Is an Image a Picture If It Isn't a Print?

[rybolt]

I've been percolating on this for several months. It's reached the point where I'm stepping back so far into simplification that I'm probably going to fall on my butt.
This is a journal post that I made this morning.
Is An Image a Picture If It Isn't a Print?

 

[rybolt]

photomoof. Thanks. That was exactly the wording that I had in mind when I mentally wrote the post. Then I screwed it up when I actually wrote it.
The title I meant to have was:
Is a Picture a Photograph if it Isn't a Print.
I somewhat agree with your "I'll take your photograph..." comment though we in the Appalachians would say "I'll take your picture..."

 

[telenous]

The photograph is an abstract kind of entity, the print is one possible medium for its physical manifestation.

Take a famous example, say Smith's Tomoko in her Bath. Someone, a friend who doesn't know much, asks "is this one photo or more?" You might say, "Well it's one photo -- cameras usually only take one photo at a time you know -- and Smith made just this one, without anyone else making more at that time, but there are various prints/copies all over the place. There's one print with museum X, another with museum Y, and then there are all the reproductions in Life and the books made by Smith. But yeah the photograph, that sort of thing which is the likeness of what the camera had in front of it at the time, is one, not many." "So", your inquisitive friend asks again, "where is that one photo?" "Well, about that particular photo, it's where its negative is, but it doesn't really need a negative either because most pictures made these days are algorithms in memory cards. It doesn't have to be anywhere. It's an abstract kind of thing. Well, 'thing' is probably not the right way to put it, but it will do."

.

 

[jsrockit]

You have to look at the image.

Agreed... And that viewing of an image can be through various means which are constantly evolving. Let's remember that the camera obscura shows an image or picture, but it does not provide a photograph (or print). The invention of photography was so the image could be retained. The first photos were not permanent and would only last only a few seconds. Those initial non-fixed photos kind of blur the lines between all of the definitions of image, picture, and photograph.

 

[David_Manning]

My own opinion is that the highest form of our art is the printed image.

I take lots of photos now with digital, and it's great. I post them online. I share them with lots of family and friends. I don't print nearly as much. I miss sitting around the kitchen table passing 4x6s around with the family. It seems that once there is a print, it takes on it's own life...it's a "thing," and can be precious.

Sure, I can get prints made...it's just that I don't generally, because it's easier to share online. But printed images are special to me. In high school and college, we enlarged and printed the "keepers" and the regular, pedestrian stuff stayed on the contact sheet. It sure made the "keepers" special to have a print.

Oh well...maybe I'm just nostalgic. That reminds me...I need to have some 4x6s printed 🙂

 

[robry]

Is a piece of music, as it left the composer´s desk, music already as a score or has it to be performed, privately or in public to be Music?
Is it Music while I practise it at home?
Is a photo a Photograph already as negative or has it to be printed and if so, how?
I vote for the negative and for the score as a starting point , because from there, what did not exist before will from then exist as an artistic entity , no matter how we later transform it through performances or differnet printed versions.
Not sure about this, though, cheers
RR

 

[thegman]

I enjoyed your post, and I certainly think that a print (or maybe a projected slide) is the best way to show a photograph. I've taken photos with my phone, they look nice on the phone, so I send them to someone. Then I see it on a desktop or laptop computer and the colours are all washed out and not at all what I saw on the phone.

I'm an enthusiastic computers user and photographer, but I've never calibrated any one of my screens.

I like that a print isn't open to interpretation, if you send one in the post, you know the recipient will see exactly what you were seeing.

I'll be honest and say I've no interest in the philosophical side of whether a photograph really is a photograph without being printed, but I certainly think only viewing on a screen is kind of a waste of the hobby/craft/art/profession.

 

[rybolt]

Thanks Thegman. I appreciate what you said.

This probably won't go any farther than this post but has this forum ever done a print swap? I was active over on the Photonet Leica Forum some years ago and print swaps happened pretty regularly. I still have 3-4 really nice prints from those swaps. Does anyone have any interest in organizing one?