is Photoshop a new kind of FETİSH

[Laurie Strachan]

--
I am not against the photoshop but I believe in that the charming
beauty of digitally manipulated Photographs(should be called
painting, in my opinion) cause some people addictive to them and
according to me this habit should be considered a new kind of fetish.
What are your opinions about this matter?

Since you're asking for my opinion, here goes. You clearly know little about the subject or you wouldn't be asking such a laughably pointless question.
--
Laurie Strachan

 

[Eyebat from Downunder]

The old name was called developing and printing in your home dark room aka converted bathroom and consisted of dodging et cetera. Not sure it was a fetish but in principle it is the same game as PP. Only the technology has changed

Paul Norman

 

[mevla]

--Iwant to expand the argument in a different way; By angaging ourselves in using PS tools , we restrict the borders of art with certain PS programmes and this kills our abilities and also the the amateaur spirit. İf Phoshopped photographs are considered the same with the natural ones ,so why these works are nor accepted to Photography competations? Can you give me a logical answer.?

 

[Glen Barrington]

Competition judges/rules makers are elderly anal retentives who haven't had an original photographic idea since 1955.

Competitions, by their very nature, are not a place for breaking new ground. Instead they serve to reinforce yesterday's status quo. They have always been drug kicking and screaming into current artistic thought. Read up on Alfred Steiglitz and the Photo Secession crowd.
--
STOP Global Stasis! Change is good!

Now that you've judged the quality of my typing, take a look at my photos. . .
http://www.photo.net/photos/GlenBarrington

And my non Photo blog:
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-Qe0Iq3g2d6ML3IynXl.Q2i5CPe6UaA--?cq=1

 

[cecil darsan]

Not "a fetish", but one among the devices that are rapidly destroying the medium as we know it. Digital photography requires few skills (certainly when compared with its "chemical" variant), and worse, it makes a difference between painting and photography not a well-defined line, but a wast "transition zone", where many a time there is no simple method of deciding whether something should be called a photograph or a painting.

It is worth remembering that photography has had a hard time being accepted as an artistic form, instead of just "mechanical" (i.e., inferior form of) painting. It was only when the documentary, "trustworthy" character of a photograph, as opposed to a painting, became universally recognized, that the photography got accepted as an artistic medium with unique qualities. This is what the ease of manipulation (of which we are witnessing just the beginning!) of a digital photograph is destroying. A photograph used "to be trusted", and that trust is disappearing at an astonishing rate.

Thus the photography as an art has made a full circle: just as it was in its cradle, on its death-bed it will be considered nothing better than some form of "mechanical painting". What we will be left with is an inexpensive method of creating utilitarian images, and a decorative craft that requires minimum of skill and is consequently practiced with little or no inspiration.

And, since digital imaging can not be "uninvented", there is nothing that can be done to reverse this process.

Cecil

 

[JulesJ]

How do competition judges know whether a photo has been photoshopped or not I ask?

I think some people (maybe you included) think that by using PS on a picture it drasticlly changes the original to something that could not possibly have been shot in a normal way. It is not so (although it can be) but usually PS is just used as the darkroom was in old days, ie to get the very best from what was shot.
jules

--Iwant to expand the argument in a different way; By angaging
ourselves in using PS tools , we restrict the borders of art with
certain PS programmes and this kills our abilities and also the the
amateaur spirit. İf Phoshopped photographs are considered the
same with the natural ones ,so why these works are nor accepted to
Photography competations? Can you give me a logical answer.?

--
Why can't you blow bubbles with chewing gum?

 

[mevla]

--

I have meant the manipulated ones not digitally arranged ones( like sharpen ,contrast and tone etc.) The manipulated ones are very fascinating and charming so the natural ones( what is natural is another argument ,of course) have no chance to win.İs this justice according to you? So these are should be evaluated in different plathforms. Rarindra and Mevla's photos can't take place in the same competition.

 

[Koosla]

Photography competitions are entitled to define whatever rules please them... but they're most certainly not entitled to define the art of photography in and on itself; therefore, photography competitions are not meaningful sources to ascertain what is photography and what isn't.

As for your perception of injustice regarding more or less heavily processed photographs: many sports define different categories (male/female, different body weights, etc.); does that mean that any of those categories represent a lesser version of the sport in question?

 

[MikeSoCal]

It was a much more laborious process however I did manulipate my B&W and to a much greater extent my color images. Oh how I don't miss Cibachrome.

--
I am not against the photoshop but I believe in that the charming
beauty of digitally manipulated Photographs(should be called
painting, in my opinion) cause some people addictive to them and
according to me this habit should be considered a new kind of fetish.
What are your opinions about this matter?

 

[D P O'neil]

Not "a fetish", but one among the devices that are rapidly destroying
the medium as we know it. Digital photography requires few skills
(certainly when compared with its "chemical" variant), and worse, it
makes a difference between painting and photography not a
well-defined line, but a wast "transition zone", where many a time
there is no simple method of deciding whether something should be
called a photograph or a painting.

It is worth remembering that photography has had a hard time being
accepted as an artistic form, instead of just "mechanical" (i.e.,
inferior form of) painting. It was only when the documentary,
"trustworthy" character of a photograph, as opposed to a painting,
became universally recognized, that the photography got accepted as
an artistic medium with unique qualities. This is what the ease of
manipulation (of which we are witnessing just the beginning!) of a
digital photograph is destroying. A photograph used "to be trusted",
and that trust is disappearing at an astonishing rate.

Thus the photography as an art has made a full circle: just as it was
in its cradle, on its death-bed it will be considered nothing better
than some form of "mechanical painting". What we will be left with is
an inexpensive method of creating utilitarian images, and a
decorative craft that requires minimum of skill and is consequently
practiced with little or no inspiration.

"Your old road is rapidly aging, please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand, for the times they are a changing"

--
Kind Regards
Dennis P O'Neil APSNZ
'War does not determine who is right, only who is left'