Monday, May 14, 2012

When is art a deception?

For a long while I have admired a certain photographers work.
I marveled at her detail and clarity, her ability to see beyond everything she photographs and her ability to capture colours.
As an artist (of the painting type) I can, and often do wonder at the many forms of art presented in different venues and styles.
Today I was looking at her latest posted photograph and asked her how she was able to photograph a scene and have it "Look" like a painting.
Her answer was "I take pictures as I see them."
Not an answer, but the best I was about to get from her.  
I was then informed (by someone else) that her photography was retouched in a photo type program that "Puts" different slants on the original picture.
Now, to my mind, if you want a painting, you paint it! and if you want a photograph you take a picture....but No!
What you do is take a picture and then manipulate it into a painting.
You pass it off as your own creation with no reference to the computer program that really made the image as it appears. 
To my mind this is lying, cheating, pulling the wool over the viewers eyes.
Yes, I know that a lot of photographers retouch portraits, and I can agree with this.
I can even agree with some colour manipulation, but we are not talking retouching here.
We are talking about changing the integrity of a photograph, turning it into something else and then sitting back and reveling in the accolades because your work is so unique and original.

If you are a photographer so be it!
And if you are a Painter, again, so be it.
But for a photographer passing off a manipulated photo as a painting is just wrong.
Worse yet, passing of a manipulated photo as an original work by yourself is just wrong and deceitful.
Especially since you do not even acknowledge the use of a computer program that actually does your work for you.
Is it a form of plagiarism?
Maybe a form of deception?
Whatever.
To my mind it is wrong. But then again maybe I am out of the loop.  I must say I was very hurt when I
                                           finally realized what she had been passing off as her work for so long.


4 comments:

Gayle Kirby said...

I have wondered about this for some time as well. I'm afraid I tend to agree with you!

Kathleen Sauerbrei said...

Thanks Gayle :)

Kat Shank said...

My take on this is as follows: You still have to have a vision to see art in things. Having a husband who is a former photographer might color my view a little, but I've seen him 'make' photos that aren't taken straight ...from the camera. In fact, there's a photo of his hanging on our wall that's altered like crazy, albeit done with old filters by hand rather than new filters by computer. You still have to have the ability to see something good in the picture, though, and know what 'filter' to lay on it. He's used a lot of the techniques that we take for granted in computer programs and done them by hand, but they DID come from somewhere, and they still often require knowledge and skill.

While yes, it is sometimes 'easy' to just click a button to apply a photo program filter, there are a lot of variables in those filters, a lot of changes and adjustments that can be made, and then there's just the fact that one filter might look 'right' on one photo, and awful on another!

Photography is an art in my opinion, and it has been made more 'accessible' with modern technology, but it still has it's limitations. Someone has to be REALLY good with the computer program to make really good manipulations that aren't easily seen, and the eye still has to be there to know where to lighten ("dodge"), darken ("burn"), crop, etc, that photo. Even photos from 'back when', before computers, weren't perfect right from the start... they were cropped and adjusted to what we are used to seeing.

Just a different thought on things. Don't be too harsh on your friend for their use of technology to better their vision (although not owning up to it is a little, um... off? Course, thinking they'd be thought of as cheating might be one reason for doing so)... we ALL have. I can't tell you the amount of times I've had people 'seem' like they're less impressed when they find I'm working from a photo/reference than when they thought I was doing it from my head... as if the art is any different or 'less' that way. Am I any less of an artist for working from a picture on my computer screen instead of a paper photo? Am I any less of an artist for zooming into that photo to see more detail/color than I would be able to from a paper photo? Am I any less of an artist for taking my picture to gray scale/monochrome to see the values, something I couldn't have done before? We have technology now, why not use it to make our jobs easier?

And really, have you SMELLED photo chemistry? I wouldn't want to subject myself to that when I can work via computer... That stuff is NASTY! heh (I spent a LOT of time with Jon in photolabs... and some of it was actually to watch him work on photos. ;) Yes, I'm terrible!)

Kathleen Sauerbrei said...

I fully agree with everything you have said here Kat.
My dissonance is/was with the fact that she purported that the end result was just as she took (with a camera) the picture. She never once said that she used any program to change clarity, colours and form. She represented herself as the total author of her works with her camera alone.
again I have no problems with photo manipulation, there is some wonderful stuff out there, and it takes a good mind to do this....a good artistic mind. Just call it like it is. ♥