Digital BW, The Print

At 08:35 AM 5/1/03 -0700, you wrote:
>On 5/1/03 10:02 AM, "Alan Zinn" <AZinn@...> wrote:
>
> > Many people are aware of
> > specific instances of falsity in magazine photos. There was a neat segment
> > on PhotoShopped images last night - 48hrs, CBS.
> >
> > I'd love to see a useful, short statement that addresses print v. original
> > film image honesty.  Something like:  "Un-altered camera image."
>
>I understand that changing image composition in Photoshop is a major problem
>if your are a photojournalist...but if you are an artist...what difference
>could that possibly make?  Art is about the final image and message that it
>conveys and it seems to me irrelevant how you created that image.  Many of
>my favorite "old" photographs by Man Ray were created with multiple
>exposures in the darkroom.  How is this different from merging images in
>Photoshop?  Perhaps this attitude is a holdover from photography as
>documentation, which I don't do...but I really resent the idea that someone
>who is masterful in Photoshop at composing an image is any less of an
>authentic artist than someone who manages to capture the image on a single
>negative...this just seems unnecessarily elitist and hopelessly conservative
>to me...but I was trained as an artist, not a photographer.
>
>If you are a photojournalist, forgive my diatribe...I think we all want to
>know that the news that we see and hear was true to what happened...but for
>art...at least I want to know that the art was true to what was imagined.
>
>Robert

Robert,

I am not suggesting that some sort of disclaimer attached to the picture is 
an ethical choice.  I want MY images to be understood to be the same as 
what the camera recorded, excepting the customary adjustments of tone, 
etc.  That is a substantial part of what they are about - the photographic 
idea, if you like.  I have no beef with what others do with their pictures 
- even journalists.  Journalism photos are illustrations and are no more or 
less credible to me than text.

AZ



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