Sky Replacement

[jaapv]

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Just now, jaapv said:

But since when has the medium defined art ?  Why not light when sound is allowed? A symphony is created using sound waves created by mechanical instruments and can be recorded-and manipulated on a digital medium. I think it is typical for photographers, to fixate on the process and to forget to look at the resulting content 

 

[frame-it]

12 minutes ago, jaapv said:

But since when has the medium defined art ?  Why not light when sound is allowed? A symphony is created using sound waves created by mechanical instruments and can be recorded-and manipulated on a digital medium. I think it is typical for photographers, to fixate on the process and to forget to look at the resulting content As for your example:  the image is created by light emitted by the monitor….  Nowhere in the definition of photography is stated at which point of the process light must be involved. 

here is an nice example of sound derived from light

https://chandra.si.edu/sound/#m16

[jaapv]

Anyway, in this case, the basis for the modification of the image is still a "real" photograph. At one point somebody did point a camera at a sky. And it still begs the question, even if the replacement sky were wholly computer-generated, what of the rest of the photograph? At what percentage point does it lose the title "photograph"?  What about the traditional collage, which can mix straight photographs with paintings, drawings, physical objects, etc. Who cares about the exact label in the end?

[pgk]

10 minutes ago, jaapv said:

But since when has the medium defined art ?  Why not light when sound is allowed? A symphony is created using sound waves created by mechanical instruments and can be recorded-and manipulated on a digital medium. I think it is typical for photographers, to fixate on the process and to forget to look at the resulting content As for your example:  the image is created by light emitted by the monitor….  Nowhere in the definition of photography is stated at which point of the process light must be involved. 

I've not come across anyone painting in the dark! Does that mean that they are actually photographers because they can only paint in the light? Photography was defined as 'drawing with light' when the process was developed by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot and it meant capturing a transient image created by light. In fact some photographic historians would argue that photography was instigated by the desire to capture the transient images formed using a camera obscura. Its invention was as a result of a clear requirement to obtain a permanent record of a lens formed image. Whilst there are exceptions to this, the vast majority of photographs taken since then have involved lens formed imagery being captured, by chemistry and now using digital sensors. Digital imagery requires a computer and may or may not involve either of these. It is a medium which may or may not be art (which remains undefined) and can then be used further. But it is not photography as originally defined by its instigators.

[pgk]

6 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Anyway, in this case, the basis for the modification of the image is still a "real" photograph. At one point somebody did point a camera at a sky. And it still begs the question, even if the replacement sky were wholly computer-generated, what of the rest of the photograph? At what percentage point does it lose the title "photograph"?  What about the traditional collage, which can mix straight photographs with paintings, drawings, physical objects, etc. Who cares about the exact label in the end?

People paint from photographs (evidenced by the influence of long exposure water movement incorporated into painting) but the reslut is not a photograph. Traditional photo collages are what they say they are - photographic collages not photographs. Photographically derived digital art is as good a name as any, and yes names and labels matter, or perhaps you ask a plumbers to fix your electrics. Would you employ a photographer or a digital artist, or both, to create a preview of how a new building might look set into its surroundings in a photographically realistic pre-visualisation?

Your choice of using the descriptor 'real' photograph says it all!

[jaapv]

7 minutes ago, pgk said:

People paint from photographs (evidenced by the influence of long exposure water movement incorporated into painting) but the reslut is not a photograph. Traditional photo collages are what they say they are - photographic collages not photographs. Photographically derived digital art is as good a name as any, and yes names and labels matter, or perhaps you ask a plumbers to fix your electrics. Would you employ a photographer or a digital artist, or both, to create a preview of how a new building might look set into its surroundings in a photographically realistic pre-visualisation?

Your choice of using the descriptor 'real' photograph says it all!

Just a descriptor for clarity. Note the quotation marks   I do not care one whit about the label. I see an image produced by somebody's mind. The means whereby are interesting for understanding the process, but in the end irrelevant. Whether it is called a Photograph, a Computograph or a Donkey does not interest me in the least - The words of the Bard about roses...

[jaapv]

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28 minutes ago, pgk said:

I've not come across anyone painting in the dark!

I have... I would suggest a blind painter counts as such...

https://www.everydaysight.com/blind-painters/

 

Take a special note of this one -Hal Lasko. He is virtually blind, and paints using Photoshop Paint. I think he blends this whole discussion into one angel on the head of a pin.

https://mymodernmet.com/hal-lasko-the-pixel-painter/

[pgk]

30 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Just a descriptor for clarity. Note the quotation marks   I do not care one whit about the label. I see an image produced by somebody's mind. The means whereby are interesting for understanding the process, but in the end irrelevant. Whether it is called a Photograph, a Computograph or a Donkey does not interest me in the least - The words of the Bard about roses...

Words matter!

[pgk]

Actually, the problem that we have here is truth. Whilst a photograph may not tell the truth it can at least convey some of the reality of what was taken. Digital images may or may not have any actuality about them. Labels can suggest this difference although today it is only a blurred concept of reality which is probably as far as we are likely to get. When digital images are accepted as photographs there is no longer any believability left in them. Personaly I see enough unthruths in the world and would at least prefer some things to be better defined for what they actually are.

[jaapv]

Doesn’t a painted portrait or a landscape at least attempt to convey “the truth “ whatever that may be ( welcome Plato🧐) I think that this is a faux distinction. 

[jaapv]

13 minutes ago, pgk said:

Words matter!

When it is about images? 

[Anbaric]

3 hours ago, jaapv said:

Why don't people get that a photograph is not an illustration but an expression of the interpretation in the mind of the photographer ?  Of course there is a place for keeping as close as possible to the original subject - journalism, scientific records, holiday snaps, and so on. But why limit yourself and not use a photograph as a vehicle of your. imagination?

I think it's about expectations and disclosure when you share your images with others. If you are designing a chocolate box or an album cover or a birthday card, nobody expects your work to be any sort of depiction of reality. If your picture is labelled 'manipulated image' or is self-evidently in that category, then fair enough. It's a bit trickier if you are selling a print or sharing an image online that's just labelled, say, 'Glencoe, Scotland, June 2022' and you don't mention the sky is really from your last trip to the Alps, you've cloned out that inconvenient burger van and tour bus, and the noble stag raising its antlers in the foreground was shot in Richmond Park. It's one thing to manipulate a photograph with serious artistic intent - everyone from Man Ray onwards has been doing that. It's another just to prettify a dull image and pass it off as a 'straight' photograph (to the extent that any photograph is ever that). I suspect this is the category into which most 'sky replacement' falls. Everyone is, of course, free to do what they like, but before we resort to cheap tricks it might be worth pausing for thought and considering what is possible without them - the level of artistry in a competition like (say) World Press Photo, where there are obviously strict limits on post-processing, is often extraordinary. And the skies are original.

[LocalHero1953]

2 hours ago, pgk said:

I've not come across anyone painting in the dark! Does that mean that they are actually photographers because they can only paint in the light? Photography was defined as 'drawing with light' when the process was developed by Daguerre and Fox-Talbot and it meant capturing a transient image created by light. In fact some photographic historians would argue that photography was instigated by the desire to capture the transient images formed using a camera obscura. Its invention was as a result of a clear requirement to obtain a permanent record of a lens formed image. Whilst there are exceptions to this, the vast majority of photographs taken since then have involved lens formed imagery being captured, by chemistry and now using digital sensors. Digital imagery requires a computer and may or may not involve either of these. It is a medium which may or may not be art (which remains undefined) and can then be used further. But it is not photography as originally defined by its instigators.

Definitions are just the means of formalising usage. Unless defined in a British or ISO standard, a dictionary definition is a statement of how word is used, not how it should be used.

In the early C19 no one thought about defining photography - they just did it - it was a solution to a problem. In Talbot's case it was a solution to the problem that he was not a good draughtsperson, so wanted a better way to depict ferns, his current enthusiasm. Of course he went on later to think about aesthetics, but his terminology was not 'photography' but 'photoglyphic drawing', and his famous book was 'The Pencil of Nature'. So on the one hand, he saw photography as a means of exact reproduction of nature, but on the other, he didn't use the word photography!

There's a similar problem with defining 'art', as the recent infamous thread showed. Fox Talbot referred to his invention frequently as "a New Art", with the implication that it was technique and medium rather than aesthetics he was referring to. He also intended to publicise his ideas to "the scientific public". Science ('scientist' was a new word in the early C19) and art are both words that meant different things then, and had overlapping boundaries of meaning.

Replacing skies has an honourable history in photography, only back then it was done before taking the photograph. You simply stood your portrait subject in front of a fake landscape.  What's the difference with photoshop?😉 Portrait painting was the same - paint the subject in her living room, then add a romantic Tuscan landscape and clouds.

Anyone wanting to read more about how early photography was promoted and viewed in society back then could look at "William Henry Fox Talbot - beyond photography", a collection of essays edited by Brusius, Dean & Ramalingam (the latter a friend of mine), published by Yale.   

 

Edit. Rabbit hole link

Edited June 10, 2022 by LocalHero1953

[jaapv]

56 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I think it's about expectations and disclosure when you share your images with others. If you are designing a chocolate box or an album cover or a birthday card, nobody expects your work to be any sort of depiction of reality. If your picture is labelled 'manipulated image' or is self-evidently in that category, then fair enough. It's a bit trickier if you are selling a print or sharing an image online that's just labelled, say, 'Glencoe, Scotland, June 2022' and you don't mention the sky is really from your last trip to the Alps, you've cloned out that inconvenient burger van and tour bus, and the noble stag raising its antlers in the foreground was shot in Richmond Park. It's one thing to manipulate a photograph with serious artistic intent - everyone from Man Ray onwards has been doing that. It's another just to prettify a dull image and pass it off as a 'straight' photograph (to the extent that any photograph is ever that). I suspect this is the category into which most 'sky replacement' falls. Everyone is, of course, free to do what they like, but before we resort to cheap tricks it might be worth pausing for thought and considering what is possible without them - the level of artistry in a competition like (say) World Press Photo, where there are obviously strict limits on post-processing, is often extraordinary. And the skies are original.

Why disclosure?  if The maker does not explicitly claim a precise representation.  Did Rembrandt have to disclose all the elements he altered when painting the Night Watch which was supposed to be a group portrait? There is such a thing as artistic license. 

[jaapv]

Where does one draw the line BTW? Removing a tourist bus must be declared-a bird in the sky not? Both are transient elements. Do we have to declare dodging and burning?  It changes the light distribution. Lifting the shadows?  It reveals details that were invisible in the real scene. What is the tipping point? 

[pgk]

53 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Definitions are just the means of formalising usage. Unless defined in a British or ISO standard, a dictionary definition is a statement of how word is used, not how it should be used.

Exactly. So we should stop, think and consider when we start using words in new ways which may have connotations which lose some of the original meaning. Inevitably there will be shifts in what words mean and these may finally result in new descriptors being applied to older concepts. If 'photograph' is used to include digitally created imagery then eventually a new desriptor will need to be applied to images free of digital manipulation.

I would also say that we live in a virtual world sufficiently already. There is a need for some actuality.

[pgk]

17 minutes ago, jaapv said:

What is the tipping point? 

The RPS Nature Group allow small changes but nothing which 'alters the essential truth of the image' - a fairly wide but reasonable requirement. Changing the sky would certainly alter the 'essential truth'.

[LocalHero1953]

11 minutes ago, pgk said:

Exactly. So we should stop, think and consider when we start using words in new ways which may have connotations which lose some of the original meaning. Inevitably there will be shifts in what words mean and these may finally result in new descriptors being applied to older concepts. If 'photograph' is used to include digitally created imagery then eventually a new desriptor will need to be applied to images free of digital manipulation.

I would also say that we live in a virtual world sufficiently already. There is a need for some actuality.

I suppose I'm not too concerned to have such a precise definition of photography, nor am I concerned to keep it restricted to an unaltered photo, whatever that might be. I know I use 'photography' to encompass altered photographs (as in the OP), and I can talk to others in those terms without risking misunderstanding.

[jaapv]

51 minutes ago, pgk said:

The RPS Nature Group allow small changes but nothing which 'alters the essential truth of the image' - a fairly wide but reasonable requirement. Changing the sky would certainly alter the 'essential truth'.

The wildlife community is even more strict. You. cannot even remove a small blade of grass in official competition - and have to deliver the original raw file.

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[pgk]

44 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

I suppose I'm not too concerned to have such a precise definition of photography, nor am I concerned to keep it restricted to an unaltered photo, whatever that might be. I know I use 'photography' to encompass altered photographs (as in the OP), and I can talk to others in those terms without risking misunderstanding.

To me photography is about taking photographs. Post processing is a means to an end in that it enables me to produce the image I visualised when I took the photograph. Anything else (such as adding bits from other photographs is digital imaging. Easy and simple, which is how I prefer things to be. No misunderstandings.