[Leica] A Matter of Nature and Extent

[Afterswift at aol.com (Afterswift@aol.com)]

In a message dated 3/25/05 10:19:20 AM, lug-request@leica-users.org writes:


> Some of us are honest about what we shoot simply because we come from the
> days when a man's hand shake or word was accepted as honour bound to truth.
> Whether about a photograph or any other detail of business or life.
> Unfortunately somewhere along the way the honour system was lost due to
> those bent on nefarious ways to line their pockets with gold and the truth
> and that's when honour, man to man was lost.
> 
> -------------------
It's all a matter of the nature and extent of change to the original 
photographic image, be it digital or film. It's rhetoric to say that the 
photographic 
process is itself a distortion of reality. That isn't the vital element, so 
why get worked up about it. 

The vital element is that photography exisits initially in its own state, 
before we do anything to the original image other than compostion and 
exposure in 
camera. The fact is that the engineers et al who develop digital technology 
even now use film standards for setting their ongoing objectives because 
they 
know they must sustain continuity if they want the public to buy their 
products. That fact is a given. So our train runs on two parallel 
photographic tracks 
even in 2005 to a common destination.

Therefore, we can establish a single definition of the initial photograph 
(see above). And we know to what extent we move away from it in postprocess, 
be 
it darkroom or Photoshop. The nature of photography is still the same, but 
the 
extent of our modifications of it varies and is measurable by comparison and 
can be declared publicly. We know what we're doing. 

So the demystification is obvious and we don't need to use too much 
bandwidth 
to tell the difference between nature of photography on one hand and the 
extent of departure from it on the other.

Bob R