Can it really be called photography anymore?

Mod note - originally posted in "Business of Photography"

With all the post digital editing done these days?

I do NOT mean digital equivalent of Dodge and Burn.

I mean the full photographic cut room equivalent of ILM studio work.

Take a photo of a low lit room, toss on luminar, and turn the table light on digitally, then make it a purple light. Or to take a photo of the house at dusk, and turn the street lights on, but as pink eye killers.

Or ti take a photo of a kid staring out the window and cut and paste the background outside the window into being some stupid as fish tank view like on the photo shop instagram commercial?

Would it still qualify as photography if the Hindenburg being destroyed was given the digital once over and all the lights were turn into pastel colors, and the flames turned to green, and perhaps the people on fire were given really cool colored flames?

Would it qualify as anything if the napalm girl photo was given pink street lights?

Welcome to Photo.net, but

Pleeease,

get a grip on it.

A book wasn't a book unless it was hand inscribed by a monk

A portrait wasn't a portrait unless it was painted by an artist.

Ansel Adams said

I give full credit to the excellent scientists and technicians involved in the photographic industry. The research, development, and design aspects, as well as production, are extraordinary. However, very few photographic manufacturing technicians comprehend photography as an art form, or understand the kinds of equipment the creative person requires. The standards are improving in some areas, however: in my opinion modern lenses approach the highest possible levels of perfection, and today's negative and printing materials are superior to anything I have known and used in the past. I am sure the next step will be the electronic image, and I hope I shall live to see it. I trust that the creative eye will continue to function, whatever technological innovations may develop.

Ansel Adams, 1983 Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. Little, Brown and Company. p.59

In my view it is not photograpy anymore , it now falls under modern "Art" , if it can be called that.

The modern "photographers" are completely lost without their "photoshop" programs , they do not know how to use their camera's anymore.

I know that I am in the minority here , but this is my viewpoint and I am sticking to it (laughing).

Cheers and have a nice day now.

Nothing new, pictorialism vs realism is an argument as old as photography itself.

Realism vs Pictorialism: A Civil War in Photography History

“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

—Juliet

(Said because of a feud between the Montagues and Capulets, long before today’s [sarcasm]much more important feuds[/sarcasm] about photography.)

Sticks and stones, baby, sticks and stones.

Do what you want and let Webster and Oxford worry about what to call it.

If you’re too concerned with what other people do with their cameras and software, you may just find yourself [bad pun intended] out of focus!

Interesting question. I liked [uSER=8475649]@steve_gallimore|1[/uSER] 's reply.

Personally, I consider the whole process of planning, organizing, shooting, selecting and post-processing to be "photography". So my (neutral, non-enhanced) camera "shots" form the basis for digitally creating "photos". I have no problem calling what comes out the camera "photos" and those that come out of the whole process "final images".

Not all photographers have the time to post-process their photos before delivery. And there's a tradition in 'journalistic' and 'documentary' photography that photos (even with some enhancements) depict some slice of 'reality'. Verifiable credibility is king. So no pink street lights (unless they really were!).

The tools for creating 'pictorial' stills and videos become ever more sophisticated and are limited only by a visual artist's imagination and skills. That's fine with me. As far as

I know, innovation in technology and techniques has helped visual art to develop and expand throughout history.

As more and more visual artists are demonstrating, you don't need to be a photographer to be a visual artist. There are already more than enough existing photos to work with.

Mike

scorn

A little more Shakespeare...

"Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt."

—Richard III

Lightroom Calibration Panel Tutorial - Signature Edits - Improve Your Photography

the image of the road in the woods, that is an image. the original before on the left hand is fine, and looks like what you actually see in the woods 90% of the time. The right hand, is perhaps 10% of the time what you would see, in about a 1-2 hour window of day time during the time of year.

But with this example the issue is, how can you still make the claim that the edited version is still the same image? Youve changed everything in it to make it "artistic" but never kept the actual image.

Inspirational Lightroom Before and Afters

Image 5. The before image isnt the greatest ill give you that. But its years ahead of the final image that is extremely nasty looking. Greens are gone to something else, the skin tone is shot, and looks like the exposure was a +3..... And the way the edited lights look like a horrid light flare is just sooooo professional looking. Hell the after image looks like it was taken with a vga stick camera circa 2000.

Image 9... simply WTF.. after just blows puppy poo

Image 10. The editing is purely crap. Sure the overall image doesnt change as sharply as the other examples.. but BUT..... the person doing the edit ONLY changed the foxes fur to a different time of daytime based on how the coloring change... and forgot to fix the grass around it... faux paw... or stupidity? COnsidering that the original image is how the animal actually appears in the wild in those conditions

the original before on the left hand is fine, and looks like what you actually see in the woods 90% of the time. The right hand, is perhaps 10% of the time what you would see, in about a 1-2 hour window of day time during the time of year.

Did someone tell you that a photo is supposed to represent reality? If so, they misguided you. Many photographers think a photo transforms reality into something else or is some combination of a reflection and transformation and they, the photographers, get to decide the degrees of each.

Bad editing is bad editing. Bad editing is not an indictment of editing. Choose YOUR path. If that's a kind of photojournalistic adherence to objectivity, go for it. But concerning yourself too much with how others approach photography will guarantee your own lack of independence and an authentic voice. Let them worry about what they do. What the hell is the difference to you?

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”

― Ansel Adams

“A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion. There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

― Richard Avedon

“Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.”

― Eddie Adams

“We regard the photograph, the picture on our wall, as the object itself (the man, landscape, and so on) depicted there. This need not have been so. We could easily imagine people who did not have this relation to such pictures. Who, for example, would be repelled by photographs, because a face without color and even perhaps a face in reduced proportions struck them as inhuman.”

― Ludwig Wittgenstein

“People say photographs don't lie. Mind do. I wanted it to provide an escape route, I wanted to make pictures that were fantastic and took you into another world, one that was brighter. I started off with this idea.” – David LaChapelle

“Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.”

― Eddie Adams

This, so much this.

Even the most straight, unmanipulated documentary photograph only shows what the photographer wanted to show. When you choose to take a photograph, it is your view of the situation, backed by all of your ingrained beliefs and ideals.

How you choose to take that photograph, your choice of moment, framing, composition, is just as much yours as what you decide to do after you push the shutter.

There are no rules, imagine if someone said to Picasso "you can't paint like that" (and I'm sure they did).

Agreed on so many counterpoints to the original argument. A photo is (more often than not) a split second in time. Without the context of what was happening before and after that split second, it is possible to make up and/or believe anything you want- just from looking at the single, very short, instance in time.

All things evolve, right? In fact, change is the only constant in life (I mean besides death and taxes). SO why not accept that photography, also, will change and evolve and morph. Man Ray, Weegee, both were doing some experimental things with photos and photography. Their work back then really was "photography", too- even if it did challenge the norms & mores of the day.

Of course, one is free to deny that which they will. That said, photography today is still photography even if it doesn't quite fit into whatever little box you wish to keep it in.

alot of you dont seem to get the point.

Can it still be called PHOTOGRAPHY when you take that photo of your cat on th window sill and use editing to make it a different time of day, change the background to a burning medieval castle, etc..

alot of you dont seem to get the point.

I often find that when a whole bunch of people seem to me not to get the point, it's me that might not be getting it!

We're all making more important points than whether or not it can be called PHOTOGRAPHY. But, maybe for you, our points are beside the more mundane point of what to call something.

So let me say it as clearly and simply as possible.

Can it still be called PHOTOGRAPHY

Yes, it can. And, as importantly, it is.

Manipulation of photographs is fine as long as you declare it. It's no longer photography once you do it: photography by its nature is the documentation of the world. But it doesn't mean it's wrong. I don't like it, personally, and I have no time for it. I don't see it as edifying.

But most commercial imagery is almost never photographic anymore, which is fine. It's an ad, so it doesn't matter. In fact, photography itself is becoming redundant for generation of commercial images.

Can it really be called photography anymore?

It is almost the wrong question turned the wrong way round.

All realist pictures start the same way: a lens forms a real optical image of illuminated subject matter and casts this image onto a light sensitive surface. The lens may be on the front of a camera or it may be in the front of a person's eye. But, all the same, a lens is a lens and an image an image. If the first step in picture-making determines the naming of the final picture then one could defend the proposition that all realistic pictures are photographs. Realistic paintings, drawings, computer assembled pictures, traditional film photographs, all exhibiting realism, all start the same way therefore they are essentially the same thing.

Which poses an awkward question: what does a realistic picture have to do in order not to be a photograph? I'll suggest a general and somewhat abstract answer.

No assembly-type pictures are photographs. An assembly-type picture is one reconstructed, piece by piece, from a description of a real optical image, not the image itself. The description is always in synthesised code, perhaps an array of voltages in a computer memory or a sequence of neuro-peptides in an artist's brain, and, as always, the description is not the thing described. The coded description is almost invariably in the form of a set of instructions for the operation of a mark-making thing. Common "mark-making things" include an artist's hand wielding a paint loaded brush or some sort of electro-mechanical printer. A typical end result, an array of colored spots on a substrate, is the same.

Then there is a small universe of impression-type methods. Some impressions aren't even pictures, life casts, death masks, wax impressions, for example. Photography as first mooted is an impression-type process. A real optical image enters a light sensitive surface and causes a pattern of marks that form a picture. The photographic method is independent of coded descriptions or mark making devices. That's why the invention of photography was so welcome in a world that had already been for centuries crammed with all manner of assembly-type pictures.

Where pictures are valued as important information about the world assembled pictures are testimony and impressions are evidence. Both have uses but they are not the same.

Where pictures are valued as important information about the world

The thing is, most artists (photographers who work with photography as art, not as testimony, evidence, or forensic matter) see photos (pictures) as expressions inspired by the world as much as or more than information about it.

Photography, painting, sculpture, dance accomplish such a vast variety of things, depending on the individual artist and the milieu in which these arts are practiced that to attempt to box each of them into a specific and demanding definition will and should fail. The point of art is often to defy such definitions. Those stuck in the often-outmoded confines of strict definitions put themselves behind the eight ball and don't really affect art or photography and their evolution one iota.

The question is one of craft.

Making a silver contact print from an 8x10 negative exposed in your Deardorff is, from a craft perspective, a very different process than digital capture followed by processing thru PS. That's a no-brainer. Taking my Rollei 6x6 out is worlds removed from my S1R. An entirely different experience and mindset.

Now try this: Present your straight, "computerless" contact print to an audience and describe it as such. Talk up the "hours of darkroom toil" required to get that print just right (dodging and burning is allowed). Talk up your frozen stash of AZO. Go over Steiglitz's definition of a creative photograph as representing what one saw AND felt at the time they made the exposure, and how any digital manipulation is a violation of that creed. If you're in really deep mix up some Amidol and flaunt your black fingernails as proof of a genuine artistic commitment. And guess what: 99.99999% of the world doesn't care. DOES NOT CARE. Really. I've tried it (except the Amidol). Nobody cares anymore (if they ever did?).. That's when you realize the way forward is simple: Do what you enjoy. Not enjoying it anymore? Like Sandy said, walk away. No one will know.

I suspect most of the "is it still photography" questions emanate from a frustration that the world isn't as impressed with the "traditional" darkroom processes that so captivated us all those decades ago, and in many ways changed our lives. 15 years ago I felt some of that frustration, wanted to rally behind other fellow photographers who, like me, might've passed a particular scene for over a year until the cloud formations and sky lined up to make the photograph worthwhile and something special - the point being we didn't dress it up in PS. We weren't pasting in clouds that weren't there when we were (remember Steiglitz's definition of a creative photograph), and see digital as usurping what was once our special province. Much of it might be a fear of the unknown; eventually I came to realize that just because one is using digital capture and PS doesn't automatically mean that any manipulation beyond dodging and burning is talking place, but for some reason such manipulation always seemed to be implied. Of course In time I got over all that. It's a journey for some.

Hello All,

For those who want to manipulate their photo's , this is perfectly fine as long as this fact is admitted , this is frequently not the case.

In my mind it is much more satisfying to be able to take good photo's straight out of the camera without manipulation.

No Photographer is capable of doing this 100 percent of the time.

Small flaws in a photo are acceptable to my mind , this shows that the Photographer is human , and no human can produce perfect photo's all the time.

I still maintain that manipulated photo's should fall under the classification of "Modern Art" rather than "Photography".

But where Money , and/or Prestige is involved , all bets are off.

Peace.

Cheers.

Mod note - originally posted in "Business of Photography"

 

With all the post digital editing done these days?

 

I do NOT mean digital equivalent of Dodge and Burn.

 

I mean the full photographic cut room equivalent of ILM studio work.

 

Take a photo of a low lit room, toss on luminar, and turn the table light on digitally, then make it a purple light. Or to take a photo of the house at dusk, and turn the street lights on, but as pink eye killers.

 

Or ti take a photo of a kid staring out the window and cut and paste the background outside the window into being some stupid as fish tank view like on the photo shop instagram commercial?

 

Would it still qualify as photography if the Hindenburg being destroyed was given the digital once over and all the lights were turn into pastel colors, and the flames turned to green, and perhaps the people on fire were given really cool colored flames?

 

Would it qualify as anything if the napalm girl photo was given pink street lights?

Some would refer to your examples as "digital media arts". Essentially digital mixed media. It can use photographs and vector art, etc. If you want to call it a photo or not a photo, I'm sure I'd draw a line somewhere, but it's not necessarily an objective criteria. Lots of mixed media work starts with a photograph but ultimately becomes something else. Actually I like Ludmilla's response. I suppose it might matter if you want to submit it to a photograph show, but otherwise does it really matter?

this is perfectly fine as long as this fact is admitted

Why use the word “admit” for something you say, but obviously don’t mean, is perfectly fine. Fact is, it’s not at all perfectly fine with you, as you’ve made quite clear. Once YOU “admit” that, maybe YOU will be able to approach your own truth, whatever that may turn out to be. As is so often the case, you’ve telegraphed much more about yourself than you have about photography or anyone else’s practice of it.

no human can produce perfect photo's all the time.

Perfection is highly overrated. Humans produce imperfect photos, not perfect ones. Once that’s “admitted,” even more understanding may ensue.