Gary Glass 17 Jan 2005

What I have done, is if I made it in the camera and I play around with it in photoshop I put it under photography. You can check out my section in my portfolio called Minds Eye . There may be some that put it in digital but I usually think of that as someone who has started with a image there and manipulated it.Of course if it no longer really even looks like a photograph then it might be more appropriate in digital. You may find a mix number here about it but that is what I personally do with mine.

Volunteer of America 17 Jan 2005

Good question: "When DOES a photo cease being a photo?"

sher richardson 17 Jan 2005

..from the time you brighten-gamma-sharpen..etcetc...

Volunteer of America 17 Jan 2005

so, from the "scan" on......I agree. Therefor--there isn't ANY photography on AW. Rendering the entire point "moot".

Michelle Andersen 17 Jan 2005

I guess maybe it depends on what you do with the image after you scan it in.

If you just adjust the levels an such to improve the picture, i would still consider it a photograph.

But if you really mess with it (like i usually put elven ears or faery wings and the like) then i have just assumed it was considered digital art...

Anyone else?

Mark Peterson 17 Jan 2005

I think simple improvement of light or dark for example to improve the quality of your photo is still photography, However manipulation of form in any way including texture and color would be considered digital work.

Gary Glass 17 Jan 2005

I totally disagree ,Adjusting the gamma,sharpening, changing the color does not render a photo not a photo any more, than putting a neg/slide in a enlarger, critcal focusing it(sharpening) dodging/burning/adjusting expsoure in time or aperture of enlarger lens(Gamma/contrast/brightness) Using filters in the enlarger(hue and saturation)These are just different tools to gain basically the same end results. It is just that in the digital world you have much better control and use with it. Now if you use filters like emboss,watercolor,or cartoon it in some fashion and things of that nature and change it , well then I think you have an agrument but if you use a neg/slide and you scan it and even if you reverse it to make a positive look like a negative etc. even if you cut and paste it, it is still a photograph, it is just a manipulated photograph. Go and look at Jerry Uelsmann work. He uses up to 6 different enlargers and heavily manipulates his images . That is still photography. It is just not "STRAIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY"

Mark Peterson 17 Jan 2005

Good points Gary, but who defines that line of manipulation? The photographer or the digital artist? And what about those who dont use either media? Your points are clear and I happen to agree with you to a point, but lets say two photo's are blended together to form an abstract, is this now digital artwork or manipulated photography? Just some things to consider when uploading to a category. Iv'e seen works suitable to be listed under both. There seems to be a line there where it all comes down to opinion, and personal preference.

Gary Glass 17 Jan 2005

Hi Mark,I agree there is getting to be a bit of a confusion of where one begins and ends.. But let's take your image. If you took ( and I have done this as a photography assignment) a piece of cardboard ,cut it in half.Cover half the lens and photographed, advance the shutter and now put the cardboard on the other side of the lens and took a image.Now you develop the negs look at it, you have to half images and half blank. you take the two negs put them together where each half images covers the blank part of each neg. You now have your abstract that is much easier to produce the same results in photoshop. Does that make it any less of a photograph? I don't think so. It is just a different approach to the same end result. It is still a photograph. I think if you take a photo and start applying paintshop or corel or use filters that make the photo look like a mosaic or stained glass, watercolor, charcoal, then you have probably crossed the line into it is now digital. I mean we were doing solarization with images by leaving them in the developer for a minute or so and then turning on a light real quick and getting strange images . Does that make it not a photograh?? Man Ray use to do that with his images. I do understand but for me what I outlined above would probably be a cross over but other than that I would still have to say it is a photograph, just heavy manipulated. Subscribing to the theory that if you do anything other than scan it in the computer is like sticking a neg in the enlarger and letting it hit the paper long enough to make a image exposure.. That would be the same equilvalent. I mean Ansel Adams use to say the film was the score and the print was the performance. He developed the zone system to help pull al he could out of the print. Even his "Mona Lisa image" MOONRISE OVER HERNANDEZ NEW MEXICO was heavily dodged and burned and the right paper used. You should see the straight image as it was actually shot.. Nothing like the finished piece. Historically if you look at photographs they have always had two camps. Manipulation and Straight Photography. As long as they were photographically taken they are still for the most part photographs,but I guess the time is coming where the lines will be further blurred with the advent of newer technology. Anyway, this is my opinion of the subject... SO I will leave it at that...

joan warburton 17 Jan 2005

I posed this question to AW a couple of weeks ago. Their last contest was photographs and they specified that they could not be manipulated. The point I made to them is that the traditional photographer who does not use a digital camera, and developes his own film in a darkroom, manipulates that photo right thru the entire development process. That is ok?

They never got back to me on the subject.....

Gary Glass 17 Jan 2005

I think what they mean is what is commonly known as straight photography Joan, in that it is a straight documented image of what is before the camera, and not what has been added to it as far as cut and paste of items that were not or could not be deemed "Normal" like flying cows, or distorted images.. Etc.. (although,one could argue flying cows and tornados...LOL)True, developing negs and prints is a form of manipulation of the process.(but that is more of a mechanical manipulation to get the latent image) but I just think AW is defining Straight photography from the other version one can do to the format...Not being a AW person can't say for sure but I think that is what they mean by that...

joan warburton 17 Jan 2005

Thanks, Gary. I appreciate the explanation. I'm still curious as to where you draw the line as far as "enhancement" or "manipulation". I'm talking about working with the original photograph and ending with the same image. If you sharpen it, make the sky a little bluer and the grass a little greener, is that the same as making it look like an oil painting? The original image was not changed, just colors and textures in both cases.

ArtWanted.com Staff 17 Jan 2005

To answer your question from our opinion, you can put your artwork in either the digital or photography gallery. If we were to create a gallery from every style of art, we would have hundreds if not thousands or galleries. We only have ten, so just pick the most appropriate one, and there is no clear answer for photo manipulation.

As far as the photography contests go, we are a little more strict on these. You can't alter the images or use photo manipulation. We feel that this would create an unfair advantage over those that do not use a computer to enhance their photography. However, you are free to enter any of the other contests as long as you are not breaking any of the other rules for the contest.

We hope that this clarifies our position on this and we welcome all photo manipulations to our website.

Gary Glass 17 Jan 2005

Hi Joan, to answer your last question, Technically no. sharpening, tweaking the colors would be no more manipulation than if you did it in a enlarger... You would focus as sharply as you could, you would use the filters built into the enlargers color head or you would put them under the lens if you did not have a color head enlarger. Those are things you could already do in a darkroom, So I would not consider it digital art. Yes, you are using a computer / digital to scan and tweak the image, but it is just a different toy achieving basically the same end results. Would you consider polaroid not a photograph?? same end results just a different method of achieving it.. There are filters on software where you can make a photograph look texture like a water color and oil painting etc. Those I think start to cross the line into digital art as well as say some of the softwares let you do images like paintings. But you don't use a brush and oils. that to me would be digital..The subject gets more involved than just trying to write all the nuances about it, but I think I kind of covered the gist of it, in my opinion. There are the purist that believe that if you clone out a piece of twig or the like of a nature photo puts it into the realm of digital. In Nature Photograhy there are two camps that basically have this same argument..The above purist that feel what the camera shutter caught it the final image and the other side that feel if you clone out a piece of twig/grass or remove a leaf that is obscuring a animals face is just enhancing a image of what it would be or could be if the animal had just moved a bit more to the right or left and then they took the image..

joan warburton 18 Jan 2005

Thanks Gary. I was thinking along the same lines but just wanted another opinion.

Thanks for the clarification, AW. There's no way of knowing either way but I'd be willing to bet every person in the photo contest used some program to bring the best out of their photo.

Dawn Landrum 18 Jan 2005

On other sites you cannot enter your photo under "photography" if it has been altered in any way.

But here, you can do either. I think it depends upon what it is for whether you put it in photography, digital or graphic. Sometimes I do lay outs that include photos in my graphic designs and put them in there. But usually, if it's only used as a photo with minimal enhancement, I put it in photography...a lot of digital enhancements like what you did....digital catagory.

Markos Berndt 18 Jan 2005

Removing and adding things makes it a non photo, no matter what your going for. If you remove a contrail... disclose it. If you add a moon disclose it.

A rather large quote from an e-mail with Art Wolfe... I was asking him about ethics and some of his images from a book of his.

"As I discussed in the introduction and in the photonotes in the book, there were a few instances where I wanted to duplicate exactly what I experienced when I was at a location. The cover of Edge of the Earth is a perfect example. Nothing was digitally manipulated, I simply took another photo of the stars and horizon that would have been impossible in a single shot because of the camera's inability to capture all perspectives. I wanted people to experience and see exactly what I was looking at while I was there and the only way to acheive that was by putting together the two images. My background is in Art as a fine art painter. I very much stand behind my choice to express my vision through the camera in any way I choose and I view the camera as a tool, just as a painter would view his paintbrush. Having said that however, I feel equally strong about disclosure, which is why I very plainly outline the process behind my work in the either the introduction or the individual photonotes. The first time I released an art book based on nature (Migrations), I discussed the use of digital technology, but did not identify each and every photograph. My thoughts at the time were that I would discuss it in the beginning, but I didn't want the viewers to be distracted from the Escher-theme that I was trying to acheive with my photography. Little did I know that it would become the lightning rod for the whole digital debate. My books up to that time had been journalistic in nature with "straight-forward" photography content and my fan and peer base did not make the leap with me to a book of art based on nature. It was an interesting and challenging experience defending the project, but I have to say I am quite proud of the fact that it became a starting point for all photographers to disclose their 'process' and to identify 'digital enhancement and manipulation' for editorial purposes - even more critical in this day of more and more photographers moving to digital capture. My advice to you is that if you have a vision for your work, follow through with it. If you want to incorporate technology or art into your work, do so, but with disclosure if you are submitting your work for editorial purposes. I am constantly inspired and am constantly experimenting. It is what keeps me going out the door."

Gary Glass 18 Jan 2005

Markos, adding or deleting something in the photo does not make it a non photo. This is an argument that as I pointed out above is going on with the two camps of nature photographers, Art wolfe(Nanpa Member) being one of those. ON Nanpa in which I was a member of they have had this very argument, There are the purist that feel if anything is touched up on it , it is no longer a straight photo. WHere others feel if you clone out a piece of grass,twig it is no more different than if you walked up and tore the twig off,except most nature people frown on tearing up the landscape for the sake of a photo. Because that is how you would see it. There is also the camp of thought that if you photograph Wonder lake in Alsaka and then you clone in a moose to stand in the water, is it cheating? Just because it was not there at that moment does not mean you would not happen upon that very scene. But you should at least disclose that is what you have done to the image/photo. Which is exactly what Art Wolf is saying, It is still a photograph and it is what you saw or what you could/would see. But at least say you added that in, This has come about because at one time, you use to be able to say the photograph never lied. What you took is what you saw or what happened. Now with the advent of digital manipulation this statement is no longer valid. It really just come down to what your thoughts are on which side of the fence you want to be on. Art as mention in his quote , wanted to show what he saw but was limited in the way to show it. So he merged two images together. Nothing wrong with that and it is still a photograph, it just represents more of what he saw or wanted to interpret. But he feels you should disclose the fact. But there are those that feel if you change any little thing that was not in the final image when the shutter clicks, taints the image. But it still does not negate it as a photograph. Since the early days of the photographic process , man/woman have been manipulating the image, just look through any book on the history of Photography. Digital is just another process of arriving at what you could of done in the enlarger.It just does it better now. GO to www.uelsmann.net that is a process which uses up to six enlargers, you can now do that with the computer, That does not make this any less than a photograph and it is photography..Now having said that, I do think there is a certain point of digital manipulation where you do leave the photographic process behind and I have already stated that example in some of the above posts.But I feel as other in the photo community that if you could have done the same thing in the enlarger it is still a photographic process , just a different method of acheiving it. Sharpening is basically the similar task of critical fine focusing and using a grain focus tool. It just does it bettr.. playing with the color balance is no different than some one using color filters in the enlarger to achieve color balance. It just does it better. Now clone tool is something you could not really do but , really. If you stood at a meadow and photograph a beautiful sunset and then cloned a deer in there. Is that not something you might not at some time encounter?? But you should at least disclose that is what you did, but it does not diminish it as a photograph. The only real difference between then and now is you are now able to lie with the camera on a grander scale...

Gary Glass 18 Jan 2005

Photograph or Digital??

Gary Glass 18 Jan 2005

Photograph or Digital?