Should realities of the city be the realities of the picture?

[Brad_]

>>> Why do I bother about this?

 

OK, I'll take a stab at that question. Because you feel the need to impose your views and limited

definitions on others?

 

 

>>> It's because the common people might be misled to think that something an artist presents as

photography is actually not what is conventionally meant by the word.

 

Ah, yes, the common people! We're all pleased as punch knowing that the integrity of our craft is safe

under your stewardship.

[beeman458]

"Why then can't you accept that it's not photography!?"

 

See it in the same light as writing on a pressure sensitive panel. You're not using ink or pencil and all that's recorded is digital.

 

At this point, you're only being polemic. Photography was created by a bad painterly artist. Photography has moved through many technological developments and has now entered the next phase; digital world. To not accept that photography includes digital manipulation is to not accept wet manipulation, as manipulation is manipulation, no matter what it's genesis. What was referred to as "darkroom magic" was just another way of saying, "I manipulated the process."

 

Maybe the most recognizable image Ansel Adams created that was openly manipulated was "Moonrise over Hernandez," New Mexico, 1941.

 

As a suggestion, one should explore Alfred Stieglitz, what his images looked like and what he had to write as to his efforts.

 

Manipulation of the negative and print has acceptably been going on since photographic history began.

[eugene_scherba]

<p>"Why then can't you accept that it's not photography!?"</p>

 

<p>Here is my stab at this. I don't care what you call images that has been altered in post-

processing. You can call them photography, digital art, whatever.</p>

 

<p>The problem is that as soon as we stop calling altered images "photography", the

definition "photography" becomes <em>exclusive</em>, and a special <i>value</i> is

placed on those images. This is completely absurd, because such value bias is justifiable only

in documentary applications, not in art in general.</p>

[sprouty]

Ilkka, it would take an hour of your time studying any number of books, websites, or what ever source you choose, to realize the fallacy of suggesting that manipulation is a modern, digital concept.

 

Your viewpoint is simply skewed by a lack of understanding of the history of the medium. And that history is a well documented fact, not an opinion.

[ilkka_nissila]

"sp ...", I did not say that manipulation is a new concept. I said that none of these definitions for the word photography include digital manipulation. Digital manipulation is a separate process from photography. I don't think anyone is so naive that they are not aware that photographs are manipulated in the darkroom.

<p>

Eugene, yes, images that are not altered do have a special value (to me).

<p>

Thomas, darkroom manipulation is not excluded from being photography according to these definitions. E.g. if you put your hands in the path of the light under the enlarger to adjust the brightness of some areas you're just including them as a (sort of a) subject in the photograph and all of this is fine (by these definitions). I don't care if conceptually these processes are equivalent. We're talking about a word "photography" and what its technical definition is. It is a term describing a process, which doesn't include another process, digital image processing, or if it does, then the references I found are out of date.

<p>

Jeff, photographs are not used to illustrate news articles just because of low cost, but also because they are perceived to add credibility to the story. Perhaps today it is the reverse, with any image suspect to be manipulated? I am not really familiar with Avedon's work. Did he specifically <i>digitally</i> manipulate his images? If so, then people used the term photography incorrectly. If he produced the images by projecting light to a photosensitive surface then they are photographs.

<p>

Fred asked: <i>Tell me, is that reality that photography is projecting 2-dimensional or 3- dimensional? Is that reality exposed at a shutter speed of 60 or 400? F-stop 2.8 or 4? Is it the one that you framed when you looked at it or the one that I framed when I looked at it?</i><p>

I guess how many dimensions you want to model the world with is up to the modeller. What aspect of reality do you want to study? Photography is normally a type of 2D projection of 3D space, averaged over a fourth dimension (time). I don't follow on what you're trying to say in your last sentence. If we both put the camera in the same position and expose at the same time (technically this is impossible but let's just ignore this) we get the same images. So it doesn't matter in a strict sense who pushes the button.

[Norma Desmond]

Ilkka-- You are claiming that photography is (or should be) a projection of reality. I am

claiming that it's not. It's a projection of the photographer's or at least the camera's

perspective of and framing of what the photographer or camera has seen. We all know that

even documentaries (supposedly the strictest adherents to this supposed reality) come

with

a perspective, often a bias or prejudice. Photographers shoot what they want from the

angle they want with the settings they want, framed the way they want. They have already

manipulated. Having viewed a photograph that has not been manipulated in photoshop, I

may

still come

across the scene photographed and not even recognize it.

So where's the "reality" you're talking about? "Reality" may be out there somewhere, but it

certainly isn't in (nor has it been captured by) the photograph. At most, a pespective has

been. Word usage and definitions

aren't fixed, immutable, or stagnant. At one time, there wasn't a even the notion that the

word "painting" would

include canvas adorned by acrylic substances. If you can't find digital manipulation

included in a dictionary definition of "photography," wait a few years and you will. Will you

then stop worrying about it? Is that what it will take? Dictionaries often take a while to

catch up to common usage. It seems all that's going on here is that the commoners are

just a step ahead, quite often the case I've noticed.

[Spearhead]

Ilkka, the problem here is that it's pretty clear you don't know much about processing in the darkroom. Some work is not done with light. I'm surprised you don't know about Avedon, he is generally considered one of the greatest portrait photographers in the history of photography and one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.

 

This leads to the conclusion that sp is dead on with his suggestion, and it's really hard to discuss until his suggestion is taken.

[Brad_]

>>> I think this proves that the concept of the unmanipulated photograph being a work

of art is, much to the dismay of the anything-goes people, a thought which lives and

resurfaces time and time again.

 

and then

 

>>> What gives photography some of its value in many eyes is the fact that it is a

projection of reality.

 

and then

 

>>> I am not really familiar with Avedon's work.

 

 

I think the problem here, is, trying to have a discussion with someone who is ignorant of

the history of photography. That would be like me, an engineer and photographer,

attempting to engage in a discussion about surgical techniques with a group of

neurosurgeons...

 

Back on topic, with respect to reality needing to be an element in photographs, geez,

unless you're 100% colorblind, you'd have to exclude millions of prints captured and

rendered in black and white cuz they fail YOUR reality "test."

[sprouty]

Ilkka, perhaps I can't follow your logic, because you wrote:

<P>

<I>"...if you change the picture in such a way that it is not a direct projection of the scene then it ceases to be a photograph"</I>

<P>

And then you wrote:

<P>

<I>"...darkroom manipulation is not excluded from being photography."</I>

<P>

So which is it?

[ilkka_nissila]

A simple projection operation (which we can use here without loss of generality) might be e.g.

 

R_p(R,u) = R.u,

 

where u is an unit vector describing the direction in which the projection is taken and "." is used to denote dot product. R is a 3D vector. In the projection, R loses two out of its three independent scalars - in other words the projection is lossy. Not everything is transferred to the projection. This is what is meant by the word projection. You seem to assume that a projection has to be loss-free. It usually isn't.

 

Now we can add a bit of noise to the projection op and convert from color to monochrome also:

 

R_p(R,I(lambda),u,lambda_proj) = R.u+noise,

color(S_source,S_target) = int(S_source(lambda)*S_target(lambda))d(lambda)+noise,

 

in which we use S_source to describe the incoming light spectrum, and noise is a random noise term. Here we apply a multiplication of the intensity at each wavelength by a different spectrum S_target and integrate it over the wavelengths, hence obtaining a monochromatic end result.

 

These can all be considered to be projections. A lens is a bit more complicated projection and I don't have a geometrical optics book at hand so I don't want to get into it.

 

A chemical manipulation can also be described by a function. Now if you put your hands in the way in the enlarger, then you're just including these hands in the subject like I suggested above. Here the scene is the negative and your hands are a part of the subject illuminated by the enlarger. If you're applying the chemistry to only parts of the image then you have a physical photograph which you are altering chemically. Whether the end result is a photograph ... well that might be debatable, but very few people who made photographs in the darkroom did that kind of thing (if we're talking about Avedon's portrait of the Beatles) so it is understandable if terminology didn't catch up there. Not like the numbers who manipulate digital images. -- Really if I were to look at the Beatles portrait and show it to people on the street, and asked them to classify it into a category, how many would qualify it as a photograph? I doubt that many would.

 

Brad, should I consider that your knowledge of photography is at the level of a neurosurgeon's professional skills? Amazing! Equally I have to put up with people who 1) have no clue about what a "projection" is, 2) assume without knowing that I don't know anything about darkroom work, 3) insinuate that I am not a photographer, 4) hold themselves at a comparable level of expertise in photography comparable to a neurosurgeon's professional expertese. Lovely.

 

Anyway I can see that the trenches are set and no point in going on.

[Spearhead]

I wasn't referred to Avedon's goofy 60s stuff (is that all you could find on the Internet), but his well-known work like the In the American West . Selective bleaching was used, which requires no light for the changes. I would add that Polaroid transfers have always been regarded as photographs also, and are often manipulated without light.

 

Once again, a bit of study would go a long way.

[Brad_]

>>> Brad, should I consider that your knowledge of photography is at the level of a

neurosurgeon's professional skills?

 

No, while I don't have an 8 year degree in photography, I do have a good grounding in it's

history. Seems you don't. Or perhaps you have a PhD in photography allowing you to

profess your views on photography with some authority?

 

Expressing photography as a projection based on normalized unit vectors similar to

cartographic endeavors is just bizarre. You need to scratch deeper and try and appreciate

it an art-form providing some emotional pull. It seems you need to relate to photography

in a map-making realm. Sad, there's so much more to be had...

[beeman458]

"I said that none of these definitions for the word photography include digital manipulation."

 

I'll step out at this point as language is obviously of a fluid nature as new words are added to lexicons yearly, the world over. Just because an old outdated definition is used which doesn't include contemporary means, doesn't make it the final word in accuracy.

 

I'll wish you well with your photographic efforts, in what ever form factor you choose to use.

[ilkka_nissila]

Jeff, yes, I will do a bit of study once I can get to a bookstore. Sorry for idling here. I guess I find a bit of discussion stimulating. I assumed you meant the goofy stuff when you referred to him. I ran into it when I did a search. His more traditional black and white work was something I knew about even without googling. I do high contrast black and white myself and love it. It didn't occur to me that these might be used an example of manipulation. I guess this shows how again the same words mean different things to different people. I've seen pics of Death Valley by Lynn Radeka and his description of the methods used definitely puts darkroom work in a different light. He used bleaching and some kind of masks to change local contrast.

 

Brad, I was only trying to make the point that projections are often lossy operations, I just picked up a trivial case of the simplest imaginable projection. It wasn't exactly meant to describe photography although I added the spectral transformation for kicks. I guess if I had a PhD in photography I would have put in a bit more realism to the equation ;-) I am an engineer too, so can you blame me if I am unable to discuss "emotional pull" ;-)

 

Yes, language develops all the time. But it doesn't develop into just one direction. And it's not certain if this particular definition will change. After all, "daguerrotype" still means what it did a hundred years ago.

[Norma Desmond]

Several of us are maintaining that this particular definition has already changed.

"Daguerrotype" probably won't change easily. Nor will "aorta," nor "antipenultimate."

"Write," on the other hand, has. Think specific vs. a more general class of words. My dad

once wrote with a quill and ink. He used to dip the pigtails of the girl in front of him in

class into the ink. Today, we write with keyboards and computers. We don't limit our

language by only saying, "I typed an email." We "write" emails. People <i>use</i>

language. Language is not just a series of steadfast definitions. It is fluid. After you read

about Avedon, pick up some Wittgenstein. He'll provide an alternative to your very Platonic

take on the matter of the word "photography." The word "photography" gets its meaning

from how it is used by a group of people who use it. It's not representative of some super

reality out there that is fixed and unchanging and somehow corresponds to this symbol we

call "word."

[keith_lubow]

You have to answer the question for yourself based on what you value in your work. Personally, I would not do that to one of my own pictures, because the main thing I value about photography is that it uses what is already there, and you just draw a box around it. Every photo is some sort of a document that way, and not reduced to the level of "art". However subjective a photo may be, it is always a document of what you decided to point a camera at at that moment in time. So, do what you want to get the image that pleases you...but don't go around calling the neatened up version a "photograph". It would be something that you made out of a photograph. Titles aside, have fun above all else. That is the point, right?

 

Keith

[Norma Desmond]

Keith, don't you also determine your shutter speed, aperture opening, type of lens, distance

to shoot, possibly the lighting to wait for, and whether you will present it in color or black

and white? Of course, that would be in addition to drawing a box around "what is already

there." Is the level of light you allow into your photograph "already there?" Is the degree of

focus you present in your box "already there?" And on and on . . .

[keith_lubow]

Fred,

 

I did not state that photography is objective and an exact representation of reality. What I am talking about relates to subject matter, not the degree of manipulation. I like photography for the fact that you get to use already existent subject matter (in whatever sort of interpretation by controlling the things you mentioned), as opposed to creating something from scratch, which I find far less interesting. Photography as I love it, is the ultimate "found art".

 

Keith

[eugene_scherba]

<p>Keith Lubow said: <i>Every photo is some sort of a document that

way, and not reduced to the level of "art".</i></p>

 

<p>Art is generally a way of elevating things, not reducing

them.</p>

[beeman458]

"...but don't go around calling the neatened up version a "photograph"."

 

Folks have been altering the reality of photographs since the beginning of photographic time. There are no "rules" which govern the act of making a snap or creating an image as it's always been user choice. It's always been up to the person which holds the camera in their hands to decide what to do with the process in order to make the final print. It's not up to you, me or anyone else to decide what's socially acceptable.

 

Photography is and always has been a process of many independent steps. What photography isn't, is an ideology. Those who find need to see photography as an ideology, need to ask themselves the question; "Where does this hardrock ideology come from?" Also, one needs to ask the question, "In what civil/criminal codebook does one find these "rules" which governs the act of creating a photographic image?"

 

The point of my above; wishing you well with your photographic pursuits.

[eugene_scherba]

<i>but don't go around calling the neatened up version

a "photograph"</i></p>

 

<p>I call things what I want and when I want it.

[sprouty]

<I>"...as opposed to creating something from scratch..."</I>

<P>

Keith, no one is suggesting that an image that isn't captured by a camera is a photograph. Merely that if it starts with a camera the degree of manipulation doesn't change that fact that it's still a photograph.

[Norma Desmond]

Keith, what I am suggesting is that drawing a dividing line between one's making a photograph and one's making something else out of a photograph is arbitrary. When you point that camera, you are not simply documenting something, in my opinion, you are already making something by deciding where and when to point and in what light to expose it. Snapping the shutter when and how you do is already the beginning of the "making." I don't see the important difference you do between the making that takes place in framing and exposing and isolating the shot, the profound effect all of that has on the subject matter, and the making that may go on subsequent to that. Your viewer is NOT getting to see the subject matter itself, no matter how little post-processing you do. The viewer is seeing only what you and your lens have captured and presented, and that is not some objective reality called the subject matter. It's all just a PRESENTATION of it.