different galleries for film and digital

[barrett_johnson]

I would love to see a gallery that is dedicated to displaying ONLY

non-manipulated FILM images. I think that digital photography,

should not be called photography, there is nothing photo about the

developing process. I think the world of "photgraphy" should be

divided into atleast 2 general categories: 1) photography, which is

PURE film and NO MANIPULATION at all, 2) digital imagery,

digital "photos" or manipulated "photos."

 

There is a perfect need for digital imagery. In a world of fast-

paced turn-around, efficiency, and world-wide distribution,

shooting digitally is the MOST economical way of satisfying the

consumers needs.

 

BUT, photography as an ART, will always be respected when shown in

it's true, unmanipulated form.

 

painting is not economical, but still admired for its true

expression of talent.

 

 

film photography should have its own gallery on PHOTO.NET

[pennington]

Manipulated is manipulated, unmanipulated is unmanipulated. What does it matter if it was shot on film or a digital capture? I don't see any difference.

[mbb]

Again ? :):):):)

[venicia_l]

A hundred years ago, he would have been one of the loudest objectors, refusing to "allow" photographers to be considered artists. Only "true" painters needed to apply then.<p>

 

This kind of idiocy always finds some zealots as champions.<p>

 

VL

[barrett_johnson]

i wont even think of denying the fact that digital art takes talent, talent that i will be the first to admit, i dont possess. i only suggest there is a valued difference in original photography that captured natural beauty, and the new-age imagery that technology has created. what do we appreciate when we admire a digitally altered work, the scenery's natural beauty or the artists' ability to work PS?

[mattvardy]

You appreciate the finished product - regardless of how it was created.

[hanna_cowpe]

Barrett, I use a digital SLR camera and take just as much consideration of light, composition and other relevant issues as when I used a film camera. I never shoot in auto mode and I shift between auto and manual focus, depending on the subject. I use a polarizer when required, as you do, and I sharpen my images after resizing them for posting. Why do your images deserve to be called photography when mine don't?

[barrett_johnson]

Hanna, I dontmean to degrade the implied meaning that you express thru your artwork. I only mean to differentiate between film and digital. Not making one more important, or beautiful than the other, JUST DIFFERENT. I do appreciate the work of a digital piece, but for different reasons than i appreciate a work with film. all you digital users, please dont misinterprete what Im saying as trying to degrade digital work. So if I dont refer to your work as "photography", would digital imagery be an insult?

[ravi_swamy]

So if I use Velvia 50 instead of a more neutral film am I manipulating the image?

[mattvardy]

An insult? No.

 

Barrett, I'm afraid your suggestion is utterly incorrect, and would only take us backwards (film) rather than forwards (digital) - plus you are basing this suggestion on your own personal views... a recipe for disaster.

 

Let's face it: film is slowly disappearing and digital is rapidly growing. Soon one will take over the other, like it or not. Your "old" views on photography have to change before you are left behind, grumbling in the dust with your film camera and "unmanipulated" images. Your argument cannot be won, unfortunately, and you are digging yourself into a whole (I know what its like, I've been there - it sucks).

 

[Don't get me wrong, I use film and like it a lot too; but I use it (happily) in accordance with digital sources and media aswell]

[barrett_johnson]

anything (image manipulation) can be taken to extremes... IN MY OPINION, different types of film offer different forms of expression, the same landscape will express a different emotion through different films. i dont feel the film type or even filters would defeat the fact that the lanscape itself was not altered by a computer. maybe even the fact that i use a polarizer and velvia should be taken into account for maniulation, but like i stated earlier, everyone draws the line somewhere... even when i see film images that use color filters, i tend to appreciate the natural images more. i still think im offending most people...for that i apologize

[anupam]

<i>there is nothing photo about the developing process</i>

<p>All art, as Plato so cogently argued, is at two removes from Truth (note the capital T). Digital seems to be at one further remove. O ye decadent hoplites! Repent! We should, of course, throw away such worldly pleasures and contemplate the <b>pure photograph</b> in the mind of god.

<p>-A

[pennington]

The offensive part of your original post is where YOU decided if it's digital it belongs with manipulated images. Their is a lot of really good straight photography being done digitally. But anyway...... if I still use glass plates does that mean I can look down on all you film punks.

[mbb]

Please ask the galleries to segregate painters work by the kind of paint they used. I do not like some of them and of course by using some, it produces no art :):):). Also sizes of brush should be segregated as well :):):) how weird definition some people have of art. To make an art piece you have to have a talent not a film camera

[barrett_johnson]

Matt, the most important and heated debates BEGIN with values that people feel passionately about. then develop with fact to support it. i only take photos for a hobby...not to keep up with technology. correct me if im wrong, but dont people still paint with oils on canvas? dont art collectors hang those peices in galleries instead of masterpieces altered in PS? my point...true artistic expression will ALWAYS be admired, and technological advances will ALWAYS be more economically feasible. why cant we value both forms independantly from each other

[mattvardy]

you can.

[cfimages]

Barrett - But what really is manipulation? How does, say, a little burning/dodging in the darkroom with film differ from the same done on computer with digital?

 

Which category would that fit into?

[barrett_johnson]

craig,

i appreciate the view point. very well taken and i honestly can say that i dont have an answer for you. its true that in the "pure form" using batteries in a camera could manipulate the image, or even shading the sun from a lens to prevent flare. i dont have concrete responses. i just wanted to see the reaction to an attempt to seperate digital from film...

[kelly_flanigan1]

RE: <i>I think that digital photography, should not be called photography,</I><BR><BR>When I started in photography; we used old surplus WW2 Fixer from a huge 20Lb? drum; and ice pick; Ohaus gram scales; measures. The surplus Tri-X in 4H club was pre 1954; before roll film tri-x. <BR><BR>What is with all this BS about digital and film being so different? Sounds like a "stuck in one era" issue to me.<BR><BR> Long ago folks used Adams Retouching machines; dodging; burning; toning; gold solutions; multiple exposures; and they didnt get their nickers in a wad. Real non digital images have been manipulated for over a century. Folks mess with lighting; focus; development; etc. Even contact printers can be made to have custom burning and dodging; via a mess of bulbs; or a selective vellum sheet that shaded with a pencil. This is in some old pre WW2 books.<BR><BR>Do we get a different gallery for cellphone cameras too? The WSJ this week says their sales are above digital cameras now.

[barrett_johnson]

wow kelly you have alot of experience in the history of photography, and i guess like most digital photographers are taking this question much too seriously. so sorry to rock the boat or challenge the natural progression of cheapening pure art forms to a simple click of a mouse to change the color of a sunset.

 

whatever process we choose, lets enjoy ART and expressing our own creativity. i think ive had one of these discussions to fellow snowboarders about the "old fashioned" snow skiiers...

[aardvarko]

<i>"whatever process we choose, lets enjoy ART and expressing our own creativity. "</i><BR><br>Exactly! That's why your suggestion is so stupid.

[john falkenstine]

Please show us how to post the non-manipulated ART film images in the PURE FORMAT. I've noticed this before with some of the posters. They seem to be incapable of grasping the basic fact that ALL IMAGES ON PHOTO.NET ARE DIGITAL...

[nomade]

...will we see the same thread and discussion?

 

On this topic, there was recently a well opinionated similar one recently:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009ms9

[johncrosley]

"Dont people still paint with oils on canvas? dont art collectors hang those peices [sic] in galleries instead of masterpieces altered in PS?

 

It seems to me that you haven't checked out the price of an Ansel Adams print or one by Henri Cartier-Bresson lately. When Cartier-Bresson died, the PN member who lovingly wrote C-B's obituary and remembrance recalled going through C-B's images in storage and finding them heavily marked with retouching pencils (pens?) and other heavy-handedness, and he assuredly shot almost exclusively 35 mm still film

 

(He made forays into cinema too, for those who have studied his work, and he produced a few color images, which for which he expressed hatred, even destroying some, according to one photo editor in France)

 

But the question of what is manipulation of 'film' is so basic it goes back to the first question of all -- how much time do you put the film in the 'soup'?

 

Just by varying the time, that's a manipulation. 'Manos' means 'hand' and from it we get 'manipulation' which means to 'handle' or 'craft' something. The very process of developing 'film' at all involves 'manipulation' and that involves an aesthetic judgment that is NOT standard -- and the most elemental judgment first is for how much time do you put the film in the developer and from that there are lesser questions -- such as what developer, what strength, replenished or not, agitated or not, at what temperature, and if at an alternate temperature do you make an adjustment in developing time.

 

You see, the only pure 'film' image is the latent image that hasn't been developed.

 

Everything after that has been 'manipulated'.

 

And so the premise on which you base your argument is reduced to absurdity for it is a false premise -- there exists no film image at all that is not 'manipulated' at all at the most primal level.

 

And how you got from your original 'faulty' premise to the subpremise that 'if it isn't film, it isn't photography' defies imagination.'

 

It seems that Matthew Brady was creating photographs of the Civil War, yet he had no film. Apparently he wasn't then a photographer. What was he? Film is somewhere between glass plates and digital media as a long-running and dearly-beloved transitional media that has certain endearing qualitie that will remain just that and it always will have its own charm and qualities, but for you to say -- so presumptuously that the recording of an image -- for not being done by film is not 'photography' -- seems absurd or at least completely naiive and entirely presumptuous.

 

There is nothing personal about the above argument, and I have respect for your feelings, and even for provoking the discussion, but it seems to me any method by which images are correctly and immediately rendered on any medium probably qualifies as photography in some sense, and digital is no less one of those than film (or glass plates), for who anointed 'silver halide' as the only medium for the recordation of images, when even in the 'film' era there were so many alternate media?

 

Respectfully,

 

John (Crosley)

[micheleberti]

<p>Once your file is on Photo.Net or similar web sites it doesn't matter if that's digital or film. If it's a film-originated photo it require a scan... and scanner always require color corrections, not all the scanner have the same dynamic range and this mean tha the same slide scanned with two differend scanner will look different, u have to sharpen as well as u sharpen ur digital files... so u have only one opportunity: shot slide or film and share them with your friend with a projector or simply shot film, print it and share prints with your neighbours.</p>

 

<p>Might be the question is when an image could be called a photo or a computer-art image. Looking at the most pictures on this web site it looks to me that most of them are mainly computer-art images. But that's just my POV.</p>