Ending Film camera sales + print fading challenge

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

So what are the defintions of a photograph now that you have the dictionary open.

So, Struan, you are saying a pinhole is a lens? I certainly hope you are not even with the "for all practical purposes" qualifier. Besides, physics has advanced just a tad since Bell.

[paulr]

"LOL..there is not such thing as "culturally based" definitions"

Jorge, if you studied any philosophy, linguistics, art history, or cultural studies, you would not likely have uttered such a thing. I'm sure if you think about it, you can find examples of many words which have different meanings in different contexts and among different cultural groups. Here's one from your discipline: Organic. Does this word mean the same thing to a chemist, a farmer, and an art historian? Is one right and the others wrong? Or are the differences due different definitions, often practical, all defined by common usage, within different cultural or professional groups?

"This is why curators use the term photograph for ink jet prints, they lack understanding of the terms and I guess to them the "culturally" based definition is just fine."

So is your overriding thesis that you are smarter/know better than all the curators and historians?

That would at least answer my earlier question. According to you, I should take my guidance from you, and not Peter Galassi. It would be an interesting change of realities, that's for sure.

[paulr]

"So, Struan, you are saying a pinhole is a lens?"

You're still dwelling on an irrelevent footnote. If a pinhole conflicts with the idea of "lens based image" for you, then the broader definition of "optically derived image" might serve better. These are both working definitions I've seen proposed by curators.

[paulr]

If anyone is actually interested in the ways curators tend to look at the question "what is photography" (and to be interested does not mean to agree, lest you think this is a trap) here's an interesting perspective.

I've heard more than a couple of curators approach the question not with a firm definition, but with another question: "What is photographic?" This question is not about technical means of any kind. It's about the fundamental nature of an image. And about our perception of it. An image tends to strike us as photographic for varying reasons, but it tends to happen when the image was derived in some direct, optical fashion from a real scene or object. And typically from a particular place and a particular time. There tends to be a lot of gray area, but after a certain amount of hand manipulation, an image tends seem less photographic. This line of questioning would support a photogram as photographic. Moving images and three dimensional images seem less photographic. Again, this is not anyone's attempt at a hard definition ... just a clue about how some people are confronting the issue. It's hardly a scientific approach.

[Paddy Quinn]

So what are the defintions of a photograph...

photograph (n) : a picture of a person or scene in the form of a print or transparent slide; recorded by a camera on light-sensitive material (v) 1: record on photographic film; "I photographed the scene of the accident"; "She snapped a photo of the President" [syn: photo, snap, shoot] 2: undergo being photographed in a certain way; "Children photograph well"

[tim atherton]

If you read carefully what he said I don't think Struan was making reference to pinholes but rather making two seperate points:

1. In terms of physics, there is very little difference between the way sensitized silver halide crystals in film and semiconductor crystals in a chip capture light - both clearly meet the definition of capturing the "photo" part of photographs. Which I'm sure you understand

2. In certain areas of science the phrase "for all practical purposes" does indeed cut it

the comment was about the phrase itself, not about the particular point it was being used to make (ie pinholes as lenses or not)

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Irrelevant? Just because you are wrong I guess is irrelevant huh?

I dont want you to take my guidance, but OTOH as to the answer to your question, how do you know I am not smarter? In any case this once again falls in the idea that language is motile when it suits you. Of course, I guess we should take your guidance and accept a pinhole is a lens over that of all the optics physicists that say it is not...right?

How come language changes when it suits you but then it does not when it does not suit you? As to your language idea of different meanings, it is precisely because written and spoken language is so vague that one would want to use the most accurate and precise terms to describe something. As I said, a pinhole is not a lens, no matter how much you wish it to be.

I bet that these curators and historians you are so proud about never stopped to think the consequences of their imprecise and inaccurate language. It is easy to say the piece of paper with ink on is a photograph just because it has an image on it. By this definition if I grab a piece of blank paper and draw a stick figure with an ink pen, then it is a photograph as well. This exactly once again is the problem even if you refuse to see it. Inaccurate and imprecise use of language. Am I smarter?, I dont know, I do know there are smarter people than me but you are not one of them, I am sure of that.

[tim atherton]

"I've heard more than a couple of curators approach the question not with a firm definition, but with another question: "What is photographic?" This question is not about technical means of any kind. It's about the fundamental nature of an image. And about our perception of it. An image tends to strike us as photographic for varying reasons, but it tends to happen when the image was derived in some direct, optical fashion from a real scene or object. And typically from a particular place and a particular time. There tends to be a lot of gray area, but after a certain amount of hand manipulation, an image tends seem less photographic. This line of questioning would support a photogram as photographic. Moving images and three dimensional images seem less photographic. Again, this is not anyone's attempt at a hard definition ... just a clue about how some people are confronting the issue. It's hardly a scientific approach."

which was in part what I was getting at with my post above:

"Another way of putting it is that the semiotics and the phenomenological nature of photography is very distinct... etc"

More simply put, the way a photograph "works" or functions is quite distinct and is significantly different from the way other forms of visual representation work - such as cinema/film, painting or drawing (to name a few).

In this sense, a silver gelatin photographic print, a photograph in a newspaper or book, an inkjet print from a digital camera and some photograms (for example) all work in broadly the same way - they are all photographic and viewers respond to and process them in very particular ways as photographs.

But start to move beyond that and they don't work in the same way nor is the response to them the same; Motion: cinema would seem to have many close similarities - a camera with a lens and appearances recorded on film - yet the way moving pictures work is very different from photographs, as is the way a viewer processes the information from films. Manipulation: again, photo-montages have moved far enough beyond how a photograph works to start becoming something else. 3D: Holograms - very few people would consider a hologram to be a photograph, yet it has many similarities with the way a photograph is made - but again it seems to have beyond or outside that distinctive way a photograph works - to most people a hologram is a hologram (with a very distinctive name invented for it which still holds) and not a photograph, not even a "3d photograph". Photograms: this is a type of imagery that is right in the grey area between is it or isn't it. Does it function photographically or doesn't it?

The way in which something is photographic - the way it works and functions a=is at least as important as trying to define how it was (or should be) made.

[tim atherton]

"It is easy to say the piece of paper with ink on is a photograph
just because it has an image on it. By this definition if I grab a piece
of blank paper and draw a stick figure with an ink pen, then it is a
photograph as well. "

No, it just demonstrates a failure to understand the distinctive nature of drawing and photography beyond defining the medium by the mechanics

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

No, it just demonstrates a failure to understand the distinctive nature of drawing and photography beyond defining the medium by the mechanics

No, it demonstrates the fallacy you and paul are trying to perpetuate that definitions are ever changing to be used to suit you. The purpose of definitions is to make things clearer, not to make them more vague. To announce that a pinhole is a lens just because it has a behavior that is similar to a lens is wrong. I know you dont like to read this, but there it is.

Now I will give you the perfect example of how silly trying to use these ever changing definitions is.

My eye (the lens, which they are in fact and not" for all practical purposes") project an image into my retinas (the film) this image is in turn processed by my brain (the computer) and the image is then reproduced on a piece of paper by my hand holding an ink pen (the printer). I have just made a photograph! according to the very loose definitions you and pauly are trying to make us adopt. It should not matter that this was a process carried out by an organic machine, in the end the result and the way it was captured is just like an ink jet print.

So now you want me to adhere to the definitions of drawing? what happened, isnt the language ever changing? Lets call all a photograph, paintings, sculptures, etc, etc, they are all processed by a computer, projected by a lens and captured by a film......

You see the problem with trying to adopt loose definitions to fit your needs?