[Leica] Digital darkroom - when isn't it photography?

[Adam Bridge <abridge@idea-processing.com>]

I spend increasing time in the darkroom these days - but also time in front
of the computer in Photoshop. I'm not sure which I like better. In a way I
feel more like an artist in the darkroom than I do interacting with the
computer. Developing my own film, making prints, working to get the effect
I want -- it's all "analog".

In the digital world though -- sometimes I can't tell where the photography
stops and the graphic arts begins, if that makes any sense.

Hanging in the gallery of The Darkroom, where I print, there are a
collection of color works, some of which to me are no longer the work of a
photographer but instead are in some other medium that includes
photographic elements. It's definately ART and I admire it. But it doesn't
seem like photography to me. At some point the digital manipulation has
changed things so much that it has become a new field.

Thinking about this - it's as if many photographs were cut up and pasted
together to make a work of art - I wouldn't call it photography or I guess
a photograph. I guess this means that I see a photographer's work as
starting with an image and the result being, somehow, an expression of an
image.

I can see, as I read this, that I am unable to frame the issue adequately,
but I thought the group might find it worth discussing.

And let me add one other red herring to this and I'll aim it at BD. How, in
an age where all our news reportage is digital, do we know what is REAL? A
few minutes in Photoshop and National Geographic moved the pyramids. Are
our images now less trustworthy because of the ease in which they are
manipulated? How does an editor know that the images they are working with
are REAL? That a key piece of background hasn't been edited out to
transform the meaning of an image. I used to have more faith in TV footage
because it was so much more difficult to edit in this fashion - but now an
hour in Final Cut Pro or After Effects and you can COMPLETELY change the
nature of a video image.

Or maybe we should stick to single malt scotches. I like McCallen myself.

AB
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