What is a “Photograph”?
Jan 14, 2018 16:57:05 #
Technically there will never be a photograph that can capture an image in time. 1st the camera cannot see as you see. There are limitations inherent in anything not captured with the eye. Editing is usually an attempt to restore what was seen that the camera with its limitations cannot reproduce. For example the eye automatically adjusts colors to appear natural in light that is not. The colors in shade are all blue tinted, but your eye sees them as what they would be in sunlight, white balance is automatically corrected by your brain. So it is not surprising that to get a realistic image it is necessary to edit.
Jan 14, 2018 17:01:34 #
Fotoartist wrote:
To answer my own question, when we make prints with an ink jet printer as opposed to an enlarger we are printmakers or printers, and are not technically practicing photography at that point.
So are photographs printed in books, magazines, and newspapers no longer photographs?
Jan 14, 2018 17:07:59 #
Gene51 wrote:
In that case, I can teach a monkey to press the shutter and he would make images just like yours. . . Hypothetically speaking, of course.
And it depends on which monkey.
Actually, the human photographer will more often point the camera away from from himself, than the monkey. The monkey would either be interested in the "box" or completely oblivious to it.
The apes are going to be different.
Just for sake discussion.
Jan 14, 2018 17:30:28 #
alx
Loc: NJ
Dannj wrote:
But if a photograph is, as you state: "the flat, static, usually two dimensional...." doesn't it follow that a photographer is one who merely makes a "...flat, static, usually two dimensional..."?
A photographer then is one who makes photographs. Nothing more, nothing less.
A photographer then is one who makes photographs. Nothing more, nothing less.
I said a photographer is an artist. Now, not all artist are good, some can be pretty bad in some people's eyes, but some are great.
The photograph as an object is flat and static, but that doesn't mean that it can't be powerful, tell a story, evoke powerful reactions and emotions. It can be a simple wedding photograph that brings back fond memories years or even decades later. It can be a powerful news photograph that captures a moment that moves a nation. It can be a portrait that captures the soul. It can be a landscape that sucks the audience in to another place and time to make them wish they were there.
All of these (and many more) are different types, kinds and categories of photographs. In spite of their different subjects, approaches, techniques and sometimes levels of luck they can be works of art. The photographer captured their vision and perspective, processed it to bring out the best of what was available in the film or data, and shared it with the world to move them.
Not every picture works, but when they do they have power.
alx
Jan 14, 2018 17:36:49 #
Gene51 wrote:
In that case, I can teach a monkey to press the shutter and he would make images just like yours. . . Hypothetically speaking, of course.
From Wikipedia: Real monkeys
In 2003, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to study the literary output of real monkeys. They left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Celebes crested macaques in Paignton Zoo in Devon in England for a month, with a radio link to broadcast the results on a website.[10]
Not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five total pages[11] largely consisting of the letter S, the lead male began by bashing the keyboard with a stone, and the monkeys continued by urinating and defecating on it. Mike Phillips, director of the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technology (i-DAT), said that the artist-funded project was primarily performance art, and they had learned "an awful lot" from it. He concluded that monkeys "are not random generators. They're more complex than that. ... They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there."[10][12]
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And we expect something in pictures from them???
Jan 14, 2018 17:58:58 #
Just a guess, may have chosen an incompatible forum to join. Welcome anyway.
Jan 14, 2018 18:06:40 #
ewforbess
Loc: San Antonio, TX
Just to help those of us who feel a bit of well-applied post processing is not a bad thing, maybe the OP would be willing to post one or two unprocessed photos that he considers his best work to better illustrate that side of the coin...
Jan 14, 2018 18:41:51 #
alx wrote:
Taking the OP's opening sentence, "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time." I have known some pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers because they truly create precise images that capture that moment in time.
Yes, don't you find it odd that this would be the very first post for someone that is new to UHH. Usually when it's someone's first post they want to know about shooting manual, or the difference between this or that piece of gear. Not: "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time." I have known some pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers because they truly create precise images that capture that moment in time."
Jan 14, 2018 19:04:15 #
jeep_daddy wrote:
Yes, don't you find it odd that this would be the very first post for someone that is new to UHH. Usually when it's someone's first post they want to know about shooting manual, or the difference between this or that piece of gear. Not: "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time." I have known some pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers because they truly create precise images that capture that moment in time."
And moment implies a short period of time. Some photographs have long exposures, even up to hours at night. Are they not photographs?
Jan 14, 2018 19:11:23 #
jeep_daddy wrote:
Yes, don't you find it odd that this would be the very first post for someone that is new to UHH. Usually when it's someone's first post they want to know about shooting manual, or the difference between this or that piece of gear. Not: "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time." I have known some pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers because they truly create precise images that capture that moment in time."
As I indicated in a "snide" "inappropriate" post early in the thread, I had doubts about the purposefulness of the thread.
"Is anybody out there?"
Jan 14, 2018 19:11:57 #
alx
Loc: NJ
jeep_daddy wrote:
Yes, don't you find it odd that this would be the very first post for someone that is new to UHH. Usually when it's someone's first post they want to know about shooting manual, or the difference between this or that piece of gear. Not: "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time." I have known some pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers because they truly create precise images that capture that moment in time."
Just to be clear and honest, the OP's opening sentence was in quotes "For me a photograph is an image that captures a moment in time."
It was MY observation that by that definition I have known the pen and ink artists that would qualify as photographers making that opening definition as absurd as it was. You cannot define photography, or much else with such a simplistic approach. Especially when photography is so many things to so many different people.
alx
Jan 14, 2018 19:27:20 #
And we are more multi-faceted then that. We are also printers and printmakers when we choose to be.
Jan 14, 2018 19:48:07 #
Jeffcs
Loc: Myrtle Beach South Carolina
russelray wrote:
I think when one talks about in camera one means natural capture not special filter effects I’m speaking to when cameras didn’t have auto or effects in camera what I’m referring to is you set asa (iso)load your film and process your film as desired in wet trays process your print with filters burning and dodging as needed fix and wash your print that’s what photographers did back thanYou do realize, though, that a great many cameras ... (show quote)
Jan 14, 2018 20:08:32 #
ewforbess wrote:
Just to help those of us who feel a bit of well-applied post processing is not a bad thing, maybe the OP would be willing to post one or two unprocessed photos that he considers his best work to better illustrate that side of the coin...
That would be interesting :-) having cut my teeth per se on medium format film and doing my own processing and printing in both color and B&W these SOOC arguments just blow me away. ;-)
Jan 14, 2018 21:05:00 #
alx
Loc: NJ
Jeffcs wrote:
I think when one talks about in camera one means natural capture not special filter effects I’m speaking to when cameras didn’t have auto or effects in camera what I’m referring to is you set asa (iso)load your film and process your film as desired in wet trays process your print with filters burning and dodging as needed fix and wash your print that’s what photographers did back than
Even back then with B&W, one used lens filters to control how the film responded to certain elements in the scene. The classic used of a yellow or red filter on he lens to bring out the sky. There is no difference between burning and dodging and using photoshop to control contrast or emphasize elements, pulling them out of the shadows. Photographic papers and developers were selected as another way to manipulate that OOC film to achieve a desired result.
If everything was done IN THE CAMERA, you wouldn't develop those prints in wet trays under a safelight to pull them from the developer at just the right moment to plunge them into the fixer.
Post Processing has always been with us. Just done differently in today's dry digital world.
In the end, it is the quality and artistry that went into the final image on display that counts.
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