Hi everybody,

This question relates more to photography in general, but this seemed like the most obvious place to put it. I tried to search for duplicate threads, but I couldn't find anything similar. I was wondering at what point does a photo become art as opposed to a picture? I mean, I don't think that simple things like cropping a picture really affect realistic nature of the photo as opposed to cloning part of the image. Since photos are supposed to show exactly what happened when the picture was taken, would things like changing the colors or levels or other things change it into a sort of art? With photoshop it is very easy to manipulate pictures and make things happen in them that never happened in real life. So, when does a photo become "art" as opposed to a "picture" ? Hope this question makes sense to everybody. Your thoughts on this subject are welcome,

-Thomas

[Edited 2009-12-20 20:06:55]

Quoting ThomasWarloe (Thread starter): I mean, I don't think that simple things like cropping a picture really affect realistic nature of the photo as opposed to cloning part of the image.

As long as you fiddle with the crop tool you're almost never gonna get a manipulation rejection.
However, if the coffee the screener is sipping on that moment has less sugar or has something wrong with it then you are likely to get a Motive rejection.   
Playing with the Clone Tool is a different Pandora's Box altogether  

I think the way the OP means it is far more general, not just for a.net.

It comes down to ethics of course, but also what kind of a photographer you are (want to be).

If you're more into photojournalism, it's gonna be all about showing the scene exactly the way it was. Cloning things in or out would most certainly not be acceptable for a photojournalist.

Then there's commercial photographers (broad description, couldn't think of a better term), who'd like to make a photograph as pleasing to the eye as possible, and therefore the scene has to be free of any distracting things, or elements in a photo you didn't plan to be there / couldn't get out of your shot.

You will find that with regards to adjusting (not changing!) levels, the colours or the crop, that's hardly considered manipulation - unless one is a diehard photojournalist - simply because if one is shooting RAW files, there HAS to be some basic editing done. Probably anyone does these things, simply because on a raw file, the result you get from the camera is not going to be 100 percent equal to what you saw in real life.

My point of view, at least  

Quoting ThomasWarloe (Thread starter): Since photos are supposed to show exactly what happened when the picture was taken

Not always. In fact, they almost never do - the camera ALWAYS lies, to some extent.

To take a simple example, many photos here show an aircraft, off the ground but static against the background of landscape or buildings. Aircraft don't behave in that way.

In my opinion, a photo becomes art when it changes - in some small manner, the way in which the viewer perceives the world. Whether this is done when the shot is taken, in post-processing, or a combination of the two hardly matters.

When I worked for a newspaper, our rule of thumb was: don't do anything to the photos you couldn't do in the darkroom and don't do anything to change the content of the photos.

Crop, color, levels etc were all fine. We were also allowed to remove dust if our sensors were dirty. Other than that, we couldn't do a whole lot more to the photos. Clone tool was a big no no (aside from using that to remove dust spots).

The dust rationale is it's "added" in camera, therefore it's not in the scene and can be removed. I wouldn't touch the spots it if they were near the subject, or if the sky wasn't monochromatic.

An image becomes art when you the author of the image decide it to be art...by that I mean recording an unusual image by virtue of camera angle, cropping through the lens rather than in PS, on lens filters or manipulating a photo of static aircraft in PS to change its impact. Creative use of depth of field and motion are great art tools but don't fly well on A/Net as the motive of the image may only be one that only you understand...Aircraft offer tremendous opportunities for art but the major sites tend to favor more photo documentation rather than encouraging artistic creativity for arts sake. Every once in a while an abstract, interesting image will slide through that really hits you as an artpiece. I remember a year or so ago, someone recorded a shot in the early morning of a 737 with this brilliant, high contrast golden light, it picked up all the fuselage details with the rhime ice from the nights cols, steaming off the fuselage...to date, that is my favorite image on A/Net and I have no idea who recorded it. I think it was shot in Austria or some similar European location. That was Art to me and very little had to be done to the shot to render it as art...the moment was artisic and the photographers artistic eye got it...Did I say I drank too much coffee?