What is a photograph?

[jdrblue]

I'm interested in your thoughts on this subject. I regularly enter pictures in a local art show. They have lots of different categories e.g. oil painting, water color, pottery, etc. One category is photography. The photo can be digital but the rules say only basic adjustments like dodging, burning, and cropping. Another category is digital/computer art. I have always assumed that if you could do it with film in a darkroom it was still a photograph. If you went beyond that it became digital/computer art. I have no darkroom experience but have read enough to have some idea of darkroom possibilites.

 

This month's Popular Phtography magazine adresses this issue without giving a clear answer. The PopPhoto 16th Annual Reader's Photo Contest had two winners that were composites of several pictures combined. The magazine got a lot of feedback questioning if the composites should be considered a photograh. My guess is next year there will be two categories.

 

Here's my question. In my local art show should I enter an HDR photo as photoraphy or as digital/computer art?

[jimjamxx]

digital/computer art would be my guess for any HDR pic.

JimmyJames

[pierces]

digital/computer art would be my guess for any HDR pic.

JimmyJames

 

I don't completely agree.

 

HDR is a software-based method of increasing the dynamic range of an image do recover highlights andopen up shadows. Calling it computer art might also disqualify shots made with Sony's Dynamic Range Optimizer on the Alpha cameras, Nikon's active D-Light on its DSLRs or multiple-image Twilight Mode on the new Cyber-Shots (automated in-camera two-shot HDR).

 

If you combined more than one shot that added items to the original image, I'd say "art". To combine several images of the exact same subject with different lighting levels falls under "adjustment" to me.

 

Just my opinion...I could be wrong! :D

 

Dave

[RichYak]

It just isn't cut and dry. HDR can be used to create an image that more closely represents what we see with our eyes, than can be captured in a single image via a digital camera's sensor. This would, in my mind, be undoubtedly photography. The emphasis here is on the captured image.

 

HDR can also be used to create a surreal image. This would begin to lean more towards digital/computer art as the emphasis is more on the manipulation of the image than the image itself.

 

Very interesting debate.

[Mad4WDW]

I would agree with Dave, HDR would be classed as a photograph IMHO. My D90 has a feature built into the camera that combines 3 exposures, same thing really. How could you say an image created using it wasn't a photograph?

 

Greg

[pierces]

RichYak makes a good point. HDR used to balance exposure is one thing, but it can also be used to give an image a "graphic novel" hyper-realism that would fall under manipulation.

 

Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to! :D

 

Dave

[jdrblue]

Thanks for the feedback. I have an HDR photo that has the surreal look mentioned above. I'm going to put it in the computer/digital art category just to be safe. A few years ago PopPhoto's grand prize winner was a computer stitched panorama. Many readers were furious. Today computer stitchced panoramas seem to be fully accepted as a photograph rather than digital art. Possibly as technology evolves the definiton of a photograph will evolve also.

[dodger501]

Having done some HDR work in the past year:

 

http://dodgerdigital.smugmug.com/Photo-Paintings/HDR

 

You can't NOT manipulate the image after the 3, 5, of 7 exposures have been merged. It looks like color soup until it is manipulated. Heavily. I use Photomatix Pro and Photoshop to do this, add a dash of Topaz, simmer until done.