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this journal 
in fact, i'm not all that comfortable being called an artist.
sure ... there's art in a farrier who sculpts horse shoes perfect for a horse's hoof, there's art in the gift of the gab, there's art in "the deal" as mr. trump would have you believe ... there's art in everything where talent is concerned.
am i an artist, though?
art to me has always been where an artist fills in a blank canvas or sculpts a block of some shit ... but ...
i'm not sure if photography is art.
is there art in the way a photograph is conceived? i mean, yeah, in the same way a talented farrier makes a horse shoe.
i think there is art in the way a photographer decides his/her elemental composition ... their dof ... their exposure for this element or that element ...
but ... do i think it's art?
i think it's a photograph.
made by the process of photography:
pho·tog·ra·phy (fə-tŏg'rə-fē) pronunciation
n.
1. The art or process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces.
2. The art, practice, or occupation of taking and printing photographs.
3. A body of photographs.
the process of producing a photograph:
pho·to·graph (fō'tə-grăf') pronunciation
n.
An image, especially a positive print, recorded by a camera and reproduced on a photosensitive surface.
made by a "photographer" ...
Pho·tog·ra·pher
n.
One who practices, or is skilled in, photography.
to define i checked a few "dictionary sites" and ended up using the definitions at answers.com.
i remember assisting on a shoot with michael going in los angeles. he had sx-70's ... would shoot like two frames and then disappear to do whatever he did to the photographs. he rarely let even the client see. those would then be copied by a lab so that they were 4x5's. i was generally assisting automobile and motorcycle advert shooters. this seemed odd to me. but ... whatever. interesting experience.
i assisted another guy who yelled at subjects to scare the fuck out of 'em.
again, odd.
especially when one looked at the publicist's grimace.
odd ... but i laughed.
my assisting in the genre of which i assisted 90% was because the photographer and i were friends ... it wasn't because i liked the genre. there was no way i'd be waking at 03.00 to stalk out first light and set up more shit than is good for any one or two humans to set up. it wasn't because i wanted to strategically place duvateen or windex street signs. i got very good at detailing motorcycles. i hope to never use a gyro and hang my ass out of a shoot van whilst exposing velvia at a 15th of second.
as much as i like to watch what magic hour can do for a car or a bike ... i'd rather just watch now.
photography to me was defined by what i saw produced by hcb, d'orazio, testino, newton, comte ... photographers.
death cheated me out of a shoot with newton.
if one can get through the ego of comte ... he's pretty cool ... and i know that he said he preferred making the photograph in-camera. nailing the exposure and composition.
i don't speak french so my conversation with demarchelier was brief.
i couldn't understand testino.
perhaps because i'd been drinking.
dunno.
i come from the film world -- yes, i fucking know you can do all sorts of shit to distort reality with film -- and film photographers shaped what i think a photograph should be.
yes, i know you can make a nice drum scan of a neg or chrome and do everything to it in post which you can do with a nice raw.
it almost seems to me that a line has to be drawn between photographers and visual artists.
because a visual artist -- like a painter and his/her canvas and a sculpter and his/her clay or blank medium -- sculpts their graphic canvas in whatever photographic enhancing, editing, manipulating program they choose.
a photographer may "balance" the elements due to inconsistencies in film stock, developing chemicals ... but never manipulate ...
i love the deviant who posted the definition of manipulate...
ma·nip·u·late (mə-nĭp'yə-lāt') pronunciation
tr.v., -lat·ed, -lat·ing, -lates.
1. To move, arrange, operate, or control by the hands or by mechanical means, especially in a skillful manner: She manipulated the lights to get just the effect she wanted.
2. To influence or manage shrewdly or deviously: He manipulated public opinion in his favor.
3. To tamper with or falsify for personal gain: tried to manipulate stock prices.
4. Medicine. To handle and move in an examination or for therapeutic purposes: manipulate a joint; manipulate the position of a fetus during delivery.
don't know where they got it but it's pretty much the same. and thank God ... doctors manipulate fetuses.
for me ... photography is not about the manipulation of an image after it's made -- definitely not in the way walski did it or that reuters stringer asshole. i think a photograph can be balanced such that the equipment (e.g., lens, film, developing, scanner, etc.) can be brought forth which was seen in the photographer's mind before he/she made the photograph.
if the photograph was -3 stops underexposed or colour temperature was whacked to hell ... and this photograph was ... intensely "manipulated" to look like the photographer knew what they were doing ... is lying to their viewer.
i know ... i'm a purist.
i think hdr sucks.
whatever ... i'm entitled to my opinion.
i'm entitled to my definitions.
so are you.
but i didn't read too many definitions by other deviants which really proved their point.
i don't deign to be a visual artist through manipulation of a graphic canvas like the retoucher i highlighted in the last journal.
i strive to continually practice defining my photographic style by seeing and then recording with whatever camera is closest -- although i always hope that's a rangefinder. i know what i know about photoshop -- another reason i'm doing dual edits on aperture as an experiment -- and reallly don't need to know much more.
i'm happy with giving my printer instructions and looking at proofs and giving them notes.
i don't give my printer notes with 25 areas which need "enhancement" or "balancing" ... just a few.
because i love the little flaws of photography.
flaws are beautiful.
someone said "reality is boring" which is why he/she manipulates -- or something like that.
honestly, reality is far from boring.
and my current reality requires me to get ready for my day.
my day with j.
and then a few days with j and b.
sorry, c.
this hotel doesn't like chihuahuas!
hope you all have a great weekend if you celebrate easter ... i hope it's all you imagined.
cheers all!
p.s., it's still overcast dammit.
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NEWS - LOVE this story.
VERY GOOD NEWS for photographers who make photographs of people in public places!
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MY ARTICLES -
can something provoke aesthetic emotions? then it can be art. Clive Bell once wrote that only "significant form" can distinguish art from what is not art.
Also, and this sounds really cheesy, with the whole artist thing... Well, I believe that you don't choose art. Art chooses you.
You can't define it but you know it when you see it!
Cause you're one helluva photographer.
But that particular photo of your daughter, is definitely art. You just have that sense of love when looking at that image. It goes deeper than it being a portrait. And maybe subconsciously, that particular shot, that particular moment, you were an artist.
Is it art? Don't really know, don't really care to be honest. But that is a more general question not confined in the photography space alone. Art in greek originally meant skill, knowledge. So if you are a skilled photographer, maybe you know the art of photography!
On the photomanip side, to be honest, in the same context that I don't care to be called an artist or to say that I possess the art of photography (which I clearly don't) and also in the context that I do this for my personnal fun and not professionally, I don't mind if I have used a -1 exposure and then applied a bit of contrast.
I do mind though when people start removing objects from the photo, making models look perfect (I think there is nothing worse than a perfect looking person), applying gradient tones and the rest. Stick to reality - it is pretty pretty exciting and much more exciting than anything in perfect-crafted form.
Someone could argue that a lot of things called manips could be done in the darkroom too. The vast difference I see in that, is that the darkroom processing (at least with my current knowledge and skills) is quite similar to taking another photograph.... so it is photography again.... writing with light!
The staff are probably scared of them- little dogs with ATTITUDE.
That's alright for me though, i've got a pekingnese poochie =]
Very interesting read in this journal!
photographer or manipulator? Myself, definitely leaning towards manipulator.
Hard to say where manipulation stops and starts I suppose.. Film for example, cross processing, black and white.. Maybe how I imagine the world, but not really how I see it in the day to day scheme of things.
Thanks for the DD