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When does it change from a poto to someting else?


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<p>My wife, a photo teacher, and I have been talking about when does a photo turn into some other art form. I am not talking about the validity of manipulating a photo, that started with the first photos were taken. What I am talking about is when a photo is manipulated so much you can't tell it was a photo to start with. I just can't figure out when the change to some other art is made and what to call that art. As an example if one takes a black and white photo the colorizes adds backgrounds or takes things out of the picture then textures to a point it looks like an oil painting is it still a photo or is it computer art?</p>
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<p>I think this is essentially unanswerable, indefinable, and unimportant.<br>

Some things are photographs, plain and simple, but there is a continuum of change that can be made to an image - texture, color, material, etc. - that, at some point, all would agree it's no longer a photograph. Where was the transition? There you will find little agreement.<br>

I do photography. I take pictures, I edit them to try to achieve a vision, I print them, I frame them. <em>For me</em> , if I can't print it and frame it, it's not a photograph.</p>

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<p>Oh boy. I can hardly wait to see the sparks that fly in this discussion. </p>

<p>There is no official arbiter, no photographic <em>ex cathedra</em> pronouncement that can pass judgement on when a photograph becomes something other than a photograph. I think it's fair to say, however, that within certain genres there are certain guidelines and expectations. </p>

<p>Photojournalism, documentary, street photography, forensic photography, etc, pretty much disallows a manipulated photo as being valid within those genres/fields. (I know we could probably nitpick in some categories here...take a street shot and throw HDR or a canvas texture on it...is it still a photograph?)</p>

<p>Individual websites and exhibitions have their own specific guidelines in regard to how much alteration/manipulation is acceptable.</p>

<p>Outside of the definition that an editor, a jury panel, a gallery owner, or a book publisher might set, it's the same old story of being up to the individual to decide. I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I'm not going to bore (or anger) anyone with them here. There are probably more questions than answers. I would say that a painting of a photograph is a painting. But is a photograph that is processed to look like a painting still a photograph? There are many examples of collages and multi-media works that have been presented as part of a photographic exhibition. I know of at least one yearly exhibition that tries to differentiate the type of work you are talking about by categorizing it as "Digital Art". </p>

<p>I'll be interested to see what other people have to say on this. </p>

<p> </p>

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<p> If the work is from a computer it's computer art, computer photography, digital photography or other similar terms. When I see a heavily manipulated picture I just think of it as a Fantasy or Fictional picture. I did go and see "Avatar" and thought it was wonderful movie. It's a Fantasy film. However everybody has their own slant about it all.</p>
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<blockquote>

<p>when does a photo turn into some other art form</p>

</blockquote>

<p>When the frozen moment in it starts moving I guess, when it becomes a motion picture. Never cutting itself loose entirely from its own identity is what enables the photograph - as being a photograph -<em> to change or turn into</em>...</p>

<p>" <em>A photograph is fiction and as it is moving it becomes reality " - Robert Frank</em><br>

<em><br /></em></p>

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<p>As students, we were encouraged to experiment with materials that are part of photographic process - we use to burn or freeze negatives and prints, paint on them with all sorts of liquids (I found that mocca coffee on thick fibre based photo paper makes the best sepia tone ever).<br>

Result was "altered" photograph, but stilll a photograph.<br>

It's because in it's esence, it is a photograph, altered only to complement the overall idea. If an artist wants it being perceived as a photograph, albeit altered, then it is a photograph.<br>

If he or she uses photo as part of some other art, let's say base for digital illustration, and wants it to be viewed as "digital painting" or whatever, then that's what it is.<br>

In many cases, we need to know more about the art piece to understand where it is coming from and were it wants to go. And to know that, we need that artist to tell us.<br>

Even if it's just the title <a href="http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/79600">(http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/79600</a> ).</p>

 

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<p>There can be a certainty about what is a photograph and what is not a photograph but it is a very reductionist certainty.</p>

<p>The challenge is to devise an identity criterion for a photograph so tight that no one will be able to say, logically and in good faith, "That's not a photograph". It's a bit like Rene Descartes' 17th century philosophical inquiry into what cannot possibly be doubted. In the end all he could come up with was <em>cogito ergo sum</em> , I think therefore I am. Descartes was certainly correct about his own existence but his attempts to build a world-view philosophy on that basis were less convincing.</p>

<p>Some would say any picture that had light hitting a sensor somewhere in its chain of production is a photograph. Others would disagree and point out that <em>all</em> pictures start this way.<br>

Some could claim that any picture linked to camera use by someone, somewhere, somehow is a photograph. Again, many would assert otherwise. Camcorder users don't make photographs.</p>

<p>I suggest a photograph is a surface bearing picture forming marks as a physical consequence of being struck by light. At a rock-bottom basic level no one could argue with that, surely? Any disagreement would have to be on the basis that there are lots of <em>other</em> pictures out there that somehow <em>also</em> qualify as photographs.</p>

<p>There is a serious difficulty with the "light-struck surfaces bearing marks" concept that make it very unpopular.</p>

<p>Students adopting this criterion would never graduate from a modern digi-art college. Galleries couldn't flog ink-jets to cashed-up but undiscerning art lovers. The majority of photographs posted by photographers on internet sites, even Photo.net, would turn out to be impostures posted by impostors. No, no, this simply would not do. In the interests of harmony photography may as well be re-defined any way we please so long as the new definition brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number. Being kind at the price of some little confusion always trumps being right and certain.</p>

 

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"<I>...if one takes a black and white photo then colorizes adds backgrounds or takes things out of the picture then textures to a point it looks like an oil painting is it still a photo or is it computer art?</I>"<P>

 

It is a photo that has been colorized with backgounds added having some things removed and textured to a point that it looks like an oil painting.

James G. Dainis
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