If it is created with a camera is it "Photography"

[Athiril]

I answered shortly earlier but will expand:

I answered no and here is why. In the old days I made serigraphs and used a process camera in the process but in the end it was a serigraph not a photograph. Here is something to think about, where I think the hybrid people are confused. If you take your negative and scan it into a computer then print it out on inkjet, it is not a photograph. Just because you use a photographic process does not make the final product a photograph. Now, if you print it on a light jet then it is a photograph. The point being that the final product must be made with light. There is no way to argue this point. By this a d... capture printed on silver halide paper is a photograph. Where a 7x17 neg, carefully composed and developed then scanned in, inkjeted out is not a photograph.

Sorry but I think thats completely screwed up and just plain totally 100% wrong.

A print is a print, a light jet print was made with dye, it is a reproduction of a photograph, not the original.

The drawing with light phase (ie: photography) finishes after you finish exposing the original, a drawing of light is conceived and created by one who thinks about it beforehand before the shutter is released, hence the photograph has been created already, it exists in the consciousness of the photographer, what comes after that is the execution of the conception and realisation and physical manifestation of the photograph.

A print is a physical manifestation of the original photograph.

Printing in the dark room or on a light jet is not photography, printers call themselves printers, and what they do printing, it is printing, not photography, you are not drawing with light, you are making a reproduction with dye or silver as opposed to ink of an inkjet or dye again of a dye-sub.

You can blame it on kodak and the other big companies for selling digital as "photography" from the very beginning.

Digital photography is just photography, the tools and workflow differ, as do many forms of analogue photography, between equipment and types of process from bitumen to kallotypes and others.

I call a film or digital originating photography on both RA-4 paper or digital inkjet a print of a photograph, though I could extend that to say a inkjet print of a photograph etc.

Digital art and digital image are incorrect terms to apply to photography undergone a digital process.

It is totally wrong to refer to any kind of print as a digital image, it is no longer a digital image, regardless if it is inkjet or not. Digital image is vague and just refers to an image of any kind that has been stored digitally.

It is incorrect to refer to photography that has gone through a digital process as digital art, it was not created digitally, photographers that use digital equipment have drawn with light exactly the same as those that have used film as their medium, they were created equally by the photographers, who use their medium to bring their photography, their drawing of light into reality and existence outside of themselves.

The fact remains that a light exposure in a digital camera is actually analogue, with voltage instead of film density, it is converted in camera to be stored digitally after the fact, not that it matters, the process the photographer goes through to create their drawing of light and then execute it is the same.

Digital art is something created digitally, the problem with calling photography digital art is not that its a vague umbrella term that also refers to manga artists drawing digitally, digital painters and other things, but the term is totally incorrect and any kind of photography does not come under digital art at all (using a photograph(s) to create digital art is different).

Drawing with light (photography) in the physical world is not digital art, it was not created digitally, it was created with the physics of light, end of story.

What I am seeing in this thread is a lot of armchair elitism.

 

[keithwms]

A print is a print, a light jet print was made with dye, it is a reproduction of a photograph, not the original.

The lightjet process using light to expose RA4 paper, there is no dye. (unless you mean the sensitizers in the paper) People typically use a digital file to send the exposure instructions to the lasers that do the exposure, and that's where it becomes non-analogue.

But a lightjet print is made with light, not dye.

 

[Athiril]

I know what a lightjet is, it is made with dye, which is formed during the development process, the paper is exposed with light, but the resultant reproduction is made from dye.

 

[keithwms]

Okay. Just so we're clear, this is quite similar to how c41 works as well, so you could as easily deem colour or chromogenic negs as dye reproductions. (N.b. you can actually use lightjet/ra4 paper to shoot in-camera negs)

If the fact that the image is reproduced to dye is offensive, well then one could also say the silver dev process reproduces the latent image. Not to start a meandering debate (which has probably been had many times before!), but this is a slippery slope...

I belabour this point because some still do not understand what lightjet is, that's all. The non-analogue part is the instruction set sent to the lasers.

...not trying to provoke debate, people should use what they wish to use....

 

[Q.G.]

I know what a lightjet is, it is made with dye, which is formed during the development process, the paper is exposed with light, but the resultant reproduction is made from dye.

Just like a colour negative.

A print, optical or lightjet, is a photograph of a photograph.

I agree completely that as long as something involves recording light as it is 'changed' by the subject of the photograph, the thing that results is a photograph. No matter what technology is used to capture and 'fix' that light, or what technology is used to do something usefull with that recording.

As such, digital photography is, of course, as much photography as is analog photography.
If not, there would be no need to call APUG APUG, and it should simply be called PUG (or PG).

 

[Athiril]

A photograph need not be recorded for viewing by others.

It can even be conceived at one date and brought into physical existence years later, albeit slightly different or refined from the original.

We perceive light, our eye is a lens, our retina is an imaging plane, our brain can bring up images for later viewing, I can create a photograph whenever I please, and can go about manifesting that photograph in a form suitable for showing others tomorrow, next week, or next year.


I hand you a wet print, it is a colour image.

What constitutes the image you are seeing? What is it made of? Dye.

Yes, the image on C-41 film is made from dye too.

Just because it is a wet print, or on film does not make it a photograph, there are other ways to get images onto both prints and film that isn't photography.


Photography on the other hand is made from light. Whether you contructed the scene with controlled lighting or whether nature has provided the light, or even available artificial light provided by man.

All photography is equal, there is no segregration of pure photography between film and digital, referring to something as film photography or digital photography is more a description of the equipment and methods of the photographer they have chosen in order to be able to show their photography to others or to keep it for their own record or enjoyment. Even a camera obscura will allow you to show your photography to others.

Implying or saying that the equipment, process and methodologies of one photographer is somehow less photography than another is totally invalid, the very idea is not even worth entertaining.

As I said before, all photography is equal, it is all created in exactly the same way with no differences. The amount of work gone into it, and value of the art, journalism or purpose may greatly differ, but this is not the point.

The various types of luminscence, incandescence, and reflectance and translucency of objects remain identical for users of film or digital equipment, as does electromagnetic radiation.