DIGITAL is not ART !

Nostrobino wrote:
"C. Falise" wrote in message
...
i'm not one to defend the "pretty picture" people in general.
however your statement that the photographer does not create the
thing, merely records it is not true imho.

Note that I do not say, and have never said, that applies to all
photographs. It does apply to probably 99.9% of photos at least, but
images to which the photographer has contributed a substantial amount
of PERSONAL input are not merely records. But this means something
more than choosing subject, camera position, focal length, aperture,
shutter speed and other technical considerations that are more or
less routine.

even an ethnographic documentary photographer must grapple with the
layer of
interpretation that simply putting something in a frame and freezing
it in time imposes on the subject itself.
van gogh painted what he saw. he just didn't see what the rest of
us see.

Well, I doubt that very much. While we cannot know exactly what
another person experiences, there is surely nothing in the human
optical equipment that would produce such images. I think it is plain
that Van Gogh deliberately painted abstractions of what he saw.



That may be so, but I believe there _are_influences—physical and
psychological—that determine the artist's _experience_, and that is what
he paints. It requires something in addition to physics be included in
the definition of "see", which may be difficult for some inflexible
thinkers.

Van Gogh may have been medicated with a chemical that actually changes
the color of eyeballs as well as having that effect and others on other
parts of the body. The world may have reached his "seer" filtered
through a yellow, grainy haze. So in painting what he saw, the product
did not match "ordinary" experience.

It's been demonstrated the human organism's sensory apparatus is subject
to input from internal as well as external sources. A Yogi can turn off
perception of pain, at will.

As an example of the facility of complex organisms' ability to control
sensory input to the brain (and I presume _apprehension_ based on that
input), think about the implications of a cat experiment: with a sensor
implant, impulses in the auditory nerve were recordable. When a "click"
sound was introduced into the cat's environment, for every click there
was a corresponding spike in a graph of the auditory nerve activity.

After a few minutes of this, the cat apparently "determined" the click
wasn't worth its attention, and while the click continued, the graph
showed diminishing response amplitude and eventually no spikes.

A mouse was placed where the cat could see it. Immediately, the spikes
reappeared. Attention turned on the conduit between the outer world and
the cat's brain.

I think it may be possible to make definitive statements about optical
equipment in the abstract, but in a world where that equipment operates
in connection with living organisms, it is impertinent to isolate it.
Not all the "art" in an art object is in the object. Not all the art in
an art object is placed there—nor apprehended—consciously or
purposefully.


--
Frank ess

"Nostrobino" wrote in
news
[...]
Depends on how you do that. I said at the outset that the camera CAN
BE MADE to lie. What you said, and what I am disputing, is "The camera
always lies."

[...]


All lenses have some degree of distortion. This cannot be helped. In
most cases, people will not even notice any distortion in a photo
taken with a lens with barrel distortion, unless of course you are
speaking of a fisheye lens which is an entirely different proposition.

You might as well be saying that any newspaper photo is a "lie"
because it contains halftone dots, which did not exist in the actual
subject. Again, to lie is to INTENTIONALLY DECEIVE. Camera lenses and
photographic processes do the best they can, within the limitations of
the technology, to deliver accurate images. It is just silly to claim
that small inaccuracies which cannot be helped, and which most people
will never even notice, are "lies."

N.



"to intentionally deceive," is only one usage of the word "to lie." Since
cameras are inanimate objects, they don't have intentions.

Another use of the word "to lie" is "to create a false or misleading
impression," [Webster]. Photographs almost invariably create false and
misleading impressions, especially among untrained observers, but even
trained experts argue about the content of photos.

The fact that the film may accurately record the light that falls on it
does not alter the fact that people are deceived and misled by the images
they see. It does not matter how technically or scientifically accurate the
recordings are or become, as long as people are deceived by the photos, the
camera will be a liar.

Bob



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"Nostrobino" wrote in
news
[...]
Depends on how you do that. I said at the outset that the camera CAN
BE MADE to lie. What you said, and what I am disputing, is "The camera
always lies."

[...]


All lenses have some degree of distortion. This cannot be helped. In
most cases, people will not even notice any distortion in a photo
taken with a lens with barrel distortion, unless of course you are
speaking of a fisheye lens which is an entirely different proposition.

You might as well be saying that any newspaper photo is a "lie"
because it contains halftone dots, which did not exist in the actual
subject. Again, to lie is to INTENTIONALLY DECEIVE. Camera lenses and
photographic processes do the best they can, within the limitations of
the technology, to deliver accurate images. It is just silly to claim
that small inaccuracies which cannot be helped, and which most people
will never even notice, are "lies."

N.



"to intentionally deceive," is only one usage of the word "to lie." Since
cameras are inanimate objects, they don't have intentions.

Another use of the word "to lie" is "to create a false or misleading
impression," [Webster]. Photographs almost invariably create false and
misleading impressions, especially among untrained observers, but even
trained experts argue about the content of photos.

The fact that the film may accurately record the light that falls on it
does not alter the fact that people are deceived and misled by the images
they see. It does not matter how technically or scientifically accurate the
recordings are or become, as long as people are deceived by the photos, the
camera will be a liar.

Bob



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