When is a photograph not a photograph

At what point does graphic manipulation convert a photograph
into graphic creation?

We start by perhaps burning in the sky and changing the white
balance.

Intermediate stages would be things like adding a colour cast
or removing faint telephone lines.

What about removing a background digitally to achieve the same
result that could have been done by placing a piece of black card
behind a macro shot?

Adding a better sky is now easy and seems to be fairly common.

I'm curious about what people think about this.

-Mike
PS. I'm talking about art photography not photojournalism.

 

Hi Mike!

To me, everything revolves around "one's conception" of photography. In a
world where manipulation of a photo has become common place, the
photographer has the leeway to express him(her)self through the taking of
the photo and subsequent "arrangement".

While some painters would painfully "recreate" a certain scene, others would
seek more freedom and express themselves in other ways. This opened up the
way to many schools of painting. This is referred to as art (rubbish to
some).

In the same way, photographers are free to express themselves if they so
wish, using different lenses, filters and post photography manipulation.
This is not the same as modifying the photo to "trick the observer" or in
short, a photo that "lies". Sometimes, a particular scenery has "burned
itself into my mind". It is possible then to try recreate a particular mood,
say one of peace and tranquility. Arranging the photo to give the observer
this same feeling is indeed art, at least to my mind. This is NOT "trick
photography".

However, although Photoshop and the likes of it are in many people's houses,
although simple to operate, they do not confer good taste to every user. All
we need to remember is the advent of desktop publishing and the atrocious
flyers that people produced, with too many fonts, bolds and underlined, not
forgetting thick lines around text, etc.

Cheers,
Marcel
PS This should be an interesting an vigorous thread.

 

...

It was even more common when back in the days B&W film strongly favored blue
light.

As soon as you press the shutter button.

IOW, IMO it's all the same.

 

I mean changing the sky completely. Darkening it by using
orange or red filters on B&W is less severe since just having
the picture in B&W is already changing it.

Changing tone and contrast etc are mild forms of manipulation
which I don't have a problem with but adding a rock from one
picture into another is going too far.

I just can't decide where to draw the line.

Removing power lines and other man made objects from a
landscape to me is just as fake but the picture is destroyed by
leaving them in.

-Mike

 

When I see an amazing landscape I don't initially notice the car parked
in the middle of it but if I were to look at a photo of the same scene the
car would jump out at me.

That's the problem. With Photoshop anything can be done. I took
a photograph of my niece and her husband a few years ago when
they got married on a tropical island and placed them in a snow
scene as a joke. It looked real but should it be presented to a
viewer without explanation?

-Mike

 

I think this is one example that would make it digital art.

If there were telephone lines there, the picture should not have been
taken in the first place.

Although you might be able to uses inks on the film print to remove the
lines it is quite laborious and I would just not bother with it.

Maybe it's the fact that in digital you are able to make every shot a
keeper makes it digital.

 

This question has a long history. It is not unique to digital
photography. An accomplished darkroom person can do a LOT to a film
negative or transparency.

In fact, one of the earliest questions was, "is it art?" That is,
painters felt there was no such thing as an art photograph. If it wasn't
done entirely by hand, it wasn't art. Thank goodness we have come a
long way from that.

However, I think the question is of philosophical interest only, and is
not really an important question for art photography. For
photojournalism, though, it is indeed an important question.

 

....

An art teacher at my college once told me that even photographs are a form
of abstract art-- less so than a painting perhaps, but still abstract. Even
when you take a picture of someone, it is not real; tones, shades, lens
distortion of object size, loss of color if b/w, and so on make all
photographs a form of abstraction of the real world. So there is no "point"
at which manipulation of photo changes it into a graphic creation, the
original photo already is a graphic creation.

 

The real question is one of purpose.
If the purpose is to represent a captured piece of reality, or "moment in
time," then the manual exclusion or introduction of any subject/object
element would negate the legitimacy of that true moment of reality. White
balance and other minor adjustments are not relevant to that question so
long as the goal is to render the most humanly-perceived rendition of the
reality.

In this most strict sense, this "rule" would be limited primarily to
documentary photography.

Any area other than documentary is entirely debatable, and will never be
settled in mutual agreement.
This is why one must understand one's own intent as a happy-snapping
photog...AND...one's audience/client/end-use as a pro or PJ.

The rest of the palaver is all moonshine because it's entirely dependant
upon who is asking and who is answering the question. Opinions will forever
remain all over the board, and will continually ebb and flow with the times.

Mark

 

At what point does graphic manipulation convert a photograph

My definition (whether film or digital) accentuating or minimizing what
is in the original photo (dodging, burning, toning) is a after-photo
'alteration', and filters on lenses are a before-photo 'alteration'.
Using Photoshop to lighten, darken, increase contrast, or remove redeye
is 'alteration', and even to posterize or solarize the photo is
'alteration'.

In comparison, deleting or adding something to the scene which was not
present in the scene at the time the photo was taken is 'graphic
creation'. Period. When I use the 'clouds' feature of Photoshop to
fill the sky on my photograph of a castle in Ireland, that is 'graphic
creation', or putting an Eskimo into the Sahara Desert (without flying
him there) is 'graphic creation'.

--Wilt

 

I wonder about some of the images people have been sent to prison for
here in UK. Seems to me that pixels arranged in a certain way on a
computer screen cannot logically constitute a criminal offence,
particularly if no one can identify the participants. How is it
different to a picture I might paint and, if it was in the style of
Picasso, who could say what the underlying sentiments were?
I'm all in favour of the police clamping down on this stuff but I wonder
if the basic concept has been seriously challenged in the courts.

 

Mike Warren wrote..

So do I. In the early days they needed rather long exposures and the sky
would often go white. So it was supposedly common practice to have stock
photos of properly exposed sky laying around to use as backgrounds for shots
that would otherwise have white (aka zone 10) skies.

heh heh.. you said "manipulation" heh heh..

I disagree (but this is purely personal opinion). I think the photographer
has absolute artistic license. For me what ever the photographer does to
evoke the desired response from the viewer is fine. Personally I don't do
much PS work at all: crop; contrast; dodge; burn; color boost at times -
that's it. But others I know do much more and in a way that adds to their
artistic expression rather than detracts.

I think it's less important to classify art forms than it is to express one
self through what ever medium works.

In the end you have to do what makes you feel comfortable. Just call it
"art" instead of photography or graphic design. Then all things are
possible.

Sometimes it is possible to take the photo without the power lines included.
If you are going to go the purist route, and there's nothing wrong with that
IMO, then you want to accomplish as much of the work at shutter time as
possible. I suck so bad at photography that I don't usually notice power
lines until the photo is framed and hanging on the wall.

 

Depends on your intentions. If you are trying to trick millions of
Americans into believing there are WMD in a small country in the Middle East
it might be a bit unethical to present the photo without explanation. If
you are trying to make a social commentary through satire, then no problem.
Probably everyone has somewhat different standards of ethics, but as long as
you're not hurting anyone it's ok in my book.

Keep in mind that ALL photos are lies. The world is color, yet many of us
shoot in B&W. The world is 3D, but we render it as 2 dimensional. We shoot
from strange angles to create fresh perspective. We put makeup on before
portrait shoots and use artificial lighting. And so on and so on...

In a very real sense, the very act of taking a photo is the act of telling a
lie.

Ansel Adams referred taking a photo as as creating the desired "departure
from reality".

So there you go.

 

I totally agree. Completely a matter of degrees, how much a photo is
distorted for the sake of art, from the original portraying the subject as
closely as possible regarding shape, features, etc to distortions of object
edges, colors, introducing new objects or removing objects from a photo,
etc. Even the mere fact that a photo crops out subjects is a form of
distortion-- the human head/eye can pan and scan a scene and take in more
info than the limited cropped subjects of a photo that tell a story.

 

Depends on your intentions. If you are trying to trick millions of

Ah, who needs photos?
What are ya, some sort of liberal leftist wacko?

Very well said.
Guess that makes me a good liar.

 

Certainly cloning wasn't invented by Adobe.

In practice I tend to strive toward this same purist view of photography,
but in theory I think the very act of creating a 2D image and pushing it
through a wire to a printer is as un-true editing out the powerlines. My
standard argument goes something like this: The photo of the place isn't the
place and you can't actually experience the place through the photo. So it
doesn't make any difference what you do to the photo after the fact - there
is no way you can actually make the photo any less real because it is
already un-true, fake, a sham. I think it was Plato who was anti-art for
this very reason - art removes people from reality and it is 2 degrees of
separation from the realm of ideals. Plato was an ass, but his point isn't
totally lost on me.

If that were true there wouldn't be so many really shitty snapshots all over
the web.

Even though digital manipulation saves time and makes photo editing more
accessible to the masses, it doesn't replace a good eye or technical and
aesthetic ability.

 

However, I think the question is of philosophical interest only, and is

Excellent point. Digital manipulation of aerial photos aimed at defrauding
a city development board, for example, is not the same as creating a really
cool Absolute Vodka advert.

 

Perfectly put IMO.

 

When it is ajar?

*rimshot*

OH, wait...

 

Try this for starters, http://www.answers.com/topic/graphic .

Another question, "Is it hotter in the South or in the Summer?" Will E.