What is a photo?

[john_ziggy]

Simple question but the answer may be more complicated. Firstly, whatever the

original subject matter, the photograph is certainly not it, regardless of how

authentic it looks. If you perfectly photograph someone else?s photo is your

photo an original or simply a copy. If you change it slightly does it then

become an original. If the original source is not a photo but a building, (ie

something created and not natural), is your photo an original. Clearly yes. But

suppose the original is a painting or a sculpture, what then. It could all come

down to the arrangement of molecules on a piece of paper. But hang on, the

paper was probably not made by you and I doubt that the ink was or the printer.

Certainly not the expensive camera and lens you used. So where is the

originality. Creativity you may think. Who of us professional photographer has

not taken scores of pictures only to select one as the item to go forward with.

Might I even suggest that many pleasing photos are shot on a ?by chance? basis.

The fact that it came out the way it did may well have not been foreseen. What

then of the photographer who has a target in mind when at work. If it comes

off, who among us would reveal that we took fifty other shots before getting

the one we wanted. So what! Well it all comes down in the end to chance. In a

war zone most pictures only get credit if there is something there to capture.

Haven?t some of us been tempted to pay a gun man to rip off a few rounds to

spice it up a bit. Well, I certainly have and the results were stunning. It?s

all a shame really isn?t it.

[yann1]

Not really the topic but my 2c: Photograph means the light hits something and prints itself on it. So it's about light and time. That's why manipulated photos become pictures since they "betray" this "moment". My 2c. Many good photos are taken by chance, yes, for street photography, to be at the right time in the right place, still you need some skill to catch the moment (setting, angle...)

This post could become very interesting soon... Regards.

[root]

Focus!

 

Just one question at a time, please.

[maris_rusis]

John Ziggy has a dozen (at least) fundamental questions about photography all muddled up and confused in the form of a questioning exhortation. Even the initial point he raises, quote "Firstly, whatever the original subject matter, the photograph is certainly not it, regardless of how authentic it looks." asks deep questions about the nature of photography and its relationship to the world of real things.

 

It may well be that the original subject matter of photography is actually light and the photograph really is a material manifestation of it. This concept seems reasonable but it still merits debate. So much of John Ziggy's post invokes premises that are arguable assertions and it is not easily productive to try to unweave every one of them.

 

Yann Roffiaen's insight "Photograph means the light hits something and prints itself on it." has buried in it (if one digs hard enough) implications enough to answer all of John Ziggy's conjectures.

[beeman458]

"Simple question but the answer may be more complicated."

 

"Haven?t some of us been tempted to pay a gun man to rip off a few rounds to spice it up a bit. Well, I certainly have and the results were stunning. It?s all a shame really isn?t it."

 

?

[ellis_vener_photography]

"But suppose the original is a painting or a sculpture, what then. "<P>

 

How did you light it? How did you frame it? Did you use any judgment at all when making your interpretation of the object photographed?<P> That machinery was used to make the photograph is as irrelevant as asking if a sculptor used a chisel, a painter a brush, a cook a pot and a stove, or a baker grain he did not grow and mill. Tools and materials are simply a means to an end.<P>

 

As to the question of chance: "luck favors the prepared mind" or as

<A HREF = http://www.jaymaisel.com>a friend of mine</A> likes to say, "You can't make photographs if you don't have a camera with you."

[stormchaser]

Good lawd, how many of these threads do we need? A photo is light recorded on a sensor or film, sometimes digitlly manipulated. Simple as that.

[don_e]

"A photo is light recorded on a sensor or film, sometimes digitlly manipulated. Simple as that."

 

Is the raw data recorded by the sensor, or the exposed but undeveloped film, a photograph?

[rich_ullsmith1]

To respond to the "fifty shots by chance, if you get a good one, so what." Sure. But something I have noticed: when I have unlimited time to make exposures, that is, today, tommorrow, the next day, and the next week, the process is much more deliberate and results in more prints on the walls. Honestly, I don't completely subscribe to the "decisive moment." Sure, following a group of children --not your own-- with your camera will result in decisive moments by the second, right up until the parents and police get involved. Tell them you are searching for the decisive moment, see what happens. I think it's disingenuous to pop off a couple hundred frames, pick one out and say aha! The decisive moment! No luck, all anticipation and skill!

[john_ziggy]

Any light in your mind? You may think there is but its just nerve endings firing off, a bit like the paid gun man. What anyone thinks makes a photo, even reducing it to the technical basics, is only a response built on other responses built on other responses etc etc. Can anything be original. Or should it just be pleasing/ challenging/ frightening / etc Once we start to talk about it we move further and further away from the core feelings in our minds which are the images with which we make sense of what surrounds us. If we just do it, whether we set it up or just rip it off, who carers.

[see_r]

I was born with 2 cameras and each makes multiple photographs per second. And as for the brains (i.e. "minds") that process those images, well, I plea again for a psychology of photography forum.

[mjferron]

A photo is not just light captured on film or a sensor. A photo is a moment in time captured on film or a sensor. This moment is usually in the range of 1/1000 up to a few seconds in length. The moment might be random or planned but will always be a moment captured. No other artist can do it and that's the cool part.

[fullmetalphotograper]

I am just a simple freelance peace keeping agent, who was taught two things by a much wiser sensei.

(1) That art was anything you can getaway with.

(2) No subject remains unchanged when observed.

[john_ziggy]

Just one final comment aimed initially at Michael Farron.

For you, with you Happy Snaps holiday pics, that moment in time may be all you can hope to capture. For me the RAW material is just the beginning and is often a very long way away from the variety of end products one shutter release can create. Feel the pixels.

[steve_swinehart]

"Who of us professional photographer has not taken scores of pictures only to select one as the item to go forward with."

 

Then you've never done a large oil painting. Many artists will start with a series of sketches to layout the piece, and work through compositional issues. Sometimes you may do a small trial painting (mockette). This may be in oil, acrylic or watercolor. Finally, you do the final piece that incorporates the ideas you've found through the trial work and tests you did to get to that point.

 

Why is that any different than working through compositional issues in the field on the ground glass or through a viewfinder?

 

To the contrary to this approach, you may be Jackson Pollock and hang cups of paint above a canvas with holes in the bottom, and swing them to incorporate the randomness of the process into the final work (action art).

 

You seem to want a single answer to the creative process - there isn't one answer. For example, a very well know photographer that I know makes sketches or small paintings prior to setting up the tableau for the photo. Are the sketches the art, the creation of the tableau the art (3D art), or is the final photographic image the art?

 

The answer is that in someway they may all be individual art pieces, but none but the final photographic image is considered to be the art by the photographer. However, I know for a fact that his sketches have been sold at auction for 5 figures because the people who collect his work want the genesis of the image as well as the final image itself.

 

Why is anything "a shame." That's the comment I truly don't understand.

[don_mckeith]

This is an easy one-

 

A photo is a B+W silver halide thingy---everything else is a picture :>)

[john_ziggy]

Well John Swinehart, its reassuring to know that you dip your wick in the world of oils. Bully for you. Keep up the pretentiousness it will serve you well in life. As for - its all a shame really. I?m afraid this was a typo and I meant to say it was all a SHAM really. Still I was curious to see how it would run. What?s the real killer is that the whole thing is a spoof. Just a lot of twaddle. Anyway its nice to see how many people up their own arses take it so seriously. I think Don McKieth has it right, its just a lot of chemicals on paper and you can take it or leave it. Any picture is just an opinion and slave to convention. But then is this just a wind up as well?

[pakivotis]

I will only attempt to give an anwer to the nature of photography, which will hopefully

answer all other questions.

I my opinion a photograph is the capture of a moment in Time. Nothing else! It is actually

the artist or the non-artist behind the camera that makes this photograph a work of art or

a contribution to global pollution. Trial and error together with pure skill is what

photography is about. Only after one has managed the technical aspects of photography

and has in the process shot & developed many images, can one reach a point where this

process is a means of expression. Whether this is staged or not is the artist's choice. The

outcome does not depend on the way but on the intentions. Otherwise an actor could

never be artist as he or she always pretend to be someone else in a staged public event.

[don_mckeith]

"Only after one has managed the technical aspects of photography and has in the process shot & developed many images, can one reach a point where this process ......"

 

 

or, you can go the Zen route, and just click the shutter---

 

("don't think.----do")

[steve_swinehart]

"Well John Swinehart, "

 

Well I have no idea to whom your adressing your comment since that is not my name.

 

"...its reassuring to know that you dip your wick in the world of oils."

 

Only because I like to explore all aspects of making images...

 

"Bully for you. Keep up the pretentiousness it will serve you well in life."

 

And why should this be pretentious? It's just a different method of self expression. Do you find oil painting or painting in general threatening to you in some way?

 

"As for - its all a shame really. I?m afraid this was a typo and I meant to say it was all a SHAM really."

 

Okay, then why is it a "sham"?

 

"Anyway its nice to see how many people up their own arses take it so seriously."

 

You'd certainly be right at the front of the pack...

 

"Any picture is just an opinion and slave to convention."

 

In what way? Rather than making statements as though they were fact, perhaps you could expand a bit, and tell us all why we should even take anything you say seriously - talk about pretentious...

[bertr]

There are a number of portfolios on the PN which consist to a large degree of photographs of paintings, or sketches. In some cases, the artist who drew the sketch is clearly very talented as an artist. What then am I looking at, and what am I rating? The two-dimensional painting, or the photograph thereof? If I went to the Louvre and took a good photograph of the Mona Lisa and posted it on the PN what would people say: "Leonardo is one great painter" or "Bert is one hell of a photographer-- Look how he captured her smile!"

It is my honest belief, that photos of paintings should be in a category by themselves, or should not be on the PN at all.

Don't say I should ignore them..because some of these sketches are wonderful and I admire the artist. This, however is a PHOTO GALLERY and not a Museum of Fine Arts....Bert

[john_ziggy]

I am really sorry Steve if I offended you. I never meant to call you John. The rest still stands though.

Despite a - coming clean - on the whole thing just being a spoof, contributors just carry on debating a senseless topic. Steve, do yoy need more - arse - evidence!

[Norma Desmond]

To post what can be taken seriously as a spoof and then sit back and laugh and label those

who respond seriously (in what is typically a serious forum) "arses," meanwhile, actually

giving a serious answer yourself and assuming it's the only reasonable one . . . who, pray tell,

is the "arse?"

[jtk]

IMO a photograph arrests a moment of time using some sort of instant visual technology.

 

If there's no moment, no time factor, the image may simply be a photographic illustration, as in a catalog's automotive parts or some elaborate Photoshop exercise. Photoshop often causes images to stop being photographs and start being collages.

 

A haiku is not just a poem with a certain form, it also refers to the season and to something with eternal implications.