RE: [Leica] Digital is not photography (long)

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

A few comments -

"Photography" just means "drawing with light".  There is no implication of process - chemical, mechanical, silver or silicon.  If it involves light reflecting off objects to create a reproducible two-dimensional image, it's photography as far as I'm concerned.

When did we ever call "video tape" film?

My dad called the car "The buggy" up till the mid 70's.  Granted, at that point it was a colloquial term of endearment.

The concept of "digital manipulation" is a slippery one.  Is digital masking and level adjustment "manipulation", and if is, is it evil?  If it's evil, what about its darkroom counterpart?  The same goes for cloning to eliminate details in the image.  You start with eliminating dust spots, you end up eliminating commissars.  The same can be done with purely chemical/mechanical means.

I'm a big fan of "straight" photography, whether chemical or digital.  The kinds of compositing you're talking about are, to me, an illustration technique identical to collage.  Not my definition of photography, but artistically valid nonetheless.

When I try to come up with my definition of a "straight photograph" - digital or chemical - the closest I can get is "a single image from a single exposure, with minimal removal of image elements, and no addition of image elements".  It feels kind of wishy-washy to me.  Does anyone have an alternate definition?

Paul

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ARTHURWG@aol.com [mailto:ARTHURWG@aol.com]
>Sent: Monday, October 30, 2000 9:19 AM
>To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
>Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital is not photography (long)
>
>
>While it's true that digital process has taken over the real 
>world of imaging 
>(product, photography, advertising, daily news), it is also 
>true that it is 
>misplaced to call it "photography." Eventually, so-called "digital 
>photography" will be renamed.  We don't call "video tape"  
>film anymore, do 
>we? And we don't call automobiles "buggies". "Photography" is a 
>chemical/mechanical craft-process that uses 150-year-old  technology. 
>   All "photography," as we have come to know it,  is now retro. It is 
>virtually an antiquarian pursuit. This is why I say that the 
>"future of 
>photography" is in its past; it will include  the use of 
>hand-made papers and 
>film, alternative and "obsolete" printing methods, the pinhole 
>camera, wet 
>plates, even the Leica "O."  It will continue to be great fun 
>and a worthy 
>enterprise.
>    But the digital manipulation of photographic prints and 
>negatives is a 
>"crime against photography." The worst crime is the digital montage of 
>photographic images, which at best is some kind of 
>"illustration"  and at 
>worst (and most commonly) simply the latest form of visual and 
>intellectual 
>pollution, IMHO.  Arthur
>