Dead or Alive?

[fotografr]

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Is Photography Dead? | Newsweek Entertainment | Newsweek.com

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[elansprint72]

Brent,

Alive. That copy was obviously put together by a hack who has never sweated it out in a 100 degree darkroom and who thinks that photos come straight from the camera.

OK so it's a different and much quicker process to add or subtract stuff from a shot but, given the time, a skilled darkroom-dude could eventually produce work of an equivalent "cleverness" to Photoshop. It's just less time-consuming these days and the bench-mark has moved on a fair bit.

 

Whoever wrote that piece ought to look at the manipulations carried out by the snappers of a hundred years ago.

[Mark Antony]

OK so it's a different and much quicker process to add or subtract stuff from a shot but, given the time, a skilled darkroom-dude could eventually produce work of an equivalent "cleverness" to Photoshop. It's just less time-consuming these days and the bench-mark has moved on a fair bit.

 

I'd agree in the main, the final image is what counts, and any form of manipulation (even in the darkroom) is a lie.

But...

I have a friend who actually uses Photoshop to generate images. One of his best images is a fish swimming in a glass of wine, could do that in the darkroom? yes neg sandwich etc

But with the darkroom you would have at least needed a transparency/negative/camera- this guy does his 'photos' without using a camera at all, just Photoshop.

 

So yes I feel that sometimes the articles statement:

"Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real"

 

in a sense is true

Mark

[jaapv]

So yes I feel that sometimes the articles statement:

"Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real"

 

in a sense is true

Mark

 

Hmmm.. The Third Reich, the Communists, and a number of other lovelies used photography explicitly to promote lies.

[fotografr]

Personally, I didn't find much in the article to agree with. The writer's assertion that there used to be a marriage between photography and truth made me think immediately of Jerry Uelsmann. We're not doing anything digitally that Uelsmann didn't do in the darkroom.

 

It's true that everyone is running around with some kind of camera today, but how much of what is being produced is worth publishing or hanging in a gallery? The vast majority of it is trash, whether coming from digital cameras or traditional film, but occasionally someone still comes along and shakes things up.

 

As long as people like The Polaroid Kidd (Johnson Family Vacation) keep popping up, photography will be alive and doing quite well.

[mjh]

So yes I feel that sometimes the articles statement:

"Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real"

Like the photographs of the Cottingley Fairies (made of cardboard) that Conan Doyle found so convincing?

[sdai]

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It's true that everyone is running around with some kind of camera today, but how much of what is being produced is worth publishing or hanging in a gallery? The vast majority of it is trash, .

 

Same can be said to paintings, sculpture, and list goes on ... how many of these things are being "made" on a daily basis? ... besides the stuff filling up trash cans everyday, dare I say that many of them which got hang up in a gallery or printed on paper are also trash?

 

Painting is dead, sculpture is dead ... you can also say music is dead because it's now composed on a computer, played with digital instrument by a bot!

 

Man, I hate these philosophers deliberately mystifying it.

[Mark Antony]

Hmmm.. The Third Reich, the Communists, and a number of other lovelies used photography explicitly to promote lies.

 

Yes, but they were real photos, even if their meaning was twisted.

The images my friend makes look like photos but no camera was used in the making of them.

 

I'll see if he'll let me post some of his artistic Illustrator and PS images, they look just like photos.

One where he has a rusty pad-lock and keys looked so good most couldn't tell.

 

I'm not saying photo's don't lie, or that darkroom manipulation hasn't been practiced for years, but things are changing at an alarming rate, which is fine by me but I feel that the image integrity of looking at a kodachrome slide or a negative is easier for me to understand-you may feel differently.

 

"Like the photographs of the Cottingley Fairies (made of cardboard) that Conan Doyle found so convincing?"

 

No not at all you mis-understand my point Pictures created without a camera should not be considered photography thats all- its just a personal feeling

[gesper]

Must have been a very slow week at Newsweek for them to have published an essay so full of obvious holes.

[lct]

...the final image is what counts, and any form of manipulation... is a lie...

Paradox no? If the result is what counts why worrying about manipulation? Manipulation can be (but is not necessarily) a lie if one have to tell the truth: PJ's, legal or medical photography and so all. But what kind of truth are we supposed to tell if we do pics for art or enjoyment?

[Mark Antony]

Paradox no? If the result is what counts why worrying about manipulation? Manipulation can be (but is not necessarily) a lie if one have to tell the truth: PJ's, legal or medical photography and so all. But what kind of truth are we supposed to tell if we do pics for art or enjoyment?

 

Who said I was worried about manipulation? quite the opposite I manipulate ALL my images in some way, either in darkroom or PS.

 

What I find interesting is the increasing amount of images I see that look like photos but in reality are 'image creations' where no camera has been used.

I think people are trying to twist my points here, its not making images that lie but images that are a total lie (no light has been used to make)

[fotografr]

Must have been a very slow week at Newsweek for them to have published an essay so full of obvious holes.

 

Probably the religion editor got sick and couldn't put out a story about creationism or the rise of evangelical christianity. Got to fill those pages somehow.

[DaveB]

Silly essay, but there are some killer images in that Newsweek slideshow. Some of those snapshot photos are breathtaking, I think. I would very much like to see that show.