Actually, what is Photography?

removed account4 · Nov 30, 2019

It has been a very long time that this question has been asked. SO I will do it again.

What is photography?
I know I have been making photographs and practicing photography of one sort or another for a long time and I am mystified by exactly what it is that I am doing. I know one can deconstruct and unpack and break the idea of making photographs and practicing photography into small bite sized tidbits...
It is the act of using a camera ( or not ) to transfer something onto a sheet of paper or film. That something can be what is infront of the camera using a lens to transfer its reflected light onto something that will eventually remember it through a variety of chemical activities. that image can then be transferred ( or not ) onto something else...
But photography is much more than that ..

Vaughn · Nov 30, 2019

'Drawing with light' pretty much covers it with me. It is a very lovely broad blanket. The hows and whys one draws with light are endless.

jtk · Nov 30, 2019

In "Photographers" my recent post about Shimon Attie demonstrates that projection onto an object must also be considered "photography."

jtk · Nov 30, 2019

... perhaps that means light shows are photographs...
http://billhamlights.com/history/

jtk · Nov 30, 2019

...or perhaps the images you're viewing on your monitor are also photographs in themselves....

Photonuser · Nov 30, 2019

What is photography? A capitalist lie to relieve you of your money.

Ko.Fe. · Nov 30, 2019

Just in case. Have you ever seen photos? Those are made by photography.

removed account4 · Dec 1, 2019

hi Ko.Fe
but what about the photographs that were made and don't exist? they were also made with photography.

jtk · Dec 1, 2019

jnantz said:
hi Ko.Fe
but what about the photographs that were made and don't exist? they were also made with photography.

Fair enough. But doesn't lack of existence more suggest the ring of a bell?

Bill Burk · Dec 1, 2019

I won’t offer this as a definition, but was thinking that recorded music started to be accessible with the invention of the phonograph. Before that there was music. Photographs started to be accessible with the relevant inventions just a relative few years before the phonograph. Before that there was art.

MurrayMinchin · Dec 1, 2019

Photography is the gathering of specific portions of the electromagnetic spectrum onto or through a surface, or sequence of surfaces, allowing a stable representation of an intended final product originally seen only by the photographers minds eye.

removed account4 · Dec 1, 2019

jtk said:
Fair enough. But doesn't lack of existence more suggest the ring of a bell?

not sure, i saw polar express and can hear the sound without the clapper, and i've seen trees fall in the woods via video camera when there was no one there and they made a sound ...

took this 2 weekends ago, its the shoreline of an island i go to often,
it is low tide and you can see the pilings from the docks that were destroyed in the 38 & 54 hurricanes
the seagrass seems to go on forever.

Patrick Robert James · Dec 1, 2019

Writing with light sounds good to me. Photographs are made with light. Prints are made with ink. I don't call my photographs prints and I don't call my prints photographs.

KenS · Dec 1, 2019

jnantz said:
It has been a very long time that this question has been asked. SO I will do it again.

What is photography?
I know I have been making photographs and practicing photography of one sort or another for a long time and I am mystified by exactly what it is that I am doing. I know one can deconstruct and unpack and break the idea of making photographs and practicing photography into small bite sized tidbits... [snip]

Its an "ADDICTION

Ken

blockend · Dec 2, 2019

The question that interests me is what is my photography? The answer is compiling books from years of borderline compulsive behaviour with a camera. It's basically a curating/editing job, or making sense of a mountain of apparently loose ends. Photography as puzzle.

removed account4 · Dec 2, 2019

blockend said:
The question that interests me is what is my photography? The answer is compiling books from years of borderline compulsive behaviour with a camera. It's basically a curating/editing job, or making sense of a mountain of apparently loose ends. Photography as puzzle.

i see what you mean, but i am speaking more on a philosophical/esoteric level the essence of what a photograph is, can it be something that only exists as a memory and a flawed memory at best ? can't tell you how many photographs i have made that don't exist because of impossible fixation or because i had no film or paper or anything light sensitive in the camera. i also have things i took in various places that will never be developed and just stay as invisible latent images, are they photographs ? or does a photograph have to be tangible and seeable?

blockend · Dec 2, 2019

jnantz said:
i see what you mean, but i am speaking more on a philosophical/esoteric level the essence of what a photograph is, can it be something that only exists as a memory and a flawed memory at best ? can't tell you how many photographs i have made that don't exist because of impossible fixation or because i had no film or paper or anything light sensitive in the camera. i also have things i took in various places that will never be developed and just stay as invisible latent images, are they photographs ? or does a photograph have to be tangible and seeable?

I have no idea, which is a great blessing for an obsessive. It means the compulsion is not hindered by self reflection.

jtk · Dec 2, 2019

blockend said:
The question that interests me is what is my photography? The answer is compiling books from years of borderline compulsive behaviour with a camera. It's basically a curating/editing job, or making sense of a mountain of apparently loose ends. Photography as puzzle.

That seems to me to be the most interesting post.

Life itself is a puzzle if we stop to reflect.

blockend · Dec 2, 2019

jtk said:
That seems to me to be the most interesting post.

Life itself is a puzzle if we stop to reflect.

Only writers and artist get a mental block about what they're doing. You never hear of plumbers block or dentist's block. I unblock the visual tropes of the culture.

StepheKoontz · Dec 2, 2019

I like the question "What is my photography?" I see my photography as the ability to see light and capture "normal" things in an interesting way.

Arklatexian · Dec 2, 2019

Vaughn said:
'Drawing with light' pretty much covers it with me. It is a very lovely broad blanket. The hows and whys one draws with light are endless.

+1

Arklatexian · Dec 2, 2019

jnantz said:
hi Ko.Fe
but what about the photographs that were made and don't exist? they were also made with photography.

The word "photography" is said to mean "writing with light", therefore, to me, memories do not qualify. Those are not "photographs" but rather "memories". Important but not the same.......Regards!

MattKing · Dec 2, 2019

blockend said:
You never hear of plumbers block or dentist's block.

No, but I've seen data that indicates that dentists have the highest suicide rate of any profession (in Canada). Give me photographer's block any time!

Saganich · Dec 2, 2019

Proof of existence in time?

KenS · Dec 2, 2019

jnantz said:
It has been a very long time that this question has been asked. SO I will do it again.

What is photography?

The means by which I can get out of the house for a few hours and do 'my thing'... 'For ME'... rather than making the beds, doing the laundry, washing windows, cutting the grass, shoveling the snow from the drive-way and the side-walk, shopping for food. Our two 'offspring' have grown up, finished their 'formal education' and now 'get to live their own lives'... and 'She Who Must be Obeyed' gets to 'do' whatever she wants (other than follow me around as I seek a 'something' worth recording to film.

Ken (aka 'bad Ken')

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