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Digital isn't art?

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mikiev

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Just read this at Wired, and I don't understand the author's viewpoint...

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,71599-0.html?tw=wn_index_2

He admits:
Member said:
The negative was your raw material -- ...-- but what you did with it once it was in the enlarger determined whether or not you walked out of there with a "photograph" or merely a "snapshot."
Click to expand...
He is not talking about film having better dynamic range, or more pleasing grain, or better colors...
Member said:
In other words, it was hands-on. It required some honest sweat. It required time. When you were finished, and assuming you had done sterling work, you had produced a piece of art.
Click to expand...
So, in his opinion, if someone manipulates a photo in a darkroom they are an artist producing art... But if the same person makes the same types of manipulations on the same image in Photoshop...
Member said:
You are merely a technician with a good eye.
Click to expand...
And, then he -really- "pulls my chain"... :)
Member said:
Maybe Ansel Adams could have uploaded a boatload of pictures from his trip to Yosemite, then fiddled around in Photoshop to make 'em real purty. But it wouldn't have been the same.
Click to expand...
No it wouldn't.

It wouldn't have been the same if he took a "boatload" of "snapshots" on film, either. Sheesh...

--
Recent photos I've taken:
http://flickr.com/photos/mike_leone/sets/72157594218208901/
 
All of this stuff is pretty common and uses several bad implicit assumptions:

1. The harder I work to get a result, the better and purer that result is.

This is silly but many people still believe that doing things the hard way is better. This assumes, of course, that PS is easier which, of course, it isn't. I doubt the guy who wrote this even knows much about PS.

2. The older the method, the more pure it is.

There is a common perception that the "old ways" are more pure than the "new ways." By golly, if I couldn't do it in a darkroom then its cheating. This is Amish Photography: taking a specific period of photographic history and freezing it as "the best way." I wonder why no one longs for the pure days mixing ones own emulsion and creating wet plates?

3. I know what art is.

The self proclaimed guru declares the definition of art. This has been going on for centuries. What it comes down to is sheer hubris. Art truly is "in the mind of the beholder." When I look at an image, any image regardless of media or method, photographic or not, I am looking at the result. Its not how you get there that is art, it is what you have when you are done.
 
mikiev said:
mikiev said:
Maybe Ansel Adams could have uploaded a boatload of pictures
from his trip to Yosemite, then fiddled around in Photoshop to
make 'em real purty. But it wouldn't have been the same.
Click to expand...
No it wouldn't.

It wouldn't have been the same if he took a "boatload" of
"snapshots" on film, either. Sheesh...
Click to expand...
He obviously doesn't know anything about Adams, either. Adams clearly anticipated digital photography and wanted to be there to use it. In "The Negative", he said that the next development would be "the electronic image" and that he eagerly awaited it. In "The Print" and "Examples", he extolled the advantages of drum scanning over conventional half-tone approaches for pre-press work, commenting that drum scans could extract more information from a print than conventional wet chemical methods. Had he lived long enough, I have no doubt that Adams would have switched to Photoshop as soon as it was capable of handling scans from his 8x10 negatives.
--

As with all creative work, the craft must be adequate for the demands of expression. I am disturbed when I find craft relegated to inferior consideration; I believe that the euphoric involvement with subject or self is not sufficient to justify the making and display of photographic images. --Ansel Adams
 
mikiev said:
Just read this at Wired, and I don't understand the author's
viewpoint...
Click to expand...
I think it's his motives more than viewpoint you should be considering. Just like LumaLand and Ken Rockwell, this author is making absurd claims to drum up traffic and publicity for this particular article of his.

Everybody who responds to this thread is going to have Wired and that particular story on their mind for at least a little while. That's free advertising.
 
Every now and then an idiot decides to wax poetic about 'art' and pompassly declare that they know what it is NOT.

The writer of the Wired article has certainly lived up to this motto:

"There's no sense being stupid, unless you are going to show it" LOL!

I can see the equivalent of this guy, staring at someone that just discovered paper and declaring, "If it ain't draw on a Cave wall, it ISN'T Art!"

What he's REALLY trying to do is impress us that he is a holder of the "magic secret"... in this case film processing! And, we're supposed to be W-A-A-A-Y impressed.

Take a look at Jono Slack's work on the various DPReview forums and tell that it's NOT art!
 
lol, seen that in Brussels. It was a bunch of tiles on the floor and I almost stepped on it but my friend stopped me just in time.

My quote from that episode: "If you have to ask, it's not art!"
BobTrips said:
Art is dumping a pile of bricks in the middle of the gallery floor
and then allowing the viewers to guess your message.

--
bob

The Blind Pig Guild
A photo/travel club looking for members
http://www.jeber.com/Clubs/Blind-Pig/

Flowers of Asia
A photo club for appreciators of Asian flowers - looking for members
http://www.jeber.com/Clubs/Flowers-of--Asia/

Travel Galleries
http://www.pbase.com/bobtrips
Click to expand...
 
or that guy using elephant dung and so on and so forth.

So,

I'm happy to view digital as art and won't even bother responding to the wired article. ]
Anyway, wired is so passé

--
Old Ashtonian

 
Reminds me of the old time debates whether or not photography was art. Can one really put limits on art?
--
thezero
 
Just another person with a "wrong" opinion:) - Digital imaging certainly can be art. Your computer / software simply replaces the dark room.

Good composition is still where the action is. I have boxes of "snap shots" from the days of Kodak 110, flash cubes, flash bars, etc.... Those are not art... the shots I now take with my D50 (when I take my time to do it right) that is art. I fail to see the difference between cropping in a dark room setting or cropping on my lap top. Both are done to improve the final composition of the picture.

People with these sort of opinions are the "Purests" of the world who still can't get over the designated hitter in baseball. Taking that stance to the extreme:
Everything but walking is not really transportation.

Doctors today are just hacks who are only as good as their equipment...lets bring back the days of blood letting and leaches, now that was "Doctoring"!

Excuse me now, I have to go crank up the Vctrola, my Caruso recording is sounding a little sluggish!
 
This it typical human behavior in response to change - the old ways were better, the new fangled stuff isn't the real deal. Ignore these views, they won't stand the test of time.

RG
 
One of the main purposes of art is to challenge the viewer, question what is accepted. From the comments here, it appears that art is doing quite well!
 
is what he is talking about IMO.

I am a painter and its a lot easier to get a painting into a gallery than a photo.

Digital photography has become too common place and diluted the photo market IMO. Its made it a lot easier for a working photog to do his job, but a lot of the magic is gone.

Not saying that a magnificent photo still wont sell, i just think its more difficult.

This statement of his wraps it up.

The very act of making something easily achievable, and achievable by great numbers of people, diminishes the creation

--
http://www.troyammons.com
http://www.pbase.com/tammons
http://www.troyammons.deviantart.com
 
either way he should not be so against saying that digital photography is not art. art is anything you make if I riped up a piece of paper and threw the shreds onto a glue covered piece of cardboard it would be art. I might not consider it art and people might not think it looks very good but it could be considered art.

besides I have never used PS or any other image editing tool and do not have a digital camera (yet) but I know it takes a logn time to get photos just the way you want htem and intend to spend many hours working on images in front of the computer. he is just jealous that other people know how to use new things while he is stuck with the old harder way of doing things.
 
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