Much to ponder here.
First, please excuse my poor written English. Second, I should declare an interest. I've been a passing acquaintance of David Byrne via a now moribund forum. Also, until very recently, I lived close to the location of his disqualified picture and have photographed there on several occasions. When David announced his win – and prior to disqualification – I warmly congratulated him on his achievement. I knew well the scope and style of his work and had no idea about the competition rules. At the time it felt churlish and mean to point out that his winning picture was obviously (to me) manipulated – my thinking being that it was only my local knowledge that made it so obvious. Then came the disqualification – I had nothing constructive to say – so remained silent.
As to the broader issues discuses in Alain's essay. IMHO most viewers of our work have their expectation conditioned by the wonders of the human vision system. What the human eye sees and what our cameras capture are quite close, but both are very different to that which our vision system shows us. Couple that with the very limited dynamic range of common photographic processes (in comparison with the real world around us) and you might take the view that practically all photographs are necessarily manipulated in some way or another. Thus the problem for competition organisers is where to draw the line for what is and is not acceptable. FWIW I can enjoy the results achieved by combining elements of different images into a single end product, and I much admire the skill and application of the authors – but it is not photography. Rather, it is an art (?) form that uses photographs as a source material.
Art and photography ….. well.... Since we use photography as a means of documenting much of human activity it follows that much (most?) photography cannot be art. Artistic passport photo anyone – I think not. So can photography be art? Lets make the working assumption of “Yes”. IMHO that gives us a bit of a problem since most art (painting drawing some sculpture) is an additive process. One starts with a blank sheet of paper and we then add stuff in. With photography our camera gives us everything – often rather too much – so we embark on a subtractive process to get what we want. Ah, manipulation – again! My current thinking is that photography is most likely to be art when it shows us something that we are unlikely to see from another art form. This might happen in a number of ways, but I'm thinking at the moment that the time domain might be a fruitful place to explore.
Right then, tin foil hat, coat, door.
While I agree entirely that photography, as a potential artistic endeavour, is different from other accepted artistic endeavours in that it is actually a, largely, subtractive process whereas the others disciplines are, mostly, an additive process in this way, at least, they are absolutely consistent:
What makes art art is that it is an interpretive process.
Trying to portray photography as a purely documentary exercise is bound to failure.
Merely by choosing what to shoot, and what not to shoot, never mind choosing a certain time of day over another, constitutes interpretive intent.
Also, whenever we look at an image, whether it is labelled art or document, an interpretive process occurs as we assimilate that image. It is often assumed that everyone will interpret a "documentary" image in the same way but that is most assuredly not so.
As soon as post-processing is superimposed on an image even the most subtle alterations may induce profound changes in how that image is perceived.
Art is perception and perception is art and we all perceive differently.
I recently posted an image of a lion lying up in an area of bush but brilliantly lit by late afternoon sun.
Everyone viewing this image "grokked" these documentary facts.
However the perception of this image was largely negative, but there was a significant minority that really liked the image.
The image succeeded at an artistic level merely because it excited diverse interpretive conclusions (although it is doubtful that it would succeed at a commercial level).
None of us appear able to view any imagery without invoking an interpretive effort - this appears to be "hard-wired" within our brains. In addition this interpretation also appears to invoke pleasure (this occurs whether we "like" the imagery or not).
The bottom line is that the debate should not really be about whether some imagery is art or not but rather whether it is any good!
Tony Jay
