Ctein and The Online Photographer "part ways"...

timparkin · Oct 23, 2016

Maris said:
In a formal philosophical analysis the proposition is not sound. If there is no absolute truth what is to be made of the statement "there is no absolute truth". If the statement is true then at least one thing is absolutely true. Therefore the statement "there is no absolute truth" has just been refuted and is consequently false. If the statement "there is no absolute truth" is false then absolute truth must exist. Either way, absolute truth exists (somewhere out there) but we can't necessarily be always certain that we've encountered it.

The rest of the "records light" and "generated by recording light" musings are, I think, excuses for trying to include within photography things that aren't legitimately photography at all. Even realist paintings and drawings have "records light" and "generated by recording light" at the front end of the production sequence. How about "photographs are pictures made out of light-sensitive substances". With that criterion I'd expect no current Wildlife Photographer of the Year would qualify but we'd be spared a bunch of pictures asking us to suspend disbelief about fudged content.

1) "There is no absolute truth" - look at context, we were talking about photography

2) "Records light" - realist paintings don't 'record' light, there is observation of light and then creation of something from that observation. 'records light' means the actual light makes the change to the material.

3) Why do you think wildlife photographer of the year winners don't record things on light sensitive substances? In an excited state, silicon is light sensitive. Also we have two photographs in the book taken on film so nyeah!!

p.s. when photography records metaphysical truths then we can talk about absolute - . As it stands, truth really only exists in language and logic, outside of that truth is diluted.

cowanw · Oct 24, 2016

so nyeah!!

Really! That is discussion?
Maris, you should write a pamphlet on your thoughts of the subject that you have expressed over quite a while. There have been an number of good thoughts, well written and carefully considered.

faberryman · Oct 24, 2016

jnanian said:
... if one does something and makes it a point to display to friends, family or publish it online or whatever, people he/she shouldnt' misrepresent what they have done.

When I show my work to others, I just show it to them without explanation, other than something like here are some photographs I have been working on recently. I am more interested in their reactions uninfluenced by anything I may have said prior to or contemporaneous with their looking at them. If they ask questions about how I achieved a certain look, I explain what I did honestly in as much or little technical detail as seems appropriate to their level of interest. I am not a big fan of the "Artist's Statement".

removed account4 · Oct 24, 2016

faberryman said:
When I show my work to others, I just show it to them without explanation, other than something like here are some photographs I have been working on recently. I am more interested in their reactions uninfluenced by anything I may have said prior to or contemporaneous with their looking at them. If they ask questions about how I achieved a certain look, I explain what I did honestly in as much or little technical detail as seems appropriate to their level of interest. I am not a big fan of the "Artist's Statement".

i agree with your methods of representation but if you colored b/w prints with a computer
and then told people they were done with marshal oils or pencils ... or the work was made with a sellfone
photo-edit-manipulated desaturated and the coloration fiddled with to mimic a ambrotype,
then printed out on velum and put behind glass and in a bakelite case and you told people it was
a collodion/glass ambrotype that is what i am talking about.
i don't mind artist statements, they can be as streamlined or detailed as the person wants to explain
what the point of the photographs are. sometimes things are more than meets the eye ( in representation as well ).

faberryman · Oct 24, 2016

jnanian said:
i agree with your methods of representation but if you colored b/w prints with a computer
and then told people they were done with marshal oils or pencils ... or the work was made with a sellfone
photo-edit-manipulated desaturated and the coloration fiddled with to mimic a ambrotype,
then printed out on velum and put behind glass and in a bakelite case and you told people it was
a collodion/glass ambrotype that is what i am talking about.

I guess I am naive. Do serious photographers really do and say stuff like that? I mean, if your are that unethical about your photography, how unethical are you about stuff that really matters?

removed account4 · Oct 24, 2016

yes, there seem to be people who do things like that. and there are people who are FOS/lie
about who they are and their experience, misrepresent themselves online &c.
==
regarding my post -
there always seems to be a line drawn in the sand about how much electronic manipulation
isn't manipulation, and there is also a line drawn in the sand that analog users have
where they believe manipulation begins. talk to 3 different people get 3 different answers.
there seem to be endless threads &c about this same subject...
i didn't mean to come off half cocked

ruilourosa · Oct 25, 2016

Who the hell mistakes an ambrotipe with a digital print???????? and if they do, it really does not matter... because they do not know what it is, then it could be also a cosmotype or a supernovatype!

I continue to insist: art is not technique nor is the other way around!!!!

removed account4 · Oct 25, 2016

hi ruilouros
polaroid used to publish a magazine called "test"
and in one issue they gave instructions on how to "fake" period photography ...

ruilourosa · Oct 25, 2016

That´s good! Fake is also an aesthetic!! See Joan Fontcuberta work! although fakery is one thing (as a project) or another as blunt thingy just to make a wannabe

Alan Klein · Oct 26, 2016

You got to be true to yourself. If a viewer asks you in an inquisitorial way questioning the reality of what he's seeing, "Did you Photoshop that?" and you hesitate or feel funny and get a weird twinge in your gut, and can't easily say in a nonchalant way, "Yup, I Photoshopped it." Then you've got a problem. Any attempt to use creative words to hide a form of deceit will make you miserable in the end.

ruilourosa · Oct 27, 2016

"Photoshop", as a way of doing things, always existed!!!! see rodchenko´s work...

Dismayed · Oct 27, 2016

cowanw said:
And Mike's take
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/07/ctein-and-top.html

Photoart? Ridiculous terminology with no clear definition. So a straight print is a photo, but it's photoart if I dodge and burn?

Seems like terminology in search of a discipline.

removed account4 · Oct 27, 2016

ruilourosa said:
"Photoshop", as a way of doing things, always existed!!!! see rodchenko´s work...

thank you !!

Kawaiithulhu · Oct 27, 2016

I'm waiting for a camera that captures the Platonic Ideal of what it's aimed at. Then we can get into the material representation of an abstract concept. And a few hundred more PhD papers.

Theo Sulphate · Oct 28, 2016

Kawaiithulhu said:
I'm waiting for a camera that captures the Platonic Ideal of what it's aimed at. ...

Here it is. Clever design. Don't let its appearance fool you.

https://www.lomography.com/magazine/19451-the-nickelodeon-photoblaster

Eric Rose · Oct 28, 2016

Blah blah blah. I'm getting dizzy with this thread going around and around in circles.

wiltw · Oct 28, 2016

Eric Rose said:
Blah blah blah. I'm getting dizzy with this thread going around and around in circles.

Yeah, that's why it is called 'tread drift', and this one has drifted so far that it has circled thru the north and south pacific and is soon to drift into the Indian Ocean.

Kawaiithulhu · Oct 28, 2016

Theo Sulphate said:
Don't let its appearance fool you

I must have one. That's amazing!

pdeeh · Oct 28, 2016

wiltw said:
Yeah, that's why it is called 'tread drift', and this one has drifted so far that it has circled thru the north and south pacific and is soon to drift into the Indian Ocean.

Surely it's settled in the middle of the North Pacific Gyre ?

wiltw · Nov 14, 2016

pdeeh said:
Surely it's settled in the middle of the North Pacific Gyre ?

Now among all the other detritus (garbage)

Ctein and The Online Photographer "part ways"...

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