the question of the last 110 years

[Mark Sawyer]

It makes me think of the old saying about an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters (update that to word processors) would eventually create a Shakespeare play.

If you believe in evolution, a finite number of monkeys have already created Shakespeare and all other literature, art, music, medicine, science, and technology.

Also, the Zone System. Don't forget the Zone System.

[jnantz]

It's always the snobs who accuse other people of being snobs.

no one has accused anyone of being a snob .. I am interested in getting a general consensus from the idk 10-15 people who regularly post here, a website dedicated to olde-tyme photography with a traditional nineteenth century camera, what a photographer (not a photograph) is in 2023. Before dry plates and roll film and consumer cameras and processing became mainstream the making of the materials or at least some of the materials was part of (the act of) being a photographer. by the 1880s film, plates and photo paper were being commercially made and distributed. One could be a "tween" in 1913 and just randomly push a button on one's rich uncle's camera and make an iconic image that people continue to try to replicate. No skill, no obsession no craft was involved but at least a print (and negative image) was created... fast forward 110 years, 1billion images a day are made, .. nothing tangible involved - no print, no negative - people are obsessed I guess, I mean who doesn't know a 20something with 20,000 self portraits on their phones. and now no camera of any sort, and no exposures are needed for someone to be a photographer. I can see "artist" because we all know the author has been dead for decades but photographer? I didn't realize the photographer was dead too.

so far it's about obsessing about making photographs all the time;
it has to do with craft (I have no clue what this word means in conjunction with photography and the person who posted it never defined it);
the act of pushing the button on the camera;
making (?) a print;
and ... the photographer being completely removed from the act of photography except for a description entered in a computer.

I wonder if the people at MW Dictionary will revise the definition of photographer anytime soon because it uses "photography" in the definition, and sometimes the act of photography isn't even involved.

[Tin Can]

photon drawing

expansive inclusive definition

[jnantz]

photon drawing

expansive inclusive definition

TC

I'm not asking what a photograph is but what a photographer is ...
Maris' example was made through a computer AI program that compiled a beautiful seamless photographic collage from pre-existing images. Is the person who entered the descriptors in the program's fields a photographer? is the programmer the photographer? If so, if I cut images I didn't make out of a magazine and compile the collage I made, and it looks photographic am I a photographer ? I had more involvement as the person who made the AI image, and instead of 1billion images to feather together it's just what I found in the Weekly World News and my local penny saver.

[Tin Can]

The maker and image are both real

no matter how we draw

humans created the new Boss

does art exist without humans

TC

I'm not asking what a photograph is but what a photographer is ...
Maris' example was made through a computer AI program that compiled a beautiful seamless photographic collage from pre-existing images. Is the person who entered the descriptors in the program's fields a photographer? is the programmer the photographer? If so, if I cut images I didn't make out of a magazine and compile the collage I made, and it looks photographic am I a photographer ? I had more involvement as the person who made the AI image, and instead of 1billion images to feather together it's just what I found in the Weekly World News and my local penny saver.

[jnantz]

The maker and image are both real

no matter how we draw

humans created the new Boss

does art exist without humans

I didn't say the photograph was not real or art doesn't exist without humans
I was asking what a photographer is. Lots of people have and use cameras, lots of people make things that are photographic, but are they photographers?

According to Merriam Webster, a photographer is somebody who makes photographs but maybe that was when photographs were tangible and made by people (or robots). AI isn't a people (it is a robot though) and who knows if the objects AI creates become tangible photographs or what they are, they look "photographic" in nature though but considering they might be made from a thousands of bits and pieces of other people's photographs I guess that's obvious.

The "author is dead" is about taking / appropriating other people's work as one's own like Ms Levine did with the Walker Evans prints she printed
and what Mr Prince did when he put other people's selfies on a gallery wall as his own.

if there is no photographer and no photograph is the photographer dead too?

[jmontague]

My late mother was a nationally-recognized art educator. On the first day of class, she would tell her students that anyone can draw - that is just putting lines on paper. Her job was to teach them to “see”.

A camera is just a tool. I can buy a table saw which allows me to cut wood - but that doesn’t mean I can immediately build a table.


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[Tin Can]

early artist scribbles are highly valued

art is what an artist makes

not the market

[Michael R]

Begin with whatever you define a photograph to be. For example, in the broadest, most literal sense one might say a photograph is any thing that began with the direct use of electromagnetic radiation. Anyone doing that is then a photographer of some sort.

Going back to the quote in your original post about how not everyone with a piano is a "pianist", I think we all get what that is meant to convey. But it's not really relevant. Being a photographer or pianist or CEO or whatever technically has nothing to do with whether or not you are any good at it. It's just something you do. There are great photographers, good photographers, crap photographers etc. And that's a whole other discussion.

AI is murky, not because of the photograph itself, but because of how you define other things, the type of machine, algorithm etc. Really a separate topic.

I didn't say the photograph was not real or art doesn't exist without humans
I was asking what a photographer is. Lots of people have and use cameras, lots of people make things that are photographic, but are they photographers?

According to Merriam Webster, a photographer is somebody who makes photographs but maybe that was when photographs were tangible and made by people (or robots). AI isn't a people (it is a robot though) and who knows if the objects AI creates become tangible photographs or what they are, they look "photographic" in nature though but considering they might be made from a thousands of bits and pieces of other people's photographs I guess that's obvious.

The "author is dead" is about taking / appropriating other people's work as one's own like Ms Levine did with the Walker Evans prints she printed
and what Mr Prince did when he put other people's selfies on a gallery wall as his own.

if there is no photographer and no photograph is the photographer dead too?

[jnantz]

Begin with whatever you define a photograph to be. For example, in the broadest, most literal sense one might say a photograph is any thing that began with the direct use of electromagnetic radiation. Anyone doing that is then a photographer of some sort.

Going back to the quote in your original post about how not everyone with a piano is a "pianist", I think we all get what that is meant to convey. But it's not really relevant. Being a photographer or pianist or CEO or whatever technically has nothing to do with whether or not you are any good at it. It's just something you do. There are great photographers, good photographers, crap photographers etc. And that's a whole other discussion.

AI is murky, not because of the photograph itself, but because of how you define other things, the type of machine, algorithm etc. Really a separate topic.

Michael

Im not putting any judgement on what is good or no so good, doesn't matter because it's all got to do with taste. I am not a musician ( I do sort of play a couple of instruments but not very well ) and I wonder on music maker's forums if people who may or may not be very good at "expressing themselves musically" ( would a musician have to write music or just play it ? ) if they are called musicians. And regarding the topic of AI. if AI started to compose music of sounds previously played, cobbled together as something new would AI be considered a musician ?