This is a constant chant by the media,sent to the unthinking to sell products.Yes it does matter.The Afgan girl with the green eyes is a dream photograph Why because it is real.No filters.no digital manipulation.Those who like manipulation would be better with a paint brush and canvas,not a quick fix,they would get more satisfaction and learn more.And that speaks true of photography equally.To listen to music is enjoyable,to be able to play it will give you a lot more.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 14, 2002

Answers

Allen - you have a big problem. You may not realize it but you don't speak for the great unwashed masses. You like straight photography. Great. I'm pleased for you. You don't like batteries. Great I'm pleased for you. But don't presume to tell others what is right, or what they should like. You have a right to your opinion, but you don't know it all.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

I have learned to use a particular lens, film, developer, paper, dodging and burning, multi-contrast printing, toning, etc., just to get that particular look. Maybe I'll go as far as putting nose grease on the enlarging lens for the inflight magazine look. But others may think that is too much manipulation. Some people react with horror that I don't print full frame. Where do you draw the line?

-- ray tai (razerx@netvigator.com), March 14, 2002.

Allen: I definitely agree with your position. Digital may have its place and I even use it to some extent for business. As for my photography hobby, it's Leica all the way, Tri-X, wet darkroom and fun. I think the world and the media have gotten so fast-paced that only digital will do and the true photojournalist craftsman of the past is going extinct. I can say this because my livelyhood does not depend on it. Opinions will vary.

-- Ben Hughes (ben@hughesbros.com), March 14, 2002.

Spoke earlier with an executive of one of the largest retail outlets in the USA this morning. Asked him the impact of digital. They outsell film cameras 3 to 1. Looks like we film, and non automated people better quit bitching and learn to co-exist.

-- Ed DeAngelis (edeange769@aol.com), March 14, 2002.

I find it very amusing that the use of b&w film especially with filters is not considered manipulation. Is the original subject b&w? What is so holy about chemical manipulation that converting to b&w at the time of the exposure is considered pure photography but converting to b&w with Photoshop is considered manipulation? I'm baffled.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), March 14, 2002.

Allen is eccentric, but there is something in what he says, most of us realize this. He is a radical purist, not something I am, but there is a germ of truth in all this. Basically, like many I suspect, I feel a sense of discomfort that soon everything will be reduced to a machine in which creativity or the constraints of a natural process are removed. I particularly find the idea that photography, letter writing, email, work, play, film and TV and music are simply becoming branches of computer science performed on some kind of digital platform usually produced on software manufactured by one or two companies. Then we are told that this is much "better" and advantageous for us all. O yes and it makes fat profits for these companies. There is more to life than the digital realm is there not? If there is not then it is a depressing thought.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

The only true pure photograph is one taken without the intervention of the manipulative mind of the photographer. Don't BS yourseves in to thinking there's some point at which you're wholesome, beyond which you're corrupt.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

Digital is just a tool.

Say tomorrow the VHP starts trouble in Ayodhya and I get a flight Sunday to Bombay to photograph the riots. Well, unless I'm a top snapper people are prepared to wait around for, it had better be in digital (either capture or scan) because if it doesn't get into a magazine by the end of the week after, nobody's going to be interested anymore.

It's all very well being pure, but if you want to use pictures to say something about the world you have to be equipped. For me, it's leicas and a scanner, but as soon as it becomes viable for me, I'll be going digital.

As for the Afghan girl snap, do you really believe it makes any difference whether it was taken with a digital camera or a film camera, in manual or auto mode? For God's sake.

Show us some of your great pictures, Allen - I'm not saying you don't have them - and explain how they have extra soul beecause they were taken with a 1950's camera.

The only thing - the only thing, got it? - that counts is the photographer's ability to see and make the picture. If digital capture streamlines the process, then so much the better. People who buy cameras to take pictures don't spend all day drooling over the sound of the 15th second escapement mechanism whirring.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), March 14, 2002.

Manipulation is manipulation,even in black and white it is that simple.Great photos do not need to be manipulated they speak for themselves.Time spent manipulating could be best spent looking fot that great image.The unwashed masses might follow the ad man,but they know enought not to make a manipulated image great.My opinions are not ment to hurt or anger,they are my opinons only.Take them or leave them as you see fit.They offer another view other than media hype.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 14, 2002.

i agee for the, got to get it first it is excellent.First in gets the biscuit.They are also looking for truth ,manipulatiun is not a issue.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 14, 2002.

I couldn't help thinking of all the hours Eugene Smith spent in his darkroom manipulating (dodging and burning) his prints so he could get the print he wanted. Get a life Allen. Cheers!

-- Don (wgpinc@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

Cutting,burning,digital manipulation how far does this go before it beares little resembelence to the original photograph.Are we not then moving then into the world of the artist.Maybe a certain amount of enhancement ia acceptable,but i have to begger the question...at what point does it end,and is the term photograph really the right terminolgy.Or should it be creative artwork,using a original photographic image.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 14, 2002.

Cutting,burning,digital manipulation how far does this go before it beares little resembelence to the original photograph.Are we not then moving then into the world of the artist.

We are then moving into the world of the practicing photographer who is concerned with getting the images in his head onto paper (and moving away from the world of the armchair pseudophilosopher who is overly concerned with how everyone else is supposed to practice their craft).

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), March 14, 2002.

at what point does it end,and is the term photograph really the right terminolgy. Or should it be creative artwork,using a original photographic image

Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image has begun. Manipulation includes choice of field of view, depth of field, recording media properties, framing. These can all be used to tell lies as easily as truth and the distinction is the responsibility of the photographer, not the tools. The fine line between straight and manipulated images if it exists at all isn't in the tools. Go take some pictures.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), March 14, 2002.

Right on Mike and Doug!!

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

We are then moving into the world of the practicing photographer who is concerned with getting the images in his head onto paper (and moving away from the world of the armchair pseudophilosopher who is overly concerned with how everyone else is supposed to practice their craft).

Exactly. You said it before I could.

The people who seem to hold the religious extremist view on this topic never seem to produce much in the way of photography.

I regard even my "straightest" photos as gross manipulation. I am very careful to make them into what I want right from the start. That even includes creating a fiction while street shooting.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 14, 2002.

That girl is now 30 and got 2 kids. She did not receive a Rupiah from that photo.

However, the photographer (he speaks french BTW) said he would try to help her two kids thru school.

Who said manipulation? Tsss, just "opinion mouldering", it's not manipulation.

From a French who is going to vote soon. X.

-- Xavier d'Alfort (hot_billexf@hotmail.com), March 14, 2002.

Computer, generate me a picture of a young girl with piercing green eyes, and a burgundy-colored head covering. No, make her features a little more angular, and they eyes more piercing. Oh, and darken the shawl a bit. No, no, no, the expression is all wrong. I want a more of the Mona-Lisa filter, where you can't tell what she's thinking or feeling, but it could be anything. No, turn the head a bit to the right. Soften the light a little. No, that's just not working. Oh, hell, I'll just go out and take the photograph myself.

Now, where did I store that old Leica that manipulated the light so well?

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), March 14, 2002.

Shoot - even putting a frame around something and removing it from it's context is 'manipulation'. Or did Doug say that already?

I stem from the documentary school of photography - I find the outside world to be bigger and more interesting than the smaller world inside my head - BUT I also know that I am making choices and "adjusting' reality every time I pick a 90 over a 35 - or use this film over that film - or go out to shoot in one light over another - or choose to shoot my subject front-lit, side-lit, or back-lit. And I do play with tonalities somewhat in the computer darkroom, but nothing I couldn't do with chemicals (just faster and easier!).

My standard to myself is that I represent 'reality' truthfully - that my pictures won't mislead someone else about my subjects.

I did a travel story on the highest paved road in North America (up Mt. Evans, Colorado to 14,264 feet). I struggled to find THE picture that conveyed "altitude" and "road". Finally saw the shot in my rear-view mirror and shot it the way the mirror had cropped it - with a 180. Black silhouette of steep hillside with a notch where the road cut through and an SUV silhouetted in the notch. Background was layers of receding backlit blue mountain ranges getting paler and paler in the distance.

Now this was nothing like how a 50mm or 35mm would have represented the same scene - you would have seen more mountains and road, but you wouldn't have FELT just how high and narrow the road was. Trust me - I drove past the site 5 or 6 times unknowing before I happened to see this 'image' as cropped by the rear-view mirror.

Manipulation? You tell me.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), March 14, 2002.

it is easier to be a purist when shooting for ourselves. when you are shooting for others it is a diferent story. in portrait work for example some clients just need help to produce a photo that pleases them. for example i do not believe i have shot a woman over 40 with money in years with out some kind of softening either during the photo or during the printing.

-- greg mason (gmason1661@aol.com), March 14, 2002.

I'm not even sure what "purist" is supposed to mean when refering to a photographer (though I have a sneaking suspicion it's synonymous with "fetishist"). I wonder if we could have all the purists get together and agree on a definition; then maybe we could have a sensible debate. ; )

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), March 14, 2002.

I think Doug Herr gets right to the heart of the issue when he says (above): "Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image has begun." How can ANY work of art be any more or less than it is because of a technique that was employed in producing it? Does the composition of a photo suddenly get better because I learned that it was an uncropped full frame? You can have good and bad photos with uncropped frames. - You can have good and bad photos with cropped frames. The only thing that matters is whether it is good or bad. Steigletz said: (sorry, I can't locate the exact quote - this is a paraphrase): "Step on the negative if you want to. What you did to get the image is nobody's business!" -Ollie

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002.

The only way to completely avoid 'manipulation' is to act without any intention whatsoever. Photography is intended, even when you're trying to be unintentional, thus the idea of manipulation is inescapable. More to the point is whether i am truly present when i make that picture. Cheers.

-- Steven Fong (steven@ima.org.sg), March 14, 2002.

Once the shutter has opened, the manipulation of the image has begun.

For me, it happens earlier. As soon as I see something I want to photograph, I begin to manipulate it into what I want. The great Clarence John Laughlin, who died years before digital manipulation came to be common, said, "It, therefore, should be possible for even the photographer - just as for the creative poet or painter - to use the object as a stepping stone to a realm of meaning completely beyond itself."

The idea expressed in the original post about a separation between painters and photographers is exactly what has made it difficult for photography to escape second class status in the art world. That kind of attitude constantly sets photography back and keeps it in a tiny box with little value.

Plastic World, Copyright 2001 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 14, 2002.

Gee Allen, if nothing else you sure get people talking! I have yet to pick up a lens or use a film that actually captures what I see with my own two eyes. The other day I spent more than an hour trying to get on film what I saw and I could not with every lens I own get the perspective I saw with my own two eyes. So guess what? I did the best I could. After developing the film and scanning, I did the best I could with the technology that exists today to render the colors, tones, shadow detail and detail in the sky and clouds to look as close as I remember seeing it. Did I manipulate the photograph? No, because I never was able to get what I saw on film in the first place. Did I get a good useable picture that told a story? Yes. Maybe if I had to time to use an 8X10 view camera and some good old glass plates? ------------------------------------------------------------

-- Dayton P. Strickland (daytonst@bellsouth.net), March 14, 2002.

Terms of Context!

Everyone is getting the terms mixed up. Manipulation is when you make changes in the subjects you are photographing. What is being discussed here is 'interpretation'. You see a scene, you raise a camera , you frame it, you then you reframe it, you are interpreting the scene.

When you shoot portraits, then you are generally ‘manipulating' the subject, but even that is a moot point, because that is usually a set piece, acknowledged by both parties, and maybe the subject is manipulating the photographer..

Or, more to the point is this whole thread a troll, because it is really borders on the inane. On the other hand there is the possibility that a lot of these Leica possessers haven't figured out what the cameras should be used for. And, Andy, that was hardly manipulation, it was simply seeing (realizing) a telephoto view, which is something that comes with training and experience.

-- Ian MacEachern (iwmac@sympatico.ca), March 15, 2002.

a photograph is alway only a reproduction of reality, never absolutely true and also always only the subjective way the photographer saw it.

-- stefan randlkofer (geesbert@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

Ian

I don't think it is inane. You are also right about what is simply visualisation and what is real manipulation. Most people here seem to be of the school that "anything goes". But actually I don't believe most of them. I doubt Doug Herr would agree to, for example, changing the color of a bird's eyes, or putting a second lion next to a shot of a lion if it was not there in the original. The one thing that makes photography stand out from other forms of visual expression is that it used to have a direct relationship with reality, simply by the fact that if it was seen by the lens then it was imaged. A real instant of time imaged for ever. Now digital manipulation has altered this and, more to the point, has made it very easy to do. I think this is a big difference. The digital manipulated images can be real works of art and wonderful, I am not denying it. But the easier it becomes to "improve" nature the less effect it will have on its audience and the less people will appreciate this is being a special characteristic of photography or indeed that it represents any aspect of reality. If everything can be faked then nothing is real. The Soviets made a specialty of retouching their photos to rewrite history - digital makes this kind of thing very easy, so in terms of what makes photography unique I do not think it is a positive thing. In terms of Art with a capital "A" then it makes little difference.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), March 15, 2002.

What a EXCELLENT answer.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 15, 2002.

This argument was all hashed out in the 30's and 40's when the photo realists (Ansel and the rest of the California group) butted heads with the photo expressionists. My problem is with the thinking that photography should be this or that - it's a big world folks and their are as many different tastes as their are camera brands - horrors, some poeple actually think Nikon is better than Leica - and they are entitled to their thinking. As far as manipulation goes it has happened since the first photographs were being taken. Read some of Ansel Adams books - he was a realist and yet at the same time an admitted master of darkroom manipulation (look at the finished Gathering Storm as compared to a 'straight' print). As someone said Eugene Smith was a master in the darkroom, sometimes combining two or three negs in a single image. Even our perception of the guady overdone totem-poles of the west coast Indains is due in large part to an early 20 century photographer who basically made them up on the spot to photograph them for his famous history photos. I would always like to think that documentary photography is as 'straight' as possible, but when we delve into photography as 'art' anthing does, and should go. If you don't like it you can always look at something you do.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

Even our perception of the guady overdone totem-poles of the west coast Indains is due in large part to an early 20 century photographer who basically made them up on the spot to photograph them for his famous history photos.

It's far more nefarious than that. Curtis faked the outfits of many of the Indians he photographed, yet they are still considered "authentic" dress. Contrary to what Robin says, it has always been easy and always been done. There's a good book about photo fakery that came out in the 70s (can't remember the name and it's out of print) that showed fake stuff back into the 1870s.

The fact is that photos can easily be lies, have always easily been lies, and PS doesn't change that in any way. It just brings it closer to home.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 15, 2002.

". The Soviets made a specialty of retouching their photos to rewrite history"

Didn't the CIA do that with the Oswald picture? ;-) CIA = Communists In America, of course.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), March 15, 2002.

I looked at a photograph of a holiday villa in France.Guess what...when i got there it looked just the same as the photograph.

CIA = Communists In America, of course,What is that all about.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 15, 2002.

"I looked at a photograph of a holiday villa in France.Guess what...when i got there it looked just the same as the photograph. "

Small and two dimensional? How disappointing.

-- Robert Schneider (rolopix@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

Yeah, and never changing. Was the hot chick in the hot tub?

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 15, 2002.

Artists who take photographs of their subjects to put them on canvas,and a lot do.We should now call the finished painting a photograph.Okay it is done with paint,but does it matter.....it is the final image that matters.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 15, 2002.

Allen, Allow me to propose a thought experiment: Think of any photograph of which you have a very high opinion. Let's say (for example) you picked the one by HCB of the guy jumping over the puddle. Now (I ask your indulgence to make a supposition for the sake of argument): Suppose I go back in a time machine, and arrange it so HCB took the picture of the scene in 2002, with no person in it, and he added the puddle jumping guy later, digitally. My question is: Is this image that we know and love now rendered a lesser work of art because we know this particular fact about its production? As far as I can tell, you are saying one of two things - Either: 1.Certain facts about the production of an image, if known, render it invalid. OR 2.The use of certain techniques are not likely to result in good art. I disagree completely with statement 1, and believe statement 2 is irrelevent. Statement 1 is preposterous. - What is a photograph beyond what you are looking at? If you liked it when you thought that technique "X" was not used in its production, how could you like it less after finding that "X" WAS used. The photo itself remains the same. As for statement 2, we each have our ideas about what choices will lead us to good results, but they are "nobody's business". The final result remains - regardless of what one did, or did not do, to get it. Call it "painting", call it "roast beef" if you want to; it doesn't change the photo one bit!

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

What I like with Allen is he has a sort of talent to point out disturbing questions. Some think it is akin what they call “trolls” I don’t, even when I don’t agree with his persistent and stubborn attitude of “the older way is the better way”.

I’m intuitively siding him however when it goes to straight photography. I say “intuitively” as to this day I can FEEL what is straight photography but I’m unable to get a definition of it which should be considered as a generally accepted one.

First and foremost, I want to point out that I don’t consider things I feel are out of the field of straight photography are less Art than a good photography. But to me they simply aren’t Photography but “photographism” … A different, and equally respectable, kind of graphic art.

The point in case is not objectivity versus subjectivity, but the amount of subjectivity you may consider “acceptable” to qualify an image originally obtained through a camera (would it be classical or digital is irrelevant here) a photography.

Any photography is subjective by essence, thus “manipulated” by the photographer. Framing is a subjective action, the choice of exposure parameters is, because the photographic process doesn’t allow the restitution of the vast amount of contrast our brain is able to record at the same time, the time you click is a subjective action… Even before is the choice of the subject (to click or not to click, that is the question). But one thing remains however which is not SO subjective: the subject itself. For me, in “straight photography”, the subject, as framed, exposed, illuminated at the time you shoot it, should remain what it is in the actual world. So it is “interpreted” but has a “life” of its own in the actual world.

Then, what should be considered “acceptable” in the dark room (would it be a classical “wet” one or a modern “dry” one) is any action which is necessary to better translate what was originally seen in the viewfinder. Nothing less, nothing more. Adding or suppressing elements in the original image makes it went out of straight photography to the world of “photographism”. Using techniques which modify the image into something other than an as accurate as technically possible translation of the original gray scale or color range has the same “philosophical” effect.

This is at least MY definition of straight photography.

Now is their something special with digital versus silver based photography ?

Yes and no… The definition is still valid. But the tricks used to make a “photographism” from a Photography might be totally undetectable. So you can easily fool people pretending the result is akin what you saw through the viewfinder.

Then, as far as Art is concerned, this is apparently of mean importance, the example one of us gave regarding one of Cartier- Bresson most famous picture is revealing. As far of course you consider Art on the rather limited perspective of aesthetic only, of course! … But if you add the original Cartier-Bresson picture was an image of a special moment, a visual witness of a reality now long gone, it means something very important.

Let’s now quit the realm of “pure” Art, and examine the fact photography is not only Art, but also conveys information and you’ll realize the danger of having techniques which permit to modify reality and alter it the way you please without possibility to detect it! …

But does digital has created such problems or simply rendered easier the manipulation ?

I’m sorry to say it is simply a way to do the things more “cleanly”…

For example manipulated photographs has circulated in newspapers and in general public for years without any possibilities for the public to realize it. Simply because the sources, the original documents, were beyond its reach.

Moreover, it is rather easy to manipulate things when you take a picture to give the public false sensations. Here is one which is (and was) practiced for years by photo reporters to please their customers.

Suppose you have a demonstration and you work for a paper which orientation is against the demonstrators’opinion. Unfortunately for the side your employer is supporting, this demonstration is a real success, numerically speaking. Just have a wide angle and use it carefully and the crowd will appear meagre and scattered… Then the title will be something like “Not so successful” … Now take just the opposite hypothesis, the crowd is actually meagre and you work for the side of the demonstrators. Just take a long tele-lens and isolate a group of people and presto, by the trick of perspective you’ll get an image which give the impression of a dense crowd… Then add a title like “success” and the manipulation is here. Unless your reader had personally witnessed the demonstration in both cases, he won’t be able to know the right from the wrong ! …

So what does that mean? Manipulation is something which was ever practised and though digital imagery permits it more easily, it is not the technology that creates manipulation but the men behind it ! …

And to finally answer what Allen asked, Yes it means something to know how an image was obtained. Not precisely through what technical process, but how this process was used and to what extent. Both in a purely artistic point of view and as an issue about truth or lie.

Friendly

François P. WEILL

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), March 16, 2002.

Let’s now quit the realm of “pure” Art, and examine the fact photography is not only Art, but also conveys information and you’ll realize the danger of having techniques which permit to modify reality and alter it the way you please without possibility to detect it!

As I said above, photography will never cbe considered art if your definitions apply. From Man Ray to Helmut Newton to Misha Gordin, to countless numbers of people who have made photography more than just snapping what's around, photography has always been made by manipulators, not by snappers trying to do the ridiculous, duplicate reality. This kind of idea is the death of photography, the victory of the pointless snapshot.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), March 16, 2002.

So sorry, I'm confused. How many angels did you guys say can sit on the head of a pin? Or was the argument about whether a tree makes a noise when it falls if a Leica user isn't there to hear it.

-- Marc Williams (mwilliams111313MI@comcast.com), March 16, 2002.

Well Jeff,

Quoting the names of Ansel Adams (landscape photography), Margaret Bourke-White (Reporter), HCB (Reporter), Doisneau (Reporter) and more recently the work of Sebastiao Salgado (Reporter, still alive and well), and I can add many others, suffices to annihilate your argument… Photographers they are and Artists they are.

Now you can quote me the names of many people like the ones you quoted, artists they are (or at least can legitimately pretend to be) but photographers they ain’t, as far as I’m concerned, they are “photographists” making “photographisms”… No judgement in value here, just a question of definition. They invented their “world” like a painter do. A painter can use many techniques to paint from oils to acrylics not felling to mention water based colors. He can also paint with a brush or paint with an airbrush too. He is still a painter doesn’t he ? And in my humble opinion “photographists” are more akin painters than photographers, the tool is different and they use light, cameras and all the tools a photographer uses but they are nearer to painters than to photographers. Man Ray often used this saying “Je suis un faute-ographe” a game of words in French language: the word “faute” in French meaning errors, mistakes… So he considered his work as the result of photographic mistakes judged by photographic rules and I think he is entirely right and honest in his judgement. Does it make him less an artist for acknowledging he is not a good photographer in fact ?

There always had been, since photography had existed, a tendency of some people to make photographically obtained images look like paintings. History has amply demonstrated as long as these attempts were kept in the "realist" way they obtained no valuable results, artistically speaking. Most of the painters took notice the photography has taken away from them any real interest to reproduce the reality with a “photographic precision” that they must adopt a more intimate and more subjective way to convey their emotions and subjectivity. And it has a deep and lasting influence in the evolution of painting through the past century. Photographers took the vacant place and expressed the two-dimensional transposition of reality and entirely assumed the documentary aspect once in charge of the painter. And some of them succeeded in so doing as far as to be considered real artists, despite your bias against “snapshots”.

Some other people wanted to use photographic techniques to do the same painters do and push subjectivity as far as the painters do. So fine for me, I’ve nothing against it but as I see no difference in using an airbrush or a more classical brush, oils or acrylics to the fact the users of them are called painters, I see no more difference in using the photographic techniques instead for the same purpose. But neither the painters, nor those people are what I call “photographers”.

Lately, we saw a movement relayed by some medias toward using overexposed, color unbalanced, out of focus pictures… And call it “modern photography” (or else with the word photography). Sorry, some may consider this art but as far as you call that photography it is nothing more than a piece of crap. As a piece of crap of a painting is some Sunday painters’work trying to imitate the pre- photographic masters in slavishly, but laboriously, trying to represent the “Sacre Coeur” church in Paris as it is, without any talent or imagination.

François P. WEILL

-- François P. WEILL (frpawe@wanadoo.fr), March 16, 2002.

Now (I ask your indulgence to make a supposition for the sake of argument): Suppose I go back in a time machine, and arrange it so HCB took the picture of the scene in 2002, with no person in it, and he added the puddle jumping guy later, digitally. My question is: Is this image that we know and love now rendered a lesser work of art.

The original was a photograph,not a work of art.It was a photograph.If it had been created by manipulation it would not have been.Yes that simple.

A few years ago i saw a picture of a women carrying a man without legs to a fishing boat.That man had lost his legs in a accident.The family who lived in a poverty striken area of the world,ever fished or died ,that simple.Each day she carried him to his fishing boat,and in the evening stood by the sea shore waiting for his return.That picture will be in me for ever.No artist will ever create such a powerful image.Why because it reality,the truth.The Artist in capitals is very much the poor relation of the photographer.We record the world,and life, and no human mind will ever improve on that.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 16, 2002.

Allen Herbert wrote: "The original was a photograph,not a work of art.It was a photograph.If it had been created by manipulation it would not have been.Yes that simple"

You are simply making up definitions. I say that a photograph made "with manipulation" (They ALL are, btw) must be called an Ishkabibble, whereas a photogtraph made "without manipulation" must be called a Flapdoodle!

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), March 16, 2002.

These definitions already exist,i am merely confirming them.

-- allen herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), March 16, 2002.

I don't feel capable of contributing anything of value to this thread. I would like to say, though, that, as a result of reading the foregoing, this forum and its members have gone up several notches in my estimation. Those Leicas are definitely in the right hands!

-- Ray Moth (ray_moth@yahoo.com), March 18, 2002.