Discussion - scan of ???

[Steven Ruttenberg]

In the end, does it really matter whether or not it is digital or analog? Obviously, to see it on line, it is a digital representation of a print/negative. Does it really matter if it is a digital image of something that was captured on a 4x5 sheet of film, that was developed in chemicals, dried and then either exposed on paper using the various techniques available or scanned into a computer and brought to life that way? I do not believe so. Imaging the artists in the 1700's when people first started to monkey around with cameras, first by projecting onto a wall or something and tracing out the image, then by exposing a chemically treated piece of glass or other medium and suddenly having a realistic looking image appear with practically little skill (aside from being a chemist at the time) One who could not paint or draw suddenly could create images, imagine the horror to the Rembrandts and Picassos at the time and for quite sometime afterwards. I can imagine this same discussion taking place then as now only the terminology and reference points would be different.

When we look at a book of a photographers images or of an artists, they are all "not true" to the original if you will, they were copies and sometimes copies of copies, like cloning. When we print a picture from film, cool, when we scan it in and present it cool, when we print what we scanned cool, even if manipulated, which allows the artist/photographer to better realize his/her minds vision. What do we say about an image we scan in, correct/manipulate then create a digital negative, then create a print from that negative? Is it fake? No, it is a fact of the times.

I love film and everything about it, but that doesn't mean I have to be beholden to it as the final solution.

In the end, it doesn't really matter if we label the images here or not, but most seem to tell how the image was created and it is obvious it was photographed/scanned in at some point. So long as your monitor is calibrated you should see what the person intended to you to see.

Well, I wish film/paper had undue button, that would be cool.

And at least it isn't Pentacostal religion, would make for some pretty interesting photo sessions and developing/printing sessions.

[Maris Rusis]

In the end, does it really matter whether or not it is digital or analog?.....

One could say it only matters when it matters. Photography in its original meaning describes a process that is unique in the way it connects subject matter with a picture of that subject matter. There is a philosophical and somewhat abstract way of considering this.

To invoke a familiar quotation:"The authority of a photograph to describe subject matter comes not from resemblance but from direct physical causation." If, and it is a very big IF, that is the quality one insists on in a picture then only photography will deliver it. One reason to prefer a picture made by "direct physical causation" is that such a picture offers a very high level of descriptive credibility compared with the alternatives. Curiously, there are actually a few other methods of depiction that depend on direct physical causation. These include death masks, life casts, brass rubbings, wax impressions, coal peels, even footprints in soft earth. Again, like with photography, none of these depictions can exist without the subject matter existing too.

At a fundamental level all other depictions depend on a description of a picture being made visible. A description may be in the form of words, electronic bubbles in a computer memory, neural connections in a artist's brain, and so on. And the "make visible" part can be done by a monitor screen, ink-jet printer, artist's hand wielding brush or pencil, and so on. An accurate description of subject matter actualised via a good picture making device can produce very high levels of resemblance. A poor description makes for poor resemblance and a fictional description will generate a fictional picture.

Modern technology offers a richness and variety in picture-making techniques that has never been available before. I guess one chooses according to one's priorities.

[gnuyork]

If we in the LF group are going to display images as photographs then I would hope the electronic version of that image would be from the final product output and not an intermediate step, unless noted.

Wow. That's a big IF.

Are you assuming that the end game for us all is a hand made darkroom print? Just curious how you think final product outputs are posted here online? And how that's different from an "intermediate step?"