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| fossils and photographs [message #634 is a reply to message #97 ] |
Thu, 21 April 2005 19:08   |
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03:31pm Jan 8, 2002
Hello Pedro,
The Dallas Museum of Natural History owns a fine T-Rex reproduction that it displays with it?s collection of ?real? fossils, many discovered , studied and mounted my the museum?s staff and volunteers. For public display, I can see no problem arising from an accurate reproduction.
Actually, many of the early mountings of actual dinosaur fossils were wrong and, in a few cases, the scientists broke the fossils to make the mounting fit their preconceived ideas of how the animal might walk or stand.
But the subject is photography, both digital and traditional silver based, and your very benign example of digital manipulation.
I don?t believe that there ought to be much objection to your aligning the verticals in the computer. First of all, people have been doing that in the darkroom for more years that either you or I have been on this earth.
Bessler, for one, continues to manufacture enlargers that offer movements of both the negative and lens stages, allowing the printer to correct converging verticals shot with a camera that doesn?t have movements.
Leitz, since the 1930?s, offered an accessory for their Focomat and Valoy enlargers that permitted movement of the negative to correct perspective. (I have a Focomat 1C Color here with me, sitting wrapped in plastic at the end of one of my work tables, next to the Epson printers)
You might have shot the picture with a Nikon or Canon perspective control lens, or you could have asked to borrow a ladder and shot from an elevated position, and we?d never have known the difference, never have given it a thought.
The perspective in the photograph you made of the museum could have been adjusted or controlled either at the time of exposure or later in the wet darkroom. If someone objects to your example of aligning the verticals in your image digitally, they?d have to object to what has been a practice for more than a few decades.
Beside, as I said before, your example is a benign one; you have not really altered the reality of the place, you haven?t made the museum gallery look any different than it is. If you had made your photograph standing on a ladder and held the camera perpendicular to the floor, it wouldn?t look much different than your manipulated image.
I don?t think the use of digital imaging is an issue, it is the manipulation of images that people might question, and photographers have been doing that for about a 150 years. It is an old question, not a new one. Digital imaging, though, facilitates that manipulation, but it didn?t start it.
Regards,
Peter A. Calvin
www.petercalvin.com
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| issues of representation [message #635 is a reply to message #634 ] |
Thu, 21 April 2005 19:09 |
 Pedro Meyer
Messages: 202
Registered: March 2005 |
Senior Member |
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01:30am Jan 10, 2002
Peter,
Maybe some day we will be able to have a consensus on what we consider manipulation of a photograph. Clearly at this time, there are all kinds of interpretations, derived mainly from an impulse to remain "truthful" to a representation, rather than a factual understanding of the issue. I believe we have disussed such topics earlier on in time. You use the term "benign" to describe the alteration of what I did, because for you there does not seem to be a conflict in this case. However, let us not forget that in fact alterations are just that, benign or not. Black and White photography is also an alteration from reality, and so on.
The important issue as I see it, is how we perceive the issues of representation. Altered or not. Surrogate ( dinosaurs) or not.
I am sure the day will come when the debate around altered images is going to be a mute issue, as people come to realize that all of photography is nothing more than diverse forms of alteration when it comes to image making. The sooner this comes to pass, the freer everyone will be to liberate their creative impulses, even to make strict doumentary work if they so see fit.
If those Museums that house the surrogate dinosaurs had been beleaguerd with all the issues of representation that surround much of photography today, those dinosaurs would have never been made, to the loss of many children and then some adults as well.
I appreciate all the fine examples you provide us of how to deal with corrections to the distortion introduced by lenses, it only goes to prove how much we got used to dealing with optic alterations, which over time, became acceptable and normal to the viewers eyes when not corrected. As if these distortions would be how the eye sees. It's like if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the norm.
By the way, many of the good examples you offer of how to make perspective corrections are far more complicated than what can be done using the computer, which is an important point. To make complicated work, all that much easier. I think.
As to not having altered the reality of the place, of course I did not do that, no picture ever alters the reality of the place, however, what we actually do is alter the reality of the representation of that place, namely the photograph. In this case, my image in a very strict sense indeed was altered. Regardless if this has been a standard practice of doing so to correct for such a problem of perspective.
Here is where we have to be careful in recognizing that alterations are alterations, you can not pick and choose which ones are "benign" and which ones are not. If you keep moving the target to accomodate your beliefs, then we end up confusing the issue rather than bringing clarity to the discussion.
I appreciate and value your input and interest in this subject matter. I am sure quite a few people benefit from your questioning thoughts.
Best regards
Pedro Meyer
Publisher of ZoneZero
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| fossils, photos and representation:part I [message #636 is a reply to message #97 ] |
Thu, 21 April 2005 19:10 |
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03:10am Jan 24, 2002
Hello Pedro,
I think that when I post a message in your forum, I must be more careful and precise with my language and with my examples.
When I wrote that you had not ?altered the reality of the place? (with your photograph), I was, of course, talking about how the museum gallery was presented (represented) in the image, not the physical room itself, but I think you know that.
Yes, Pedro, the issue is not if an image is altered, but how it is used and presented; it is about representation. That is why I called your example benign; because it was not your intent to misrepresent your subject. I made references to non-digital means of achieving the the same (or similar) results, because I don?t believe the issue, representation, was created by advancing technology, only made more a little more complex by it.
And, yes, any image altered is an altered image. But are they all equal when discussing ?representation?? In your reply to my post, you suggested that I am ?moving the target to accommodate your (my) beliefs?. I am not, however, the one moving the target; the photographer/artist is. Think of Cindy Sherman?s self-portraits, Danny Lyon?s photographs Texas prisons and the newswire photo in the morning paper from Kandahar; they were shot with different intentions and with different expectations: it could be fantasy, art, personal expression, observation, documentation, hard news and more. These photographers represent their subjects in different manners and in far different contexts. Often, in the area of fine art, the subject, whether in the photograph or not, is the artist them self.
You also wrote: ?we have to be careful in recognizing that alterations are alterations, you can not pick and choose which ones are benign?. Pedro, you can, and in fact, you must, ?pick and choose?, as you put it. I prefer what you first wrote in your editorial: ?The notion that all alterations have to be seen alike is again a lack of understanding that not all alterations are born the same?. It is important to draw lines of distinction and in doing so we bring clarity to the subject, not confusion
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| fossils, photos and representation part II [message #637 is a reply to message #97 ] |
Thu, 21 April 2005 19:16 |
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03:11am Jan 24, 2002
Our subject here is representation, and what I am talking about is how a photograph is altered or manipulated, how a particular image is placed in juxtaposition with another, how it could be captioned or mis-captioned, can, in fact, change the way a photograph represents it?s subject. (the subject may be a person, place, thing, event, idea or even emotion...please add to this list as you, the photographer-artist-journalist, sees fit.)
If a person stood in the museum gallery shown in your photograph, looking at a copy of the digitally altered image, I trust that they would easily recognize the room and the displays in that photograph. I suspect this person would say that the image in their hand is a reasonably accurate representation of what was in front of them.
The T-Rex at the Dallas Museum of Natural History is labeled a reproduction.
Neither your altered photograph, nor the highly accurate reproductions of fossils for exhibition, attempt to mislead anyone. They both make a good faith attempt to represent their subjects: the ?originals?.
Your alteration of the photograph of Siquieros in prison, by placing a demonstration in the background, puts him in a place he was not. The photograph, however, is labeled as a composite; it represents an idea, not an actual event. Printed with a different sort of caption, an image altered in this way could be presented as something it is not, it could be used to mislead.
Perhaps the reason museums haven?t been ?beleaguered with all the issues of representation that surround much of photography today?, is that we trust the paleontologists at the Carneigie Museum more than the photographers and art directors who we know often try to manipulate our buying patterns (among other things) through manipulated imagery.
My point about altered images has always been one of representation. Do what you wish with an image, but do let us know what has been done. For me, the issue you raise of representation is really one of integrity, not technology.
Regards,
Peter A. Calvin
www.petercalvin.com
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| The Old Temeraire engraved by By Edward Goodall [message #638 is a reply to message #97 ] |
Thu, 21 April 2005 19:22 |
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08:07pm May 9, 2003
I have a small metal engraving that says it was by Turner and Edward Goodall. We know the original picture is in London. But could this engraving possiblely be an original engraving. This engraving has the big blank missing in the sky, and has the smoke stack pointing in another direction.Note my picture does not say "The Fighting Temeraire". But "The Old Trmeraire". How can I find out?
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Does the original matter?
