Bike Tourist
Well-known
Here's what one writer thinks:
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/photoshop-and-photography-when-is-it-real/?ref=technology
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/25/photoshop-and-photography-when-is-it-real/?ref=technology
Bike Tourist
Well-known
Sorry. Didn't see it.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Mr. Pogue offers no real answers to the question posed in his article. This is implicit in the (seemingly) purposefully confusing order given to the hypothetical list of photographic manipulations he offers; I would have placed burning and dodging in the darkroom higher up on the list (i.e. more innocuous), given the reality that burning and dodging is often a technique used to compensate for imperfections, not in the subject matter (i.e. objective reality), but in the inadequacy of the tools and materials of photography; my cheap enlarger causes light falloff at the edge of the frame; or my film exposure and developing methods can't adequately control or capture the scene's contrast range, for instance. These sorts of "manipulations" are merely techniques of process, intended to compensate for intrinsic inadequacies in tools and methods.
That is where I would "draw the line" (as Mr. Pogue urges us to do); it is, in my view, a question of faithfulness to the truth of the moment as perceived by the photographer, the principal distinction between photography and illustration being not so much of optical literalness as the technical details of the process rely on a 1:1 correspondence between an optical wavefront and a light-sensitive medium. Airbrush artists can achieve illustrative images of near photographic realism; but the distinction between airbrush illustration and photography goes back to the moment of image capture. Photography is always somehow reliant upon the techniques and materials of craft in order to remain photographic. It has always been a tenuous balance between an over-emphasis on tools and process and the abstracted final image, removed from the milieu of process.
When we talk of "oil painting" or "watercolor", it is understood that the genre is intimately involved with the physical materials and methods of certain, specific kinds of painting. Though we could simulate the visual technique of these methods using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, it is commonly understood that they would no longer be oil or watercolor works. So it is with the distinction between photography and photo-illustration.
~Joe
That is where I would "draw the line" (as Mr. Pogue urges us to do); it is, in my view, a question of faithfulness to the truth of the moment as perceived by the photographer, the principal distinction between photography and illustration being not so much of optical literalness as the technical details of the process rely on a 1:1 correspondence between an optical wavefront and a light-sensitive medium. Airbrush artists can achieve illustrative images of near photographic realism; but the distinction between airbrush illustration and photography goes back to the moment of image capture. Photography is always somehow reliant upon the techniques and materials of craft in order to remain photographic. It has always been a tenuous balance between an over-emphasis on tools and process and the abstracted final image, removed from the milieu of process.
When we talk of "oil painting" or "watercolor", it is understood that the genre is intimately involved with the physical materials and methods of certain, specific kinds of painting. Though we could simulate the visual technique of these methods using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop, it is commonly understood that they would no longer be oil or watercolor works. So it is with the distinction between photography and photo-illustration.
~Joe
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whitecat
Lone Range(find)er
Good comment.
I guess we all have our interpretation of what photography is to us. I have an extensive background in the darkroom. There was no such thing as a digital camera in my time. I have to have film in my equation. The darkroom is no longer available or practical for me. I do use film only and then let the computer take over. I hold that a photographic image is a composition put together with with at least the common denominator of camera and film. The enlarger and the paper is now replaced by an image on the computer, Photoshop, and a top end printer. There is room for everybody but let's keep it as separate but not equal.
I guess we all have our interpretation of what photography is to us. I have an extensive background in the darkroom. There was no such thing as a digital camera in my time. I have to have film in my equation. The darkroom is no longer available or practical for me. I do use film only and then let the computer take over. I hold that a photographic image is a composition put together with with at least the common denominator of camera and film. The enlarger and the paper is now replaced by an image on the computer, Photoshop, and a top end printer. There is room for everybody but let's keep it as separate but not equal.
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Livesteamer
Well-known
As a historical note, Soviet photographers during the Stalin era, did amazing things. Typically someone important would be denounced, sent to the gulag and become a non person. Soviet photographers would do minor miracles making that non person disappear from group photos and such. Of course if they could not do that kind of photo magic the the photographers would get a "tenner" in the gulag, or worse. All long before photoshop. Joe