Photo Manipulation..is it Art?

I've had many a day where I questioned myself and the artistic validity of my photography. Most of my career, 35 years behind the lens, photography wasn’t considered an art form. Anybody could take a picture, the masters were just then being noticed. It's now gaining more and more respect as an art medium among the institutions , the galleries, and the art critics. A medium in which, when in the right hands, art is actually created. I saw 5 or so old Buicks standing vertical on their hoods in the desert and still haven't made up my mind on that being art! It certainly was created!

An image can be captured using various personal techniques, be somewhat molded, shaped, all from a visualized idea with in the artists mind. I have always used lighting, camera angles, various lenses, and other set-ups to create my art, staying away from the new digital manipulation software. I do use color correction and other basic software tools but seldom do I add or take anything away from my images. I might smug out a mite web once in a while when an image is just to precious to delete.

I’ve read tons of opinions on this subject. I always considered my image as art, because I created it, and if I did ever manipulate it with software I would never consider that cheating or un-ethical. I would never use someone else’s images to create something and call it my art…that’s a whole different story-I don’t believe in that.

I created the image below a year ago from one of my images. It had unique lighting, a slow shutter gave it a soft effect, and the grasses were blowing in the wind so they were blurred somewhat before editing. I then filtered it in Adobe Photoshop and rendered a brush effect. Then I printed it as an 8x10 on canvas..my wifey loves it.
Well there are a lot of new programs out there and I’m self-shopping for Christmas. I want to do more of this type work, it is fun. But also marketable, the cannabis images are quite unique when manipulated.
While Googling today I found a review on the ethics of this that made more sense than any I’ve read before, I’d like to share that link with you. I encourage you read it, think it will be helpful for those wavering, as I've been, on this topic.

This is Catching the Light, The Ethics of Digital Manipulation by Jerry Lodriguss
http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/ETHICS.HTM



for comparison I'm providing the original un-edited file:

As someone who works with vintage imagery on a daily basis, yes...it's a form of art.

Rabbi thanks for your comment. I do consider photography as art, I hope I didn't mis-lead you. I've always considered it an art form, and I consider my manipulation an art form as well. DD.

IMO it most certainly is art. In every age artists have taken full advantage of the technology available to them. Leonardo used the camera obscura. Pantographs have been used for centuries. In considering this question I have asked myself if Michaelangelo had Photoshop and a digital camera would he have used the shit out of them? I'm pretty sure the answer is a big fat YES!

Here's one of mine:

P.S.

P.S.

Love the hummingbirds.

Farting can be art if the intent of the farter is to evoke an emotional or intellectual response from the public.




Dictionary.com says: the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

So even your original hummingbird picture is art, because it is a tiny slice of a real-world beauty that most people never would see from that same perspective in their normal lives.

Easy many thanks for your contribution..Love um all. Edit: Anti thank you for your comment..got a giggle out of me..the first part of it!
Here is a side by side of Jolly Bud..one un-touched and the other an ink out line effect. Cannabis is tough..you must first have the right recognisable image with the right lighting to get something special, this one aint to special but I hurried it to post in the thread.. DD

please tell how in the world did you capture the image of the hummingbird between wingbeats with a 'slow shutter' speed? just curious, because it is very good and it is of course artistic.
these aren't the first examples of art you have posted on this site, but they are righteous!

grin

thats crazy you posted that link.
just last week i started looking into getting a telescope to hook it up to the DSLR so i can take geeky galaxy pictures. When i checked out their forums i saw that they had contest for photographing certain galaxies, well i thought how different could they really look taking a picture of the same thing? i know that not everyone has the same equipment but still.
People do use photoshop and the like to change colors and i thought hey well thats not the same. but as i look at more and more of them, the more i like those even better.

i'll never know if you are seeing the same colors as i am. i can think i know, but i will never.

taking pictures of things is already manipulating what we see with our eyes, the photons that we see in front of us never really appear the same in photos . leave the shutter open for 1/1000 of a second and it is different then it was as 1/500 a sec.

so any other manipulation to your image is still part of the picture taking process, some people just click a digital and thats all. some edit it further, cropping, changing light values and contrast. then when you think about older photography methods of using a silver plate, their technique is just more manipulating images with tools.

so i believe it all to be art. even just a banal picture of a white wall. it might not be great art. but with the right intentions it is art. its all at how we choose to look at it.

btw, i think your pictures of birds and cannabis are definitely art.
Im sure in 100 years some scholars will be citing the great works of
sir doobieduck.

Grin may I say I knew someone would call me on that. The bird was hovering in one spot, not jetting around. If you look closely his eye, tail etc. those are much sharper than the wings, they are in fact blurred from the motion. By slow shutter I mean a 200th in this case-I usually shoot them at 1000 or faster. YourCorpse I am color blind somewhat..funny you should bring that up! I barely pass my drivers test. I have to ask the wifey often about colors. I'm positive you guys are not seeing what I am....cheers..DD

haha, see! i told you.

i'm very interested in how we perceive reality, and try to look at as many angles as i can when viewing the world. one of the only things i look forward to with getting older is maybe my vision will be effected in a positive manner. i use to day dream about seeing like Monet in his older years, those paintings are so moving.
here is a lil paragraph about it...

In 1923, he underwent two operations to remove his cataracts: the paintings done while the cataracts affected his vision have a general reddish tone, which is characteristic of the vision of cataract victims. It may also be that after surgery he was able to see certain ultraviolet wavelengths of light that are normally excluded by the lens of the eye, this may have had an effect on the colors he perceived. After his operations, he even repainted some of these paintings, with bluer water lilies than before the operation.

Click to expand...

now if he was editing photos with software that would of been very interesting. maybe i should look for photographers with cataracts? hah.

YC thanks again, Anti I'm a thinker in my old age. I sit and ponder things for hours and your definition of art made me wonder if I mis-represented what I was trying to get across. I believe when it comes to digital image manipulation I consider it art as long as the artist is using images he created..but am I an artist? Of course with-in the context of the definition you offered the Buicks are art, but is he an artist because he created it?
Dictionary.com definition of artist:
"art·ist  –noun
1. a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.
2. a person who practices one of the fine arts, esp. a painter or sculptor.
3. a person whose trade or profession requires a knowledge of design, drawing, painting, etc.: a commercial artist.
4. a person who works in one of the performing arts, as an actor, musician, or singer; a public performer: a mime artist; an artist of the dance.
5. a person whose work exhibits exceptional skill.
6. a person who is expert at trickery or deceit: He's an artist with cards.
7. Obsolete . an artisan. "

I consider myself an artist when manipulating my images because I created the original image. I then use software tools to further express my vision. The person that stood the cars on end did not manufacture or create the cars, but he used a tool-the backhoe-to express his vision.

I used to do art shows along side a guy I considered very talented. He would cut out headlines, story headers, and images from old magazines and newspapers. He then would put together collages of them, oprganize them in unque ways. Then layer it with several coats of laquer and frame it. He out-sold me at many a show, it drove me crazy! I thought highly of him as talented individual..but never could bring myself to call him an artist. He was taking something someone else created to create his work. I think it is how each person looks at it-a grey area-not defined for sure. Discussed in the link I provided. DD

Found objects have been used in sculpture and painting (fine art) and functional art (craft art) for most of the 20th century to present day. How about the toilet that Duchamp used in 1917? The Buick's are completely valid as sculpture, they serve no functional purpose and they make you think.

Your manipulation of your photography is valid weather it is digital or any other technique.

Love your ART..........SDD

Supa you bring up a good point, thanks for that. To better clarify the thing that bothers me the most. A lot of great works of art, paintings etc, are now public domain. They can be used by anyone. Their respective creators have passed away or the copyrights have expired on them. I see peeps simply tweeking one of these great creations with a software program, then after one click of the mouse, they then call it "their art". I realise there is some creative process going on but so very little experience is needed for this type of work I can't catagorize them as artists, nor see any talent in doing this type of manipulation....I don't think there is much talent in doing my manipulations..most of the talent was in the creation of the original image. Now if they reveal the piece was done in this way, give credit to the original creator, that softens my attitude somewhat..smiles..DD

As long as your not misrepresenting the pictures as being original or not edited than I see no problem with it and is indeed a form of artistic expression.

Doobieduck said:

Supa you bring up a good point, thanks for that. To better clarify the thing that bothers me the most. A lot of great works of art, paintings etc, are now public domain. They can be used by anyone. Their respective creators have passed away or the copyrights have expired on them. I see peeps simply tweeking one of these great creations with a software program, then after one click of the mouse, they then call it "their art". I realise there is some creative process going on but so very little experience is needed for this type of work I can't catagorize them as artists, nor see any talent in doing this type of manipulation....I don't think there is much talent in doing my manipulations..most of the talent was in the creation of the original image. Now if they reveal the piece was done in this way, give credit to the original creator, that softens my attitude somewhat..smiles..DD

Click to expand...

Doobie, I agree in principle with you...but I disagree because of possibilities of application--
If you take a Photo that somebody else did, and simply try to make it different, while still using the image as a whole...then yes, that person should be credited--
But say you see a picture of an eagle grabbing a snake in the desert...and you decide that a certain cactus and rock from that image would fit into something you were doing using partials of multiple images...then IMO, you are not stealing somebodies work, since their focus of their art, was on the eagle and the snake--
Much like a DJ-- A bad DJ sounds like they are just playing other ppls songs...and that is not "Art"--
But a good DJ, will take many parts and sounds, from many songs...blend them together, creating their own art-form--
So I guess that was the long way of me saying Yes...I do think Photo Manipulation is Art!! lol
Great Thread bro!!

KMK thank you for your take on the issue...and I agree with you, especially the part of removing certain objects from an original then blending them to create your own work, but I then contradict myself from what I stated earlier about the collages guy...isn't that what he is doing Doobie?

I pondered a bit more last evening and came up with, if the public looks upon your work as art they then may consider you an artist-regardless of what the parameters are or critics say. An example I used when a image artists website turned down my work "Capitol Records turned Garth Brooks down once..they didn't recognize how great an artist he could become."

Better examples for alll of you following this thread, and thank you for doing so. This is my one-click art. The original I shot on a photo trip to Northern Ca. It is almost a sepia tone though a color image. My perspective and knowledge of photography helped me choose the place to shoot from, the camera angles, lenses, exposure etc. I then used new software I just purchased last night for this thread to edit it.

With ONE-CLICK of my mouse I created the other image, a work of art? Is it art if someone else, with no experiance as a photographer, or PC savey, buys a computer, buys the software, uses my image, and then on his first day creates this and calls it his art?

Certainly changed drastically from the original a copyright attourney might argue!

Ethics certainly plays a huge part in the equation and I'm not sure I can wrap my head around that yet. DD

I never understood why some people don't see photography (and photo editing, etc) as art. I know a lot of art school types and most of them have this mindset...

IMO A good picture can have the same emotional effect on someone as as painting or sculpture. Does photography take as much skill as other artforms? That's up for debate... but it's definitely art....

It's all about being innovative... Are you making a work all your own just by adding a rock? No way. Now if you're adding and changing things to a large degree, I'd think the work would absolutely take a new direction and change enough to stand on it's own two legs. A buddy of mine does work with huge collages, I see photo manipulation as a digital extension of that...

Love the thread, lets keep it rocking! I have a hard time with this as well DD. I like to take photos, and have been serious for maybe a year now. I also do freehand drawing though, which IMO is much more time consuming, but I believe anyone can do it. I just don't see how I could go from drawing stick figures to doing what I do now within a year(Cant really show any of my work but its pretty decent) and call myself an artist. I know a lot of people say they cant draw for shit, but have they really put 10+ hours into a single drawing? I think with that much time, and some experience(a class or two on drawing) anyone should be able to come up with some nice piece of work. For me, a knowledge of values and lighting was all I needed to understand how to visually stimulate a viewer and give some dimension to my art.

I dont feel like I can call myself an artist until I have serious experience, maybe 5 years. There are too many people doing the one click edits you speak of to give them real credibility IMO. Once some time and thought has gone into the work I think that can help, but still years of experience in the world of art makes me think of someone as an artist.


Its really hard subject to debate I suppose. I just watched a movie last night called "Exit through the gift shop" and WOW did that change my opinion of an artist to some degree. Seriously a great film, and leaves you with some very heavy questions.

Until I have a dedicated website, have sold a good amount of pieces, and am "known" somewhat even if just in my town, I won't consider my work of Artistic caliber.

But is it art?

But is it art?

This is a very old argument that goes back to the first time a caveman said, "That's not what a woolly mammoth looks like."

The argument raged when photography was first invented. It took many years for it to become widely accepted s an art form in its own right.

Then there was collage. Is it or isn't it art? Does it matter that each photographic image in a collage was taken by the collage artist or not? Collage is now and has for quite a long time been considered legitimate art - and the individual photos being 'found art' is now widely accepted.

In the digital age with artists having access to millions of images on the net, is it or isn't it art for digital artists to use 'found images' to create digital collages? I think it will one day be commonly accepted as legitimate with perhaps a few caveats. For example, has the artist utilized the found images in a creative fashion to make an image that stands on its own? Or has he/she simply leaned on the greatness of others? These are very subjective questions and might well be answered differently by different people.

As for the ethics of it, I think it has to do with whether or not the artist is up front about what he/she has done. I sometimes use the terms of art, 'after Van Gogh' for example if leaning a bit heavily on prior work by another artist. This as opposed to trying to pass off another's work as my own. I gauge this based on how much I have changed the image and so on. For legal purposes I confine my use of prior images or found images to non-copy right protected work.

Finally, whether or not something is art depends on the emotional/intellectual impact it makes on the viewer and whether or not there is original thinking that goes into it. And I believe digital photo manipulation will be one day as widely accepted as legitimate art as photography is today.