Just what is a photograph

"Pat" wrote in message
...
Years ago, when working in my darkroom, I had a pretty good idea what
a photograph was. You shone light on a negative, developed it, put in
in an enlarger, shone light on a piece of light-sensitive paper, and
developed that. When you got done you had a photograph. You could
add elements, dodge, burn, screw with chemicals or make lithos; but in
the end it all came down to shining light on a piece of paper and
getting a print.

Last week I was working on a silhouette. I took a (digital) picture
of the person, copied it and used two copies of the same image -- one
mirror image of the other -- so they were facing each other. I
printed the faces in "white" and the space between them in black. I
then used an exacto knife to cut away the white areas leaving me with
just the black area. The profile of the faces were preserved in the
cut-line.

I tried calling what I had left "a photograph" but I in effect, it was
more of a negative of the original image. The only think I really had
left was a representation of what I had NOT photographed, not what I
had photographed. The other thing that I pondered was the fact that
the image was not represented in "b&w" or in some tonality but the
image was represented physically as to whether there was paper there
or not.

I all made me start thinking "is this a photograph or not". Just what
is a photograph in the age of digital printing. How is a digital
image any different than a really pretty Excel document. How much can
you manipulate a "photo" before it becomes something else -- and when
it becomes something else, what does it become?

Very nice. I think today the term photograph is mis-understood and mis-used,
especially in digital. As far as im concerned if someone uses programs such
as photomatix to produce what is basically a computer generated 'image' from
a photograph. The final image is definately not a photo. Why trust a program
like this which is like a photograph mangle!

As soon as a photograph becomes unrealistic by using 'cheats' in Photoshop
such as basically anything which cannot be done in a darkroom then again
that photo becomes an digitally generated 'image.

A photograph should be pure with absolutely the minimum necessary
manipulation.

Again its all about opinions.

Last year a very badly and over manipulated 'image' won a local photography
competition. After protesting against this, this years criteria has been
tightened, but where do we draw a line. This is something i've often
scratched my head over in disappointment. I remember another 'photography'
competition where the winning entry was a 'image' which used a variety of
complex photoshop techniques to get the final image, my arguement is that
the winner was not a photograph but a digially generated and 'unreal' never
happened scene. There is a huge difference and I wish photography was kept
seperate from digially generated images from programs like photoshop and its
huge array of wizadry pixel generators.

David wrote:
"Pat" wrote in message
...
Years ago, when working in my darkroom, I had a pretty good idea
what
a photograph was. You shone light on a negative, developed it, put
in in an enlarger, shone light on a piece of light-sensitive paper,
and developed that. When you got done you had a photograph. You
could add elements, dodge, burn, screw with chemicals or make
lithos; but in the end it all came down to shining light on a piece
of paper and getting a print.

Last week I was working on a silhouette. I took a (digital)
picture
of the person, copied it and used two copies of the same image --
one
mirror image of the other -- so they were facing each other. I
printed the faces in "white" and the space between them in black.
I
then used an exacto knife to cut away the white areas leaving me
with
just the black area. The profile of the faces were preserved in
the
cut-line.

I tried calling what I had left "a photograph" but I in effect, it
was more of a negative of the original image. The only think I
really had left was a representation of what I had NOT
photographed,
not what I had photographed. The other thing that I pondered was
the fact that the image was not represented in "b&w" or in some
tonality but the image was represented physically as to whether
there was paper there or not.

I all made me start thinking "is this a photograph or not". Just
what is a photograph in the age of digital printing. How is a
digital image any different than a really pretty Excel document.
How much can you manipulate a "photo" before it becomes something
else -- and when it becomes something else, what does it become?

Very nice. I think today the term photograph is mis-understood and
mis-used, especially in digital. As far as im concerned if someone
uses programs such as photomatix to produce what is basically a
computer generated 'image' from a photograph. The final image is
definately not a photo. Why trust a program like this which is like
a
photograph mangle!

As soon as a photograph becomes unrealistic by using 'cheats' in
Photoshop such as basically anything which cannot be done in a
darkroom then again that photo becomes an digitally generated
'image.

A photograph should be pure with absolutely the minimum necessary
manipulation.

Again its all about opinions.

Last year a very badly and over manipulated 'image' won a local
photography competition. After protesting against this, this years
criteria has been tightened, but where do we draw a line. This is
something i've often scratched my head over in disappointment. I
remember another 'photography' competition where the winning entry
was a 'image' which used a variety of complex photoshop techniques
to
get the final image, my arguement is that the winner was not a
photograph but a digially generated and 'unreal' never happened
scene. There is a huge difference and I wish photography was kept
seperate from digially generated images from programs like photoshop
and its huge array of wizadry pixel generators.

That ship has sailed, hit an iceberg, and sunk.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)

"David" nospam@please wrote in message
...

"Pat" wrote in message
...
Years ago, when working in my darkroom, I had a pretty good idea what
a photograph was. You shone light on a negative, developed it, put in
in an enlarger, shone light on a piece of light-sensitive paper, and
developed that. When you got done you had a photograph. You could
add elements, dodge, burn, screw with chemicals or make lithos; but in
the end it all came down to shining light on a piece of paper and
getting a print.

Last week I was working on a silhouette. I took a (digital) picture
of the person, copied it and used two copies of the same image -- one
mirror image of the other -- so they were facing each other. I
printed the faces in "white" and the space between them in black. I
then used an exacto knife to cut away the white areas leaving me with
just the black area. The profile of the faces were preserved in the
cut-line.

I tried calling what I had left "a photograph" but I in effect, it was
more of a negative of the original image. The only think I really had
left was a representation of what I had NOT photographed, not what I
had photographed. The other thing that I pondered was the fact that
the image was not represented in "b&w" or in some tonality but the
image was represented physically as to whether there was paper there
or not.

I all made me start thinking "is this a photograph or not". Just what
is a photograph in the age of digital printing. How is a digital
image any different than a really pretty Excel document. How much can
you manipulate a "photo" before it becomes something else -- and when
it becomes something else, what does it become?

Very nice. I think today the term photograph is mis-understood and
mis-used, especially in digital. As far as im concerned if someone uses
programs such as photomatix to produce what is basically a computer
generated 'image' from a photograph. The final image is definately not a
photo. Why trust a program like this which is like a photograph mangle!

As soon as a photograph becomes unrealistic by using 'cheats' in Photoshop
such as basically anything which cannot be done in a darkroom then again
that photo becomes an digitally generated 'image.

A photograph should be pure with absolutely the minimum necessary
manipulation.

Again its all about opinions.

Last year a very badly and over manipulated 'image' won a local
photography competition. After protesting against this, this years
criteria has been tightened, but where do we draw a line. This is
something i've often scratched my head over in disappointment. I remember
another 'photography' competition where the winning entry was a 'image'
which used a variety of complex photoshop techniques to get the final
image, my arguement is that the winner was not a photograph but a digially
generated and 'unreal' never happened scene. There is a huge difference
and I wish photography was kept seperate from digially generated images
from programs like photoshop and its huge array of wizadry pixel
generators.



You have, of course, managed to persuade the P.S.A. to accept your
definition of a photograph.

Have You ???

Roy G