"Photography IS Film"

M

faberryman said:

No. What is your point? That when people hire a photographer they are expecting a film photographer? No one but a film photographer with an agenda thinks that the term photographer means film photographer.

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Most people today would probably tend to expect a digital photographer for portraits, and may be surprised if the photographer said he needed to "develop" the film.

FujiLove said:

Hand written letters have value, and can sometimes last through the centuries. They are poured over, caressed, smelt, touched, kept in boxes under the bed, to be taken out and re-read in quiet moments. They age gracefully, are imperfect, full of character and tea stains.

Email is throw-away and skimmed. Like the overwealming majority of digital images in 2018.

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In that vein, I suspect paintings have more value than even hand printed photographs (which can b e reproduced, etc.). I do agree emails have little value except to the media, courts and news stations.

faberryman said:

No. What is your point? That when people hire a photographer they are expecting a film photographer? No one but a film photographer with an agenda thinks that the term photographer means film photographer.

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I thought my point was obvious: process and materials matter. The final image isn’t everything, no matter how good the computer is at faking it.

markjwyatt said:

In that vein, I suspect paintings have more value than even hand printed photographs (which can b e reproduced, etc.). I do agree emails have little value except to the media, courts and news stations.

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Emails can have tremendous emotional and informational value.

Like all other human relationships, that value upon the personal character and skills of the participants.

To imagine that emails are mere vapor is the same as imagining that a face to face relationship is mere vapor.

jtk said:

Emails can have tremendous emotional and informational value.

Like all other human relationships, that value upon the personal character and skills of the participants.

To imagine that emails are mere vapor is the same as imagining that a face to face relationship is mere vapor.

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You may value emails to the same degree as hand written letters, but I can assure you that you’re in a tiny minority. Yes, emails CAN be intense, personal, valuable etc. But rarely are.

" But, it is important to those who want to see the art form preserved or even advanced. You can't advance something you don't understand.

There is a lot to unpack, but I can get behind this statement as a place to start. I will say (and this is the philosophical part) that if all our experiences are derived from practice (know-how, doing, interaction with the world, having a body, having a brain, etc) and has little or nothing to do with knowledge or cognition then process and practice has everything to do with how we relate to the world and each other. When our processes and practices change then we change as well and if enough people are affected culture and society also changes. One should look to these debates for clues about how we are changing as persons, cultures, societies as a result of changes in how we do things.

ReginaldSMith said:

Is digital capture simply too different in all important ways to be called "photography?" After all, there was no photography before the invention of the use of light sensitive emulsions on copper

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This kind of discussion is present in art curators since some years ago. The name indenfies the technical background and that implies particular conservation strategies for exhibition and storage purposes. From this perspective is not the same an image based in silver halides than other done of inkjet inks or a digital one.

Being digital photographs so diferent from previous techniques perhaps is the time to assign them to a new category.

I find personally this discussion boring from a practical point of view but I can understand the academical intererest.

Digital photography is controlled as much by the 'tyrants' producing camera gear as Kodak and other companies control film and chemistry. It may come as a shock to some, but you can build your own digital cameras and write your own software for them. If you're really keen on things and extremely determined, then you can even begin fabricating your own chips rather than buying off the shelf parts. However the results would probably be rather underwhelming to most given the current state of homebrew IC fabrication, but 3D printers weren't exactly a common piece of household appliances 20 years ago and we can see where those have gotten to now.

Digital photography is no less a photographic art as compared to film than what a water colour and paper is for painting as compared to oil and canvas. - They are different tools within the same school of art. Those suggesting otherwise seem to be attempting to elevate their own self worth or engaging in a little circular action with their like minded friends.

Be honest about the tools and methods used, but it is academically dishonest to try and suggest that one is so far removed from the other as to say they are so unrelated as to no longer be remotely comparable to one and other in any useful form.

FujiLove said:

You may value emails to the same degree as hand written letters, but I can assure you that you’re in a tiny minority. Yes, emails CAN be intense, personal, valuable etc. But rarely are.

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Citation Needed... Words from loved ones are... Words from loved ones.
I don't care if my girlfriend writes me using her cell phone, computer and printer, a pen and postit note, or quill and parchment, they're all messages from her. I'm not really sure you have a very strong basis to stand behind the statement that people who view emails and physical letters as equals are a 'very tiny minority'.

Luckless said:

Citation Needed... Words from loved ones are... Words from loved ones.
I don't care if my girlfriend writes me using her cell phone, computer and printer, a pen and postit note, or quill and parchment, they're all messages from her. I'm not really sure you have a very strong basis to stand behind the statement that people who view emails and physical letters as equals are a 'very tiny minority'.

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Do you not have a few letters that you keep, and consider precious? Or small photos of relatives long dead, with scrawled names and dates on the back? If so, do you have an equally precious stack of emails and texts?

Technically though, you’re right: I have no evidence that in 2018 people value real, handwritten letters any more than they do an ephemeral digital string of ascii characters. But if I’m wrong, we’ve definitely reached a sad and unfortunate place as a species.

FujiLove said:

Do you not have a few letters that you keep, and consider precious? Or small photos of relatives long dead, with scrawled names and dates on the back? If so, do you have an equally precious stack of emails and texts?

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I am with you on emails, but that is a but unfair. Relatives long dead had no emails or texts! I think what they say may be precious, and may be printed and saved, but certainly most emails and texts will not be saved, and hand written letters will be more precious for sure.

markjwyatt said:

I am with you on emails, but that is a but unfair. Relatives long dead had no emails or texts! I think what they say may be precious, and may be printed and saved, but certainly most emails and texts will not be saved, and hand written letters will be more precious for sure.

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Yes, it’s a bit unfair, as the technology didn’t exist. So maybe it’s fairer to ask whether we will save today’s emails in the same way those old letters and photos have been. Based on my own experience, I doubt we will.

Where will future generations look for their family history, when the lights go out at Facebook, Twitter and Flickr?

In defense of ReginaldSMith and Ken Rockwell I could point out that, in a formal philosophical sense, there is an infallible authority on the identity of photography. That authority is of course Sir John Herschel who invented the word out of his own thoughts, announced it publicly, and publicly gave it its meaning by his own voice and as recorded in his hand-written notes and the minutes of the Royal Society. It is a privilege attendant to the fashioner of a neologism that they cannot, even in principle, be wrong or, through the passage of time, become wrong.

See my signature at the end of this post.

It is a fact that, while the meaning of "photography" is certain, the usage of the word "photography" has been extended to all sorts of pictures which are not photographs. This usage is what dictionaries record if they do their job properly. And to a large extent it does not matter to most people who just enjoy pictures. They need not trouble themselves to learn the names of the different media used to make those pictures.

But I would say that the people who do need to know the differences between picture-making media are the picture-makers themselves: such as may populate Photrio. Another group who need to be very clear about how pictures come into being are those who want to relate the picture to real-world subject matter; assuming, of course, that there is a relationship. To put it succinctly, the authority of a photograph to describe subject matter comes not from resemblance but through direct physical causation.

A heavy cost in discarding the various names of pictures and calling everything realistic looking a photograph comes through the loss of words. When words are lost the ability to think the thoughts that hinged on those words is lost too. Here a couple of quotes from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein:
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

markjwyatt said:

but that is an entirely different topic.

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It was the ONLY topic I was addressing. I'm obviously a very poor communicator.

Maris said:

A heavy cost in discarding the various names of pictures and calling everything realistic looking a photograph comes through the loss of words.When words are lost the ability to think the thoughts that hinged on those words is lost too. Here a couple of quotes from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein:
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

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Where have YOU been?
Nice post.

As usual, the majority of you have completely missed the point of the authors contention! Let me try to put it to you in simpler terms.

As we all should know, film captures a direct, authentic copy of a scene with its light-sensitive elmusion in the form of a latent image. Then we use a special chemical process to make the image visible.

Whereas digital uses an electronic sensor, which captures an indirect form of information based upon the waveforms of light that reflect onto it's surface. This information is then converted into a digital language that the computerized software-based conversion process utilizes to render a usable (artificial yet recognizable) facsimile of the captured info.

The film image meets the classic criteria of a photograph, while the digital facsimile does not! Computography is certainly a more accurate term to describe digital "photography".

ReginaldSMith said:

"Photography is film." - Ken Rockwell

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Couldn't agree more. I've said that repeatedly years ago but nobody seemed to agree, I suggest we adopt a new name for digital, like "Digitography."

There are two distinctly wrong counter-arguments being presented, and they form the bulk of all responses.

First: I am not in the least bit interested in what a PERSON calls them self. Photographer, digitizer, artist, print maker, fiddler, or clown. None of that was in my argument, and no personage of any kind was being short-changed or demeaned or lessened by the idea I am advancing. I am not in ANY WAY posing personal judgments of any kind. Way too many posts skipped right to the "how dare you say I'm not a REAL photographer." If that was you, you totally and utterly missed the point.

Second: I am not in any way trying to apply qualitative judgment about images made on film vs. images made with computers. Sorry, that also grossly misses my point. I am not arguing about outcomes of the image making.

What I am arguing involves this line of reasoning.
1. The processes of making images from computers and film are different in very fundamentally important ways.

2. In 1970 (let's say), KODAK did not routinely keep copies in their vaults of every image they processed for the millions of people making images. And because they didn't, they were unable to use your photographs for data mining, surveillance, crime detection, profiling their customers in order to sell sensitive data to those with money and ulterior motives. Your photographs - with the possible exception of illegal pornography - were your business alone.

3. The very essence of freedom and the idea of a democratic society does NOT EVER include mass surveillance and spying on the entire population.

4. In 2018 people can still buy film, shoot pictures, develop the film in their home, print the results with complete anonymity. It is as any art form ought to be - - private until you make it public...if you choose. That description is my meaning of PROCESS. You are in control of that process, and you decide what you will or won't sharew with others, if you choose to share at all. You are experiencing "artistic freedom." And that is a crucial social value.

5. In 2018 people are using cell phones, tablets, computerized cameras and other softwares to either initiate, or complete an image..or both. Billions of these images are being stored in "clouds" that the image maker doesn't own, doesn't control, and can't see into as a process. Additionally, many millions more are using "cloud based" subscription tools sold by the like of Adobe, where once more, your entire artistic effort is being held or copied into data farms you don't control. This is not so much the exception now, as it is the rule.

6. The owners of these "clouds" are nefarious, as has already been proven over and over. Whether it is Facebook selling all your data (includes photos), or Google giving back doors to the NSA, or Apple pretending to offer a locked phone, Or Google inventing AI to derive value and meaning from your photos, the point is that at an ever increasing pace, your image making is being used for data mining, surveillance, prosecution of crimes real or invented, and all sorts of other NON-DEMOCRATIC tyrannical purposes which you did not agree to, and based on the posts here, didn't even know was happening.

7. Given point 1 through 7, it is not arguable that the two image making processes are radically different at the foundation. They are only interchangeable vis a vis the outcome - a picture. But through one process you are a free artist in a free society, and in the other process you are acceding your privacy, and ultimately your freedom, once AI can translate your photos into data useful to others who can either demand it by fiat or pay for it.

8. Enter @Maris. Thank goodness. The gist of his rather excellent post is this in a pithy summary: Different things need different words. Under the current order "photography" is so widely interpreted as to cover many wickedly different processes. This means the use of the word is losing power, losing clarity, and therefore losing meaning in people's minds. You can't talk intelligently about things for which there are no words. If every "flat thing" in your house was called a "table" .....well, I hope some get the idea. When I quoted Ken Rockwell, I have no idea what HE might have been trying to imply and I don't care. I said, "it made me think," by examining my own understanding of the processes, the words, the meaning, the outcomes, and the future. My own argument about "Photography IS film" may not even make sense to Ken Rockwell for all I know. It was just a "tip" he provided to cause me to think about it carefully.

9. I believe the artists and image makers should become very familiar with the loss of privacy, surveillance, and data mining associated with what they cavalierly call "photography." I understand the most people could care less about freedom, democracy, surveillance false prosecutions because in their words, "they've done nothing wrong and have nothing to worry about." But, for the rest of us, who see a nasty future ahead of 24/7 surveillance and tyranny, we might want to try to extract one of the last remaining private acts - taking pictures on film and developing them ourselves - from the clusterf*ck being created by Google and Apple and Facebook and the NSA as they "attempt to help us take better pictures."

For that reason, I suggest that "photography" be a clearly defined art form, as it originated, and remained until the Internet and computer cameras, stole our privacy with digital/cloud/AI/surveillance technologies. In this way, with it's own legitimized name, discussions on how to protect it will not get submarined, diverted and perverted by those involved in a wholly different process.

George Mann said:

As usual, the majority of you have completely missed the point of the authors contention! Let me try to put it to you in simpler terms.

As we all should know, film captures a direct, authentic copy of a scene with its light-sensitive elmusion in the form of a latent image. Then we use a special chemical process to make the image visible.

Whereas digital uses an electronic sensor, which captures an indirect form of information based upon the waveforms of light that reflect onto it's surface. This information is then converted into a digital language that the computerized software-based conversion process utilizes to render a usable (artificial yet recognizable) facsimile of the captured info.

The film image meets the classic criteria of a photograph, while the digital facsimile does not! Computography is certainly a more accurate term to describe digital "photography".

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Oh, that helps clarify... open-mouth yawn.

Digitography = finger painting?

Jim Jones said:

Digitography = finger painting?

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Sure, but let’s leave it at that...

Paranoia still strikes deep. Reality bites. Fear of the new is nothing new.

The OT was deceptive, having nothing to do with "philosophy" or "ethics" ... It was psycho/political.

My response to the OT boils down to "do you want to live forever?" Just how afraid of the gummints interest in your photos are you? And why do you let Wallyworld et al process your fillum, given that they always produce digital copies?

...and most especially, have you not heard of multiple backups on multiple media, ranging from various clouds, multiple sets of prints and multiple archival certified DVDs and/or thumb drives (which must be distributed to multiple people). Hm?

jtk said:

Paranoia still strikes deep. Reality bites. Fear of the new is nothing new.

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film use instead of digital media has nothing to do with paranoia
the reality that every electronic transmission is surveilled is a matter of fact
its too bad such nonsense is spoken in 2018

BrianShaw said:

Oh, that helps clarify... open-mouth yawn.

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Which part did you fail to understand?

jtk said:

...and most especially, have you not heard of multiple backups on multiple media, ranging from various clouds, multiple sets of prints and multiple archival certified DVDs and/or thumb drives (which must be distributed to multiple people). Hm?

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Huh? What would that have to do with Google determining who is obese (AI applied to enough photographs) and selling that information to your insurance company? Oh because you have thumb drives they won't do it?

I see not many understood the email analogy.

Private note to my brother: "Joe, I was just diagnosed with cancer. Gonna be a million bucks to cure this."

By regular USPS letter, only Joe knows about this new hazard and financial burden on his brother. But sent by EMAIL, Joe's employer, insurance company and creditors will soon know that the sender is sinking ship that they ought to abandon immediately. If you don't see that freight train rolling down the track your head is deep in the sand.

Is this really new to people?