Photograph or NOT:

[AB26]

This is not a Photograph. It is a created image, using a Photograph.
The water, droplets and “rain” was added using computer software.

Perhaps this will illustrate what I mean when I say Photography is not art per-se.

Just an illusion of a beautiful spring morning. Or perhaps, a way of uttering my foolishness.

[Shadowman]

So it's a photograph of a painting?

[rtbaum]

[mass noun] The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power:

I question your statement that photography is not art per-se

[Inkanyezi]

Photography by itself is not necessarily classified as art, but can be used for artistic expression. Most radiograms made for diagnostic purposes are not regarded as art, but undeniably photographs of a kind. Likewise reproductions of various kinds can be photographic as well, but themselves, they are mostly not regarded as art (for being photographs), even though they display an image that is art. Also photograms are often purported as art and rightly so, even if they in many ways resemble other radiograms.

But of course it boils down to what definition one may put on the word "art". Simon is not Art...

[Polar01]

Nice image. did you create it, if so, you did a good job.

Cheers: Allan

[DanK]

I don't get the logic. You can use a computer to simulate rain. What does this have to do with whether the image is art? Can't art be created on a computer? Why would it be more "art" if the water were natural? Are Ansel Adam's prints less "art" because he depended on effects created in the darkroom, not just the image captured by the camera? I just don't follow.

As a practical matter, the water looks a bit artificial. A simpler expedient, if you want to simulate rain, is to spray the flower with a spray bottle of water.

[HaseebM]

I am with Dan here. Even photography needs a camera. Beautiful rendition btw.

[carolus]

Just an illusion of a beautiful spring morning. Or perhaps, a way of uttering my foolishness . . .

A striking image indeed.

By coincidence, I too was doing some morning shooting today. Trying to get a silhouette of my power pole with a nice red sky behind it. Today, however, with a clear sky overhead very little red appeared behind the pole, voila:



After a bit of color curves work, things looked a bit more rosy:



Chas

[rpcrowe]

Am I to understand from this discussion that in order to be art, the image has to be wet from the rain

However, I don't delve that deeply into philosophy. If I like the photograph, it is art... If I don't like the photograph, it is trash

[Stagecoach]

Hi Andre,

Perhaps it may be more important with this 'picture' to consider how rain falls

I refuse to get involved in the photograph/whatever debates but have just popped in to say your rain drops defied gravity, where did you make it?

Grahame

[MrB]

Is this a photograph? -



It was captured a few minutes ago by scanning the rose, on a HP Photosmart 5520 printer/scanner/copier, with a sheet of black paper over it.

Cheers.
Philip

[FootLoose]

If you are so prejudiced against the technology of digital photography, why do you persist with it, Andre?

Of course your image is not 'art' (however you might choose to define it). You have simply applied one of ACDSee's presets. It looks fake and fools no-one. But considering your previous posts about sooc and jpegs, and your preference not to engage in the post-processing enhancement of images, I wonder if you are aware of the more sophisticated tools available in applications other than ACDSee.

[Inkanyezi]

This is not a Photograph. It is a created image, using a Photograph.
The water, droplets and “rain” was added using computer software.

Perhaps this will illustrate what I mean when I say Photography is not art per-se. [...]

I think it does not illustrate just that. Whether photography is considered a specific "art" depends wholly on one's conception of "art", how one would personally define it. This definition may vary depending on circumstances; for example in an exhibition of different art forms, one of them can be defined as photographic.

When I was young, several times, below where I was living, a bus parked all day, welcoming people to take their "screen image" of their lungs, for diagnostic purposes. You undressed your torso, and stepped into a little cabin, which closed on you while you had your arms stretched upward, and on the outside of the cabin, a camera took a picture of the fluorescent screen that displayed an x-ray image of your lungs. This is definitely photography, but quite questionably art.

Adding diverse things to a photograph has been purported as art, and the use of software to do it is akin to using a brush and pigments. I see no difference in artsiness regarding the method used. Having software do a similar thing could be regarded as art, even though it might be seen as a rather low level of art.

Making a photogram by help of a scanner is undoubtedly a form of photography.

And a manipulated photograph is what here purportedly is not a Photograph, but a "created image".

So I am a bit puzzled by the statements, as I find them incongruent. To me, the image presented looks like a photograph that has been manipulated in some way. Whether art or not is up to the creator, viewer or whoever; it is a subjective opinion, and we may differ. In my opinion, a lightly manipulated photograph will not become an un-photograph by the fact that something was added or removed, or colours and contrast altered. However, it should not be purported as a "true" reproduction of reality, if there are visible elements that change its content. When altered, it cannot be claimed "documentary". But all those are properties unrelated to "art".

Art can be expressed in many ways, and we can have very different opinions about it. And, as stated, photography is not art per se, but the intention of the artist could perhaps be a determinant - or it is in the eye of the beholder.

But in my opinion, the image does not convey what you mean when you say "Photography is not art per-se".