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Why digital is not photographic



 
 
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  #1  
Old October 11th 04, 07:10 AM
Tom Phillips
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Default 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  
Old October 11th 04, 02:49 PM
jjs
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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  
Old October 11th 04, 03:00 PM
Michael A. Covington
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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  
Old October 11th 04, 08:48 PM
jjs
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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  
Old October 11th 04, 10:22 PM
Peter De Smidt
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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  
Old October 12th 04, 12:20 PM
Michael A. Covington
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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  
Old October 12th 04, 12:20 PM
Michael A. Covington
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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  
Old October 12th 04, 03:06 PM
Uranium Committee
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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  
Old October 12th 04, 10:31 PM
Jan T
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Default


|
| 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  
Old October 12th 04, 10:31 PM
Jan T
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Posts: n/a
Default


|
| 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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