Okay, this video is an advertisement. That's not why I'm posting it.
I found it fascinating the degree to which the 'old masters' used technology and tools to produce their art. There is a mystique about 'conventional' art and the purity of creation by the human hand. Turns out that's not so much the way it was.
The same is true of modern photography. Purists proclaim that only image cast onto the sensor is a 'real' photograph. Sorry, but that's just a starting place. It's all ones and zeros and now there's not only photoshop but AI bots that make images out of random ones and zeros it finds in databases across the world.
If you have the skill and if it enhances the connection between your work and the viewer, go for it.
Disclaimer: I am not trying to sell the Camera Lucinda. I do not benefit from it's sale or existence. I post this for information purposes only. IT'S NOT SPAM.
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Precision and unambiguity are crucial to imaging used in science, medicine and engineering. But photography is an art, and like all art there is no objective measure distinguishing good from bad. It’s all subjective; a matter of personal opinion and taste. In a public photo contest someone’s slightly out-of-focus photo of a cute kitten might win first prize while another contestant’s high-resolution professional photo of vultures doesn’t make it into the top ten.
What is called colorization seems to be one of the photo purists’ chief complaints. I recently read a comment here suggesting that photographers are dishonest if their photos’ colors aren’t precisely that which entered the camera’s lens. That’s a subjective moral judgement about artists doing what all artists do--they manipulate materials to create something that represents their uniquely individual view of the world. Following the commenter’s moral judgement, we might have to say that Van Gogh was a dishonest artist whose Starry Night is a false representation of the night sky.
Submitted for your perusal: two photos. The first is the unaltered photo I took with my DSLR; the second is the cropped photo I entered in the winter photo contest.
The following questions are for anyone reading this and especially for those who object to what they call colorization.
Is the cropped photo colorized?
Do you think it is less “real” than the original?
The original photo, straight from the camera
My contest entry
Thanks for posting the fascinating Camera Lucida video, Andy. The brief history lesson was edifying.
