> > I think the line between the two is certainly less clear than > it once was now > that we have digital and things like Photoshop. It certainly > is now possible > to be almost as creative with photography as it is with > painting. Things can > be removed (cloned out) from photographs, layers can be > added, elements/things > can be added, styles can be added. One, yes, starts with a > photograph and not > a totally blank canvas, but the process can be the same. > > This may make people uncomfortable, but it's simply the way > things are going. > > Personally, I think it's cool. > > Marnie aka Doe
This is the way things have been since photography started, but it doesn't mean that the distinction between photography and painting is any less clear. Even photographers who arrange a realistic scene to be photographed, such as Cindy Sherman, start from a real subject, and the photograph is the direct result of the action of light on a sensitive surface. Painters, by contrast, can paint entirely imaginary things. After a photograph has been taken you may choose to alter it to include things that are not the direct result of light on the surface, or to exclude things. At this point it becomes a pictorial photograph rather than a documentary photograph. This is why I said earlier that it depends on whether you use the photograph as a recording device or a picture-making tool. A painting, even a multimedia painting which includes photographic elements, or one which is meant to be strictly documentary such as an Audubon picture of a bird, never has the same relationship to the subject matter as a documentary photograph because the painting is mediated by the painter's mind. In a photograph there is a direct causal relation between the subject and the picture, which is a result of the laws of optics, physics and chemistry. Regards, Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
