Does “Photographic Realism” really exist?

[John Kasaian]

In court they call it evidence.

[Laron]

No.

[Sevo]

Would a physical reaction to a 3D image, or more likely a 3D video clip, constitute photographic realism in your mind? E.g. you duck when the spear appears to come at you.

As has been exploited over and over, stuff like that works perfectly well with very unreal animations - throw something as real as the tail of a pink talking dinosaur at the audience, and it will duck!

Indeed, the key point about the success of the first 3d ego shooters was that our perception has a very low threshold for what it accepts as reality when facing danger situations - stop the permanent assault and the seemingly so immersive Doom 2 scenery collapses into crude 16x16 pixel sprites.

[Leigh]

In the world of photography, "photographic realism" exists by definition. The process defines the term.

You point the camera at a subject and trip the shutter.
You have an image that accurately portrays the subject at the moment, assuming you didn't screw up.

When the PR term is applied in other arts, such as painting or sculpture,
the idea is to portray the subject as realistically as a photograph could.

So in our world, PR exists by definition.

- Leigh

[Jay DeFehr]

In the world of photography, "photographic realism" exists by definition. The process defines the term.

You point the camera at a subject and trip the shutter.
You have an image that accurately portrays the subject at the moment, assuming you didn't screw up.

- Leigh

Or decide to deviate from an "accurate" portrayal. Your characterization ignores the alternatives to a sharp, un-distorted, "straight" photo, by the myriad photographic techniques used to depart from a literal interpretation of what is before the lens. Just as there is photo realism, there must also be photo abstraction, impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, etc., etc.

[Brian Ellis]

I've always liked this statement from John Szarkowski:

"The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy."

Since a thousand (at least, I'd say a million is closer to literal accuracy) different photographs of the same subject could have been made, which one would have been realistic? Or would more than one have been realistic and if so, which ones? Or would all of them have been realistic? Or would none of them have been realistic?

[Heroique]

You point the camera at a subject and trip the shutter. You have an image that accurately portrays the subject at the moment, assuming you didn't screw up.

Am I being too mischievous if I ask: at which “moment”?

For example, if I used 1/2 second, which of the “moments” inside this time lapse “accurately portrays the subject”? Which moment is most realistic? Was it the 1/30th near the middle of my exposure, or the 1/8th toward the end?

Can the photographer do no better than superimpose several realistic portrayals on any piece of film? Do quicker shutter speeds ensure greater photographic realism?

[E. von Hoegh]

"photographic realism" is one of those terms that, when it is applied to photographs, makes me want to kick puppies.

[jb7]

Of course Photo Realism exists-

However, the term 'photo realistic' caught my attention around the time when ray tracing made it possible to render computer generated models in a photographic way. Whenever I see the term, I assume I'm looking at something artificial...

[Dan Henderson]

To my admittedly simple mind, "photo realism" means that the photographer used all of his or her skills and abilities to make a photograph of a scene that resembles the scene as accurately as possible within the limitations of using a two dimensional process to represent a three dimensional scene.

So, my simple definition excludes black and white photography, photoshop or Velvia-enhanced colors, shallow depth of field, and probably a number of other tools that photographers use to alter the "reality" of a scene.