Is Photography Dead?

[literiter]

Sometimes I think of W. Eugene Smith and his amazing photograph "Tomoko in her bath" taken during a photo expose of mercury poisoning victims in Miimata Japan. To enhance his point Smith may have postioned lights and posed his subjects (I have heard this suggested). I believe this may have been characteristic of Smith and some of his contemporaries. This in no way lessens the impact of the message but was the image manipulated?

Minimata and Tomoko was a fact. It was up to Smith to present the idea as best he could.

Now we have a issue with digital manipulation whereby a complete image can be created to illustrate the truth or a point of view. We are left with our willingness to trust the image maker. Perhaps we have always had to trust the image maker.

 

[kevin m]

The next great photographers—if there are to be any—will have to find a way to reclaim photography's special link to reality. And they'll have to do it in a brand-new way.

This is, actually, a very good point. I would guess that most photographers have always known that their images weren't actually "reality," but they certainly have been viewed that way by the general public, especially since the origin for all photographic imagery until very recently has been the "fixed point" of a film negative.

I don't think the big change that's occuring now in photography is one of technology so much as it is public perception. I've read that human eyesight was the last of our senses to develop, so perhaps that's why, until now, we've placed a much greater degree of faith in that sense than we have all the others. With the widespread use of digital imaging, I think the public is beginning to understand what photographers and artists have always known: that human eyesight is no more reliable than any other sense.

 

[40oz]

This is, actually, a very good point. I would guess that most photographers have always known that their images weren't actually "reality," but they certainly have been viewed that way by the general public, especially since the origin for all photographic imagery until very recently has been the "fixed point" of a film negative.

I don't think the big change that's occuring now in photography is one of technology so much as it is public perception. I've read that human eyesight was the last of our senses to develop, so perhaps that's why, until now, we've placed a much greater degree of faith in that sense than we have all the others. With the widespread use of digital imaging, I think the public is beginning to understand what photographers and artists have always known: that human eyesight is no more reliable than any other sense.

I beg to disagree. Photographers, and especially hollywood films, have always fooled the viewer with an endless variety of tricks. Photoshop merely duplicates the very same techniques that have been available in a darkroom for decade upon decade. Hence it's called Photoshop, not 'Computershop," or "Digitalshop."

Only people with a limited knowledge of photography and an almost willful ignorance of movie special effects would be foolish enough to think Photoshop tricks were anything new. And those people shouldn't be writing articles about the state of photography except as a lark.

It's pretty hard to believe a nationally circulated publication would give print space to such poorly researched and obviously flawed writing. Yes, the casual reader might confuse the article for insight, but the casual reader isn't going to be discussing the article later. And even the casual reader, assuming they had ever watched a fictional war movie, would be aware of how film is routinely manipulated to give one an impression of an event that didn't really happen.

The only people that have ever used the phrase "pictures don't lie" were defending lies. Pictures have never shown truth. They only showed what the photographer wanted them to show. For instance, it's a simple matter to make daylight look like nght in a photograph. Or to show the same person in two different places in a room. These tricks are not new, are not rare, and are not mystifying to the general public. They never required digital imaging, computers, or anything more than a very simple camera. The basic premise that "Only now can we not trust an image" is foolish to the core.

 

[kevin m]

Photographers, and especially hollywood films, have always fooled the viewer with an endless variety of tricks.

Yep.

Photoshop merely duplicates the very same techniques that have been available in a darkroom for decade upon decade.

Nope.

Darkroom techniques required some original photographic image from which to work. A point of origin. Photoshop has no such requirement. You can make it all up. That's the point of the article.

 

[mfunnell]

For anyone who is interested, there's been discussion of this and along these lines over at The Online Photographer. This essay might also be pertinent.

...Mike

 

[40oz]

Nope.

Darkroom techniques required some original photographic image from which to work. A point of origin. Photoshop has no such requirement. You can make it all up. That's the point of the article.

I disagree. I can color transparencies with crayon if I want, and make a print. Or skip the darkroom entirely if I so wish. It's not like crayons were invented long after photoshop.