Digital Killed The Art Photo Star?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3532483.stm' target='_blank'>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/3532483.stm</a><br /><br /></div>"Artist David Hockney, who created photo collage works in the 1980s, has said digital manipulation will kill off photography as an art form. Hockney told the Guardian newspaper that photographs can be so easily altered these days that they can no longer be seen as factual or true. He also said art photography was "dull" and that it was inferior to painting. <br /><br />But Russell Roberts of the National Museum of Photography, Film and TV said Hockney's argument was "simplistic". Hockney also said war photography was cast in doubt due to digital advancement. He cited the case during the Iraq war when the Los Angeles Times sacked a photographer for superimposing two images to make them more powerful."<br /><br />It's become harder and harder to trust the digital images that you might see now, and what's worse is that the mainstream news is so afraid of missing a scoop, they'll run with a photo <a href="http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cfm?id=37020&u_id=56352&CFID=547296&CFTOKEN=63307383">before verifying it's authenticity.</a> And it's become even harder to verify authenticity, because it's no longer a simple matter of going back to the negatives. Can we ever trust photos again?

[Suhit Gupta]

He is completely right and this was, if I remember correctly, a big debate when the movie Forrest Gump came out that showed Tom Hanks shaking hands with President Kennedy.

OTOH, in the (weak) defense of digital photography, trick photography is not a new technique. It is something that was very possible with film based cameras.

Suhit

[Neil Enns]

I gotta say, this Hockney guy is off his rocker. From the article:

We know he didn't crop them - he was the master of truthful photography

He thinks that cropping a picture makes it no longer true? Man, what a nut. I personally think the only problem is when people present a manipulated photograph, film or digital, as truthful.

Since photography was invented photographers have been doctoring the "real" picture. Sepeia toning, for example, is one way for a photographer to manipulate the end product to make the picture evoke whatever the intended response is. So is printing on different types of paper, using different film because of its grain structure or colour tones, dodging or burning in the darkroom, etc.

If I pick Kodachrome film over Velvia because of its colour characteristics, does that make my film photographs any more or less "real" or "truthful"? How is that different than using Photoshop to adjust levels, remove a colour cast, or bump up saturation?

Photoshop and digital manipulation are powerful tools to help a photographer express themselves. Just because it's a different tool and lets people do different things than in the past doesn't make it bad.

Phew, I'm done venting now :)

Neil

[Bob12]

Digital photographs are becoming admissible evidence in criminal and civil cases based on some restrictions. For example, the accident reconstruction teams of several State Patrol/Police organizations use the Sony CD cameras and CD-R media. Also, Canon (and probably others) have a system available that will detect altered digital pictures. It's a bit pricey but if authenticity is required, it's probably worth it.

[Suhit Gupta]

Perhaps a way to identify originals from fakes, hopefully in the near future, would be to embed digital watermarks into photographs in the camera itself, i.e. at the time of taking the picture. That way, one can perhaps verify the watermark to see if the image has been tampered with? I mean, this is just an idea that I am spouting off, but with a little thought and lots of research, I think it might be possible for hardware manufacturers to attack this problem.

Suhit

[SassKwatch]

"Artist David Hockney, who created photo collage works in the 1980s, has said digital manipulation will kill off photography as an art form.
How does that make *ANY* sense? An artists' 'tools' have, since time immemorial, been utilized to mold a work to his/her vision. How does Photoshop differ from a hammer and chisel for a sculptor, or a brush and palette for a painter. Seems like a pretty ridiculous statement, IMO.

Hockney told the Guardian newspaper that photographs can be so easily altered these days that they can no longer be seen as factual or true.
As others have already said, film has been manipulated since the first photograph was taken. Digital only expands on the possibilities and the speed with which the manipulation can be performed.

He also said art photography was dull" and that it was inferior to painting.
As the saying goes...."opinions are like butts.....everybody's got one." If he prefers painting over photography, more power to him. Some people would likely assert that painting is dull compared to sculpture. So what. To each his own.

[Crocuta]

Hockney seems to be confusing two different things. On the one hand, digital manipulation may cause us to question the truthfulness of images we see. This is a legitimate issue, but probably healthy since images have been manipulated throughout the life of the medium and it's probably good that we're more aware of the potential now. But whether you think that's good or bad, it has nothing to do with art! His statement was "digital manipulation will kill off photography as an art form".

Nonsense! Digital manipulation opens up a world of creative possibilities to the artist. I can't imagine how an artist can fail to see that, especially an artist who made his fortune by manipulating photographs. Consider, for example, the possibilities for a talented artist to combine drawing (a la Adobe Illustrator) and digital photography. When the point is no longer to capture reality, but to create art, these tools offer endless opportunity.