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Alternative Process: The Future of Photography?

Doug Kerr

Well-known member
Hi, Bart,

Hi Folks,

An interesting, maybe frightening, development:
http://cg.cs.tsinghua.edu.cn/montage/main.htm
Well, as with many developments throughout history, this mechanizes something that is done all the time by human (often just as mindlessly).

Does that mean there will be more spurious images seen about? Hard to believe, considering what we see all the time in advertising!

It will certainly impact the job market for people specializing in doing that kind of work.

Thanks for the link.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This work does not seem to compete with creative totally original work. Like "genuine imitation Rolex Watches", they will be exactly what they are, composites of other folks work.

It's not clear whether on pays for the images found on the internet?

I have no problem with composing and then going to one's own store of one's work and making a new composite picture. That's how I work sometimes. I also find it also acceptable for "creatives" to use some, (or even all) , images for such a composition, that one pays for. To simply vacuum them from the web without attribution concerns me.

Asher
 

Tim Armes

New member
That's marvellous, now anyone can quickly and easily create and publish composite image using other people copyrighted works.

A dangerous tool....

Tim
 
That's marvellous, now anyone can quickly and easily create and publish composite image using other people copyrighted works.

A dangerous tool....

Tim

Hi Tim,

I agree. It does raise some interesting questions, doesn't it? Even watermarking at the borders of an image may not be enough anymore. On the other hand, I shoot very few frisbees and jumping dogs, or isolated christmas trees ... So not all images can be used.

Cheers,
Bart
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I can imagine the response will be better coding of image protection software to crawl the web finding stolen images.

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
While this may be interesting techie work, it's certainly not frightening. Other than using photographs as input it has no real relationship to photography.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
While this may be interesting techie work, it's certainly not frightening. Other than using photographs as input it has no real relationship to photography.
Ken,

The relationship remains to abuse through not paying photographers for use of their work. Otherwise I agree, it's not photography.

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Ken,

The relationship remains to abuse through not paying photographers for use of their work. Otherwise I agree, it's not photography.

Asher

Oh tosh. Why must camera owners frame everything in mercantile terms? Really, do you imagine that anything of any value will be stolen by this process? Do you imagine that anything of great value will be produced by the potential commercialization of this Chinese computer project? It's primary value, like so many other ACM paper projects, will be to become an entertaining computer toy. I guarantee that the core techniques are lifted from security surveillance technology. (I reviewed several such latter products as part of a venture cap board 10+ years ago.)

Yes, Richard Prince made millions from repurposing commercial photos of yore (for which the original photographers were richly paid to create). That notion chaps many photographers' buns but so what? They're mainly envious...and they're far, far outside the market for Prince's art so who cares? It's perfectly legal and legit.

Photography has been repurposed and resynthesized nearly since its creation. My good friend, and Assistant Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, Liz Siegel has just finished a 5+ year project researching Victorian photocollage. An effort which has, this month, culminated in a fascinating exhibit featuring an album recently acquired by the AIC. (You can walk through the whole album online, which I encourage.) Here was a wealthy, probably bored, but very talented woman (probably the wife of a Swedish diplomat) who was clipping photos of people and placing them into some outlandish watercolor art pieces of her own creation. She was by no means unique in this hobby; it was a rage...one hundred and thirty+ years ago.

So again I say, "tosh". It's all fun. Photography is just not that damn serious or important. It's core value, perhaps its main value, is that it's fun. People who are really bothered that their work may be "stolen" should either (a) never show their photos anywhere or, (b) take up something more difficult and monumental...like sculpture.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Tosh "Informal empty or meaningless talk or opinions; nonsense [from Turkish boş empty]" from thefreedictionary.com

Well, not quite! Not to people who feel ripped off. Tell them not to be offended.

Now how is Prince's work framed as "legal". I don't get it when it looks like the original?

Asher
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Now how is Prince's work framed as "legal". I don't get it when it looks like the original?

Asher

I am not a fan of Richard Prince's work, even beyond his photo repurposing. But it's important to note that virtually all of the "outrage" of his "Marlboro Man", and similar, work came from photographers and camera owners. I saw little criticism in the contemporary art world where copycats abound, anyway. Rather like Warhol's soup cans, it was assumed that commercial imagery is fair game for the art world -- within non-defamatory limits.

Anyway, as an addendum to Bart's original topic... I recall seeing a project last year in which someone was generating "ideal" images of familiar (cliche) subjects using Flickr's bazillion images as its data base. For example, you could request "Eiffel Tower" and, voila, Flickr would synthesize an ideal image from customers' Eiffel Tower images (there are plenty out there). (I think this might have been a Microsoft experimental proof-of-concept project.) I recall my prominent thoughts at the time being:

1. Wow, people really do take the same pictures over and over and over and over and over... But a postcard, support some hapless photographer, and save the trouble.

2. Who owns the Flickr photos, anyway? (It turns out to be a grey area, btw.) So Flickr's customers are basically simply supplying the company with free stock?

But, interestingly, I don't recall seeing any wailing over this project. Does anyone else recall this?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I am not a fan of Richard Prince's work, even beyond his photo repurposing. But it's important to note that virtually all of the "outrage" of his "Marlboro Man", and similar, work came from photographers and camera owners. I saw little criticism in the contemporary art world where copycats abound, anyway. Rather like Warhol's soup cans, it was assumed that commercial imagery is fair game for the art world -- within non-defamatory limits.

Ken,

I wonder if anyone here knows the legal background to this. Just because the art world thinks it's O.K. to repurpose, (take, purloin, steal), famous images, does it mean that one is within the law? Were there test cases?

It's funny that of one would take a picture of yours and use it to sell bake beans your lawyer could collect for you a handsome sum. But if you're famous and your picture is resold with a different name and context as "Art" is it really within the law?

Asher
 
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