so a double exposure is one as well.


I really don't want to agree with you - I desperately want to stick with what I've just said, but the more I consider it, the more sense what you say makes! I guess I just like to think that an actual 'photograph' is a capture of a moment in time that however briefly, really exsisted. A double exposue kills that thought.

A multiple exposure could theoretically allow Big Ben and the Eifal Tower to stand next to one-another in Times Square... (Well, probably not, but it does make things look to be different to how they really are.  )



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> The Photoshop thing is done to the image after it has been 'made' and should be seen as being like taking a pair of scissors to some prints and cutting and pasting things together.


Ah! Now we agree. :mrgreen:  It would have been so much easier I'f I'd just accepted all you said though, because I'm sure my comments won't stand up to your ten years thinking!



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> But then if you send the computer file to a laser image setter you get an image formed by light and so...


Argh! STOP! I'm getting a headache.   It is only a photograph if the light that forms the image comes initially from reality. Distortion of time and light are 'acceptable' modifications, but movement of image components...

OK, OK, you win - but thanks for your thoughts, you've given me a lot to think about!


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 11, 2005)

robhesketh said:
			
		

> How about a thing carved with a laser, Is that a photograph?


Nice one.  I think we need a definition of 'image' now.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 11, 2005)

A thing carved with a laser is not a photograph because it is not a recording of the physical made by light? It is merely focussed light used as a drawing implement.

An image is any two dimentional rendering of 3d materials? :greenpbl:  (D'ya ever wish you never asked?)


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 11, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> An image is any two dimentional rendering of 3d materials? :greenpbl: (D'ya ever wish you never asked?)


What about a hologram?  I'd have thought that was an image.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 11, 2005)

A hologram qualifies as a photograph.
As for multiple images, there is no law that I know of that says you can't make 1 photographic image up from a series of exposures. I was shown how to do it in the camera straight onto film by Micky Moulton - he used a series of mattes inside the camera to cover areas over. And advertising photographers commonly expose the film by using a sequence of flash firings. Technically all multiple exposures but all finishing as a single image.
The thing that you need to remember is that it is not the _process_ that is important - just the end product.
If you have never seen a photograph produced by the camera at a racecourse for photo-finishes then you are in for a shock.
Multiple images are produced on the one film. The horses heads appear in the same horizontal position but each suceeding one is further up the vertical. The distance vertically is determined by the time diference between the horses.
It is a photograph, Jim, but not as we know it.
It is important when thinking about Photography and the photograph to get away from the notion that a picture can only be produced by a camera in the 'traditional' way. Nor does the process have to be silver based.
And there is nothing in the simple definition that dictates that the image has to be recognisable to the unaided eye to qualify.
The first thing you need to do is get rid of your pre-conceived notions. They are often wrong and they just shackle your thinking.

*Edit* 'And it's only a photograph if the light that forms it comes initially from reality'?
ALL light comes from reality - where else could it come from?


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 11, 2005)

convention is to turn left, when the road goes left, and to turn right, when the road goes right, and not turn at all, when the road isn't turning

*but* there is no exact way to drive

though knowing the conventions is a good start than building on nothing at all (unless you enjoy exploding cars driving off cliffs - i know i do)


----------



## alexecho (Oct 11, 2005)

marctwo, a hologram is a 2d rendering of a 3d, er, thing!  As such I say it qualifies as an image.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> As for multiple images, there is no law that I know of that says you can't make 1 photographic image up from a series of exposures.


Then I'll make one!  Serously, once you've finished your ten years work, is it available for disecti... I mean, reading? You're right of course, but I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> It is important when thinking about Photography and the photograph to get away from the notion that a picture can only be produced by a camera in the 'traditional' way. Nor does the process have to be silver based.


I'll accept any semi-permanent image made by light... (heliograph?) How do I phrase this? I'll accept distorted light, following it's natural path through obsticals such as lenses and filters, but not clusters of light caught at different times, or in different places patched together.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> *Edit* 'And it's only a photograph if the light that forms it comes initially from reality'?
> ALL light comes from reality - where else could it come from?


:blushing: No comment?  That really wasn't what I meant, was it?!
It is only a photograph if the light that forms it is from a single source, which can be distorted but not fragmented?
You didn't give your opinion of a laser, Hertz.


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 11, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures.



The gelatin silver prints I make in my darkroom are made with a series of exposures:  1 on the film and 2 or more on the paper (the main print exposure, and usually a burn exposure; possibly several seperate exposures at different contrast grades).


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 12, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> I claim still that a single negative makes a photographic image, but not a photograph when it's produced from a series of exposures. I'll accept any semi-permanent image made by light... (heliograph?) How do I phrase this? I'll accept distorted light, following it's natural path through obsticals such as lenses and filters, but not clusters of light caught at different times, or in different places patched together.


(Firstly, I didn't say 'semi-permanent', I used the expression 'reasonably permanent'. There is a significant difference between the two and I was careful in my choice of words.)

What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?
One is an image produced by photographic means and the other is an image produced by photographic means.... Hmmm.

So according to your hypothesis there is a difference between images made from one exposure and images made from multiple exposures.
Example:
I construct a still life in the studio lit by flash.
I set the camera up, turn the lights off, open the lens and expose the image by firing off the flash.
I repeat the exposure but this time I close the lens aperture down 1 stop.
This means I have to double the amount of light on the subject to get the same exposure in the camera.
I do this by firing the flash off twice at the same power.
There is a significant time lag between the two flashes as the power pack has to recharge.
This gives me a photograph that is technically made from a series of exposures.
The end result is the same, though. I get two photographs that are identical. They are indistinguishable to the naked eye and by any test known to Science.
But according to you, they _are_ different. One is a photograph and the other isn't.
If the difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> It is only a photograph if the light that forms it is from a single source, which can be distorted but not fragmented?


That is an even more untenable hypothesis.
I go out at night and take a photograph of the night sky and record the stars, each one an individual light source... (the light from them having taken many years to reach the camera, by the way).
I go into the studio and light my subject using three lights...
At night I photograph the City, which is ablaze with light fom hundreds of street lights and neon signs...
These scenarios would all result in photographs formed by light from multiple sources.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> Then I'll make one!  Serously, once you've finished your ten years work, is it available for disecti... I mean, reading?


It will be published when it is finished and submitted - whenever that is.
The end product will be a thesis proposing a possible framework within which a critical photographic theory can be constructed.
I fully expect it to be examined, debated and tested by anyone who cares to read it. That is the usual fate of theories.
So of course you may 'disect' it if you wish. But I suspect you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using to dig yourself a hole.  :lmao:


----------



## alexecho (Oct 12, 2005)

Hertz, I can say only that I am fully aware that I am digging a hole, but I am enjoying doing it. I worry that you may feel I am questioning your logic, trying to debate your ten years of work. That is not the case. I will say again what I said before: I know you are correct.

But... I feel the question 'what is a photograph' is a debatable point. So I debate _my_ point, shovel in hand, not to try to show that you are wrong, but to help me understand why I am wrong. I hope that, at least, makes some sense?

"What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?"
A photograph shows something that is real, in some moment of time it exsisted, though not nececcerily exactly as it is seen as it can be manipulated by different lenses or filters. A photographic image adjusts reality in some way, moves or duplicates components of the image.

"...difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?"
For me it all comes down to if what you are showing is true to life... I can't find the right words to express my thoughts.

Finally, just to (try to) clarify my terrible phrazing, when I said "the light that forms it is from a single source" I didn't mean a single physical source, such as a single lamp, I meant that you wern't capturing a little bit of something over there and adding it to a little bit of something else over here...

"...you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using..."
The shovel is the best tool I have and I use it to the best of my ability. Thanks for the debate - I realise you think I've mearly made a fool of myself with my half-witted comments, but I've enjoyed the mental excercise!


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 12, 2005)

a "photograph" is a record, a "photographic image" is information recorded by means of light and lack of light

that's my opinion, but most things are not absolute

conventions are meant to have something you can build on, if we didn't have conventions, no matter how arbitrary they were, then a photograph in the total sense of the word, could be anything from the peeling paint on the side of a house, to a sunburn

but that isn't helpful in the real world

so to me, a photograph is a record of light in the form of a visual image (as defined by past conventions of art)

there is no slippery slope of course, even if you said all things are photographs, then you would still have to subdivide photographs into various crafts, so in the end, a photograph is still and only something recorded with light in the form of information resulting from a "device"


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 12, 2005)

For me a photograph is linked to a camera, but I consider X-ray machines, copiers, scanners, enlargers, etc... as variations of a camera.  In many ways they are not as far removed from what most folks think of as cameras as some of the weirder cameras in my collection.  As camera designers move away from the rules that they were bound to due to the restrictions of passing a roll of film through a camera I think that what we perceive as a camera will change quite a bit.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 13, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> I feel the question 'what is a photograph' is a debatable point.


It is only a debatable point because it has not yet been properly defined.
If you ask an Architect (and I have!) 'what is a building?' he will give you a succinct definition that sums it up perfectly. It's just that photographers have never bothered and have taken it on trust ('we _know_ what a photograph is' - but if you question them they don't really have a clear idea. See this discussion.).



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> "What is the difference between 'photographic image' and 'photograph'?"
> A photograph shows something that is real, in some moment of time it exsisted, though not nececcerily exactly as it is seen as it can be manipulated by different lenses or filters. A photographic image adjusts reality in some way, moves or duplicates components of the image.


You are getting confused through semantics, here. A 'photograph' is a distinct physical object. A 'photographic image' is a broader definition that would include projections formed by light as in projecting an image onto a screen.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> "...difference does not reside in the photograph itself, then where does it reside?"
> For me it all comes down to if what you are showing is true to life... I can't find the right words to express my thoughts.


I know what you are trying to say - but to answer my own question, the difference is in the mind. It does not have a physical reality. If I presented you with two photographs, one formed by multiple imagery, and did not tell you then you would not know and you would look at them equally. If I then told you that one was a multiple image then your _perception_ of it would change - but the image wouldn't.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> Finally, just to (try to) clarify my terrible phrazing, when I said "the light that forms it is from a single source" I didn't mean a single physical source, such as a single lamp, I meant that you wern't capturing a little bit of something over there and adding it to a little bit of something else over here...


Now you see how difficult it is. It is no good knowing what you mean if no one else does. And it is no good having a 'definition' that has exceptions - it ceases to be a definition. In this idea you are again becoming confused between the process and the end product. They are distinctly seperate.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> "...you will need a sharper tool to do it than the shovel you are currently using..."
> The shovel is the best tool I have and I use it to the best of my ability. Thanks for the debate - I realise you think I've mearly made a fool of myself with my half-witted comments, but I've enjoyed the mental excercise!


Not at all. A lot of your thinking is just lazy because you haven't worked through your ideas enough - and you have taken what you 'know' and understand to be how things are (the first and hardest thing I had to to was jettison all my pre-conceived notions and ideas - most of them had no foundation but were just convention). All theories and ideas have to be tested. If you can find just one small case where the theory does not hold up then the theory is wrong. This is normally caused by something that hasn't been thought of in the first place - a 'blind spot'. I am still not convinced that my ideas are correct and am still checking. Discussions like this help me to refine and test my theories - and you have the same chance of finding a flaw in my thinking as anyone else. I'd sooner find it now than when I'm published. Read up about the history of Bertrand Russel and set theory to see what I mean - he wrote a book and it had been published before he found he was completely wrong. All he could do was insert an addendum saying that his theory - and thus the book - was rubbish!


----------



## Rob (Oct 13, 2005)

These are all pretty narrrow-minded definitions aren't they:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=define:+photograph&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 13, 2005)

> A picture produced by photography.


 :meh:


----------



## alexecho (Oct 13, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> the difference is in the mind... If I then told you that one was a multiple image then your _perception_ of it would change - but the image wouldn't.


You're right, that is what I meant. The only thing I can equate my theory to is the way people in the past have paid excessively large sums of money for a painting by a 'grand master', then found it to be a fake. Overnight that painting loses it's value. It hasn't changed except in perception though. My personal defination of a photograph works along the same lines of logic. Basically, my point comes down to the fact that you can't know if something is a photograph or not... which makes a terrible definition, and is why I freely admit I'm wrong...



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> And it is no good having a 'definition' that has exceptions - it ceases to be a definition.


So your work will be just a couple of lines with no "if's" or "but's"? I must mis-understand you. Surely a definition can have exceptions, as long as they are themselves clearly outlined? In which case (I'm pushing my luck here!) my theories are not certainly wrong, just as yet under-developed? They would only fall apart completely (I imagine) when I tried to tie in all the exceptions...


----------



## Jeff/fotog (Oct 13, 2005)

My personal problem with some digital photography is that the images are all about increased saturation (tough to look at a long time) and the exploration of the medium beyond the image's basic strengths.  While it's good to privately explore the dimensions of a particular medium, each image should stand on its own merit, no matter the technology that is being utilized.

I have shot some digital images in B & W and found the grey scale better in some cases and worse in others than in properly worked analogue photography.  However, if it is all about technology, often times the image itself suffers.

My advice is make the best image you can with the technology you have when you are showing to others, and all the rest follows.

Hopefully this is helpful?

www.jefferyraymond.com


----------



## ksmattfish (Oct 13, 2005)

Jeff/fotog said:
			
		

> My personal problem with some digital photography is that the images are all about increased saturation (tough to look at a long time)



I have the same problem with the popularity of Velvia.


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 13, 2005)

as for digital, you could say that going by my idea of what a photographic image is (information via light and lack of light), that a digital photographic image, processed through a non-light oriented system, is no longer a photo

and same goes for film photography, where in the darkroom, things can change with the medium, rather than just light

i guess there would have to be a general "convention", that say, if manipulation is beyond say 30% of the total information of the original photographic image, then it is no longer a photographic record, but instead relegated to the category of photographic art (not in the field of subject, composition, or etc., but craft/material), and that a distinction between the two should be made

neither change that the photographic image is a thing produced via light, using a device (machine - simple or complex), it is not produced by eyesight, but by the physical objects themselves, and a photographic record is not pencils or paint, but a physical object, that say - does not require the person to be there at that moment to view the image


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 13, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> Basically, my point comes down to the fact that you can't know if something is a photograph or not...


So you can't tell the difference between an oil painting, a photograph and my Aunt Mimi's feather boa?
But that's silly, isn't it? So you can exclude all the things you know _aren't_ photographs and try seeing what you've got left.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> So your work will be just a couple of lines with no "if's" or "but's"? I must mis-understand you. Surely a definition can have exceptions, as long as they are themselves clearly outlined? In which case (I'm pushing my luck here!) my theories are not certainly wrong, just as yet under-developed? They would only fall apart completely (I imagine) when I tried to tie in all the exceptions...


A definition, by definition(!), defines accurately what something _is_ - and thus of necessity also defines what it _isn't_.
If you find exceptions it is usually a good indication that the criteria have been set too narrowly or that you haven't identified the underlying principles correctly.
Suprisingly, once you analyse things down to a basic set of criteria it takes very little to accurately define most things. What takes the time, effort and research is _substantiating_ the definition.
Defining the photograph actually came about as a by-product of trying to define Photography. And that only came about by accident. My researches were on something else entirely - but photo related - and I discovered that no-one had produced a succesful definition and I needed one.
So far it's the whole first chapter...


----------



## alexecho (Oct 13, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> So you can't tell the difference between an oil painting, a photograph and my Aunt Mimi's feather boa?


 OK! My shovel is getting blunter by the second isn't it? :blushing: 
BUT I think we both know we were talking about not being able to tell what I said was a photograph, (a single exposure, or multiple idential exposures) from what I said wasn't a photograph (a series of exposures taken in different places or after time has had some visible effect on the same place).
Neither of these things are likely to be mistaken for a painting or your Aunt Mimi's feather boa. Equally I don't imagine your Aunt Mimi's feather boa is going to be mistaken for a photograph...

I should have given this up when I first said I would, but I'm having fun! And I've just said something else that can be ripped limb from limb - oops.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 14, 2005)

You still aren't taking an objective view.
There is no physical difference between a photograph produced by a single exposure and a photograph produced by multiple exposures. If there is no physical difference then they must be identical. Therefore if one is classified as a photograph then so must the other.
The only difference as such is in your mind - it is your attitude towards the two. The mere act of distinguishing between the two in your mind does not affect the physical reality of the two pictures. They remain as they are: identical. What you are doing, then, is making an _intellectual_ difference - but you can only do this if you have additional information. Information that comes from _outside_ the photograph.
I show you two pictures.
I tell you that one is a composite and one has been shot straight.
You cannot tell which is which.
I tell you which one is a composite.
You immediately declare that it is not a photograph whilst the other one is.
What has changed? Only your attitude towards the images. The images themselves remain unchanged.
I then say "oops! My mistake. It's the other one that is the composite."
You then have to revise and reverse your view.
What if I told you that I was lying and that both were composites or that neither were? What if you don't know that I'm lying?
You have two choices. You either rely on the physical evidence provided by the two photographs and conclude that they are both photographs whatever else they might be. Or you reject the physical evidence and decide that, as you cannot know which photograph is which, neither is a photograph.
The logical extension of the second choice is that, as you can never know whether a photograph is 'pure' or a multiple exposure, you have to reject _all_ photographs with the exception of ones you take yourself (they are the only ones you can be reasonably sure about).

And then there is the fundamental flaw in your thinking.
You stand in one place with your camera and take a picture.
You have the negative and go to another location at another time and make a print.
There you have two different exposures, done at different times and in different locations, to produce a photograph.
Looked at in that way - and all I have done is describe the process of taking a picture and making a print - ALL photographs made from negatives are double exposures.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 19, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> If there is no physical difference then they must be identical.


Why is that the case? I mentioned paintings by famous artists being worth 100 times more than an identical looking painting by 'no-one'. There is no physical difference.

Equally, think of designer clothing. Incredible fakes can be made that are impossible to decern from the originals. Why can't a multiple exposure be a 'fake' photograph in the same way?



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...You immediately declare that it is not a photograph whilst the other one is...


No, I declare that they both LOOK like photographs, as neither are _obviously_ manipulated. That opinion does not change. If one is _obviously_ manipulated then I declare that is a photographic quality image, but not  a photograph.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...Or you reject the physical evidence and decide that, as you cannot know which photograph is which, neither is a photograph.
> The logical extension of the second choice is that, as you can never know whether a photograph is 'pure' or a multiple exposure, you have to reject _all_ photographs with the exception of ones you take yourself (they are the only ones you can be reasonably sure about)...


OK, I know there a fake banknotes in existance. They are indecernable from real banknotes. So I reject the physical evidence and refuse all bank notes. I cannot use my credit card because they also can be faked. Is that what you are saying?

If someone tells me something is a photograph, and it looks like a photograph I will accept that it _is_ a photograph. The question was 'what is a photograph' not 'how do you prove something is a photograph'.




			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...And then there is the fundamental flaw in your thinking.
> You stand in one place with your camera and take a picture.
> You have the negative and go to another location at another time and make a print.
> There you have two different exposures, done at different times and in different locations, to produce a photograph.
> Looked at in that way - and all I have done is describe the process of taking a picture and making a print - ALL photographs made from negatives are double exposures.


Where is the eye rolling smiley?  
The negative must be made from a single exposure. Then the print must be exposed from a single negative. A double exposure would be two exposures onto one frame of film, or two exposures onto one piece of printing paper, or two negatives stacked on top of one another in a single exposure onto the paper... Dodging and burning, done in the darkroom from a single neg onto a single bit of paper would still be a single exposure, even if done in seveal stages, because the same thing is being exposed in the same place.

We don't really want to move onto the definition of a double exposure, do we?

And I know you can pull that apart, I can see flaws (and spelling mistakes) in that last couple of paragraphs already, but I've just run out of time - my five minutes are up!


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 19, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> Where is the eye rolling smiley?
> The negative must be made from a single exposure. Then the print must be exposed from a single negative. A double exposure would be two exposures onto one frame of film, or two exposures onto one piece of printing paper, or two negatives stacked on top of one another in a single exposure onto the paper... Dodging and burning, done in the darkroom from a single neg onto a single bit of paper would still be a single exposure, even if done in seveal stages, because the same thing is being exposed in the same place.
> 
> We don't really want to move onto the definition of a double exposure, do we?
> ...


 
imo, you're being too narrow

a human is not necessarily an animal that walks on two legs, many people do not even have legs (nature or caused) and are still human


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 19, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> Why is that the case? I mentioned paintings by famous artists being worth 100 times more than an identical looking painting by 'no-one'. There is no physical difference.


That is a very poor example to support your argument.
We are discussing physical difference - your example deals with subjective value.
When you are discussing matters of 'value', as in 'how much will someone pay for something', people are prepared to pay what they _believe_ the item is worth. That has nothing at all to do with the physical difference between the two.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> Equally, think of designer clothing. Incredible fakes can be made that are impossible to decern from the originals. Why can't a multiple exposure be a 'fake' photograph in the same way?


Again, another poor example. There are quite obvious differences between fake clothing and designer clothing - you just have to know what to look for. I knew quite a few fashion designers who could spot a fake from across the room. 



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> No, I declare that they both LOOK like photographs, as neither are _obviously_ manipulated. That opinion does not change. If one is _obviously_ manipulated then I declare that is a photographic quality image, but not  a photograph.


That is a nonsensical circular 'argument'.
You can only say a photograph 'looks' like a photograph until you have proof that it has not been manipulated. So how do you know what a photograph looks like? All the photographs you have seen may or may not be multiple images so they can only look like photographs, but as you have nothing to compare them to you cannot say even that.
If you try to argue that you have your photographs to compare them to, we use the counter arguments that a) we only have your word for it that you haven't manipulated them and b) as you have nothing else to compare them with you could be wrong and they are not photographs at all but something else.
The best you can manage with your argument is 'this may or may not be a photograph but I have no way of knowing.'
And what on earth is a 'photographic quality image'?



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> OK, I know there a fake banknotes in existance. They are indecernable from real banknotes. So I reject the physical evidence and refuse all bank notes. I cannot use my credit card because they also can be faked. Is that what you are saying?


Another poor example.
Of course there are ways to tell fake banknotes from real ones. That's how we know they are fakes.
If you couldn't tell them apart then to all intents and purposes they would be real.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> If someone tells me something is a photograph, and it looks like a photograph I will accept that it _is_ a photograph. The question was 'what is a photograph' not 'how do you prove something is a photograph'.


Which was my point to begin with.
You define what a photograph is - but you must be prepared to accept that some things may fall under the definition that _you_ do not consider to be photographs. You cannot make specific exclusions in defiance of the definition.
Your argument goes: anything which fulfils X and Y is a photograph _except_ for manipulated images, for although fulfilling X and Y I do not consider them to be photographs.
It was you that started the discussion about proving what a photograph is.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> The negative must be made from a single exposure. Then the print must be exposed from a single negative. A double exposure would be two exposures onto one frame of film, or two exposures onto one piece of printing paper, or two negatives stacked on top of one another in a single exposure onto the paper... Dodging and burning, done in the darkroom from a single neg onto a single bit of paper would still be a single exposure, even if done in seveal stages, because the same thing is being exposed in the same place.


So the determining factor for a double exposure is that it is only a double exposure if it has been produced in two seperate places? And it is not a double exposure if it has been done in the same place no matter how many times you expose something?
Oh dear.
What about an exposure that has been lit by a strobe light? It's only one exposure in the camera even though it can result in multiple images. By your definition it's a photograph even though it is quite clearly a multiple exposure.
Technically if you multiple expose onto a neg then the neg is in the same place in the camera. It does not move. Therefore no multiple exposed neg is a double exposure.
Then again, the earth is rotating as it moves through space at some speed. Therefore _no_ exposure is actually made in the same place - the pysical location of camera, film, paper, enlarger and everything else is in constant motion.
You would be amazed if you worked out how far the enlarger moved in space during a 30 second exposure.
By your definition - that it is the physical location that is the determinant - ALL photographs and photographic prints are double exposures.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> We don't really want to move onto the definition of a double exposure, do we?


I'm afraid you must. We need to see if there are any contradictions or exceptions between what makes a photograph and what makes a double exposure by your definitions.
You also need to define 'exposure' and 'the same place'. At the very least.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> And I know you can pull that apart, I can see flaws (and spelling mistakes) in that last couple of paragraphs already, but I've just run out of time - my five minutes are up!


Listen! What's that coming from beneath our feet? It sounds like people talking in Chinese. 

Your biggest problem is that you are trying to define a photograph by exclusion - you are listing what you consider aren't photographs (and for no good logical reason) in the belief that what you have left must be a photograph. This means you have lost before you begin as there will always be special cases that will require you to keep moving the goal posts. And I can see that there is going to be a huge grey area inbetween where I can have a lot of fun at your expense.
You have also got yourself bogged down in the _production process_ and you are not considering the end product - which is the photograph (what we are trying to define).
Your argument concerns itself solely with the way in which the photograph is produced and you use this as the basis of your definition.
You have made no attempt at any argument to support your claim that multiple or manipulated photographs are not photographs - other than your personal convictions.
Give me one solid, irrefutable fact that clearly demonstrates a real difference between photographs produced by the two methods.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 19, 2005)

Who said the definition of a photograph had to be a physical difference? I could mis-understand here and think you are jumping to a conclusion.

We've established that I'm stubborn and am going to stick to my 'definition' that isn't a definition at all because it doesn't stand up to cross examination.

But, just for the record, the goal posts haven't moved at all.


----------



## LWW (Oct 19, 2005)

I'll toss my hat in the ring here, and I'm not trying to enflame anyone or convert anyone to my way of thinking, but I've given the film vs digital vs reality alot of thought. Bear with me as I have principles in mind and will explain my thinking as best I can, and for argument's sake I am going to refer to everything as visual records.

100,000,000 BC or thereabouts Zog figured out that he could take sticks, rocks, and berries and make images on other rocks to record events which had been witnessed,

Shortly thereafter other cavevolk figured out that not only could they record events that had been witnessed but that they could leave a record slightly different than what they had witnessed.

A little later it became apparent that a record could be left of events that never even happened and cavevolk of the future would accept these fictitious records as factual.

This evolved from cave paintings to drawings to carvings to statues to paintings to all the great works of art that have survived time.

Eventually it became common knowledge that these records of events ranged from spot on Boy Scout honesty to exaggerations to out and out myth, hence over time it was no longer accepted as recordings of reality but as expressions of human feeling, vision, and thinking and was referred to as art.

Then came film. Film could give an altered image in via the darkroom and details could be burnt and dodged in and out but the original negative remained as a record of an actual moment in time and the occurences within it.

Yes different focal lengths could be used to exagerrate or distort the reality and different filters could alter coloring but the basic observed reality was recorded forever. IOW yes you could take a picture of me with a knife and a picture of Jack the Ripper's victim and make a print which showed me to be the Ripper...however that again was the "art" portion of photography or a created reality which never existed...but you could not produce the original image of me committing the Ripper's evil deeds.

You could pose me in front of the Eiffel Tower and with different focal lengths make the Tower appear closer to or farther from me in the negative but the evidence that at this instant in time I was in front of the Tower was provable as was the fact that I was not in front of the Great Sphinx.

Because of film and Matthew Brady we can prove that the US Civil War occured, while the postcave prefilm volk could not prove that Zeus came from Olympus to smite the evildoers of the world...we could only prove that somebody claimed that he had.

Film had a link to reality that other recordings of events never had. It could be art, and often was, but it also had a permamnence and a finality that a painting or a drawing or an etching or a statue could never have.

1975ish AD, give or take, the first digital camera came to be and the age of the Volkscomputer was upon us. Shortly thereafter it became apparent that pixels and databits could be captured, created, and manipulated to display anything that the possessor had the patience, skill, and imagination to present.

Now it was possible to create an image of me doing the Ripper's deeds which was indecipherable from the image of the Ripper standing before the Great Sphinx in the AM and the Eiffel Tower in the PM of the same day...and all 3 would be imperceptible from another difitized image of pure reality. The victim in the image may in fact still be alive and unharmed. They may in fact have never even been born.

Digital is great art. It can be great at recording events as well. It lacks however the eternal evidence of truth that those photons of light forever trapped on celluloid provide.

My $0.02. YMMV.

LWW


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 20, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> Who said the definition of a photograph had to be a physical difference? I could mis-understand here and think you are jumping to a conclusion.


The physical difference we are discussing is the one between a 'straight' photograph and one that has been manipulated - and we are discussing it because _you_ are the one who insists there is a difference.
We are looking at the photograph, which is a physical object. My argument is that there is - in terms of the Laws of Physics - no difference between a photograph produced by a single exposure and one produced by a multiple exposure and that as they are identical they must both be considered to be photographs.
You assert that there is a difference, but the only one you can come up with is one that is in the mind of the viewer. This is not a real difference but is just a matter of opinion and does not affect the physical nature of what you are looking at.
You also assert that, whilst it doesn't affect the physical outcome, the method of production makes the difference even though you have no way of knowing how a photograph was made just by looking at it.
If you are going to define a photograph purely on the terms of what you 'think' a photograph is then it will be different for every person as every person will have a slightly different idea as to what a photograph is. This means it fails to be a definition, remembering that one of the things a definition must be is universal - the same for everyone.
The only universal definition of a photograph possible with your premise is 'a photograph is whatever you believe it to be'. Whilst this is arguably valid it is of no _value_ for the purposes of discussion. It puts us back to square one - how can we have a meaningful discussion on the nature, purpose, meaning and use of the photograph if we both have different ideas as to what we are discussing?
No. The only possible definition of a photograph must be based on the physical reality, which is unequivocal.
And jumping to a conclusion only occurs when you make a decision without examining the facts, but just by taking things on face value and not thinking through the consequences.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 20, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> The physical difference we are discussing is the one between a 'straight' photograph and one that has been manipulated - and we are discussing it because _you_ are the one who insists there is a difference.


But there is not yet a definition that says that there _isn't_ a difference. I know you are writing one, and that it is very likely to stand up to scrutiny, so could forever more be seen as the 'true' definition. But it doesn't exsist yet. I'm not wrong, _yet_.

I suppose it comes down to what LLW said. When photographs were first invented they could _only_ show something real. Thus the original definition was that a photo showed the truth. That belief has fallen apart as technology has changed the facts - because no-one has taken the time to redefine the term. I believe that as there is no currently accepted meaning, the original one still stands, even if it is a little flakey around the edges.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...does not affect the physical nature of what you are looking at.


I'm not sure your way works either. If I draw a sketch, scan it into my computer, size it to 10x8 and get it printed on photoraphic paper, is that a photograph? If I take a photograph, edit it digitally so it looks like a sketch and get it printed on photographic paper, is that a photograph? If I'm a good enough artist you won't tell the difference. I can't work out how you'd define them?



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...If you are going to define a photograph purely on the terms of what you 'think' a photograph is then it will be different for every person as every person will have a slightly different idea as to what a photograph is.


There is no accepted definition, so surely the point of this thread was that we all do have different opinions?



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> ...The only possible definition of a photograph must be based on the physical reality, which is unequivocal.


Which is, of course, why we've been discussing it for the last fortnight! :mrgreen:


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 20, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> But there is not yet a definition that says that there _isn't_ a difference.


That is just foolish. You don't need a definition to be able to determine if there is a physical difference.
You expose a silver halide crystal to light and develop it - whether or not you call the end result a photograph has no bearing on this.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> I suppose it comes down to what LLW said. When photographs were first invented they could _only_ show something real. Thus the original definition was that a photo showed the truth. That belief has fallen apart as technology has changed the facts - because no-one has taken the time to redefine the term. I believe that as there is no currently accepted meaning, the original one still stands, even if it is a little flakey around the edges.


Again you are totally mistaken. A very early daguerrotype of the Champs Elysee in Paris show it to be devoid of people. It was at the time one of the busiest thoroughfares in Europe but no people or horses or carriages registered on the exposure because it took such a long time. Thus this very early photo did not show things as they actually were - it was not true to life. Not long after you have people like Nadar and Peach Robinson doing 'camera trickery'. You really should read up on your History of Photography.
As for defining Photography and the photograph - no one has really ever made a serious attempt at doing it. It is only since the 1960's, when photographic critical theory started to develop, that the need for a definition has arisen.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> I'm not sure your way works either. If I draw a sketch, scan it into my computer, size it to 10x8 and get it printed on photoraphic paper, is that a photograph? If I take a photograph, edit it digitally so it looks like a sketch and get it printed on photographic paper, is that a photograph? If I'm a good enough artist you won't tell the difference. I can't work out how you'd define them?


*Sigh!*
It is the end product that is the determining factor as to whether it is a photograph or not. How do you propose to print your two computer images on to photographic paper? If you image them onto film and then print them in the darkroom then technically the end product is a photograph. If you use an inkjet printer then obviously it isn't.
The subject matter isn't important as that is not what determines whether something is a photograph or not.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> There is no accepted definition, so surely the point of this thread was that we all do have different opinions?


As has been stated - there is an accepted definition, but this definition has arisen through common useage and is no longer adequate.
Of course everyone has different opinions - but they have nothing to do with definitions. Opinions are only a personal set of beliefs and they do not have to be based on logic, common sense or, indeed, reality.
If I am going to have to explain even the simplest of concepts to you every time we are going to be here for years.




			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> Which is, of course, why we've been discussing it for the last fortnight! :mrgreen:


No. We have been discussing it for a fortnight because you have been unable to grasp a few simple concepts


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 20, 2005)

This has been going on for a while now, hasn't it.  

I'm sorry for butting in here but I'd just like to pass on my observations - not of the subject but of the discussion.

I think Alexecho has made many attempts to grasp the concepts put forward by Hertz but they seem to disagree with his own ideas on the subject.

I think Hertz seems to have a hard time grasping the concept that people can have their own definitions that are not reliant on logic and broad opinion.

I think if you could both agree to disagree on some areas, you'd have a better chance of working out the areas you *can* agree on.

Sorry, you can tell me to butt out now.


----------



## 'Daniel' (Oct 20, 2005)

> "A photograph is a reasonably permanent image that is, in some way, produced through the action of light."



My opinion on your definition is this:

I think that in the concept it expresses it does indeed give a definition of a photograph.  However I think that the wording leads to other things being included in this definition.  The word "reasonably", what does this mean.  I assume that it means that someone can proficiently reason that it is permanent.  Whether it is permanent then depends on the people who analyse the reasoning.  

If by "reasonably" you mean that its is permanent to the extent that no external factors are required to keep the image there but it can be erased/removed then I think there are flaws there too.  If you count an external factor as pointed out earlier as light being used to project through a slide onto a wall then this fits your definition:



> "A photograph is a reasonably permanent image that is, in some way, produced through the action of light."



Apart from arguably the "reasonably" part.  Now we have to ask at what point do we qualify something as an external factor.  Light being shone to create the image on the wall doesn't qualify as a permanent image.  However the molecules in the photograph staying in place due to electromagnetism etc is not an external factor.  But if we go by quantum it says that the photograph could turn into a banana at any time.  This could only happen if classical physics broke down at that event.  So you could say that the image staying still is an effect and classical physics is the cause.  just as the picture projected is the effect and the light being shone is the cause.

just my thoguhts.


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 20, 2005)

> There is a *simple* and very useful definition, though. It encapsulates the whole thing quite nicely:
> "A photograph is a reasonably permanent image that is, in some way, produced through the action of light."


I really think that most people are missing the point entirely.
The definition is a _simple_ one - that is, one that is adequate for basic needs.
I never said it was the definitive definition - because it is nowhere near.

And no one has noticed that the simple definition doesn't require the photograph to present a recognisable image. A piece of fogged paper that is processed qualifies.
Technically it does qualify at a very basic level - but it is far from satisfactory. Although I once did an entirely black photograph which was entitled "negros' fighting in a cave at night" and it was shown in an exhibition (thank you Alphonse Allais).  :mrgreen:


----------



## alexecho (Oct 20, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> You don't need a definition to be able to determine if there is a physical difference.


That will be my blunt shovel again then?
There is not yet a definition that says that a photograph must be defined by the end result rather than by how it is made. _You_ have decided of your own accord to say that the definition is in how the end result looks.

I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't agree. If you get the darkroom print of a sketch, I bet an awful lot of people would not call it a photograph, but a copy of a sketch. However, they probably would, initially at least, mistake a print made on a high quality inkjet printer for a photograph.

I know the history of photography, thank you. That famous daguerrotype IS a photograph, even by my definition, because it's a single exposure. It does show the street exactly as it was at that time, even though the people don't show up. The people are not an integral part of the street. If streetlights or buildings failed to show up, then I might have a problem!

Nice to see some other people commenting from time to time!


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 22, 2005)

alexecho said:
			
		

> There is not yet a definition that says that a photograph must be defined by the end result rather than by how it is made. _You_ have decided of your own accord to say that the definition is in how the end result looks.


We are talking about defining a 'photograph'. Unless I am very much mistaken, at the most basic level a photograph is a physical object and the end product of a process.
If you start discussing how it is made then you are talking about a process and not the end product.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> I'm sure a lot of people wouldn't agree. If you get the darkroom print of a sketch, I bet an awful lot of people would not call it a photograph, but a copy of a sketch. However, they probably would, initially at least, mistake a print made on a high quality inkjet printer for a photograph.


What you call things and what you mistake them for have no effect on their fundamental nature.



			
				alexecho said:
			
		

> That famous daguerrotype IS a photograph, even by my definition, because it's a single exposure. It does show the street exactly as it was at that time, even though the people don't show up. The people are not an integral part of the street. If streetlights or buildings failed to show up, then I might have a problem!


It was used as an example in refutation of your claim that in the beginning photographs only showed the truth. It was not used as an example of double-exposure.
Another refutation is to point out that Daguerreotypes are laterally reversed (mirror images) so again they do not show things as they are.


There is quite clearly a lot of confusion here.
If people have their own 'definitions' as to what constitutes a photograph the only thing that is defined is a personal opinion.
Definitions must be universal or they don't work.
Or are you going to tell me that it's OK for us all have our own idea as to what a Metre is?

Perhaps the following will help clarify things:
Say, for example, we have a glass of water on the table in front of us.
How the water got into the glass may be of interest - but whether it came out of a tap, was drawn from a well or was poured out of a bottle does not change the fact that it is a glass of water. Nor does it change the nature of the water.
Say we have two glasses of water.
Again, it does not matter where they came from or how they got there - they are still just two glasses of water.
It may be that one is coloured or has bits floating in it. This does not stop it from being a glass of water - the _quality_ does not affect it's basic nature. It just means that we are less likely to want to drink it.
We could discuss the comparitive flavours of the two waters and we may decide that one tastes better than the other. This is a purely subjective personal opinion which may be a function of the quality but this does not stop them both being glasses of water.
If, however, we have our own personal definition of what a glass of water is then one of us may dismiss one glass as not being acceptable under the terms of their definition. It could be in a tumbler not a glass.
In this case we can have no meaningful discussion because if we prefer the taste of one over the taste of the other the objector can dismiss it with an 'ah! but that's because one isn't a true glass of water'.


----------



## LWW (Oct 22, 2005)

> Again you are totally mistaken. A very early daguerrotype of the Champs Elysee in Paris show it to be devoid of people. It was at the time one of the busiest thoroughfares in Europe but no people or horses or carriages registered on the exposure because it took such a long time. Thus this very early photo did not show things as they actually were - it was not true to life. Not long after you have people like Nadar and Peach Robinson doing 'camera trickery'.


I disagree. The Champs Elysee WAS there. The camera recorded the photons of light as they passed through the lens. Shutter speed can give a longer or shorter glimpse of the reality but is a glimpse of reality nonetheless.

Focal length and filtration can make the photo different from the naked eye view, but if I put a filter in front of my eye it has the same effect. If I was standing at the same spot as the camera I could have viewed the same photons of light that the camera did.

Photographic trickery was done in the darkroom but no original negative could be produced to verify the veracity of the single original image.

Digital does not offer this realism, or at the very least this assured realism.

Much as if the cavedweller wished to depict Odin descending from Valhalla on high by scratching ot his vision on a slab of stone a modern digitalist can  depict Marvin the Martian landing on the White House lawn.

Neither artist can prove that either event actually happened. Neither can they be disproved.

Film was/is different. Either I have a sequence of negatives demonstrating Odin riding a chariot from the clouds slinging thunderbolts or I don't. Either I have a sequence of negatives depicting Marvin threatening to destroy " DE OIT" or I don't.

Even with video special effects I still had a verifiable image of a reality which done in scale in combination with the storyteller's skills and the viewers imagination allowed a suspension of reality and an imagination of a different reality.

LWW


----------



## LWW (Oct 22, 2005)

> Say we have two glasses of water.


 Then we have two glasses of water.

Now assume that we have *ONE* glass of water and clone it into two?

We are no longer splitting hairs over whether it is a glass or a tumbler, we are left with the fact two seperate glasses of water never existed.

Even the multiple reflections of placing a glass or water between two mirrors matches this as the multiple reflections back and forth were actually real.

With the digital cloning we have the same effect as drawing a mustache on Mona Lisa. If Leonardo would have doe so that doesn't mean that she actually had one. Because you digitize the second glass doesn't mean that the second actually existed, because in fact it didn't.

Positioning a glass of water in front of a mirror in such a way that the vision fools the observer into believing that two glasses actually existed is art, it is also photography because it captured a real view.

Doing the same thing with a PhotoChop copy and paste may be art...but it isn't a photograph.

LWW


----------



## LWW (Oct 22, 2005)

From dictionary.com:





> *photograph*
> 
> n : a picture of a person or scene in the form of a print or transparent slide; recorded by a camera on light-sensitive material [syn: photo, exposure, pic]
> 
> ...



LWW


----------



## LWW (Oct 22, 2005)

My old HS latin is buried in neurons that haven't fired for awhile so I wanted to doublecheck before I posted this:

"PHOT" means light while adding "O" means adding of so "PHOT-O" means of light.

"GRAPH" is to write or record something. Therefore "PHOT-O-GRAPH" is a record or light. Now the original CCD dump of bits could qualify loosely I guess but since there is no way to determine whether a manipulation was a manipulation of digital bits after the fact or a bending of lightwaves before the light hits the recording medium, or film, a digitized image is by definition something different than a PHOT-O-GRAPH.

This differentiation is already being noted somewhat by the uses of film photography and digital photography.

Drawings of light by means of transformation to strings of ones and zeroes isn't really an accurate description however either. The light portion can be a complete fabvrication.

I'm not trying to get into a urination contest but I think that the community truly needs to come up with a seperate category for "PHOT-O-GRAPHY" and "DIGIT-O-GRAPHY".

The idea that a digital image can't be discerned from reality isn't by definition proof that it is a photograph, it is fact proof that it isn't.

My $0.02. YMMV.

LWW


----------



## alexecho (Oct 23, 2005)

Aha! What LWW said! I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind that the word photograph meant 'record of light', hense my obsessive compulsion to deny any photograpic trickery as a genuine photograph, despite appearences.

I tried to look back through my photograhy course notes and found pages about the chemisty and the physics involved in photography, followed by pages of sketches of the darkroom and classrooms where the history notes were supposed to be! I always did hate history. :meh: Didn't help my argument much though!



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> We are talking about defining a 'photograph'. Unless I am very much mistaken, at the most basic level a photograph is a physical object and the end product of a process.
> If you start discussing how it is made then you are talking about a process and not the end product.


Remarkably we agree, up to a point. A photograph _is_ a physical object. Not even I am up to debate that point with you, you may be surprised to hear. However the end product is always made by a process, obviously. Different processes create different end products, even if they are possibly indistinguisable from one another.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> It was used as an example in refutation of your claim that in the beginning photographs only showed the truth. It was not used as an example of double-exposure.


I didn't mean to imply it was a double-exposure. Just that the street was recorded exactly as it stood at the time, except non-permanent features. It's about seeing and recording. Someone could have gone back the next day with that photograph and compared it to the real location, and seen it was an exact replica, despite the lack of people.
If I plant Big Ben in the middle of Times Square in a photograph, no-one is ever going to be able to see that with their own eyes. Therefore there _is_ a difference in the actual physical object. One can be compared with what is seen with your own eye, even if what you see is in some way different, with the other it's fiction.

How about comparing it to a book? If I give you a work of fiction and an auto-biography you will not know which is real and which isn't. Unless you read it on the cover, yet publishers and bookshops go to great lengths to seperate the two. Why? Because it is different, even though they are indecernable. The difference is psychological/emotional, call it what you will. It's the same thing with a photograph.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> Another refutation is to point out that Daguerreotypes are laterally reversed (mirror images) so again they do not show things as they are.


I'm really getting bogged down in my phrasing! I'll let someone else talk for me:


			
				LLW said:
			
		

> If I was standing at the same spot as the camera I could have viewed the same photons of light that the camera did.


In this case, I would have to look through a mirror at the scene, but I could see it, and I could see the people moving in it, and know, from the fact that they _are_ moving, that they are not a reasonably permanent part of the scene and so are thus not essential in a reasonably permanent image.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> Or are you going to tell me that it's OK for us all have our own idea as to what a Metre is?


A metre is clearly defined. I've already told you if a photo was, we wouldn't be having this conversation.  However, if you don't have a ruler to hand you can start a great argument by asking a room full of people to agree on an exact distance. They will never manage it. Each individual is going to have to adjust their actual opinion towards a generic point. And I'm sure if you measure the final answer, it won't be exactly a metre anyway.

Equally, get a room full of people to look at things that may or may not be photographs, without providing an exact definition and the only way they will all agree on what is/isn't a photograph is by adjusting personal opinion towards general concencous. Neither of us is willing to adjust. Simple.

Moving on to your glass of water. If there is a glass of water on a table it doesn't matter what colour it is, or what is floating in it. It is a glass of water. But, if you are in a restaraunt and ask for a glass of water, the implication is that you wish to drink it, so if you are provided with a glass of green water with algae swimming in it you are going to object - even though it is _technically_ a glass of water.

However, I'm drifting from my point. And this is pretty much the opposite of what we are discussing about what a photograph is. Here we are discussing something that _is_ the same, although people will try to insist it is different, and as I've already said, they could well have a case.

I claim equally that two things that look the same may not be. If I fill that glass with a colourless, odourless poison that is the same consistancy and PH balance as water and put that in front of you with a glass of water, I assume you won't risk drinking either?

There is a physical difference in this case, but the difference is indecernable, without special equipment. That doesn't make the poison safe to drink, or the water dangerous, but it does stop you drinking the water.

I know your responce to that is that there IS a way of telling the difference, but it takes special equipment that I assume you don't carry, thus at this point the two are inseperable. By your logic, if you can't differentiate between two things, they are the same... I'm still not convinced on that one!


----------



## LWW (Oct 23, 2005)

> I know your responce to that is that there IS a way of telling the difference, but it takes special equipment that I assume you don't carry, thus at this point the two are inseperable. By your logic, if you can't differentiate between two things, they are the same... I'm still not convinced on that one!


They would be easily discernible, just at high risk...much as a film vs a digital photo.

I can present to images of you holding the Ripper's knife in the process of killing the Ripper's victim.

As simple as it is to discern the poison, sample it first hand at the source...in this case the glass, the film photo can be proven as either doctored or factual.

Just as with the water and poison you challenge it at great risk because if the negative is factual you hang.

The digital representation, just as a DaVinci painting, may be INCREDIBLY real in appearance but taken by itself, or it's source of paint, brush, and canvas, can never be proven true or false.

Again I'm not dogging digital as art, I'm saying it is and barring a change of technology, will always be in doubt.

LWW


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Oct 30, 2005)

Greek:
_photos_ = light
_graphos_ = written
So we have 'written with light'. But the word 'photography' (and so 'photograph') wasn't actually invented until more than a decade after the process.


You can't see the same photons as the camera - work out why not for yourselves.


Different processes do not necessarily create different end products.
I can get water out of a well, condense it from the atmosphere or melt some ice from Antarctica - it's all still water.
Try Carbon. I can have diamond, graphite, soot or Bucky balls - they look different but they are all still Carbon.

Of course a metre is clearly defined - that is why it was used as a refutation to your claim that we can all have our own definitions.

And if you have a glass of water and a glass of poison then you don't have two glasses of water. Liquid poisons will have a different density to water and therefore the surface tension will be different. Look at the meniscus formed by water and that formed by most other liquids. An obvious physical difference that needs no special equipment.

The problem is that you are getting bogged down with your own preconceptions. You have fixed views about things and so you try to make the facts conform - instead of starting from scratch and going where the facts (and reason) dictate.

Can I draw a triangle where each of the three included angles is 90 degrees ( a total of 270 degrees)?


----------



## JamesD (Oct 30, 2005)

How about: "Photography is the recording of light by optical means on a sensitized material to produce a visual image. When the image is permanantly recorded on an object, the portion of the object comprising the image is a photograph"?

Negatives, "photographic prints," transparencies, inkjet printings of digitally-captured images, photocopies, holograms, photographic images rendered by painting emulsion on an egg and then exposing the egg under an enlarger... these would all qualify as a form of photograph. However, a "photograph" captured digitally and displayed on your computer monitor would not be a "photograph," but rather a "photographic image." The photograph would be the object upon which the content appears, while the content itself is the photographic image.

As far as altering an image by cutting, pasting, multiple exposures, dodging & burning, cropping, etc... the content is the image; the object upon which the image appears is the photograph. Photo "Light"; Graph "Write." They're photographs, and they have photographic images, but the images may be manipulated, compiled, distorted, etc. They're still recordings of light, and I'd say they qualify as photographs.


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 30, 2005)

This thread is proof that the very idea of a 'catch all' definition that everyone has to agree with is not going to happen - no matter how cleverly it's worded.

Definitions are there to help us understand things;  But if a definition goes against our instinctive perception of the subject then we just won't accept it!

BTW, I think this thread is bordering on religious - a belief in the one true almighty definition.


----------



## LWW (Oct 30, 2005)

You miss the basic fact that a phot-o-graph is something written with light. Phot-o-graph-y is the art or act of making a photograph.

A digital image CAN be a photograph but it cannot be PROVEN to be a photograph. digit-o-graph-y would be more appropriate as it the art of writing with digits.

BTW I'm not making facts conform, I'm taking facts as they exist along with word definitions that have stood for thousands of years.

As to whether I can view the photons the same as a lens, it makes no difference because the negative is my evidence that those photons entered that lens.

Again I'm not condemning digitalism, but by it's very nature it is a creation from the moment analog photons hit the CCD and become digital 1' and 0's.

LWW


----------



## alexecho (Oct 30, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> So we have 'written with light'. But the word 'photography' (and so 'photograph') wasn't actually invented until more than a decade after the process.


I don't see the relevance of when the term was invented? It is a term we are trying to define so it's origins (intended meanings) are relivant, it's age less so, surely?



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> You can't see the same photons as the camera - work out why not for yourselves.


Oh, Physics! My favorite. However, to answer the question, although you can't see those exact photons, because they are hitting the film not your retina, those photons exsist, in context with each other and if your eye was where the film was, it _would_ have seen those photons.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> I can get water out of a well, condense it from the atmosphere or melt some ice from Antarctica - it's all still water.


Yes, and any of those in a glass would be considered a glass of water. But, you put that antartic ice in a glass and you'll have a hard job telling anyone it's a glass of water, even though we know that technically it is.

Isn't it the case that a definition only counts if it's broadly accepted? You have proved you are obviously a well educated bloke who can make almost any point on a technicality. Joe Public isn't going to accept a point just because it's _technically_ sound. They want their photograph to look like what they expect a photograph to look like and they are going to want there glass of water to look, smell and taste like a glass of water...

Isn't it logical that if I'm wrong in saying that something that looks like a photograph isn't because of the way it was made, you must also be wrong?
After all, you say things that don't look like what is commonly accepted as a photograph (aren't images on bits of paper) ARE photographs.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> Liquid poisons will have a different density to water and therefore the surface tension will be different.


Yes, very clever. You can sidestep any point can't you? However the point remains. My (fictional) colourless, oudorless poison, that I've just very kindly put in a glass in front of you, may well have a very similar density to water. It could be so similar to water that it is impossible to tell apart with the naked eye.

I accept it is a terrible example. I do not accept however that if two things look alike, they must be alike. It must be accepted that they _may_ be alike.



			
				Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> Can I draw a triangle where each of the three included angles is 90 degrees ( a total of 270 degrees)?


No.  Your point?

After Physics and Maths today, what's tomorrow's subject? Please not more Maths, it's my weakest area.

Finally, totally irrelvant, but what are 'Bucky balls'?


----------



## alexecho (Oct 30, 2005)

JamesD said:
			
		

> How about: "Photography is the recording of light by optical means on a sensitized material to produce a visual image. When the image is permanantly recorded on an object, the portion of the object comprising the image is a photograph"?


If the light is on the material for long enough, it may record an image by fading even if the material is not sensitized, and photo's aren't guarenteed permanent. Ink jet printing probably only last about six months in direct sunlight.



			
				JamesD said:
			
		

> ...inkjet printings of digitally-captured images... However, a "photograph" captured digitally and displayed on your computer monitor would not be a "photograph," but rather a "photographic image."


A digital image displayed on your monitor is a digital rendering of light. Printed by an inkjet printer it is still a digital rendering of light. At no point is it specifically 'written by light', because it's digital, so I don't see how it can be more 'photograph' when printed than when in the computer?

Sorry to be so argumentitive.


----------



## alexecho (Oct 30, 2005)

LWW said:
			
		

> Again I'm not condemning digitalism, but by it's very nature it is a creation from the moment analog photons hit the CCD and become digital 1' and 0's.


Those 0s and 1s are 'written by light' though. So unless the definition of photography says that a photograph must be analogue I'm not sure they can be discounted? And working on Hertz theory that if two things appear the same they must be the same, (says who?) I think we are stuck with digital images being a photograph, because once sent to print they can't be told apart.

(Just for the record though, I do agree with you.)


----------



## LWW (Oct 30, 2005)

> Those 0s and 1s are 'written by light' though.


It is impossible to ever know.





> I think we are stuck with digital images being a photograph, because once sent to print they can't be told apart.


Yes they can. A photograph has a negative which verifies it to be either an original capture or a combination of multiple captures. The light striking the film is undeniable. It can even be traced backwards to it's solar or manmade (bulb) origins.

With a digital rendition, once the analog is made to digital, the "light" that is "recorded" may not have ever even existed. The possibility of it being a digitized illusion is always there.

The "PHOT" in photography is unimportant as a reflection off of general atmosphere but all critical as a record of the "PHOT" reflected off of "REALITY" and being captured, or recorded.

Put another way are you prepared to settle someone's criminal guilt based upon digitized images? I'm not. Reasonable doubt will always be there. With a photographic image of suitable quality the doubt can be removed.

LWW


----------



## LWW (Oct 30, 2005)

> what are 'Bucky balls'?


Bucky Balls are molecules of perfectly combusted carbon soot which happen to be in the perfect shape of a geodesic bubble.

These molecules are also referred to as "Buckminster Fullerene" as well as "Bucky balls" after the inventor of the geodesic dome, Buckminster Fuller.

LWW


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 30, 2005)

LWW said:
			
		

> With a digital rendition, once the analog is made to digital, the "light" that is "recorded" may not have ever even existed. The possibility of it being a digitized illusion is always there.


 
my problem with that explanation is that you can also easily fake a photograph using film, ie: i could place a black miniature structure in frame, take a photo, underexposing the film and overdeveloping so the miniature has no detail, and call the photo "a silhouette of a building" with the sun in the background, and then there's darkrooms, multiple exposures, etc.

a dictionary term for "definition": A statement conveying fundamental character.

i think that's a good way of looking at it, a photograph is a word meant in use as a convention

there are many types of trucks, yet the boundary between trucks and SUV's is small... you could say "truck bed", but then there are many covered truck beds, and many truck beds vary... when you get to the end of that, you can't make a clear definition of what is a truck, and what is an SUV

but that's totally pointless, because the reason they came up with the word "SUV" was not an analytical and precise definition of what an SUV was, it was a term used to refer to a style of automobile

what's a human? maybe, going by evolution, we've evolved since the ice age just a slight amount, but it's unnoticable to the extent that you can't really say X is a human, X is not... go back millions of years, what's a human, what isn't?

if anything, this whole debate over what a photograph is, has showed one thing: definitions are loose, they aren't perfect, and many things are ambiguous, and they don't solve our problems of determining what is and what isn't

therefore, if you want a good definition, it has to include some latitude for error

i also notice that many of you have been trying to squeeze in narrow definitions, sub-topic specifics into a broad, single definition

ok, so digital photographs are different from film photographs, but does this really need to be included in a definition of what a photograph is? so light can make a hand print through a lens on a sheet of film or sensors but also on somebody's back via sunburn... but again, does this belong in a definition of what a photograph is?

and as for the matter of the ambiguity of photography because it was invented via its medium... well so is painting, writing, and theatre, all of which are just narrowly different from some other artform, and whether or not they're real in the purist sense or not

what you guys need is a hierarchical definition


----------



## LWW (Oct 30, 2005)

Let me clarify my position perhaps a little better.

Phot-o-graph-y and digit-o-graph-y are two similar but distinctly different arts drawing and painting are similar but distinctly different, or as photography and cinematography are similar but distinctly different.

As to your analogy of putting a scale model in a photograph, that actually proves the point even though it might fool the viewer because the model WAS there. Multiple exposures WERE all there as well.

LWW


----------



## panzershreck (Oct 30, 2005)

LWW said:
			
		

> Let me clarify my position perhaps a little better.
> 
> Phot-o-graph-y and digit-o-graph-y are two similar but distinctly different arts drawing and painting are similar but distinctly different, or as photography and cinematography are similar but distinctly different.
> 
> ...


 
imo, digitography deserves as a subcategory of the more broad definition of photography, which is a subcategory itself of the more broad definition of visual imagery, i think digitography is... imo, too cumbersome of a convention

cinematography, for however much its similarity to photography, it wholly different... way more different then film photography vs. digital photography

the miniature is to say that, you don't know if it's real or not... i could also just place a blank object into the enlarger over the negative so when it prints, again i get a silhouette of a "building"... i could, if i'm careful, go back over a B&W photograph and correct huge swaths of a print... suddenly things have disappeared... or maybe i stop down during exposure so that what should be 4pm now looks 5pm...

as a convention, i think narrowing such a board definition as "photograph" by what is depicted is not very useful

when you define a painting, you eliminate that whole area, because it's all made up or interpreted via the human brain (which can distort things)... thus, a painting is a visual image, created using color pigments, usually paint... maybe i'm missing something, but a similar definition for *just* a photograph, would be something created by light, and recorded on a medium through a device (simple or complex)... after that, you can go into specifics, but imo, cramming it all into a soundbite just isn't realistic to begin with

a definition for a car isn't "automobile, with 4 wheels, internal combustion engine, connected to driveshaft, steering wheel, doors, windows, seats, box shaped, yadda yadda yadda"


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 31, 2005)

Hertz van Rental said:
			
		

> Of course a metre is clearly defined - that is why it was used as a refutation to your claim that we can all have our own definitions.


 

How many times have you asked for a metre of something and received a metre?  Never would be the answer.  A metre has a standard definition that other contextual definitions are based on.

If you ask for a metre in a precision engineering context, you'll be asked for a tolerance to define exactly what you mean by a metre.  If you buy a metre of string you may end up with 950mm or 1100mm depending on how the shop assistant defines a metre within that context.

So a metre (like so many other things) may be clearly defined but a metre doesn't mean a metre - not in the real world, anyway.


----------



## LWW (Oct 31, 2005)

Actually a phot-o-graph has a very clearly defined definition.

A print may or may not be a true phot-o-graph, but this CAN be determined from the negative.

A print from a digit-o-graph may or may not be a phot-o-graph. Whether it is or isn't is a matter of faith and nothing more.

LWW


----------



## Marctwo (Oct 31, 2005)

Down here on planet Earth, I can't help but wander what photography actually means to you guys.  I mean on a day to day basis, how do you think/feel about and use the term?  If someone says 'photography' to you, what exactly do you think they're talking about?

For me it's simply a matter of recording and reproducing the image of light;  Whether it's recorded via digital sensors or analogue film makes no difference at all.  This may well be flawed or simplistic to you but I don't care - that's how I feel about it.

If you feel that photography is exclusively about using electromagnetic waves to burn images directly onto media then all the digital camera users out there must be into 'light sampling' instead.  Is 'light sampling' really such a different hobby/profession than 'photography'?
If someone shows you their photographs printed in ink, do you hit them and tell them what a photograph really is or do you understand that they are simply showing you a reproduction of a light recording?


----------



## LWW (Oct 31, 2005)

And Marctwo, for all practical purposes I am in complete agreement with you.

it is when things are digitally cloned out of or sewn/pasted into existence that I have issue with digital vs film, and even then that is limited to when the departure from reality is not disclosed.

As I said they are 2 extremely similar arts, and the art of capturing the original image in camera is identical other than the medium upon which it is captured.

LWW


----------



## wil (Oct 31, 2005)

I can see the potential down fall of  photography due to the digital age. I see more and more people just shoot off photos hoping they get some thing instad of actualy thinking about what there are doing. They leave the creativity up to the camara and even if they don't, they make one in photoshop. Don't get me wrong I do like PS and use it alot to correct photos but not to make "tabloid" crap. If the current trend continues the photography trade will be in trouble, moraly and legaly.......That concludes my rant...


----------



## craig (Oct 31, 2005)

wil said:
			
		

> I can see the potential down fall of  photography due to the digital age. I see more and more people just shoot off photos hoping they get some thing instad of actualy thinking about what there are doing. They leave the creativity up to the camara and even if they don't, they make one in photoshop. Don't get me wrong I do like PS and use it alot to correct photos but not to make "tabloid" crap. If the current trend continues the photography trade will be in trouble, moraly and legaly.......That concludes my rant...



Hey now. No one can see the potential down fall of photography, because there will never be one. This thread has brought up some excellent points. In the end only our pre conceived notions of the art surface. Digi vs film vs point and shoot, whatever. This argument will go on forever. I think it is all about the moment when someone decides to take a photograph. That photo may or may not be improved on. The point is that the shot recorded a moment in time. That is the beauty of photography.


----------



## jstuedle (Nov 1, 2005)

What we preceive as our art my change or even almost die, but never will photography die. In a decade or three, film might be all but dead, and that as a medium/art might all but die, but not photography. I do feel that the ethics of the art are in flux and we all must work to ensure the masses know if what they view is real or Memorex.


----------



## Marctwo (Nov 1, 2005)

Photo's have always been faked and manipulated since long before there was any type of digital editing.  It's not a film vs digital issue - it's a trust and purity issue.

Eg: You are taking someones portrait but they have a scratch on their face.  What do you do?

Take the shot and say "well that's how they looked at the time!"
Don't take the shot and tell them to come back when they look good.
Cover the scratch with makeup and take the shot.
Take the shot and remove the scratch in post-processing.
If you choose 4, should you disclose this manipulation to everyone that sees the image?  If you put the image on display, should you include a 'WARNING: Manipulated Image' caption?

If you choose 3, should you disclose the scene manipulation in the same way?


----------



## jstuedle (Nov 1, 2005)

Good piont, but I feel we still need to be made aware when an image is a total fabrication.


----------



## Marctwo (Nov 1, 2005)

Yes, for me it's a case of little, white lies and big, deceptive lies - we'll all draw different lines between them.


----------



## alexecho (Nov 1, 2005)

LWW, if the negative is lost is the photograph no longer a photograph? 

I'll get back to this topic when I've more time, some very interesting points have been raised recently.


----------



## LWW (Nov 1, 2005)

Yes.

LWW


----------



## panzershreck (Nov 1, 2005)

LWW said:
			
		

> Yes.
> 
> LWW


 
technically speaking, the negative is just no longer in the hands of the printer of the photograph... you could cut a negative in half, and the negative still exists... you could cover it in mud, and it still exists...

of course, that brings up an issue, manipulation of the original negative, which is by no means perfect either... i can manipulate the negative in development, and things that were in real life, may disappear, then the negative no longer conveys "reality"... how much does "reality" conform to the way a lens manipulates the light before it strikes the film surface? get some dirt on it, or scratches, and now spots have appeared that weren't originally there, or were they bugs or dirt/dust on the lens?

the only thing that is honest in photography is the electromagnetic spectrum of light, everything else is an illusion, which is basically what all art forms are about - creating illusions, how much they reflect what the artist saw, is up to the artist and how he uses his medium

a photographer could take a photo of an event, and either crop in printing, crop by moving forwards or using a different lens, or crop by matting with a lens hood... now, things that were there, are no longer there... if X and Y were next to eachother, and the photographer takes a picture of X only, does Y exist? does the photograph convey reality? what if the lens distorts the size of people or their relation to eachother? what if you flatten the image by using flash or too much light in general, does the object, in reality, have no shape? of course it does, but the negative doesn't convey that...

the amount of faith a person puts into the honesty of art, isn't grounds, imo, for a definition of that artform, and it's also very ambiguous, because it's more of an argument about visual media, rather than photography


----------



## LWW (Nov 26, 2005)

I see your point...but it doesn't change the fact that a photo thru a fisheye lens was still light that actually passed through glass onto film, everything in the photo was REAL. At the same time cropping something from a photo is just that...it limited the range of view, it didn't digitally remove someone and put someone/thing else back in their place.

LWW


----------



## Hertz van Rental (Nov 27, 2005)

It's all a non-argument. Our experience of reality is that it is 3-Dimensional and that time passes. A photograph is a 2-Dimensional representation and time is excluded. That's a pretty severe manipulation to begin with. Anything else is just tinkering around the edges


----------



## cmptrdewd (Dec 6, 2005)

The only way for us to tell what something is is how we perceive it. What if we are all in the matrix? What if everything we see is not real? What is real? It is what we preceive it to be. We don't know anything apart from what we sense, feel or think. Forget what a photograph is, how do we know a photograph is?

Don't think to hard. :lmao: 

--Aaron


----------



## LWW (Dec 7, 2005)

> Our experience of reality is that it is 3-Dimensional and that time passes. A photograph is a 2-Dimensional representation and time is excluded. That's a pretty severe manipulation to begin with.


I disagree...I don't see that as a manipulation of reality, I see it as a proof of reality.

LWW


----------

