"Photographs" vs. "Images"

[jstraw]

Well, if I had to name all the things that are not truth, I am not going to bed tonight soon. You might have figured out by now that my point is that photographs are not essentially more or less truthful representations. That is the extent to which I am committed to say that they are not "true," in that they are not "the thing itself" like Bazin, Barthes, Sontag and so many others believed, and that they do not by default have more authority on claiming that they represent something that is real.

I don't disagree.

I wasn't asking for everything else that is also != Truth, I am asking for any example of something else that is.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

OT! OT! OT!
​

This thread is about photograph vs image, so where the heck did drawings come from? Are you saying that you can use drawings on digital images in PhotoShop and produce an image that is better that a photograph? What kind of mouse are you using?? :confused:

Interested readers want to know?

In the meantime how about sticking to the topic? This is not the Popular Photography site, you know. :rolleyes:

Steve

Calm down Steve, a rose by any other name still has to prick my fingers it seems. A drawing is an image. A photo is an image. There are no images that have an inherent "truth" to them. That's all.

It's actually more relevant to the Photoshop/analog photo dilemma than you make it look like. The OP was suggesting that heavily photoshopped photos are not photos anymore but images. This prompts the question of what distinguishes a "photo" from an "image."

Given that photos are most often associate with truthfulness, unlike other kinds of images, I respond by boring everyone to tears with academic drivel hoping to convince them that in fact there are no fundamental, only accidental, differences in the way a photo and a drawing convey their information. Once everyone is sound asleep I will rob them of their souls and sell them to the devil, but not yet.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Given that photos are most often associate with truthfulness, unlike other kinds of images, I respond by boring everyone to tears with academic drivel hoping to convince them that in fact there are no fundamental, only accidental, differences in the way a photo and a drawing convey their information. Once everyone is sound asleep I will rob them of their souls and sell them to the devil, but not yet.

Ah, there is madness in your method!

Steve

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Ah, there is madness in your method!

Steve

I will only leave you your souls if the governments of the Earth can provide me with...... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

MWAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Sirius Glass]

I will only leave you your souls if the governments of the Earth can provide me with...... ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

MWAHAHAHAHA!

Frankly, that would not be a financially good deal for you. Please consider Euros instead of US dollars.

Steve

 

[bjorke]

...where the heck did drawings come from?

The Pencil of Nature,
W.H. Fox Talbot, 1844​

I've heard that when Ingres first saw a photograph, he tut-tutted and said something like: "See? This is what happens when you're too slavish to outline."

But don't listen to me... how about Henri Cartier Bresson? "All I care about these days is painting - photography has never been more than a way into painting, a sort of instant drawing."

 

[bruce terry]

An unknown finch sits on the edge of the bird bath.

I pick up the Audubon Guide and no finch photograph is enough like that little sucker to make a call.

I thumb thru Roger Tory Peterson's Guide and in short order find a drawing of that very finch, perfect in every detail.

Then another bird comes along and Audobon makes the case instead of RTP.


Cohen's and Meskin's yada-yada of laid-down images at work ... in my humble opinion, certainly not my expressed, epistemologically-justified belief, which would take another 20 pages, which would be silly.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Cohen's and Meskin's yada-yada of laid-down images at work ... in my humble opinion, certainly not my expressed, epistemologically-justified belief, which would take another 20 pages, which would be silly.

When you don't make an effort to employ clear concepts, you end up speaking diffusely of nothing and everything at once like Erwin Puts in his last excretion that is inflaming so many of our young minds in another thread.

That said, I grant that their vocabulary is annoying. It's the first time I ever see a word like "doxastically" applied to photography, but it's just another specialized term in analytic philosophy.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I don't disagree.

I wasn't asking for everything else that is also != Truth, I am asking for any example of something else that is.

A telescope gives you an image that is true in all the senses we wish a photograph to be.

 

[jstraw]

A telescope gives you an image that is true in all the senses we wish a photograph to be.

But no static artifact?

I would say that no static artifact is equal to truth but some are better at representing or reflecting the truth than others in some instances and at other times...different artifacts may be. There are certainly things I would be more apt to view as a representation of truth in a photgraph in some circumstances and in a drawing in others.

 

[copake_ham]

A telescope gives you an image that is true in all the senses we wish a photograph to be.

But the same could be said for the image in your camera's view finder. So is it the film or digi-sensor then that renders the true image as "untrue"?

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

But the same could be said for the image in your camera's view finder. So is it the film or digi-sensor then that renders the true image as "untrue"?

As I said many times earlier in this discussion, the important difference between the telescope/viewfinder image and the photo is that the photo does not preserve the spatial relationship between yourself and your subject.

A telescope image is thus "transparent." It is "true" in the sense that it gives an extension of your vision, and is functionally equivalent to actual seeing of actual things. A photograph is not equivalent to an actual experience of the depicted thing, but the viewfinder vision is.

Perhaps "true" is not an appropriate term for this kind of discussion; the point is that the way we talk about "truth" in photography boils down to a notion of transparency as defined above.

 

[copake_ham]

As I said many times earlier in this discussion, the important difference between the telescope/viewfinder image and the photo is that the photo does not preserve the spatial relationship between yourself and your subject.

A telescope image is thus "transparent." It is "true" in the sense that it gives an extension of your vision, and is functionally equivalent to actual seeing of actual things. A photograph is not equivalent to an actual experience of the depicted thing, but the viewfinder vision is.

Perhaps "true" is not an appropriate term for this kind of discussion; the point is that the way we talk about "truth" in photography boils down to a notion of transparency as defined above.

And if I mount my camera to a telescope and shoot a frame - it is the image then "not transparent"? Is that because the film/sensor "saw" it rather than my eye?

I don't disagree that a "photograph" (as in a "print") may be "untrue". But why would an image captured by a lens seen by my retina and recorded by my brain be true - but the same image captured by a lens and seen by my retina and recorded on a frame of film or on a digital sensor be untrue?

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

And if I mount my camera to a telescope and shoot a frame - it is the image then "not transparent"? Is that because the film/sensor "saw" it rather than my eye?

You know the answer and you're just being smart here.

I don't disagree that a "photograph" (as in a "print") may be "untrue". But why would an image captured by a lens seen by my retina and recorded by my brain be true - but the same image captured by a lens and seen by my retina and recorded on a frame of film or on a digital sensor be untrue?

The image in your retina varies accordingly when you move in space. The photo does not.

 

[bjorke]

recent Magnum photo post

 

[copake_ham]

recent Magnum photo post

Now I could be smug and point out that each image is a pixelgraph. :rolleyes:

And I could be obvious and point out the pictures one and three are "pictures of images".

Which leaves us with picture two - which then leaves us to rely on the narrative to "accept" that the hands and the paws are real and connected to living beings who are accurately pictured interacting as they "seem" to be doing.

 

[copake_ham]

....



The image in your retina varies accordingly when you move in space. The photo does not.

Huh?

We're talking about the retina being used in both scenarios through a viewfinder - the difference is only the recording medium (i.e. brain vs. film/sensor).

Why would the image recorded in the brain be true but the image on the film/sensor be untrue?

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Huh?

We're talking about the retina being used in both scenarios through a viewfinder - the difference is only the recording medium (i.e. brain vs. film/sensor).

Why would the image recorded in the brain be true but the image on the film/sensor be untrue?

Can you fix the image on a retina? If you can, then there's no difference. Like that fella just did: http://alecsoth.com/blog/2007/07/23/now-thats-what-i-call-an-alternative-process/

If you don't fix the image you have an actual direct, live informational link with your subject. Like a TV circuit you might ask?

No: a TV circuit is in fact analogous to a photograph, not to viewfinder vision. Why? Again, because when you move in space before the tv screen or if you move the TV receiver the information displayed on it does not change accordingly. Granted, if you have a camera-monitor setup in one block, then you have a kind of CCD telescope. But with normal broadcast TV that is not the case.

 

[bjorke]

...right about here is where people usually mention Plato's cave

 

[copake_ham]

.....
No: a TV circuit is in fact analogous to a photograph, not to viewfinder vision. Why? Again, because when you move in space before the tv screen or if you move the TV receiver the information displayed on it does not change accordingly. Granted, if you have a camera-monitor setup in one block, then you have a kind of CCD telescope. But with normal broadcast TV that is not the case.

Leaving aside Bjorke's Plato's Cave for a moment (BTW: wasn't that a "swingers joint" in NYC in the late '60's and early '70's around 6th Ave. and West 25th St.?) what do you mean by the above?

When you say a "TV circuit" do you mean the subject in front of the lens being "recorded" by the camera a controlled by the person viewing the image through the view finder?

Or, do you mean the resulting transmitted image so recorded as set to a TV receive monitor?

As to the latter. Yes, it is true that no matter where the viewer places herself - she will see the same image - albeit from various angles some of which may enhance or obscure the vision of the "full" image as transmitted by the camera. But regardless, what she will see is what some intervenor has decided she should see.

But the camera operator is seeing the image as it is "viewed" by his eye via the lens. In fact, the lens is his eye such that his eye is wherever he points the lens.

So, I would submit to you that while the TV viewer may not be seeing a "true" image - the camera person is - just as a camera connected to a telescope will "record the truth" of the image before it.

Now as to Plato's Cave - Bjorke, did you ever really go there - or is it an image of having gone?

EDIT: Shhh...

Although he really meant: http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm

Let's see if he really did go to 6th Avenue?

 

[Sirius Glass]

Are we getting anywhere or is this just mental masturbation?

:munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch:

Steve

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Are we getting anywhere or is this just mental masturbation?

:munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch::munch:

Steve

Personally I don't care either way, but if you are chewing popcorn before people masturbating, well that's called watching porn...

 

[Sirius Glass]

Personally I don't care either way, but if you are chewing popcorn before people masturbating, well that's called watching porn...

I'd better put on dark glasses before someone recognizes me!

Steve

 

[bjorke]

Leaving aside Bjorke's Plato's Cave for a moment...

I meant the cave. You meant Platos' Retreat which I never visited. I tried going to Plato's Retreat West in Hollywood, since it was across the street from where I was studying TV writing at the time -- they only allowed couples or single women to enter, so I convinced my friend Kim to accompany me (and actually it was a location of great interest from a lot of girls I knew at the time, who would say they wanted to go but would get bashful if you suggested that they actually do it, heh) -- but they turned us away for being too young to be in a bar, and they closed theri doors permanently long before I reached a more appropriate age & had to find my own personal Sodoms and Gomorrahs.

Hadn't thought about that in a while. Copake, you lech.