Label for Genuine Photographs

[JBrunner]

No, not if you've paid a lot for the phony watch when you thought it was the real thing. But my point is, just because something is a "Genuine Photograph", that doesn't necessarily mean it is portraying the "truth".

Maybe I've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I'll get my coat...

No photograph portrays the truth. It is always filtered through at least two people.

 

[rpsawin]

If a photograph is deemed not genuine does that make it insincere?

Best,

Bob

 

[Chiron]

A lens doesn't have to have glass

While we are splitting hairs: a pinhole does not focus light at all. (Can't, because it doesn't have that glass.)
It just restricts the angle of view rather seriously.

Black holes focus light by bending space-time (creating a gravitational lens), i.e. REALITY....but not really, right? Since nothing can focus light without glass? (sorry just realized how sarcastic that sounded, meant it jokingly)

My point being that material is not required to focus light. In the case of the pinhole (simple aperature), light will be focused in a particular point at a particular distance that will defined by electromagnetic theory and the properties of the pinhole (aperature). Also there will be a slight variance in focus point due to wavelength and to an even slighter amount due to relative velocities. What we think of as "focused image" is simply a plane intersecting the conic shape where we as humans have determined to be sufficiently recognizable as an image.

Seriously just a thought experiment for everyone. You can focus light a multitude of ways without ever introducing glass or even plastic into the light path.

My $0.02? There's actually two steps involved here and some syntax semantics at play.

A negative or slide is an image created using light projected onto a photon sensitive structure (film) and a physical reaction (usually chemical) is needed to bring out the image

A print is an image created using light projected onto a photon sensitive structure (print paper) and a physical reaction (usually chemical) is needed to bring out the image

The core of this discussion comes down to the question, "What is an accurate, reasonable, and functional definition of the word 'Photograph'?"

I may be a newbie to APUG, but I figured I'd throw my hat, and opinion in on this one. Enjoy all, it's Friday!

 

[Domenico Foschi]

I like your style, mister.

But when you drill the pinhole, you actually drill a round edge. Which exists.

Correct, Thomas.
SO, if we want to stick to what actually happens, it is not the hole that creates the image, but the drilled edges.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Isn't what the group is describing known as "straight photography"?
Years ago, we had the term "retouched" to descrbe the sort of things PS makes so easy today... What is wrong with using the term "retouched" ?

I kind of like the idea of a second "laying on of the hands"... retouching has always been understood to mean that something has been artificially changed....

I think you would only need to specify that in a straight photograph, retouching is limted to correcton of mechanical or process defects (such as dust) and that otherwise, the scene was "unmolested".

The US is still trying to catch up with us...
Now, their current site for passports offers these pointers...

"Do not retouch or otherwise enhance or soften photo."

"Copied or digitally scanned photos of photos will not be accepted."

"In addition, photos must not be retouched to alter the customer''s appearance in any way."

"Only original photographs are acceptable."

===
Reworking the above ideas I get:

Unmolested Photography:

An "Unmolested Photograph" is any original photograph that is neither enhanced nor softened and represents well the concept of straight photography. Specifically, it must not be retouched to alter the orginal scene's appearance in any way. The image must be a first generation image and not a copy or digital scan of another work.

:confused:

Humm...

From Wiki:
Documentary photography usually refers to a type of professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or student pursuit. The photographer attempts to produce truthful, objective, and usually candid photography of a particular subject, most often pictures of people.

 

[Q.G.]

My point being that material is not required to focus light. In the case of the pinhole (simple aperature), light will be focused in a particular point at a particular distance that will defined by electromagnetic theory and the properties of the pinhole (aperature).

You are jumping from a perceived general possibility that material may not be needed (badly based, because upon an example of how material (!) bends light through gravity) to the assertion that a hole focusses light.

It quite simply does not. The image forming process in pinhole photography involves nothing that even with the richest of imaginations could be construed as focusing light.
All a hole does (or rather, as has been establised, the material around the hole), is exclude things from the field of view.

You do need material to focus light. No way around it.

 

[bill schwab]

This whole thing is becoming a Monty Python bit. The Department of Perpetual Pointless Argument.

Oh! But is so good! But that depends entirely upon what is is.

 

[Chiron]

You are jumping from a perceived general possibility that material may not be needed (badly based, because upon an example of how material (!) bends light through gravity) to the assertion that a hole focusses light.

It quite simply does not. The image forming process in pinhole photography involves nothing that even with the richest of imaginations could be construed as focusing light.
All a hole does (or rather, as has been establised, the material around the hole), is exclude things from the field of view.

You do need material to focus light. No way around it.

Firstly, it's is not a perceived general possibility. It has actually been proven numerous times. In point of fact, it is space-time that changes/moves and does not actually bend light (and thusly NOT badly formed). Light still follows a straight path. It's basic non-euclidean geometry.

Plus a black hole by DEFINITION is a SINGULARITY and is not made of any matter (as yet to be disproven since no one knows what happens past the event horizon). So the lensing effect is a byproduct of the accumulated mass/energy of the singularity.

Secondly, gravity is not mass. Nor is material (mass) needed to induce fluctuations in space-time.

Please take a basic physics & optics class and learn about how there is no such thing as a "perfect" focus, circles of indistinctness, point sources, and basic EM theory.

Lastly, you sir are an idiot.

 

[Chiron]

What is the air velocity of an unladen Photograph?

Why...why I don't KNOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW!

 

[Kirk Keyes]

Using a pinhole, there is no plane of focus. No focussing distance nor fixed hole to film distance. No focus at all, in fact. No "f-stop".

Wrong -

The f/stop of a pinhole is simply calculated taking the diameter of the pinhole and dividing it by the distance to the film plane.

 

[Q.G.]

Firstly, it's is not a perceived general possibility. It has actually been proven numerous times. In point of fact, it is space-time that changes/moves and does not actually bend light (and thusly NOT badly formed). Light still follows a straight path. It's basic non-euclidean geometry.

Space-time does not change shape by itself.

Plus a black hole by DEFINITION is a SINGULARITY and is not made of any matter (as yet to be disproven since no one knows what happens past the event horizon). So the lensing effect is a byproduct of the accumulated mass/energy of the singularity.

There we go!

Secondly, gravity is not mass.

Who said it was?

Nor is material (mass) needed to induce fluctuations in space-time.

O?

Please take a basic physics & optics class and learn about how there is no such thing as a "perfect" focus, circles of indistinctness, point sources, and basic EM theory.

Again, who dragged in "perfect" focus, circles of indistinctness, point sources, and basic EM theory, and when?

Lastly, you sir are an idiot.

That may be.
But if so, an educated idiot.


Amazing how pointing out that a pinhole works by being small enough to seriously limit the field of view (i.e. kicking in an open door) evokes so much emotion.


Now if space-time would change after the shutter clicked, will the photo (after being processed and printed, using only the traditional photographic techniques, of course) still be genuine?

 

[Wayne]

Firstly, it's is not a perceived general possibility. It has actually been proven numerous times. In point of fact, it is space-time that changes/moves and does not actually bend light (and thusly NOT badly formed). Light still follows a straight path. It's basic non-euclidean geometry.

Plus a black hole by DEFINITION is a SINGULARITY and is not made of any matter (as yet to be disproven since no one knows what happens past the event horizon). So the lensing effect is a byproduct of the accumulated mass/energy of the singularity.

Secondly, gravity is not mass. Nor is material (mass) needed to induce fluctuations in space-time.

Please take a basic physics & optics class and learn about how there is no such thing as a "perfect" focus, circles of indistinctness, point sources, and basic EM theory.

Lastly, you sir are an idiot.

This is the coolest post I've ever seen here. Please dont stop.
:munch:

 

[Maris]

A negative or slide is an image created using light projected onto a photon sensitive structure (film) and a physical reaction (usually chemical) is needed to bring out the image

A print is an image created using light projected onto a photon sensitive structure (print paper) and a physical reaction (usually chemical) is needed to bring out the image

Chiron highlights the conceptual gulf between "photographs" (negatives and slides for example) and "prints" that bedevils contemporary thinking. I suggest that so called prints are in fact photographs. A curious incident in Point Light Gallery (an exclusively photographic gallery in Sydney, Australia) led me to this insight.

I arrived at the gallery too early to meet the director Gordon Undy (Australian master of the Platinotype) and while I was waiting I noticed a black and white print on a work bench. It featured an American lighthouse towering over a rocky coastline. This print was very sharp with a glorious run of tones but just plain too dark overall. I picked up the print to take it up to the gallery's big bright windows when the image fell off the paper! Yes, it fell off and slid onto the work bench; not the floor, thank goodness.

That thing was a 8x10 positive on film. It had been made as an intermediate step in the preparation of an enlarged negative for the platinotype process.

While that positive lay on the paper background I called it a print. When it slid off the paper it was obviously a photograph. When I put it back on the paper to hide my blunder did it become a print again? Not only did an image fall off paper that day but the scales fell from my eyes.

The image was always a photograph! It doesn't matter whether there is film or paper behind the photographic emulsion. It doesn't matter if the exposure is in a camera (on film or paper) or under an enlarger (on film or paper). A photograph is a photograph is a photograph. We should say "photograph" and say it with pride.

And another curious insight emerged; a photograph of a photograph is still a photograph. So many people forget, or never think, that the photograph on the gallery wall is a photograph of what was in the camera not what was in front of the camera.

 

[Ian David]

Chiron highlights the conceptual gulf between "photographs" (negatives and slides for example) and "prints" that bedevils contemporary thinking. I suggest that so called prints are in fact photographs. A curious incident in Point Light Gallery (an exclusively photographic gallery in Sydney, Australia) led me to this insight.

In common usage, one is a photographic negative or photographic transparency. The other is a photographic print. In short, in common usage, they are all photographs. No? I don't see there is a huge problem here with current thinking.

Ian

 

[removed account4]

Why is this still going on?

that was live!
thanks

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

If you run into this much resistance to your idea in APUG, what can you possibly hope to achieve in the larger photographic community?

I myself ask me this question appr. since post #50 . I am not sure about it but it may have to do with some still unanswered questions that I hope to get answered by not giving up yet.

First: I still want to know, what the term "genuine" in English really means and whether its meaning differs so basically from its German counterpart. (See Post #72 for reference.)
Second: We are sure that the restrictions we submit our pictures to, still keep their property of being genuine photographs. We wish to understand why labeling them appropriately causes such an emotional turmoil. We have admitted already that we have made mistakes in the formulation of our statement (and have fixed them already) but we have always discussed your objections factually. We have stirred up a hornet's nest and really want to understand why. Up till now I (the others are on holidays, I have not understood yet why labeling my pictures as genuine photographs should deny other pictures this property.
Third: As the gun smoke settles a bit, the ongoing discussion uncovers that the term "photograph" itself does not seem to have a commonly agreed on definition. If the outcome of our attempt should be nothing more than such an agreement, at least to me it would have been worth all the hassle. Not having a commonly agreed on definition opens the term to all kinds of usage and does make it arbitrary. Our initiative at least is a reflex to this development.

I ask all interested participants in the discussion to concentrate efforts on discussing the term "photograph". My interest in the term "genuine" is purely technical. I have already said in an earlier post that we don't stick to it if someone comes up with something more appropriate.

Ulrich

 

[Alan Johnson]

This kind of thing is typical of European Bureaucrats. The Brussells bureaucracy wanted to regulate the amount of bend allowed in bananas.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Second: I have not understood yet why labeling my pictures as genuine photographs should deny other pictures this property.
Ulrich

Take two pictures of two typical men, say one European and one Asian.
Label the European "A Real Man!".
Don't label the other picture.

You can't see any problem with this?

 

[Ray Rogers]

I myself ask me this question appr. since post #50 . I am not sure about it but it may have to do with some still unanswered questions that I hope to get answered by not giving up yet.

First: I still want to know, what the term "genuine" in English really means and whether its meaning differs so basically from its German counterpart. (See Post #72 for reference.)
Ulrich

I suspect they are very similar.
Perhaps the sense in English is that the viewer is being comforted...
by the assertion that... while there may be a lot of imposters around,
THIS item is NOT a fake.

The concept applies perhaps more to the entire object... paper base etc.
than to the image... or the elements actually pictured.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Ulrich, in fact, I believe your effort will have
unintended consequences that in the end will
lessen the value of photographs that bear your
label. I believe that the general public would
perceive the effort as a marketing scheme
cooked up by mediocre photographers to
differentiate themselves in the market by
using dated photographic processes, and then
labeling their work "genuine." Because 99.99
percent of the photographs out in the world
will not bear this label, in the end it will mean
only that some self-absorbed photographer
decided to call his work genuine because he
adhered to a set of rules of his own creation,
that no one else in the market recognizes as
important or material.

As for the focus on "photograph," I respect Jason's
photography enormously, but I disagree with his
crabbed reading of a "photograph" to exclude
inkjet prints as "illustrations." The world goes
on. Daguerrotypes begat salt prints begat albumen
begat gelatin begat inkjet and lambda prints and
God knows what comes next. I'm all for preserving
analog processes but we get nowhere by coupant
les cheveux en quatre.

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

Take two pictures of two typical men, say one European and one Asian.
Label the European "A Real Man!".
Don't label the other picture.

You can't see any problem with this?

I think this example reveals a misconception. If I label one of my pictures and don't label another one of my pictures the conclusion, that the not labeled picture does not comply with my standards, is likely. I do not have (and do not want to have) the authority to label foreign pictures. So this does not say anything about pictures of others.
Concerning your example: If someone is looking at a picture and says: "This is a real man" this does not imply necessary that all other men on other pictures elsewhere are considered softys. It only say that this particular man on this particular picture is considered a real man (whatever that may be). The situation is fairly common I suppose.

Ulrich

 

[phritz phantom]

what's the german word you're using instead of the english "genuine"? the german "genuin"?
wiktionary link

because i too (german mothertongue) thought of the real/ fake dichotomy pretty much instantly. is your intention to use the german "genuin" like "intrinsic/ innate/ inborn"

edit:
one should probably add that "genuin" in german is a very dated word, hardly ever used anymore, except for maybe in biology or other sciences. i don't think i've said it even once in my life. and a label like "genuine photographie" is closer to being a tongue twister than a catchy slogan.

 

[Ray Rogers]

Third: As the gun smoke settles a bit, the ongoing discussion uncovers that the term "photograph" itself does not seem to have a commonly agreed on definition. If the outcome of our attempt should be nothing more than such an agreement, at least to me it would have been worth all the hassle. Not having a commonly agreed on definition opens the term to all kinds of usage and does make it arbitrary. Our initiative at least is a reflex to this development.

Ulrich

Ulrich, I think that we all practice communication by Language in much the same way as we do when we read gestures... by a vague general understanding and a lot of guess work...

I don't think Speaker and Listener have the same understanding even when they use the same words. Our ability to experience and feel is much greater than our ability to describe those feelings, especially in the limited time conversation permits... both Speaker and Listener try... but success is often just... this side of sufficient.

So I suspect this sort of trouble exists for many words or concepts we commonly use and think we understand... (Indeed, the problem is not only one of communication, but also one of understanding and classification).

Conversations may actually go smoother by not getting too precise...
or accurate....

Compare speech patterns of Vulcans (star trek), Data (star trek) or Sheldon (Big Bang Theory) compared to normal humans....

So, what I am trying to say is that it does not surprise me that we use the word "photograph" differently at times. Language is in a sense, "alive" and with exception of French , is free to evolve. The best one can do is to understand how words are being used, and not get too hung up on their "real" meanings... especially since most of the people who use language... are amateurs and pretty much doing it ad lib.

 

[markbarendt]

We wish to understand why labeling them appropriately causes such an emotional turmoil.

Because your definition is not appropriate.

Specifically, "genuine-photography" is too general a term for the use you have specified.

An example:

The quote at the top of your web site is a good definition

"… on the art of Photography, or The Application of the Chemical Rays of Light to the Purpose of Pictorial Representation" ( Herschel, 1839)

Herschel did not try to limit the content of a photo.

When I use my enlarger to shine light through ANY negative, stack of negatives, or sequence of negatives, onto one light sensitive piece of paper and develop it, I have created a photograph.

I meet Herschel's definition exactly, even if I use 27 different negatives to create my genuine-photograph.

We have admitted already that we have made mistakes in the formulation of our statement (and have fixed them already) but we have always discussed your objections factually. We have stirred up a hornet's nest and really want to understand why. Up till now I (the others are on holidays, I have not understood yet why labeling my pictures as genuine photographs should deny other pictures this property.

What you seem to want to differentiate is photography that has genuine content and photography that has non-genuine content.

What your label defines is photography as a whole.

If you used a more specific term like "genuine-content-photography" or "honest-content", either would make more sense.

the ongoing discussion uncovers that the term "photograph" itself does not seem to have a commonly agreed on definition. If the outcome of our attempt should be nothing more than such an agreement, at least to me it would have been worth all the hassle. Not having a commonly agreed on definition opens the term to all kinds of usage and does make it arbitrary. Our initiative at least is a reflex to this development.

How about Herschel's definition? JBrunner's?

I ask all interested participants in the discussion to concentrate efforts on discussing the term "photograph". My interest in the term "genuine" is purely technical. I have already said in an earlier post that we don't stick to it if someone comes up with something more appropriate.

Ulrich

Whatever term you use it needs to be more specific.

 

[Ray Rogers]

I do not have (and do not want to have) the authority to label foreign pictures.

Concerning your example: If someone is looking at a picture and says: "This is a real man" this does not imply necessary that all other men on other pictures elsewhere are considered softys. It only say that this particular man on this particular picture is considered a real man (whatever that may be). The situation is fairly common I suppose.

Ulrich

I did not think you had "Ausland" in mind... if the "foreign" idea is distracting, consider any two things that are the same yet different.

True...one statement on one picture does not establish a pattern... but if you are unable to see that some things can be deduced or inferred by the absence of certain key elements, then I think you are overlooking a large aspect of communication as well as a major source of humor. Despite the fact that deduction and inference are indirect and thus weaker forms of evidence than direct statements, they are a part of communication.