Is this a real photograph?

Make a hell of a convwersation at parties... 😵

A bit like this thread 😉

I use the fact that long exposures do not record people passing through the scene, as a way of eliminating unwanted people in some of my Architectural shots. It works if nobody stops to check their phone.

These definitely are photographs, as they are single shot, unretouched images. But I did not experience the scene in this way. I saw people passing through the main Piazza in Modena on a Sunday evening.

I would argue that as photographers, we need to be aware of the technical issues, if only to profit from them. For some uses like journalism, the difference between an image and let's call it a photograph is pretty important.

"Many consider my photographs to be in the "realistic" category. Actually, what reality they have is in their optical-image accuracy; their values are definitely "departures from reality." The viewer may accept them as realistic because the visual effect may be plausible, but if it were possible to make direct visual comparison with the subjects, the differences would be startling."

—Ansel Adams, The Negative, from the Introduction

Some of uour images certainly look realistic depending on how much perspective distortion is in them.

Images from single shots, yes, are photographs but "composites" - HDR, focus stacking, noise stacking etc - are not thought of as photographs by me, but as images, regardless of how close to a documentary representation of the scene they are.

All photography abstracts the subject, even if this is just a static view of a dynamic scene. As such it often offers a different view or perspective of a subject, we get to view it differently and form a different understanding. There is no technical definition that can subtract this from a photo because it is so tightly bound to the way we view and form an understanding of photographs.

Certainly agree about the journalism, there should be not only a strict code of ethics but a rigid set of rules limiting how an image is modified. This will not ensure that an image represents any truth, or in any way sway the viewer from seeing exactly what they wish to see, but it will provide a level of trust regarding image manipulation.

And I like the AA quote.

As for the rest, with the rapid expansion of what is possible with the photographic image (hmm... both terms together) why do we need to impose a limit to confine what photography is? If you define a photograph you also define what it isn't and create a boundary for photography. Trouble with this, and the inevitable confirmation bias, is that we create boundaries that promote our own understanding and elevate the status of our own photos, "I'm a true photographer, those are just images..." even if only subconsciously. With your second shot above it is certainly not "unretouched" as you have isolated the church by very definitely reduced everything else to shadow and manipulated the colour to a level that does not pretend to be realistic. The point is that your definition of retouching is somewhat plastic as it only includes specific modifications while ignoring others. You can't clone out but you can reduce shadows to near black, removing a person by cloning is out but by using a long exposure it is ok. My personal take is that I find one method "creative" and the other not.

We should really be having conversations like this thread, and explore the limits. But I don't think we should set any limits.

Three photographic images, all created by the photographic process, two of them multiple exposures from different viewpoints, only one is a single exposure.

I doubt that is necessarily true.

For example - If some defines a photograph to be the image created from the light captured by a camera during a single shutter actuation, what boundaries does that definition put on that person's photography?

Well it cancels the last two of my three posted photographs and leaves you with the one that is (ironically) the most abstracted from reality. So not a useful definition, but then technical rationalisations don't seem to fit photographs that well anyway.

It also cancels all phone photography and prevents any of that technology migrating to other cameras. You can't ban fully automated HDR or other automated features just to keep your skill set and understanding of how to set ISO relevant. Technology will render it redundant at some point. Embrace the change...

I don't see how it cancels out your last two images but in any case the question is how does the definition in the question put boundaries on that person's photography not yours.

Or how does that definition put boundaries on my photography?

Not if only a single shutter actuation was used by the phone camera to output the final image.

Personally I don't see HDR, noise stacking or focus stacking final pictures as photographs. They are images to me because more than one photograph was used to make them.

Don't understand your response, unless it's an elephant trap. How on earth can I speak from your experience, (especially as you often pretend to be multiple photographers...). I can only speak from mine, and why should I argue from your viewpoint, one that I think is nonsense? From here it seems that you are trying to force photography to fit your preformed rationalisation that is little more than a labeling exercise rather than explore what a photograph actually is. And it seems a little binary in depth.

The three images are deliberate; one is a single exposure but highly abstracted, two are multi-exposure multi-viewpoint, one overlay, the other in triptych. How many different sub-categories of composite photograph do we have to rationalise before we accept that it's an exercise in futility?

As for my phone, I have no idea what it is set to or what it is doing. I press the button once, it makes a software generated noise and produces an image. I cannot express enough just how liberating it is to produce photographs entirely by visual understanding with next to no regard for any technical knowledge or consideration. So to have a definition of what constitutes a photograph that is entirely derived from a technical understanding and so demands that to know if it is a photograph you must have that technical understanding?

Yes, I find that incredibly restrictive. But it would define you as the photographer and me as the image maker, whatever that means...

It's a photograph, deal with it... 😋

You posted a generalisation saying that if one defines what a photograph is then they are putting boundaries on photography itself.

I am saying that is not necessarily true because I have a definition for what to me is a photograph but there are no boundaries around my photography.

It seems now you are saying your generalisation now applies only to yourself. If that is the case, that's fine.

As this thread is clearly showing, there is no 'one size fits all' definitive definition of what is and isn't a photograph.

Everyone has their own chosen definition of a photograph and that's the way it should be.

I agree to a certain extent, that using a phone or a camera set to program, is extremely liberating. On of my favourite projects was shot on a LX100. Recording a boring and rather squalid little torrent that runs though my town, was all about seeing. My iPhone makes surprisingly good pictures straight out of the can.

But for my Architectural photography, I need to have full control over technique, both from an optical standpoint and an image recording standpoint, otherwise I am stranded at the tourist snapshot stage. It is also liberating to be in full control of the image making process. I also actually enjoy the slow deliberate process of using shift lenses on a tripod. It also forces me to look more carefully at my subject.

Maybe we can all agree that deciding if a photograph is a photograph or an image is pretty irrelevant. My three frame HDR sets can be closer to what I saw, compared to a single shot, where highlight and shadow detail is lost. My 3 frame HDR sets are truthful enough to be used for documentary purposes.

Things become problematic if I start cloning things out, or adding a nice sky to a shot taken on a grey day. A heavily oversaturated and highly manipulated image taken from a single frame, is much less a photograph, than my 3 frame HDR sets, where I have basically taken one picture with three different exposure levels, to achieve a more natural looking result.

Exactly what was suggested by a few people very early in this thread 😀👍

Of course everyone can choose for themselves what is and is not a photo but what everyone chooses is pretty much irrelevant for most situations.

Good to see you finally saw the light (pun intended) 🙂

My phone seems to do auto everything, sort of an AI processing. I like it because it makes choices that I wouldn't and also because it's controls are designed to be intuitive, by the motion of your hand (finger really) rather than changing the numerical values of the settings. The former only requires you to understand your emotive response to what you see in a way that's completely ignorant of process. The later encourages you to relate visual effect to numbers and the camera settings, which not only can be misleading but in digital all exposure really is just the control of highlights and noise. Which is what we end up doing on most photos we take.

Not that I always like what the phone does, in fact I often find the HDR sucks the impression of light from a scene and so often use the touch tools in Afterlight (movement of finger again) to put it back. Again not a process I would normally use and so it produces results I don't normally achieve, ones that are outside of the considerations of highlight and noise control.

If you are in full control then you will always be aiming for an outcome that is familiar to you, always something you already know. It can be hard to go beyond it with a controlled process, you need a random element.

Yes, it's pointless to differentiate between an image and a photograph. It's not just the digital age that questions the definition of photography but the whole upsurge in the use of phone cameras and selfies that has really shifted not only how we take and share photos, but also their value and permanence. Adding yourself/removing others is a swipe of the finger (again) these days. A photo of all four of you smiling and laughing together may be an AI composite and may only be the memory you wish to project, but how does that really differ from "normal" photography? Because we can now all do it so easily perhaps our understanding of what's always been true of photography is better?

Yes because a photograph is a photograph and a photograph is an image ...

That's what I posted earlier - all photographs are an image but not all images are photographs.

I know, I read it already ... was just agreeing by way of a tautology ...