Forum: Photography


Subject: Is it Photography ?

mysnapz opened this issue on Oct 20, 2002 ยท 42 posts


MR_PHOTO posted Tue, 22 October 2002 at 10:28 AM

First off Slinky calm down no reason to get profane. Its not limiting anything by labeling something. Its just trying to understand it better by labeling it something. If we can label it then we can better understand it. My personal opinion is this that the only way a "photo" or "photograph" can be made is thru a camera. The camera can be a film or digital camera. It must then be printed with little manipulation. There was a site out but it seems to be down that discussed what is legitamate use of things in all fairness. USM or unsharp mask is ok, cloneing things out is not, adjusting levels, and curves is ok, but adjusting hue and saturation is not. so on and so on. Basicly a "True photo" is as the camera saw it with no touchups or alterations. As far as filters sure I have used them polarizers I think are the most widely used as well as neutral density or graduated filters. While these do in fact alter a scene somewhat I feel that as long as the filter is not way out there that it is still a photo. Wild filters lets say that make the sky green and the grass blue would still in all rights be a photo but would be considered abstract art then. Sandwhiching slides is an old process to get the moon or sunset in the shot you want so are multiple exposures. Once again if it loooks natural I would call it a photo if it is unnatural it would be art. That said I routinely take two photos i haave taken and "sandwhich them" toether in photoshop am I wrong for doing this? NO. Its just a different way of doing the same thing. I think no matter what you do that you be honest with yourself and others in posting an image you be honest in saying what it is you did to the image. I never try to pull one over on someone if I have manipulated an image in anyway I always have somewhere on the image what was done. Its just good buisness. In the example I used in an earlier post about hte elephant and the butterfly. LEts say I take a picture of a butterfly, and I take a picture of an elephant. Ok they are both photos right. Now I whip up a little photoshop magic by combining the butterfly photo and the elephant photo so that the butterfly is resting on the elephanats trunk WOW amazing the power of photoshop. Well we already said that they were both real "PHOTOS" right ? right. but now they have been manipulated. This is what I would now call a digital image. or digital art. not a photo. ITs a fine line I know but thats what its about. Hope that helps thanks Mike :)