When does it stop being a photo and become digital art?

I was going around seeing the popular photographs on 500px and most seem fairly real if heavily processed, but then I found these:

http://500px.com/photo​/1644238

http://500px.com/photo​/1643548

I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but to my eye in the first it looks like the background is both pasted in and has been stretched top to bottom, with some very fortunate mist covering the join. The exposure is none too good either and the colours are dull.

Maybe I'm some kind of old school person who believes the only changes that should be made are to exposure, curves and colour but judging by the popularity of this photo (it was on the front page instead of this, which actually looks like a single image http://500px.com/photo​/1640243 ) I am in the minority. I don't really like the idea of modifying "content" of a photograph.

So what I am asking is, at what point can we just write of a photograph as some abstract digital art and should that 'art' be considered alongside photography.

It is interesting because the images with by far the least processing are of animals - is there something we find inherently interesting about them or do people want to prove they took the shot of said rare creature?

Any of the images you linked could have been created in a film darkroom...

One of the regulars here Mike Kelley linked to a yearly publication of the Year's 100 Best Advertising Photos, which I bought for last year. I'd say 95% of the photos have this level of post-camera processing.

Point is, whether you think it's good or bad, it's not going away.

Both of those images are likely compositions and extremely in the "digital art" category in my opinion. The 2nd photo is likely very heavily composited and photoshopped. The first one most likely has those cattle and person not originally by those hills aka composite.

Digital art, based upon digital photographs.

I always thought it was when one became hog wild in Photoshop.

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IMO it stops being photography and starts being digital art when it looks far too unnatural or when it no longer is representative of the actual scene.

I don't think there is a hardline that you can draw at all. As with anything in art/photography, it's all subjective.

I think the images linked are very nice and very thought provoking. Who cares about the technical details, really?

Photography allows for drastic manipulation and even elaborate composites (of which some date back to the mid-19th century). And certainly, photography allows for 'art' to be considered alongside it, actually, better if it is within, or at least some element of art.

Also, many wildlife shots have gone through no less post processing as several other forms of photography, ranging from architectural to street shots.

If a camera was used, I'm generally going to give it the benefit of the doubt that it is a photograph. If the linked photos were constructed from scratch on a computer, then yep, I suppose I would call it digital art, computer-generated art, or whatever. However, if I were writing a general book on photography, I would include these (or similar) photos.

I understand the desire to try to delineate, but the premise of this process is to assume that photography, in its purest definition, functions to replicate reality as we see it, and this is not true at all; photography serves numerous functions, not just literal visual documentation.

I'm going to bring up Ansel Adams (cause it annoys so many POTN folks), but seriously, would you consider his photographs "photographs"? Because a strong argument can be made that something somewhere between the shutter release and the print's manifestation altered reality a bit, and I'm not even referring to the fact that the prints might be monochrome.

I will concede, however, that in the end, whatever label you want to put on any particular output is your prerogative, and given the subjectivity of the nature, only you can really decide that.

I guess the larger question is actually how important is it that we label these images in relation to our own photographic pursuits and objectives.

I going to stick my neck out here and say when an image no longer even resembles the original, then it's a digital (insert whatever). Art is pretty subjective, so you can love it or hate it. As for me, I would love to be that talented on the computer, but I still wouldn't have the patience to sit there for hours on a photo for my own gratification. If the price was right however, I might be able to force myself.

Art has been largely misunderstood because it has never been adequately defined. It is not the medium that makes something art. Just because a digital image is made to look like it was done with paint does not make it art.

Instead, think of it like this. Let's say you had a tightly framed picture of a parachutist preparing to jump from the inside of a helicopter. His face shows determination and his body is tense. He is fully suited up and has both hands clenched... Looking at this picture, you start to wonder - where is he? who is he? what's about to happen? When there are questions left to be answered in a picture, and the viewer can contribute his or her thoughts and ideas, this is art.

Now take the same picture, but from a wider angle. You now see that the helicopter is on the ground and not moving. It is inside a military base with the US flag flapping some ways behind. There are other men surrounding the helicopter laughing at him and one with arms folded and squating to appear like a chicken, taunting the young infantry man. In this picture, you get the entire message. It is not art, but only an illustration. There is no two-way communication as in the first picture, only one-way.

Given that as a definition for art, where does the factor of technical expertise come into play? Well, there has to be sufficient quality to convey the message.

This topic does come up pretty regularly here -- in fact I'm surprised that the phrase "digital art" in the title didn't come up in the "Similar Threads" section at the bottom of the page!

Tyically these threads begin with some kind of rant/vent/complaint about how "digital art" gets mixed in with "real photography", with the initial poster considering himself/herself to be a "real photographer".

What generally happens in these threads is that there is a considerable amount of "balance" posted where people point out that things aren't quite so cut-and-dried for one thing, and that besides, graphical artwork has always been mixed in various ways with photography.

But still, there are photo-related sites where the line is drawn and only "real" photos are allowed, that is no messing with the scene/subject matter in post-processing. And that's great to have those sites active! I myself prefer to shoot that way, in fact, I have rarely in recent years used a clone tool for things other than dust spots. I crop if it helps the composition, though.

There are sites for "Nature Photography" that prohibit a scene from having anything manmade in it, and that's cool too, if you can pull it off. It's a headache, though, getting a nice shot that happens to have say a fence or a powerline or whatever. Fortunately for me, I don't try too hard to just go for that type of thing!

But, that says nothing negative about a site like, say, 500px, or the "artistic" stuff posted here on POTN, a <gasp> photography site, or any other place of an "open" nature. And, I see some work that is plainly a product that has been "specially" processed that has really impressed me. Not that the photos underlying these have been bad in and of themselves, but the "art" has been pretty dang good! The fact that they are posted here in a "Photography" forum is to me really good and inspirational!

All they need Tony is that "make it go away" tool that CS5 contains.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #12969395
I don't think there is a hardline that you can draw at all. As with anything in art/photography, it's all subjective.

I think the images linked are very nice and very thought provoking. Who cares about the technical details, really?

I think it has more to do with being disingenuous, manufacturing a scene after the fact by adding objects to make it "interesting" as opposed to the person who spends the time to find an interesting scene and works with the light, like the below.

http://500px.com/photo​/1655580

A good example would be cloning in an animal that you saw in a zoo etc. onto a different, wild background, even if you aren't explicitly stating that you saw a wild X, your photo is deceiving people. Calling something a photograph implies that what you have photographed is representative of something actually observed, beyond that and it becomes a macro or some other art.

To be honest, I think a lot of it is substitution for a lack of photographic talent. But then again I have no post processing skil

djentley wrote in post #12970506
To be honest, I think a lot of it is substitution for a lack of photographic talent. But then again I have no post processing skil

And there is an example of attitude that is so common with these discussions and that gets feedback that tends to be "pushback". Another common statement is that post-processing is "fixing crappy photos". In fact either statement is pretty presumptuous!

Here are my thoughts:
1. It stops being "just a photo" when it's not a photo of a cool subject, but says something about that subject.
2. It becomes art when it expresses or communicates a feeling or thought from photographer to viewer.

They are sort of the same thing though worded differently, but I pulled it almost straight from the definition of "art"

For example, the photoist says, "cool car! *click*" where the artist says "that car makes me inferior, so a low-angle wide-angle close up shot will make it overwhelm the frame, like how it makes me feel" etc.