Bob <w8imo@xxxxxxxx> writes: > Don Roberts wrote: > >> This may be simplistic but "photography" means "painting with light" >> or something to that effect. Nowhere is the medium mentioned. Why >> should digital photographers then not have the same status as those >> who employ film and paper? > > If the printed image is the same one that was captured in the camera, > they meet your definition. > > If the final image is manipulated, has had things added or removed by > photoshop, there is no "painting with light". I can't accept this black-and-white a definition. Film photographers routinely retouch negatives and prints, to remove dust spots and also wrinkles and things. And of course if you combine two or more photographic images -- each bit of the result was in fact painted with light. They've just been combined in a way they weren't originally. How a image is presented makes a great deal of difference to me. If it's presented as a purely artistic image, I don't care (other than artist's curiosity) how it got that way; straight photography, painting, heavily mixed media, whatever. All are equally legitemate. If it's presented as to some extent documentary, I feel very differently. And this extends far past newspaper photographs. I think that Ansel Adams' images of Yosemite, for example, are generally presented (and were presented by him when he was doing it) as largely documentary. In that case, I'd feel cheated to learn he photoshopped in the moon over Hernandez. (Yeah, I know, I jumped from Yosemite to New Mexico.) If you say "photographs of Scotland", I'm already thinking "documentary", and will tend to object if you did much manipulation. If you say "my dream of Scotland" I'll be expecting very much a controlled vision, and if photography happens to be involved, will still be perfectly willing to accept extreme manipulations. Of course, if you say "photographs of the fairies in my garden" I'll be expecting manipulations too. My idiosyncratic opinions and usages, no doubt shared by few. > Let me emphasize, there is nothing wrong with digital manipulation. > In my opinion the final image is what counts, not the mechanics of > creating the image. I agree completely of course. There are no "better" or "worse" artistic media, except as they fit the needs of a particular artist for a particular project. -- David Dyer-Bennet, <mailto:dd-b@xxxxxxxx>, <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/> RKBA: <http://noguns-nomoney.com/> <http://www.dd-b.net/carry/> Pics: <http://dd-b.lighthunters.net/> <http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/> Dragaera/Steven Brust: <http://dragaera.info/>
