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Why digital is not photographic
As I see it, Daguerreotypes, and film, and digital, are all
photographic processes with the same goal: to reproduce what the eye sees. And each generation has done a better job of it. Digital is not a photographic process. It is an imaging process, but not photographic. For starters, it would not and _cannot_ be a different medium, which it is, and still be "photographic." If it is a different medium, which it is, it must be something else. Photography was a very precise term selected by the eminent scientists and photographic researchers of the day to mean exactly what it is: a photochemical phenomenon that literally transforms the light reflected from objects onto sensitized substrates into a physical form. The terms light writing, photogenic drawing, etc., were deliberately selected to describe a phenomenon which was similar to drawing with pen or pencil on paper: a permanent, tangible image remained when light was used to chemically "draw" an original object projected as an optical image. Photography literally means Phos Graphos or light writing. Digital does not do this. Digital is a technological process of _transferring_ regenerated data through an electronic medium. Even the term "digital image" is misleading. Digital is based on photoelectric phenomenon, so essentially there is no image in the process, not even an optical one (beyond the original analog image projected by the lens during the scan.) Digital capture is a process by which photoelectric charges (electrons, _not images_) are transferred off a silicon sensor via a voltage, then regenerated into digital signals using an analog to digital converter, then stored as binary coded data on a storage card, magnetic hard drive, or CD-R. Again, no image. When output, the binary information is utilized by software to create inkjet or sometimes photochemical _reproductions_ of the stored data. But as data, digital images exist in name only, not in actuality. What one sees on a monitor's display is not an optical image, nor when it's reproduced as output are images "written" by the direct action of light. Digital images and outputs are software representations and reproductions of stored binary data. Now, most people think of digital camera sensors as "recording" optical images the same as film, then just storing that image in electronic form. Nope. Doesn't happen. The photodetector sites on silicon sensors do not inherently record images, or anything else. Rather, they _sample_ (collect) discrete allotments of data known as pixels. This is not a photographic process. The term data sampling, rather than imaging, is a more accurate and proper description of what silicon sensors do since each photodetector site collects photoelectron data relevant only to it's unique area. Photodectors are buckets of charged electrons ("wells") filled and drained repeatedly in order to transmit the electronic data for each capture. Photons are converted to electrons, a voltage, digital signals, then read by software and represented in pixel-image form on a monitor. There is no actual image, ever. Why is this so confusing to people? Photography has come to be defined many ways because photochemical, photomechanical, or electronic methods of producing images for consumptive publication have become so ubiquitous in society. But this doesn't mean anything we call a photo or image is "photographic." In our vernacular we tend to call any image we see a "photo" -- calendar, newspaper, computer image. But in reality these are reproductions of photographs created by processes other than photography (lithography, xerography, digital, inkjet.) The terms photo, photograph, and photographic have become mere idiomatic words in our society used for any image or process that produces an "image," rather than a literal photograph. |
#2
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"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
... On 10/10/2004 11:10 PM Tom Phillips spake thus: [...] Your arguments seem pretty evangelistic to me, from one who obviously is a partisan of traditional (wet) photography and not much of a fan of digital. Understand that my purpose here is to neither argue for or against either [...] Tom is making a philosophical assertion with specific defining requisites. His statement seem cogent enough. Let it be. Now lets come up with a term for digital imaging. Let's see, DIMING seems good. |
#3
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I should add that there was a time when "train" meant a wagon train. (I
came across this in a contemporary account of Revolutionary War soliders raiding a "British train" - no railways yet!) The word shifted meaning as the technology changed. |
#4
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"Peter De Smidt" pdesmidt*no*spam*@tds.*net* wrote in message
... Jan T wrote: snip Ignoring that the above statements involve a very controversial realist metaphysics, why can't a painting record "what was there" as well? Photography has one specific quality that distinguishes it from the rest of the visual arts: the image's place in time. Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than any photograph of her!" Flattery will get art nowhere. Certainly there is a different causal chain involved. With photography the direct causal chain of image capture is purely mechanical, as the chain does not go through a person's mind. A person is involved (choosing the scene, making the technical calculations...), but this is not the same thing. With painting, a human mind is directly in the causal chain of image capture. The problem with photography is its blessing; while it is easy to make innumerable different photographs from the same setting, distinguishing the one that works and makinig it so is the virtue, craft and sometimes art. |
#5
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"Peter De Smidt" pdesmidt*no*spam*@tds.*net* wrote in message Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than any photograph of her!" jjs wrote: Flattery will get art nowhere. How is flattery implied by my example? Sure, flattery is often involved in portraiture, photographic or otherwise, but it doesn't have to be. Morever, our experience of how people look is very different from a two dimensional representation of a particular instant. It's certainly possible that a painter can capture in a painting a likeness more suggestive of our phenomonological experience of a person than a photograph can, and also vice versa, of course. To come at this from another angle, Michael McKenna (I think) once looked at a photographer's portfolio. He asked something along these lines: "Are these photographs more beautfull than the original scene?" "No," Replied the photographer. "Why bother then?" asked McKenna. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Paul Srand, and so on, emphasized the beauty of their subject matter. Was this flattery? Even if it was, so what? Any art won't be saved by mining some theoretical niche. What matters is whether or not artists that use that medium produce interesting pieces. -Peter De Smidt |
#6
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"jjs" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... My $.02 worth are just that...my opinion. But lets look at the full definition of photography: [...] Let's not. The dictionary is the last resort of the short-sighted. Think for yourself and very deep and you will understand. Elaborating on that a little... Dictionaries follow; good dictionaries do not try to lead, nor solve philosophical problems. They just report the ways words are already being used. HOWEVER, why are we having this argument? When the word "photography" was coined, nothing like digital imaging had been thought of. People are free to apply that word to it, or not, and they will eventually establish a widespread consensus as to whether to do so. That does not tell us *anything* about photography, only something about words. |
#7
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"jjs" wrote in message ... wrote in message ... My $.02 worth are just that...my opinion. But lets look at the full definition of photography: [...] Let's not. The dictionary is the last resort of the short-sighted. Think for yourself and very deep and you will understand. Elaborating on that a little... Dictionaries follow; good dictionaries do not try to lead, nor solve philosophical problems. They just report the ways words are already being used. HOWEVER, why are we having this argument? When the word "photography" was coined, nothing like digital imaging had been thought of. People are free to apply that word to it, or not, and they will eventually establish a widespread consensus as to whether to do so. That does not tell us *anything* about photography, only something about words. |
#8
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Peter De Smidt pdesmidt*no*spam*@tds.*net* wrote in message ...
Jan T wrote: snip One of his statements is this: photography distinguishes from e.g. painting in that it witnesses something 'that was there'. Photography, in this sense, is recording reality, in many creative ways, but still: recording something that has been there. snip Ignoring that the above statements involve a very controversial realist metaphysics, why can't a painting record "what was there" as well? Because there's no causal link, no mechanism to do that. Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than any photograph of her!" Certainly there is a different causal chain involved. With photography the direct causal chain of image capture is purely mechanical, as the chain does not go through a person's mind. A person is involved (choosing the scene, making the technical calculations...), but this is not the same thing. With painting, a human mind is directly in the causal chain of image capture. This distinction has been used in two ways. First, advocates of painting denied that photography is an art. It isn't. Second, advocates of photography denied that inkjet printing is an art. It isn't. So what? I suggest that the distinction in question supports neither claim. -Peter De Smidt |
#9
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| | snip | | Ignoring that the above statements involve a very controversial realist | metaphysics, why can't a painting record "what was there" as well? | It can, but the viewer can't easily be shure it didn't come from the painter's fantasy. To put it in a nicer way: painting has an advantage to 'real' photography because reality is not the only source of inspiration, fantasy is another one. | Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a | painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than | any photograph of her!" agree but don't forget: maybe this father never had the occasion of meeting a real good photographer ;-) | Certainly there is a different causal chain involved. With photography | the direct causal chain of image capture is purely mechanical, as the | chain does not go through a person's mind. A person is involved | (choosing the scene, making the technical calculations...), but this is | not the same thing. With painting, a human mind is directly in the | causal chain of image capture. | | This distinction has been used in two ways. First, advocates of painting | denied that photography is an art. Second, advocates of photography | denied that inkjet printing is an art. I suggest that the distinction in | question supports neither claim. true. The way the output was made is unimportant. Nor is the input. It's just about showing reality. | -Peter De Smidt |
#10
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| | snip | | Ignoring that the above statements involve a very controversial realist | metaphysics, why can't a painting record "what was there" as well? | It can, but the viewer can't easily be shure it didn't come from the painter's fantasy. To put it in a nicer way: painting has an advantage to 'real' photography because reality is not the only source of inspiration, fantasy is another one. | Consider portrait paintings. Couldn't someone respond on first seeing a | painting, "you've captured my daughter very well! Better in fact than | any photograph of her!" agree but don't forget: maybe this father never had the occasion of meeting a real good photographer ;-) | Certainly there is a different causal chain involved. With photography | the direct causal chain of image capture is purely mechanical, as the | chain does not go through a person's mind. A person is involved | (choosing the scene, making the technical calculations...), but this is | not the same thing. With painting, a human mind is directly in the | causal chain of image capture. | | This distinction has been used in two ways. First, advocates of painting | denied that photography is an art. Second, advocates of photography | denied that inkjet printing is an art. I suggest that the distinction in | question supports neither claim. true. The way the output was made is unimportant. Nor is the input. It's just about showing reality. | -Peter De Smidt |
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