[DoobieDuck]

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
https://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.

[DoobieDuck]

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.

[easy420dude]

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:

[easy420dude]

Love the hummingbirds.

[Anti]

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.

[DoobieDuck]

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

[GrinStick]

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

[Corpsey]

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.

[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