Where does photography cease?
 

Well; as you may assume, I'm into the abstract / digitaly altered kind of stuff. I'm well aware that it's not everyone's cup of tea, so to speak; and; as this is 'world photography forum' where does 'photography' end & say, 'digital imagry' begin? Is there photograhical merit in the abstract images I am interested in producing & is it applicable to this site?
Al.

Al

I think there is room for your abstract / digitally altered kind of stuff on this site. Variety is the spice of life. I think the problem comes when there is too much of the same sort of photographs appearing all the time. I'm sure folk get fed up with all my Butterfly, bird and wildlife shots.

I see what your doing is no different from sampling in the music industry. Some interesting music has been produced but to hear it 24/7 is just as bad as hearing classical, jazz, country, pop, rock music 24/7. A nice mix of what I like keeps me happy :D :rolleyes:

I'd agree with Rob. A good mix keeps things interesting. I would say the images you have produced recently fall into 'digital art' rather than 'photography' for me, but that doesnt make them any less meritricious, or any less interesting to view, so keep posting, please!

Agree with every one else. Digitally altered and abstract is is not normally my cup of tea in that some of it I do not understand where the artist is 'coming from' and certainly I do not have the fertile imagination needed to do it but I am all for those who can to keep posting their work. Stretch my horizons, variety is the spice of life!

It's impossible to say where one ends and the other starts. But provided that the image is based on a photograph, then there's room enough in digital photography for the whole gamut of images from snapshots to seriously manipulated images such as yours. That's the pleasure of digital photography.
Keep posting yours, Al, I'm getting used to the nightmares!!!

Al, you have a firm supporter in me, and your recent work certainly has a place here. All the work placed here has its niche, from digitally altered to simple record, from technically perfect to dust bunny warren. For me, we never stop learning, whatever category we place our pictures in, someone will hopefully learn. They will either broaden their horizons and look at and start to appreciate images they would never take or they will learn from our mistakes. There is a photographer I know who adds animals to beach scenes - interesting and clever to start with, now he seems to me to be stuck in a rut, but others still appreciate his work - horses for courses. Unfortunately some people will never see beyond the photograph they take, but some need to push at the boundaries all the time. Just enjoy what you are doing Al - you are certainly giving many of us an awful lot of enjoyment. Thanks.

Folks have always altered or manipulated photographs for various reasons. Filters, infra-red film, cross-processing have all been used for effects and lots of darkroom techniques such as dodging and burning (every B+W landscape must have a 'moody' sky) have moved the image away from a 'straight' record shot.

With digital you can recreate many of the old photographic effects and add plenty of new ones and you don't even need a photograph to start with. Some of the Photoshop effects filters such as 'twirl' or 'glowing edges' etc., probably come into the frequently quoted category of 'use it once to see what it can do and then never use it again!' but provided an image looks good in its own right and doesn't just say: 'look what this filter will do' then it's valid in the 'digital art' category as far as I can see.

You don't just need to use an effect filter to alter an image, some of the regular 'photographic' filters will alter an image quite markedly - try the unsharp mask at its maximum setting of 500% and 250 pixels radius for instance!

As you can see from the stuff i post i try to vary my photos. So far i have experimented in Portrait/Abstract/Digital Art/Macro/Still life/buildings ect. I believe the creative mind has a big part in photography but as my dad (Robski) said its about having a broad portfolio and not to focus on one type of image which i have tried to do (hopefully :P :))

Photography may begin and cease, but art never ends. digital technologies has only broadened this notion - so be creative!
but, personally, i am for unprocessed images, with only a touch of post process) this is my heritage from traditional photography experience, film camera, black&whites, darkroom and all the stuff..

I'm all for both straight images and digital art. I feel if you've used photography somewhere along the process then great. I think the issues are when a photograph is tried to be passed off as unaltered ("totally as it came out of the camera"), when its been messed with. A fine line between altered and enhanced. Both go down well though.
I used to spend hours messing in the darkroom, and see the digital revolution as natural progression.....I admire those who spend hours on a digital image, just as those who used to (and some still do) spend hours in the darkroom
There's been some great images on here. Happy to see plenty more :)