----- Original Message ----- From: "Christian" Subject: Re: Hockney on photography
> His first statement: > > "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." > > is crap! > > I've said it before and I'll continue to say it: ALL PHOTOGRAPHS ARE > MANIPULATED. > > It happens before the shutter is tripped with the selection of film, focal > length, etc. > > You are seeing what the photographer wants you to see and in the way he/she > wants you to see it. > > No photograph can be seen as "factual or true" not even snap shots taken by > grandma. Well, thats a bit extreme, and somewhat simplistic. I suppose if we carry this to the illogical extreme, then nothing we see is real, since our perception is always clouded by our own take on the world. Photographs of the "unmanipulated" variety (and by this I infer that no deliberate altering of content has been done after the shutter has tripped) will always be an accurate reflection in 2 dimensions of a 3 dimensional world. Sort of what you would see if you only had one eye. Whether or not the photographer has chosen to crop out certain bits that he doesn't like doesn't matter. What I think is absurd in Hockney's little rant is " digital manipulation will kill off photography as an art form ". Digital manipulation is what will finally, unequivicably take photography into the realm of an art form. Look at the painting behind Mr. Nutbar in the article. Does it look like a "reflection of reality"? If the answer to that is yes, I want some of whatever you are taking. You just can't do something like that with a camera and a roll of film without some non photographic help. What is happening though, is that one can no longer trust a photograph to be a reflection of reality, no matter the motive of the photographer. As that moron boy at the LA times proved, it is just too easy to alter reality to suit ones own agenda. Now that journalism and politics are walking in goose step with each other, I think more and more, we had better just look at photos as art, rather than what we have become accustomed to seeing them as. We can trust art to be just what it says it is. We can no longer trust photographs to be what they pretend to be. William Robb
