amateriat
We're all light!
Well, we've had something of a pitched battle here (okay, at least I think we have) about photography's subjective/objective reality. My thinking has gone along the lines that once you start really messing with the bits of "objective" reality which I think photography gets right (as I watch a gigunda-sized Pandora's box open at my very utterance of that statement...), all is lost. You want the content to mesh better with your subjective context? No Problemo, but how much fantasy can you really handle?
Or has "memory" become just another fanciful (and fashionable) game?
Or has "memory" become just another fanciful (and fashionable) game?
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usagisakana
Established
I don't manipulate street stuff beyond the usual dodge and burning and croppping. That is because the world presents far more interesting situations than my head can come up with. That said I have no qualms about calling my photos manipulations, because every time you frame, press the shutter and expose, you are taking the reality out there and making it subjective. For other types of photography, yeah I have sometimes cropped dramatically or removed the odd thing here or there for whatever reason. If people choose to change the shot after it has been taken, either with photoshop or darkroom manipulation, that's just as interesting and valid. About the only time I don't really agree with manipulation is for photojournalism, but even then it's hard to escape the manipulation of the photographer's framing, timing and exposure.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
And is a staged shot 'reality'? It really happened in front of the camera -- but it partakes as much of 'reality' as a stage play...
This was precisely the subject of one of my AP back-page pieces in the last few weeks. Photograhy is handicapped by the perennial question, "Is it true?" No-one would ask "Is Beethoven's Ninth true?" or "Is St. Paul's Cathedtral true?"
'Death of a Republican militiaman' and 'Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California' are propaganda as well as art and reportage. If either had been staged (I don't believe the former was, and I'm sure the second wasn't) they might still be effective art; they would still work very well as propaganda; but they wouldn't be reportage.
Cheers,
R.
This was precisely the subject of one of my AP back-page pieces in the last few weeks. Photograhy is handicapped by the perennial question, "Is it true?" No-one would ask "Is Beethoven's Ninth true?" or "Is St. Paul's Cathedtral true?"
'Death of a Republican militiaman' and 'Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California' are propaganda as well as art and reportage. If either had been staged (I don't believe the former was, and I'm sure the second wasn't) they might still be effective art; they would still work very well as propaganda; but they wouldn't be reportage.
Cheers,
R.
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Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
And let's not forget the 'moon landing!' 
Seriously it doesn't bother me though and the music industry also comes to mind here ... when Natalie Cole did a duet with her deceased and very famous father!
Seriously it doesn't bother me though and the music industry also comes to mind here ... when Natalie Cole did a duet with her deceased and very famous father!
Ray Nalley
Well-known
Our perceptions of a scene are so skewed by our minds that WITHOUT a photograph it's difficult to prove what actually happened at an event. Eyewitnesses seldom agree on what happened at a major fire or shooting, much less look at a photograph and determine if was subtly altered before being printing.
"Truth" is very hard to find in the real world.
"Truth" is very hard to find in the real world.
FPjohn
Well-known
Solipism is not restricted to the personal but includes a preferred world view.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/345719/blind_to_bolt_in_beijing
yours
FPJ
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/345719/blind_to_bolt_in_beijing
yours
FPJ
oftheherd
Veteran
Well, I learned a new word at least. The wikipedia definition of solipism seems by definition, to contradict your statement. Certainly many countries are showing more of their own athetes. Why not? Korea has dedicted a channel to just the olympics. Korean olympics that is. I get two perspectives that way. I don't mind.
I am happy to see what our athletes are doing as opposed to only hearing about it. I expect most citizens of any country would.
So what is reality? What we say it is?
JeffGreene
(@)^(@)
I forget the precise source and reference, but do remember an old philosophy professor using the term "the thing in itself" to answer the old "what is reality" question. The source was from Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Husserl?? I really don't remember, but it was one of those German guys. This was over forty years ago, so things are a bit hazy.
FPjohn
Well-known
Well, I learned a new word at least. The wikipedia definition of solipism seems by definition, to contradict your statement. Certainly many countries are showing more of their own athetes. Why not? Korea has dedicted a channel to just the olympics. Korean olympics that is. I get two perspectives that way. I don't mind.
I am happy to see what our athletes are doing as opposed to only hearing about it. I expect most citizens of any country would.
So what is reality? What we say it is?
See "Psychology, and psychiatry" of the same article in wikipedia
under solipsism syndrome and infant solipsism. yes, solipism is common.
yours
FPJ
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism
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Nh3
Well-known
Photography presents a faithful representation of the phenomenal world - the world of appearance. But then again it presents everything in two dimensions and only a portion of what was in the frame and in case its b&w then it becomes an abstraction of what it saw. So, taking photography seriously for philosophical reasons is a waste of time and the only reason photos should not be tempered with is for ethical and aesthetic reasons - there is no other grand reasons whatsoever.
(I should add that there is no such a thing as objective/subjective reality - there is what we see - phenomenon - what our senses detect and then there is the the-thing-in-itself or the world of noumenon which is beyond our comprehension.)
Unfortunately I did not understand the part of about fantasy and memory.
Papercut
Well-known
As a philosophical idealist, I agree with almost all of Nh3's post. There is no way for humans to truly KNOW "reality" -- we have no way to bypass our brains which operate (in all sorts of ways) upon our perceptions. Even science is a "subjective" (i.e., limited, non-objective, non-comprehensive) way of understanding and organizing our perceptions. Humans live in an inherently and inescapably subjective state in which all is belief and interpretation. (We can and should still argue about the merits of specific interpretations, however: they are not all equal, some are better than others, but we should not kid ourselves that any are "the Truth" or objective.)
My only quibble is that photography (or any pictorial representation, actually) can have an INFINITE number of possible forms "out there" that would correspond to the two-dimensional image. The lens (and film or sensor) captures the light that falls on it from 'out there', but like all art the two-dimensional nature of a photographic image makes it an "illusion" of reality. See E. H. Gombrich's classic work "Art and Illusion", a fantastic work that explores the nature of all pictorial representation.
My only quibble is that photography (or any pictorial representation, actually) can have an INFINITE number of possible forms "out there" that would correspond to the two-dimensional image. The lens (and film or sensor) captures the light that falls on it from 'out there', but like all art the two-dimensional nature of a photographic image makes it an "illusion" of reality. See E. H. Gombrich's classic work "Art and Illusion", a fantastic work that explores the nature of all pictorial representation.
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