Photography: Art or Testimony

Modern technology and the easy-to-use tools have put serious pressure on the definition of photography. Recently a detail in a call for art caught my attention. The phrase “Raw files may be requested” appeared twice (Photography Exhibition Entry Requirements).

Are photographers untrustworthy? Has deceit and sleaze permeated our art? That website of the Suwanee Art Center, says, “Photographers are required to disclose both their creative and printing processes upon request.”

Their photography exhibition has two categories. Thy are described like this:

Photographic Category Requirements:
ALL aspects must be photographed by the artist.  This includes composite photographs.  Limited post processing is acceptable (Highlights, Shadows, Blacks, Whites, Contrast, Levels, and minor touching up i.e. removing dust spots; not adding in an element not captured in the photographing process). Raw files may be requested.

Creative Category Requirements:
Photos must be original. There are no restrictions on post-production except that any post-production must be the work of the entrant. You cannot have someone else edit or work on the image for you. 

You already looked at my “featured” photo above. Let me give it a title: “Evening scene along River Street in Savannah”. It was photographed at 8:19 pm on a May evening back in 2013. Now look at this:

What would you call this photo? How is it different from the one above? Does it look like “River Street on an overcast afternoon” to you?

Well, both images were derived from the same photo. No local retouching or enhancements, just conversion to black-and-white using color filters, orange for the “evening” version and blue for the “afternoon” image.

Which one belongs into the “Photographic Category”? Photographers have produced black-and-white images since the dawn of photography. The sensitive emulsions have changed over the years and “improved” from being mostly sensitive to blue light to covering the spectrum. Color filters have been staples in the tool kits, maybe I should say gadget bags, of photographers and only in the digital era have they mostly disappeared.

Do both belong into the “Creative Category”? Here I would like to refer you to my earlier post “Is this a photograph?” and an even much earlier article, “When is a photograph not a photograph?“

Does the Suwanee Art Center imply that the “Photographic Category” should only be “mechanical testimony” – pretty much just what the camera recorded? Cameras make all kinds of changes to the real image, from the field of view, sharpness and depth of field, optical distortions, range of digital translations, internal reflections, differences in color response, varying compression curves. Not to mention noise and other artifacts that affect digital images. The older film technologies likewise have a wide range of variables in chemistry and optics that have profound effects.

Asking for raw files is insulting to photographers. The cheaters can use available tools to convert an image to a raw file, and other tools to manipulate the exif data in the file.

Photography is a creative art. There is the creative aspect that takes place before the shutter release is pressed as well as the creativity applied in post-processing.

Deciding on the subject, the composition, picking the place, time and light, making the camera and lens setting, waiting for that “decisive moment” – those all add up to creativity. Bringing out the image in post-processing to achieve the vision of the photographer is just another part of the artistry.

Yet the question remains. What is photography? What is our own definition? What are the limits?

One also should ask, does it matter? Is not the final image the message of the artist? Should it not stand by itself? Should we really bother and look “under the covers”?

.:. © 2024 Ludwig Keck