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When does photography morph into digital art?


johne37179

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<p>I saw a discussion on another forum today about photography emulating oil painting. Photography is not oil painting, nor should it try to be oil painting. On the other hand, digital photography does not have the bounds of oil painting or many other mediums. Because we can manipulate pixels or ones and zeros in almost limitless ways, at what point does a photograph lose its identity and morph into another digital art form?</p>
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<p>So the ones captured on CMOS sensors don't count?</p>

<p>I think you just answered your own question as per your own criteria. <em>One</em> inserted, non-captured pixel and the whole thing goes blooey -- for you.</p>

<p>For me, digital photography morphs into digital art when it is used by an artist, which is the answer to your question, though you are interested in another aspect, I know.</p>

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<p>IMO (formed after years of discussion about this very topic here on PN), the path between photography and digital art is a continuous, unbroken path; there is no sharp point of departure from one to the other; any line that is drawn across that path between the two is done so in a very subjective way; and many "images" have attributes of both. It's very easy (and valid) for one person to describe a particular "image" as a photograph and someone else to just as confidently (or passionately) describe that same "image" as digital art. </p>

<p>I generally have a low opinion of politicians at the national level, but frankly I'd rather talk about politics than photography versus digital art. At least politics has the potential, however remote, to be productive. Nevertheless, I think it is good for each individual to come to his/her own understanding of how photography and digital art relate to each other.</p>

 

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<blockquote>

<p>An image captured either digitally or chemically on film or CCD.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Actually, at that point, you've got a bunch of 1's and 0's, or a transparency (in most cases) at most. Is that what you show to people? Or is there another entire half of the process in between storing the light pattern and then rendering it into something you can actually look at? You've mentioned only part of the process of making a photograph. And only middle part, in fact.</p>

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<p>I think John would probably want to say "light-sensitive material"rather than "film or CCD." That way he'd include coated glass plates, cmos sensors, and probably some other things that have been the staple of photographers.</p>
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<blockquote>

<p>nor should it try to be oil painting.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Why not?</p>

<p>There are much worse things than emulating oil painting. Seems like a laudable project to me, if one wants to do it. There is NOTHING a photographer shouldn't try. Anything has the potential of being successful or unsuccessful, enriching or degrading. Depends who's handling it and what it's all about. Restrictions are better when self imposed (sometimes) than when imposed on others. If early photographers hadn't tried to emulate painting, some of the great pictorialist photographs might not exist, which would be a shame. Some painters have even tried to get their paintings to look like photographs. Some are great. Again, why not?</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>I wonder are you referring to the software that can make photos look like they have been painted ?<br>

then consider it part of the beast that is art : when you take a Photo and it comes out very good , you feel great but when it does not right then you start looking for ways to make it better and becomes part of the art of changing what you have to something else and better</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Could you define the identity of a photograph, please?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>A drawing of light. A drawing using light.</p>

<p>I can take a sheet of film, paper, glass, or metal coated with light sensitive material(any surface really) and draw on it using light. A photogram for example. A blueprint for example.</p>

<p>A computer photo, a photo you see on your computer, is really a file. Or a file of an image. I can use a computer to draw a computer generated image(CGI). It is not really a photograph. It may be a computer assisted drawing(drafting), for short CAD.</p>

<p>A digital camera produces files, or computer images, which are then usually edited by computer, and displayed on a computer as files. A scanned film negative or photo becomes such by scanning.</p>

<p>Interesting, I will use the word "print" to describe a photograph produced via enlarger by way of negative(or positive) to photo sensitive paper. But there is not actual printing occurring, no pressing of ink from platen to paper.</p>

<p>I just saw a presentation by photographer Kerik Kouklis, http://www.kerik.com/new/, who mostly uses no negatives or film at all. Photographing directly from camera to his finished media, glass or metal plates. He also uses a hybrid process using both 1800s, 1900's and 2000's photography techniques combined with computers, scanners, and printers to produce his photographs. I would definitely still consider him a photographer, a drawer of and with light. And what he produces are photographs, definitionally.</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>Painters can manipulate paints in almost limitless ways.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As a painter can push paint around a canvas for his or her effect, I can push pixels around a computer canvas just as easily.</p>

<p>Just as bad painters are easily spotted, so are bad pixel pushers. There are always going to be Bob Ross PhotoShoppers, just like there will always be Bob Ross painters. Nothing you can do about that, besides know who they are.</p>

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<p>I wish I could paint like Bob Ross. How's that for perspective? I wish I could cook like Emeril. Both have their detractors, both have fans. People who cannot do what those two do are typically fans. </p>

<p>Once upon a time when I was learning how to make a competent photograph, i.e., learning how to use a camera in Manual mode and actually have a photo turn out the way I imagined it- I thought any use of photoshop was digital art and wholly unnecessary. Why? Because I thought just turning out a good photo was hard enough. To me, a photo was what you did with a camera and if you wanted better photos you learned to do more with your camera.</p>

<p>Then I discovered studio lighting. Modifiers. Filters. Hmm. This changed things. Now I could manipulate the image before I took it. This flew in the face of my previous mantra. After all, if it was okay to manipulate before I pressed the shutter what was the difference?</p>

<p>Then I began developing my own film. Whoa. Stone Age Photoshop at your fingertips. (Stone Age for me... Space Age to someone like Ansel Adams.) </p>

<p>I was forced to accept that my ideas of where boundaries lie had more to do with where my own bounderies met my abilities. </p>

<p>Don't get me wrong: I still want to puke when I encounter people who believe that "art" is an excuse for shoddy craftsmanship. If you CAN'T take a good photo then it isn't art when you make bad ones. Then again, I'm more technical than artsy. By a long shot. Again, it's MY boundary, not yours. Art is what it is to ME. Your art can be whatever you like.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>John,</p>

<p>It took me to read Adam's "The Print" before I realized that I had 'permission' to photoshop prints. The technical knowledge seems pretty basic, and relatively simple. The permission part had been the hardest part for me to overcome.<br>

<br /> Finding Rolfe Horn's site and work had just as much to do with it.<br /> http://www.f45.com/html/mainfram.html</p>

<p>Jerry Uelsmann's work techniques?, those?, I still need a lot of work on. Knowing that the ability to use most of PS's power under an enlarger, but not knowing exactly how, that is enticing.</p>

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<p>As Stephen said, there is a broad spectrum and continuum from straight photography to highly manipulated images, and room within that for innumerable varieties of approaches to the medium.<br /><br />It's really quite too complex and limiting to try to strictly define photography with reductionist concepts. I think this is what people object to, because it seems not to account for complexities inherent in even the simplest of photographs.<br /><br />Having said that, one can discuss personal preferences, as there really is no way to account for them -- that is, they're essentially all valid.<br /><br />My own tastes are highly eclectic and I enjoy very disparate approaches in other people's work.<br /><br />One thing that I do notice with image manipulation is that there is a desire and tendency to enhance photographs through surface decoration, by adding gradients, tints, textures, vignetting, dodging and burning, etc., to an excessive degree. Often it comes across as a desperate and maybe unconscious effort to create over idealized photographs, or maybe to add mood and feeling where they didn't exist, or to enhance them beyond what was there. Is that okay? Of course, but although I don't object to it conceptually, in practice, many times I find myself questioning the photographer's intention.</p>
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<p>To Matt: In terms of my definition, I was trying to find the moment far enough upstream before the potential for significant alteration. Of course that is imperfect because we can do lots of things with lens choice, motion, and things we put in front of the lens. There is not perfect point for the definition. It is an arbitrary choice and anyone can make their own which is every bit as valid.</p>
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<p>Fred: Emulation is a fine form of compliment. However emulation is not the same as being. A photograph can never be an oil painting. It can look like one and I like playing with software that does that. I am drawn to the incredible freedom that digital photography affords for image creation. The pure digital image creation using graphic software was brought up. I don't think the line between that and digital photography is at all clear -- and that is a benefit.</p>
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<blockquote>

<p>That's how people reacted to impressionism.</blockquote></p><p>Maybe, but I didn't. However I think digital photogarphy is basically limitless and we are just scratching the surface. Hence, anything goes.</p>

</blockquote>

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<p>I have to say one thing about the constant recursions of PN forums regarding digital v. traditional photography. It forces me to think over the ways my thoughts and opinions have evolved. A few years ago in a vain attempt to protect the myths of traditional photography I asked for a clear distinction between film images and all digital photography. No more calling it photography! Call it something else. <br>

I was disturbed that the general understanding of photography, already minimal, was being further confused. Digital collage and illustration was being shown mixed in with traditional photographs. I wasn't seeing intelligent distinctions where there should have been. Once I accepted <em>photography </em>as being the unavoidable rubric for all things imaged I calmed down. Judging the merits of work no matter how it is made remains the same.</p>

<p>From the very beginning I enthusiastically accepted digital methods. They were unexpected gifts. Scanned film, decent printers, accessible color gave new life to everything I did without me having to change the photography I believed in. I simply use the smug term "As Taken" when needed to proclaim my pure ways. I am less squeamish about "arting" photos now. I shoot more pictures with post-processing in mind. One attraction of alternative or antique photographic plug-ins is that they <strong>are</strong> un-ashamedly nostalgic. Isn't nostalgia a large part of the essence of photographs? <br /><br /></p>

 

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A reasonable question would be why do some artists call their work 'photographs' and some others 'computer art' (at least that's what we called "digital art" back in the day) when both begin with (at least a part of a) photograph.

 

Some here want to appropriate all digital art to photography, it seems. Perhaps it would be best to take the artists at their word as to what medium they work in.

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