Looks like we are asking "What is a photograph?" again...

[BetterSense]

so, what are they not the same again ?
because one needs an electronic intermediary step to translate it to a physical object
and the other needs chemistry to do the same thing ?

Yes, that is about it. Very simple. Does the distinction matter? That is a completely different question.

[Darin Boville]

Thank you. I could not have asked for a better illustration of my point that society does not recognize that digital images represent a radical novelty and that digital imaging is not analogous to photography except that both can be a source of recognizable images. That you respond with an analogy is telling; analogies are destructive for understanding radical novelties, as the OP's article, and the fact that this photography/digital art confusion continues to drag on are evidence of this type of thought confusion.

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/t...xx/EWD924.html

So you link to an article on computer science, suggesting the situation is *analogous* to that in photography? Or are you suggesting that it is not an analogy but the exactly same situation in photography, and by extension, all other fields--that computers changed everything?

Note to mathematicians: don't follow the link.

In any event, Paulr has it exactly right (if I might paraphrase): Asking "what is a photograph?" is a perfectly legitimate question. It just isn't a particularly interesting question.

--Darin

[BetterSense]

So you link to an article on computer science, suggesting the situation is *analogous* to that in photography? Or are you suggesting that it is not an analogy but the exactly same situation in photography, and by extension, all other fields--that computers changed everything?

Well, both. But mostly the former, that in the same way society has not recognized the radical novelty of automatic computers and in fact call them by the same term once used for human calculators, it has not recognized the radical novelty of digital imaging and still thinks it's some advanced form of photography.

[Darin Boville]

Well, both. But mostly the former, that in the same way society has not recognized the radical novelty of automatic computers and in fact call them by the same term once used for human calculators, it has not recognized the radical novelty of digital imaging and still thinks it's some advanced form of photography.

Oh, I'm with you in general. But part of that reason is that the implications of the new technology are still largely just that. Only in the past ten years or so have computers, in terms of everyday lives, started to do things that weren't just really fast versions of what could be done before by hand. They (computers) are only now really integrating with our everyday lives--and we are only now starting to grabble with the sort of questions that result. What the future holds no one knows but it seems certain we are just at the beginning of something big, something radical.

Likewise with photography. Digital photography is now largely seen as simple as easier way to do photography. Easier to make and share. But more radical changes are coming, no doubt. Changes in out very conception of photography, deep down.

The only difference I perceive in our views is one of scale. Is all of this just the next step in a long evolution or is it really some weird, dichotomous break? Or maybe both--a sort of technological punctuated equilibrium?

--Darin

[Drew Wiley]

It's that very "integration" with our "daily lives" that I find so unappealing about the new digital era. I'd rather call it an "invasion" of our daily lives.

[Darin Boville]

It's that very "integration" with our "daily lives" that I find so unappealing about the new digital era. I'd rather call it an "invasion" of our daily lives.

If it is an invasion then the soldier's boots are still in the water, wading ashore. So much more to come...hope we can handle it!

--Darin

[Tin Can]

I agree, we have much to come technologically in every aspect of our lives, I am sure in just a few years, I am 63, I will be a sputtering old man cursing the tech gods to stop. Imaging will become something we may not even recognize. I contend imaging will invade our brains in both directions. The blind now see with digital cameras, hard wired to their bodies. More to come, news at 6.

Science will either save us or bury us. But the invasion stated a long time ago...

If it is an invasion then the soldier's boots are still in the water, wading ashore. So much more to come...hope we can handle it!

--Darin

[Maris Rusis]

Try this for an understanding of the identity of photography not so far explored in this thread:

Foundation Text: Photography

"Note on the use of Photography or the application
of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of
pictorial representation,"


A facsimile fragment of the original manuscript in which the word "Photography" was first written down by the first man to say it:
Sir John Frederick William Herschel.

The venue was a meeting of the Royal Society at Somerset House in London on Thursday 14 March, 1839. Such meetings were a great social occasion where the glitterati of the day could meet famous figures of science and industry. The best part was a lavish banquet set for approximately 8.30 pm but before that lectures and presentations were on the agenda. The last presentation before the feast was by Sir John Herschel in which he presented the neologism “Photography” and displayed twenty three examples of photographs. It is not recorded how many of the attendees waiting for their dinner realised that they had heard "Photography" for the first time.

Subsequently it has not been recorded how many scholars have forgotten that a well formed neologism cannot, even in principle, be wrong or become wrong through the passage of time.

The only true photographs are made from light sensitive materials.

[Drew Wiley]

I dunno. I thought a camera and a telephone were two different things also. I'd sure like to have a "mute" button for a lot of photographs taken nowadays. But they can just erase them with a touch of a button. At least my pictures will have to be either burned or dumped. Guess that gives them tangible value.

[Darin Boville]

Try this for an understanding of the identity of photography not so far explored in this thread:

Foundation Text: Photography

"Note on the use of Photography or the application
of the Chemical rays of light to the purpose of
pictorial representation,"

[/B]

I apply the chemical rays of light for the purposes of pictorial representation every time I make an image with my digital camera. What do you do with yours?

--Darin