I sort of wonder if the fact that making alterations to photos has become a tool of the 'masses,' rather than the 'masters' is what truly has our 'undies in a bunch!'
Digital, and the ease by which "satisfactory" pictures are made, has been dragging down the master's bottom line for years. So the undies aren't exactly in a bunch. They're old, frayed, and too expensive to replace.
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Nothing worth doing is ever easy.
I published essay last year in dailynews of about same theme. I was provoked by that photograph made by Brian Walski of Iraqui man holding a child and British soldier was turned to him with raised hand showing "stop" or "sit down" (look at: http://www.sree.net/teaching/lateditors.html).
That was proofing of my thinking about digital imaging...
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Bosnia... You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps...
Photography name is bigest bad mass-game in our history, since human got two legs. SOMEONE intentionally did named digital faking as photography, counting on the fact that people beleive in what is shown on a photograph.
Faking reality became normal, not to beleive what we see is also normal, everyone be a part of faking is normal, ...
We all accepted photographs or its reproduction as truth, as the fact. We look at photo-reproductions in books from childhood and learn from them, we learn that one picture worth more than 1000 words, we all now how Andromeda looks like thanks to photo-reproductions in books...
Now all that stuff is faked, even if not, I personaly do not beleive in any image I did not make myself. And yonge generation have no more status of human anymore, or what is it that make them human as by definition we know. They are brainless dummi. Whatever they learn is just imaginary, and they are totaly unable to prodyce work of art.
I fight it with ignorance to just anything around me.
Unless the picture I'm looking at is made from light sensitive materials I don't trust it in the same way I don't trust paintings or drawings. Pushing pastels, pushing paint, and pushing pixels are, at the heart, just variations on traditional methods of fabricating pictures.
The concept of "photography" has to be kept polished bright because we need it to distinguish "light drawn" pictures from "hand drawn" and "machine drawn" images. And there is a moral dimension as well. Calling something a photograph when it is not is a bit of a swindle, a lie that ordinary folks would feel ashamed about repeating. Let not Sir Henry Taylor's (19th Cent. poet & statesman) words come true; "Falsehood ceases to be falsehood when it is understood on all sides that the truth is not expected to be spoken."
Making pictures with monitor screens or electronically controlled printers can yield pleasant fictions but they can't be accepted as photographs. Those who plead otherwise merit direct challenge every time. To fail to do so is to concede the moral ground and accept absurdity. And all too quickly acceptance becomes complicity, complicity becomes consent, and consent becomes approval.
The identity of photography is too valuable to compromise.
__________________ Photography, the word itself, invented and defined by its author Sir John.F.W.Herschel, 14 March 1839 at the Royal Society, Somerset House, London. Quote "...Photography or the application of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of pictorial representation,..". unquote.
Unless the picture I'm looking at is made from light sensitive materials I don't trust it in the same way I don't trust paintings or drawings. Pushing pastels, pushing paint, and pushing pixels are, at the heart, just variations on traditional methods of fabricating pictures.
Now I'm not exactly a digital lover (wouldn't be here and loving film life if I wasn't!) but lets use the example of digital enlargers. Digital camera sensors are a "light sensitive material", and images printed from them through a digital enlarger are printed onto a "light sensitive material". Because this image was captured on something other than film, is suddenly becomes something different? Isn't 'pushing emulsion' another thing you should be adding to your list?
Granted, altering images in Photoshop is a billion times easier than doing so to the same skill level in the darkroom, but it's more than possible in both realms of photography, and the lines between each output starts to get blurred when you introduce things like digital enlargers. We either need to draw a line somewhere, or realise that there really is no place to draw this line, and stop turning this place into the analogue version of Photo.net with all it's 'my form of image capture is superior to yours'.
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ChrissC
“… lets use the example of digital enlargers….”
They print from the file not from the captured facts. Open your electronic file with some editor and see your photograph. File also is subject of software interpretation…
In your way of thinking you should go in jail for you are killer, just because someone else is (means some manipulation done by bad photographers cannot be generalized), but If everyone is a killer than you are a free man (means dig manipulation is so ubiquitous that became normal-standard). So make some difference between different things or stay consumer minded.
AND if dig imaging is photography, if they are the same things, then all photographs made in past are manipulation and we have no recorded history, all pictures made by H.C.Bresson are manipulated.
AND you digital gizmos for no reason looks like photo-camera (even with film rewinding button on the left). It is made in that shape to fool consumers like you are…
AND what is on your way to call painting as photography? Painters comunicate cumulative experience just the same as digital imaging is.
...Because this image was captured on something other than film, is suddenly becomes something different? Isn't 'pushing emulsion' another thing you should be adding to your list?
Granted, altering images in Photoshop is a billion times easier than doing so to the same skill level in the darkroom, but it's more than possible in both realms of photography, and the lines between each output starts to get blurred when you introduce things like digital enlargers. We either need to draw a line somewhere, or realise that there really is no place to draw this line, and stop turning this place into the analogue version of Photo.net with all it's 'my form of image capture is superior to yours'.
Actually, I'm not sure it is all that much easier... it's just a different skill set. And I am still confused as to why lines need to be drawn... ... but remember that I have a testosterone defficiency... . Film and digital both offer many opportunities to alter the scene that was taken in the camera so that the output becomes different. Does no one here realize that even negatives can be changed or sandwiched???
I agree with Chris... why in the name of Pete (or Ansel for that matter) do we have to draw a line? If we strive for purity in photography does that mean we have to stop dodging, burning & cropping in the darkroom? These "either/or" arguments are drivel.
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Jeanette
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2 Peter 3:3
BWGirl Actually, I'm not sure it is all that much easier... it's just a different skill set. And I am still confused as to why lines need to be drawn... ...
Because it is different skill set... Read your post (at least). You realized something, but cannot explain it.
Painting is also different skill set...
Graphical design is also different skill set...
And I am still confused as to why lines need to be drawn...
You will never ever realise it (by the way, I can make a painting you will never know it is a photograph or a painting, so what you think why is line between photography and painting? - I do not need you answer)
After reading Tim Rudman's book on printing, nothing is real. Want a moon in your picture? Sure, this is how you do it. Want to "cut and paste" seemlessly? This is how you do it. It takes a bit more skill and thought to do in the darkroom but generally speaking anyone who has ever dodged and burned a print could be accused of fakery too. Fine if you want to say this is a picture I made (like this is a painting I painted) but I wouldn't want people to pass off some photographs as being true to life, honest photographs.
If it can't be achieved in a straight print, you might as well add unicorns :P
Just ask wedding photographers 
... but remember that I have a testosterone defficiency... 
. Film and digital both offer many opportunities to alter the scene that was taken in the camera so that the output becomes different. Does no one here realize that even negatives can be changed or sandwiched???
Linear Mode
