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September 20, 2005
Digital Tampering
The blog veered a bit philosophical yesterday and continues so today. At one point in time I rather vocally objected to digital manipulation. When Photography Today's tag line went from "the world's largest photography magazine" to "the world's largest photography and digital imaging magazine" (or some change to that effect), I was chuffed. In a fundamental way, I saw such changes as the latest assault on truth. How could one be sure of what the real image was? And the question was not completely without merit.
This question has severl components. First, on a technical level my brother Virgil and I considered how digital manipulation allows one to correct for poor photographic technique, as did sundry darkroom techniques in analog, tangible, get-woozy-from-the-chemicals, hope-to-share-a-dark-room-with-a-lassie-and-see-what-develops photography (mind you the last descriptor in that sentence I have not experienced). If one is a film purist, then this is a legitimate objection. Digital effects, though, are somewhat democratizing, in that they allow lesser photographers to capture images and then correct them later. There is, of course, something lost in the knowledge department, which is lamentable (as I lament as librarian that people no longer understand where their periodical articles come from and how to use an index), but the results are often stunning. Advances in digital camera technology truly allow anyone to take what might be a very good eye for creativity and composition etc. and easily capture/create the vision that they see.
On an artistic level, digital manipulation allows one to easily abstract from a basic representation of reality into something that is more of a piece of creative art. Of course, one could do this to some degree with the aforementioned anlog, tangible, etc. etc. photography as well, but, again, it took skill. Now amateurs can do some pretty amazing things.
There are other philosophical aspects to the entire question of perception and representation including its degree of objectivity vs. subjectivity, which involves photons and rods and cones and how we see and memory etc. which I really don't know a whole lot about. For now I leave you with two pictures one uncorrected and the other corrected. The latter, corrected one, seems to me how the scence actually looked and which I was unable to capture with my disposable. Still I am pleased with both and particularly like the rays of sunlight filtering through the dust and the light glowing around the people. I need to work on my scanner resolution issues unfortunately. Sorry.
Photos and Art | By jackdas | 4:58 PM
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