Posted by Rick Denney Explains on September 01, 2002 at 19:09:38:
In Reply to: Re: A serious but strange short survey posted by xp on September 01, 2002 at 18:10:03:
Thank you all for your responses. I've gotten enough answers to meet my needs.
There are no wrong answers, and all definitions are arbitrary. My purpose was to find out what a random group of people though the definition was in practice.
Now, here's the explanation:
I'm also a member of a forum devoted to photography using ex-soviet camera equipment. This forum is in my experience one of the best in the world, in terms of the sorts of discussions held there about the art of photography. I've pursued this art for as long as I've played the tuba, with greater talent and far better results generally. I would consider myself a pro-grade photographer, except that I don't do it day in and day out and I have to think about some things too much instead of being instinctive.
A discussion erupted on this other forum concerning the use of digital editing and the fact that it makes an image no longer a photograph. This discussion has, in two weeks, become the longest thread (>250 posts) in the history of the forum, with enormous depth of discussion. In that discussion, I was challenged to determine the definition used in practice by a random group of people, and I figured that tuba players were random enough from the standpoint of photography.
Much of the discussion hinged on the image linked below. This image is my own, taken last summer when we vacationed in Utah. In the image, I used Photoshop to clone out three tourists at the bottom of the arch who had gone to some pains to star in the photographs of the 500 or so tourists (myself included) gathering around to watching the sun set on Delicate Arch. I looked past them, and so did most others. But "looking past them" is not possible in a photograph, so I cloned them out, to present the arch as I saw it.
Nobody on the camera forum argued that the result was not art, but some did argue that it was not a photograph.
Those of you who insisted that I define "photograph" first are right on the money, in my view, and that was my first entry into the thread. Here's how the Collins Dictionary defines it: photograph: a picture made by use of a camera. This definition suggests that the camera is the critical device, as opposed to a brush or a pencil, that would each make the art a painting or a drawing. But it is not helpful in discussing photos that are subsequently modified slightly, using brushes or pencils (or their digital equivalents).
But dictionaries merely record the definitions that most people believe. Dictionaries result from common usage, not the other way around. Therefore, the purpose of my question was to try to identify the boundaries of the definition of photograph in a non-leading way.
The statistics are interesting. Of the 24 who answered clearly, 14 said that all my examples were photographs, and 2 said none of them were. Everyone else drew a boundary somewhere in between those extremes. Two drew the boundary between manipulation and alteration, and one other drew the boundary between alteration using traditional techniques and alteration using digital techniques. One hinged on the use of photographic print paper instead of ink on unsensitized paper (as with an Epson printer). Other's weren't so consistent in the location of the boundary.
Music was often used in the debate on the other forum. Is a Bach Cello Suite, played on the tuba, still a Bach Cello Suite? What if it is played on a synthesizer? What if it is played by a midi file from a computer? The answer is yes in all cases, though many musicians will be opposed to these practices. Is it all still music? (Yes, to that, too--it is all sound, organized).
So, the gist of my argument was that the definition didn't matter. They were all photographs, because there were all pictures made with cameras, but that some contained alterations that were aesthetically acceptable and some didn't. That went over like a lead balloon, heh, heh. But several of you said the same: No matter where you put the definition, it is arbitrary.
There are two branches of photography: Journalistic (or documentary), and artistic. Clearly, there is an obligation to present the scene as realistically as possible in the former category, and those of you who are closely involved with such applications (I'm thinking of Tom Mason, who works in law enforcement) applied journalistic standards to my answers. Others didn't. Clearly, my photo of Delicate Arch was not presented as or intended to be documentary, yet some feel that all photography has that implied obligation. That debate will rage on unresolved by us.
But this does affect us. When we record ourselves, do we make little edits to fix the recording? There are times when we are obligated not to, such as an audition recording, but what about for a general commercial recording? If Deutsche Grammophon edited out the bassoon clam from Berlin Phil's recording of Beethoven's 9th, does that make it not music? Not orchestral music? Not Beethoven? Not the Berlin Phil? Yet these sorts of edits have been made throughout musical recording without disclosure, first using analog techniques, and now using digital techniques. Is there an implied obligation for a recording to present a performer warts and all?
This is not an easy question. But if it's okay for the Berlin Phil, then is it okay for me? Let's say I can't play Air and Bourree all the way through without making some sort of a mistake. But let's say that I piece together excerpts from multiple takes to create a technically flawless recording. Yet this is exactly what Decca did with the landmark recording of Wagner's Ring Cycle back in the 60's, because the artists were too old to have the stamina to go all the way through on one take. And it is standard practice in all recorded music. It is wrong? Does it make the result not music?
Why it should be different for photography, I can't say. To me, it is not a moral issue, but rather an aesthetic issue, unless realism is promised. Is the art good? If so, who cares how it was achieved?
You will say that live performance exposes false recordings, and you are right. We photographers have live performance, too. It is called film. The print may contain all sorts of analog or digital manipulations, but the negative or slide is still there to establish what light fell on it. Digital cameras make that distinction more difficult, and have the same effect as creating a "live performance" using computer-generated sounds from an encoded score.
Thank you all again for participating in my survey. I'm taking the result to the other forum tonight.
Rick "highly appreciative" Denney
