where to draw the line? [my rant]

[anttor]

there is now, a very thin line between photography and digital art/animation. im fairly young, 19 and it seems its cool to be into art, like photography with some teens. there are some sites i visit with groups and such, posting "photography" and when i look at the pictures they are more like computer art. Pictures mixed with pictures, graphics everything. i dont have a problem with photoshop at all, i love it but where do you draw the line between photography and animations. what happened to using the light, angles, shadows etc. your givin in real life to manipulate the picture. thats my rant!

whats your feel?

[Drg]

i draw the line right here
________________________

[robertwgross]

In some photography contests, they have only two categories: Photoshopped, and non-Photoshopped. It seems that would weed out many digital artists these days.

---Bob Gross---

[PhotosGuy]

I understand what you're saying & pretty much agree with you. Bottom line though is who's it hurting? If people enjoy something that I don't, I see no reason to get upset about it. I just ignore them & get on with my life! ;-)

[MazerRakhm]

Before work blocked the site with their firewall I used to goto DPChallenge (http://www.dpchallenge.com/) which is a digital photography site with weekly contests. They also have strict photoshopped and non-photoshopped categories.

[EricKonieczny]

I fully understand where you are coming from and agree with you.

There are so many different levels of photgraphy now.

Film - with dark room processing and litle touching up
Film - With with dark room processing and allot of editing - Ansel Adams changes
Digital - Basic cropping and levels adjustments
Digital - Medium retouching for magazines/ glamour " airbrushing"
Digital - Totally digital alterations which take the "real" aspect out of the picture.

It is becoming that you must be a graphic artist now to be a good photographer.

I feel if you have have to alter the picture so much to make it interesting or worth keeping, it is digital art.

But I am sure there are a million other opinions on this. :eek:

[PacAce]

I understand what you're saying & pretty much agree with you. Bottom line though is who's it hurting? If people enjoy something that I don't, I see no reason to get upset about it. I just ignore them & get on with my life! ;-)
And I'll second what Frank said. A camera is a tool, just like a pen or pencil is. Why should what one does with it matter to anybody else? Is an artist going to rant because writers are using the pen or pencil for writing novels instead of making drawings or sketches?

[Longwatcher]

I think the best description I have heard of distiguishing between photography and graphic arts is
Photography is the art of subtraction
Graphic arts is the art of addition

In photography to remain a photograph it is acceptable to remove unwanted elements from the scene that was captured. Such as dust spots, power lines, skin limishes, unwanted people.

It becomes graphic arts when you add an element that was not present in the scene, such as electronically adding clouds, butterfly wings, lens flares (that were not there) and fanatsy backgrounds.

That is how I distiguish between the two categories.

[rdenney]

In some photography contests, they have only two categories: Photoshopped, and non-Photoshopped. It seems that would weed out many digital artists these days.

Do those contests also have separate categories for slides and prints?

I hate the notion that Photoshop is some truth-altering medium. When we make prints, we dodge, burn in, make contrast masks, alter color, adjust contrast, spot, and a range of other technique designed to achieve our previsualization. How would we do this with our images without using Photoshop?

When we set the camera to sharpen, we are applying the same processes that one might put off until Photoshop. When we change the exposure in our raw converter, we are applying the same things someone else might do in Photoshop. Let's face it, raw information is no easier to view than a color negative, and we have to convert it to RGB before we can see it. That conversion can take place in the camera, in a raw converter on the computer, or in an editing program like Photoshop. Drawing the line at Photoshop seems rather arbitrary.

If I wanted to avoid so-called digital art, I would say no cloning. The final image must have the same subject material as the original, though everything else can be altered (just as it can be altered when making a conventional print). One could provide the raw image as evidence of this. I would allow exceptions for cloning out dust spots that don't change the subject matter.

In photojournalism, truth is supposed to be the prime objective, and even simple manipulations can affect the truth. How one composes the image, for example, can radically alter the meaning of a photo. Digital manipulation just makes it easier and provides more realistic results. Thus, digital has had the positive effect of teaching us once and for all not to trust the truth in photographs per se, but rather to evaluate truth based on the integrity of the reporter. That's the way they do it in court--the chain of evidence is as important as the evidence itself.

But in art photography, achieving the previsualization is the prime objective. I think it is reasonable to prohibit a significant change to the subject material, such as moving picture elements around, drawing things onto the picture, or removing objectionable elements by means of such tools as cloning.

The rules in the contest Bob mentions seem to me designed to find the person who is best at working the camera rather than the person who is best at achieving a display print. That seems to me the same as separating slides from prints in conventional photography.

Rick "recalling some guidelines from Photo.net that seemed reasonable" Denney

[HJMinard]

I think the line to which Bob is referring might be a little blurrier than he portrayed. We recently discussed all of this in our photography club, and many people don't consider changes such as levels, sharpening, etc., to be "photoshopped". Many have adopted that term specifically to mean cloning or possibly other "artistic" filters and modifications. Most contests, I believe, allow for levels, contrast, saturation, sharpening, etc.

That being said, I completely agree with Frank, Leo and Rick.

Jay "Who is a huge fan of Rick Denney's dynamic and entertaining signature" Minard

[anttor]

let me clear it up as to what my point is, where should we draw the line, to still call it photography. i make computer animations, im not frowning upon it, just wondering where it stops being photography and starts to be an animation

[mbze430]

If you can create it and capture it on real analog film, than I still consider it photography. It is when it is not possible to recreate the same image using film than it is ... whatever you call it.

[hitech]

I look at it this way. If you do any thing more then basic cropping and levels adjustments, color correction etc, then you are changing the image and it becomes art and not a photograph.

[Maureen Souza]

I look at it this way. If you do any thing more then basic cropping and levels adjustments, color correction etc, then you are changing the image and it becomes art and not a photograph.

I totally agree with you. Sometimes I think we are in pursuit of perfection when life is not pefect. We smooth out wrinkles (that were probably hard-earned) correct teeth, erase objects in the background, etc. And worst of all, we strive hard to "fix' our photos and end up stressing out over them as well as altering the moment. I am not real comfortable with that...............

[TheBlindOne]

This is a real sore point with me. I think that "photography" has be hijacked by the Graphic Artists out there. I think that in order for a picture to be considered a photograph, it needs to contain only the origional image and any manipulation that can be achieved chemically or on an enlarger. call me oldfashioned but I feel that if photograpgy is going to stay relevent then we need to look at our roots and make a distinction. say ok this is possible on film or this isn't possilbe. and for those of you that just said what about the photomontoge or the photogram, i am sorry but i lump Man Ray, et. al. into the catagory of photopainter rather than photographer. the photographer is interested in capturing a single moment of truth, be that joy, sadness, triumph, etc. when someone changes what was in the viewfinder to something that is clearly not real and says it is photography well then thats just a PLAIN OLD LIE. it's simple really if you cant do it in a wet darkroom and you can in a digital darkroom then its not photography. I do a lot of this kind of thing but I do not call it photography.
my 5 grams of zinc alloy,
Riaz

[rdenney]

If you can create it and capture it on real analog film, than I still consider it photography.

Photography, to me, has a simple meaning: It is art made by the projection of light onto a sensitized surface. That definition is similar to definitions for other art media. For example, a painting is art made by the application of paint to a surface. That surface may be canvas, paper, or even masonite, and the paint may be oil, or acrylic, or watercolor. Digital art is art created using a computer. And so on. When we try to limit and narrow the definitions, such as limiting photography to a particular kind of sensitized surface, we are building walls where don't need to.

I don't even think cloning disqualifies an image from being photography, even though I have no problem prohibiting that practice without disclosure for certains kinds of presentations. We are still working with an image that was projected onto a sensitized surface, even if we are moving it around a bit (as we might do by projecting through two negatives in an enlarger). It becomes digital art when we add something to the image that was not made by projecting light onto a sensitized surface.

Rick "who has produced lots of images that would not be possible on film but that are still clearly photographs" Denney

[rdenney]

the photographer is interested in capturing a single moment of truth, be that joy, sadness, triumph, etc. when someone changes what was in the viewfinder to something that is clearly not real and says it is photography well then thats just a PLAIN OLD LIE.

You, of course, leave out lots more photographers than Man Ray with this definition, including Ansel Adams and the whole landscape movement, plus all the pictorialists. I think your definition works for photography as reportage, but I don't think that being reportage is a distinguishing element of photography. Clearly, reportage is important to you (else Rober Capa might not be in your tag line), but don't limit photography to your own vision of it.

Photography as a statement of truth is a myth anyway, and if digital has laid that shibboleth to rest in the public consciousness, so much the better.

Rick "who thinks all photographs lie because they are mere projections of reality" Denney

[mbze430]

Photography, to me, has a simple meaning: It is art made by the projection of light onto a sensitized surface. That definition is similar to definitions for other art media. For example, a painting is art made by the application of paint to a surface. That surface may be canvas, paper, or even masonite, and the paint may be oil, or acrylic, or watercolor. Digital art is art created using a computer. And so on. When we try to limit and narrow the definitions, such as limiting photography to a particular kind of sensitized surface, we are building walls where don't need to.

I don't even think cloning disqualifies an image from being photography, even though I have no problem prohibiting that practice without disclosure for certains kinds of presentations. We are still working with an image that was projected onto a sensitized surface, even if we are moving it around a bit (as we might do by projecting through two negatives in an enlarger). It becomes digital art when we add something to the image that was not made by projecting light onto a sensitized surface.

Rick "who has produced lots of images that would not be possible on film but that are still clearly photographs" Denney

I completely agree. Cloning in digital world, and multi exposure or jitter photograhpy is still photography to me. Because you can create this. "sqawshing" is also a darkroom technique to give the same effect as cloning. I also have no problem with that either.

It is, as you have already mention, where artificially adding something that isn't a "projection of light" that makes it digital art.