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What is the Photograph? Look at the history Do Digital Sensors Make it?

Is there a Photoshop function we can use to take an image that looks like a highly-realistic painting and transform it so it looks more like a photograph?

Best regards,

Doug

Another very perceptive challenge from Doug Kerr!

It would be easy to conjecture that a "highly realistic painting" is already a photograph. It comes into being in an exactly analogous way to what people call a "digital photograph". And it presents the same relationship to subject matter as that eponymous "digital photograph". The visual experience offered by a highly realistic painting and a digital picture is the same in kind, in value, and in credibility.

Think how the painting is made. First, light is focussed by a lens onto a megapixel sensor. The pulsed output signal from the sensor travels up a cable and is stored in memory as a picture file. The picture file is processed, modified, perhaps stitched to other files, given the HDR treatment, and turned into a set of instructions for a mark-making actuator. The mark-making actuator then places paint spots on a surface to form the desired picture. The painters eye, brain, hand, and paint brush correspond exactly to a digital camera, computer, and printer.

If a "digital picture" is a photograph so is a "highly realistic painting".
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Maris,

I do love the smell of the darkroom and the excitement of seeing images appear through liquid on paper dancing from side to side with my tongs in a tray. I am in awe of skilled film photographers and am grateful that everything I've learned came from that. So I understand being a dedicated craftsman in film and I'm the first to cheer you on. You want to blow the trumpet for real film and true photographer go ahead. You earned the right! It even has a flair about it when you imply that digital photography is somehow "not real photography" but more of an upstart process, masquerading as the "real thing". If you want to hold that opinion, that's fine, like supporting Manchester United or insisting in communion in Latin or Armenian Chistmas in January, after everyone else have already returned presents they don't want.

To go further and link Digital photography to the art and craft of painting surprises me! Doesn't this underestimate the skill in creating likeness by hand with a brush, where before there was blank canvas. You must agree that anyone with little to no training or experience can make a reasonably exact detailed likeness of anything with a good camera. Almost no one can do the same with a good paint brush and set of paints!

Asher
 
Maris,

I do love the smell of the darkroom and the excitement of seeing images appear through liquid on paper dancing from side to side with my tongs in a tray. I am in awe of skilled film photographers and am grateful that everything I've learned came from that. So I understand being a dedicated craftsman in film and I'm the first to cheer you on. You want to blow the trumpet for real film and true photographer go ahead. You earned the right! It even has a flair about it when you imply that digital photography is somehow "not real photography" but more of an upstart process, masquerading as the "real thing". If you want to hold that opinion, that's fine, like supporting Manchester United or insisting in communion in Latin or Armenian Chistmas in January, after everyone else have already returned presents they don't want.

To go further and link Digital photography to the art and craft of painting surprises me! Doesn't this underestimate the skill in creating likeness by hand with a brush, where before there was blank canvas. You must agree that anyone with little to no training or experience can make a reasonably exact detailed likeness of anything with a good camera. Almost no one can do the same with a good paint brush and set of paints!

Asher

I have made pictures by hand that are exactly identical to those that can be produced by "digital photography". There is no need for anyone to duplicate my efforts. They work just as well as thought experiments. Here are recent examples:

1. Make a photograph of a clear blue sky. A friend shoots the sky on their Canon 350D and processes the file in the usual way. We notice all the pixels are the same. One pixel will do just as well as 6 million. Checking the value of this pixel we get a PANTONE value #291. I then go to a Pantone swatch book and scissor out a small square of #291 and stick it in the middle of a mount board. Voila, a photograph of the sky! I challenge people who choose to disagree to explain why it isn't.

2. Make a photograph of a small uniform area of sandy beach. I look intensely at the sand and memorise its colour value. I then get a piece of paper to receive a mark forming substance with the right colour value. Surely the mark making substance does not have to be Epson pigment ink or Canon ink. Anything will do as long as it matches the sand. I choose sand! Yes, I paint a sticky rectangle (PVA glue) on the paper and then pour sand on it. When the glue dries I brush off the loose sand and I have a perfect photograph of that little uniform patch of beach. Remember, I did execute the light, lens, megapixel sensor, memory, processor, printer sequence as faithfully as any other digital picture making process.

Digital picture making is mechanised painting and drawing. To borrow the thoughts of Jim Galli, think of what we have gained, think of what we have lost.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I have made pictures by hand that are exactly identical to those that can be produced by "digital photography". There is no need for anyone to duplicate my efforts. They work just as well as thought experiments.

Maris,

Either you don't follow the chemistry or else you are just being humorous. Photography is simply writing with light by photon energy or the electrons kicked out of water in the photons path that alter molecules which then are the repository at every point where a photon was attenuated, of a potential mark.In simple terms, one photon gives one part of a dot in silver or remembered by a silicon chip. An eye photographed by both methods with the same lens will superimpose exactly. The digital image will lack the clouds of metal grain, an artifact so valued for it's added character, but of no relationship to the actual object being recorded.

What you have done with sand has nothing to to with the discussion. Yes you might amuse yourself with glue and san but it will not reproduce the sand dunes exactly as a photograph made by photons initiating a chain of events leading to free electrons reacting with a receptive recording molecule, be it made of silver gold or silicon. That's all that photography does. It captures photon energy directly or indirectly. There's absolutely no intervention by the hand of man at that point where a latent, albeit occult image is recorded.

If you wish to play around with glue and sand and you have a lot of time on your hands and ten thousand shades of sand, you might be able to collage a picture, which at a distance might look like some photograph. In contrast to this, any child pointing the camera at the couple on the beach can get a near perfect rendering of the details from the delicate detail of the irises to the passing gull in the sky or a crab in the sand. It just requires light entering the camera by pointing in the direction of the scene. There's no painting skill involved. It all depends on what chain of photon capture is built in to the camera.

There's no painting in photography unless you wish to add that in the dark room as many of us do or in Ps etc.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi, Alain,


I have to apologize for having started this wild goose chase as a matter of irony. I had been concerned that many images submitted here, actual photographs, had been so severely "tonemapped" that I would sarcastically say, "that almost looks like a photograph". It was just one more step in my irony to ask whether there was a way that these could be made to look like actual (that is to say, "normal") photographs.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug,

In doing so, Maris takes you seriously as he considers all digital photography to be not real photography but akin to painting. Now Maris is an accomplished real chemical and film photographer and I respect that! His view, I think is akin to saying the path to heaven is to become a XXX Christian, Lubavitch Hasid or Jainist. It's really a silly way of thinking. God is not stupid and neither are his photons that draw images for us! All such drawing is the hand of God!

You made a joke, poking fun at extremes of fiddling with filters! Maris is a technical perfectionist and has earned his stripes as a serious photographer with the darkroom skills to back up his point of view. For him, there's no joke! Theres' either photography or "painting".

Maris,

I look at the history of photography, from the very first unstable images, as being an evolving technology of transferring photon energy, (to something), to record an image directly or indirectly. As long as the pattern of incident photon energies is translated point by point to a closely accurate image of the light's immediate source, that is a photograph. Saying otherwise is to attempt to lower the value of pigment prints from digital cameras! That's it. Thanks goodness collectors and museums will always value the silver gelatin classic masterpieces and are equally buying modern pigment prints too!

Asher
 
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Mike Shimwell

New member
If you wish to play around with glue and sand and you have a lot of time on your hands and ten thousand shades of sand, you might be able to collage a picture, which at a distance might look like some photograph. In contrast to this, any child pointing the camera at the couple on the beach can get a near perfect rendering of the details from the delicate detail of the irises to the passing gull in the sky or a crab in the sand. It just requires light entering the camera by pointing in the direction of the scene. There's no painting skill involved. It all depends on what chain of photon capture is built in to the camera.

There's no painting in photography unless you wish to add that in the dark room as many of us do or in Ps etc.

Asher


Asher,

I think that you are missing Maris' point here - he's not talking about the skill of a painter, but the process governing the application of the paint. This isn't in contradiction of your observation about the child on a beach.

Best

Mike
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Doug,
It's really a silly way of thinking.


Asher,

There are many views that the modern relativist is happy to dismiss as silly - even whilst claiming to respect the views and their holders. Perhaps this approach is not the best way to encourange people to engage in dialogue.

Regards

Mike
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
I'm not going to weigh in on either side of this - I don't have the answers, though I do understand and have sympathy with Maris' contention that a Photograph should be 'drawn by light' at each stage of it's production. This is a completely separate issue from the notion of indexicality (either in geometry or tone) that tends accompanies it and is what excited Doug in the first place.

Clearly the initial image writing is by light in both film and digital, but subsequent steps cannot be by light in the digital domain. Both film and digital can be used in a similar manner to create (broadly) indexical prints. But, digital has led to a significant change in teh relationship of both creator and viewer of work that amounts to a distrust in the indexical nature of the work - 'everything is photoshopped' means nothing is really as good as it looks: nature, women, creation itself?

What small place in that world for the traditional craftsman labouring with his limited means of production and (self) limited ability to create impressive images from nothing?

Mike


PS for those who are not aware, I currently shoot film and digital and produce my prints digitally. My axe is not with process!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I do understand and have sympathy with Maris' contention that a Photograph should be 'drawn by light' at each stage of it's production.

Ansel Adams had his shading machine to add emphasis. Since the earliest times, once in the darkroom, manipulation of the presentation of the image departed from straightforward, even writing with light. The hand of man was there weighting the process locally and even drawing detail in the eyes and lips.

Digital darkroom, in software just makes this stage far easier and available to anyone. and this gives rise to the suspicion that photographs could be fiction. However, there are now safeguards for this oif one demands such fidelity.

Clearly the initial image writing is by light in both film and digital, but subsequent steps cannot be by light in the digital domain.

The light jet allows us to have a final image written once again by just photon energy as in the original process. So we could really dump all the pigment printers and the argument would be that we have pure photography again. However, to me, at least, as long as the image is faithful and honestly presented, it's always a photography once the initial light pattern recording is made.

The distinction should not be between silver and silicon but rather between fact and fiction, truth and delusion or really mild delusion from fraud.

Asher
 

Mike Shimwell

New member
Ansel Adams had his shading machine to add emphasis. Since the earliest times, once in the darkroom, manipulation of the presentation of the image departed from straightforward, even writing with light. The hand of man was there weighting the process locally and even drawing detail in the eyes and lips.

Digital darkroom, in software just makes this stage far easier and available to anyone. and this gives rise to the suspicion that photographs could be fiction. However, there are now safeguards for this oif one demands such fidelity.



The light jet allows us to have a final image written once again by just photon energy as in the original process. So we could really dump all the pigment printers and the argument would be that we have pure photography again. However, to me, at least, as long as the image is faithful and honestly presented, it's always a photography once the initial light pattern recording is made.

The distinction should not be between silver and silicon but rather between fact and fiction, truth and delusion or really mild delusion from fraud.

Asher


Hi Asher,

Not sure we're really disagreeing here. I deliberately separated the notion of fidelity/truth/indexicality from that of digital/chemical recording and output. As ever there is a range of practice and outcome. I agree that the digital revolution has led to increasing suspicion about images as being representative - some of this is merely raising questions that were largely ignored, whether through ignorance or lack of thought, and some is reasonable given the ease of fabrication in the digital domain.

Not sure that the lightjet really delivers what you suggest - there's still a whole heap of electornics controlling the light source and not just a lamp and lens.

I think that we do agree pretty well on your conclusion - a picture of a pet wolf is a faraudulent fiction if presented as wild, even when shot on straight unretouched film...

Mike
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Asher,

There are many views that the modern relativist is happy to dismiss as silly - even whilst claiming to respect the views and their holders. Perhaps this approach is not the best way to encourange people to engage in dialogue.

Regards

Mike

Mike,

We are all relativists.

Again what's important here is the question of honesty of what is represented. In a picture where there is a door appearing to open into a man's chest or a woman with angel's wings, it really doesn't matter how film or silicon was exposed. We know it's a fantasy! When news is reported with doctored photos that misleads us as to the facts of some circumstance, that lack of truth in news reports is potentially damaging to our society. Still, let's not forget that photography has been manipulated,(for all manner of reasons), from the earliest times.

What you point out is that digital photography, the new digital darkroom playpen, removes barriers of skill, craft and endless work from altering the "truth" a photograph might purport to show. This equally applies to manipulations for art and entertainment as well as dishonesty were truth is essential to us. So photography has become less "reliable" and more open to challenging as representing what was there, happening, then, in that place.

So, for me at least, in terms of importance, thinking that one form of recording photon is "more genuine" than another, is not something I'd rank highly. But honesty in representing that picture is hardly ever either silly or trivial.

Asher
 
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Bob Rogers

New member
The mark-making actuator then places paint spots on a surface to form the desired picture. The painters eye, brain, hand, and paint brush correspond exactly to a digital camera, computer, and printer.

If a "digital picture" is a photograph so is a "highly realistic painting".


What if the digital picture is never put to media with pigment or dye, but only displayed on a video screen? Then it is light to sensor to light, similar, in a way, to projecting Kodachrome.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What if the digital picture is never put to media with pigment or dye, but only displayed on a video screen? Then it is light to sensor to light, similar, in a way, to projecting Kodachrome.

Bob,

That's so simple but true! Also it represents the life history of Kodachomes. They were enjoyed with bright light and hardly ever printed for the most part, just like most digital pictures. Perfect! Why didn't I think of that!

Asher
 
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