Definition of a Photograph
11-DEC-04
Looking at a gallery of art, any kind of art, we each bring a personal history of life and art along for the view and different expectations. So far as the medium is concerned, we get what we expect. When we look at stone sculptures, we know that they will look like stone sculptures. Oil paintings will look like oil paintings, water colors will look like water colors and charcoal sketches will look like charcoal sketches. We may not care for the content of individual works, but the media won't surprise us.
Until we get to photography. There, we can no longer be sure just what we're going to see. Black and white? Color? No problem. When we get to "digital art" that's presented as photography, the discussions begin. Is it still a photograph? If it started out as a recording of light, then perhaps it remains a photograph by definition. On the other hand, if it no longer looks like a photograph, and especially if it's no longer true to the light that was recorded, then perhaps it's now something other than a photograph. Even a most extraordinary work of art, presented as a photograph, might raise some eyebrows and some questions if it doesn't look like a photograph. "Wow! That's wonderful -- but wait: it isn't a photograph. What's it doing here?" We each have a personal expectation of what a photograph must look like in order to qualify as a photograph. Some people have more liberal requirements than others.
Genuine Imitation Sketch |
I believe it was the renowned Alfred Steiglitz who encouraged readers of his publication to finish their photographs. In his opinion, the work wasn't done until it looked like "art." He thought photographs should look like, and compare visually with, other art forms. He might have loved the ease with which we can now make photographs look like oil paintings, sketches or water colors. His readers, however, rebelled. They said photography is an art in itself, and can and should stand on its own merits and strengths. They claimed that photographers don't need to create imitation paintings. Steiglitz eventually recanted, and agreed that photographs have a strength of their own that doesn't need to be manipulated.
That was many years ago. Back to the present. Today, with digital imaging processes, we can manipulate photographic images far beyond what Steiglitz and his peers could imagine. Exposed film or digital capture of light can be the basis for further creative processes. The darkroom has always been where the music hits the print, and the digital darkroom is no exception. Digital processes give us a vast new latitude in image processing and results. It is in that realm that the definition of a photograph is being blurred.
Genuine Imitation Oil Painting on Canvas |
We can change the original image to look like a sketch, a water color, and other media. We can print on water color papers, cloth, or a brick. The result no longer looks like "a photograph." We can create surreal images that are nothing like we see in the natural world, but can produce them in a manner that they do look like "photographs." There is a general sense that, to look like a photograph, an image must appear to be printed on the usual paper substrates associated with that medium. There should be smoothness of tone and generosity of detail, without the appearance of brush marks or pen marks.
To be a photograph, however, is more widely debatable. Some argue that if the image began as a recording of light, it is then and always a photograph, regardless of how it is interepreted and manipulated. At the other extreme are those who insist that the entire process must be light-driven. No electronic processes whatsoever (though they usually concede to color balancing electronics to control a darkroom enlarger), and the final print must be printed on light-sensitive paper.
The debate is not about art or creativity. Both sides of the debate generally agree that if the result looks good then it is good. Of course, whether it looks good or not is a matter of personal opinion and, to some degree, what we expect of the art form.
The Original Photograph
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My belief is that, to be a photograph, an image must be a recording of light and present itself as something we could, or reasonably might, see in the natural world. Images that depart from "natural" appearances to the extent that they seem affected or unreal do not, in my opinion, qualify to be photographs, though they may be beautiful works of art. Photography allows us to directly record an image from what physically exists. The less we change that recording -- the less we abstract the image from the original recording of light -- the more it remains a "photograph." Abstracting the original view through composition and exposure, however, does not demean the legitimacy of a photograph. A photograph can be an abstraction of the view, but if we abstract the recording then we've moved out of the realm of photography. My position and opinion is not the correct one, but rather a correct one. It follows naturally from what I like to see in a photograph, and it follows from my respect for the fundamental strengths of the art form.
I'll leave painting to the painters. My photographs look like photographs in the traditional sense of the medium. Like the "digital artists," I do what I think is required to produce an image that evokes the mood, feeling or essence of the subject, but without adding an additional veil of abstraction to the two-dimensional interpretation of the subject.
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