It's been over 150 years since the beginning of photography, and there’s always been a fine line between photography and painting. The aim of this series of photography is going to investigate the relationships between painting and photography in this digital era and the authenticity of digital images.
These five images are finalized by postproduction. They are the results of combinations of several realistic photographs, for example, the boy who dresses up as a vampire under London Bridge, the scenery of River Thames and the people walk in central London. However, after decomposing and recomposing the elements from each photographs for these reproduced images, they become the hyper-real and aerial photography.
Pictorialism and Photorealism
In the era of invention of photography, many painters were photographers at the same time. As the result, a large number of photographs showed the similarities in not only the compositions but also the lightings of paintings back in the early days. Therefore, photography was also described as ‘The painting of light’.
The English photographer Peter Henry Emerson claimed in 1886, photography was a pictorial art, ‘superior to etching, woodcutting [and] charcoal drawing’ (Emerson, 1886, p. 139) in the article of ”Photo: A Pictorial Art”. Besides, he declared that there should not be any boundaries either in between art and science, nor in painting and photography, which contributed to the Pitorioalism. Pictorialism emphasized on the pictorial elements such as, hues, lines, and balances of the images and discarded the realistic facts, which were valued in the documentary photography.
Painting has always had a significant influence on photography. Even nowadays we can still repeatedly recall shadows of traditional paintings from photographs. For instance, Gregory Crewdson’s technique is very different from Henry Cartier Bresson’s “The Decisive Moment”. First, the compositions of his photograph were intentionally planned ahead like the rough pencil sketches of a painting. Besides, the process of capturing the moment or visually speaking as an image was progressed as if making the movies. They are a series of reproductive clips rather than one single irreplaceable shoot. Moreover, the colours were even retouched by computerizing afterwards. Undoubtedly, all of these techniques are entirely against the realistic characteristic of photography.
Untitled (2003) by Gregory Crewdson
However, photography on the other hand, has also played an important role in paintings since its origin. Photorealism paintings in the 60s had a magical way of keeping the realistic characteristic of photography. For instance, Richard Estes’s paintings represented the surreal beyond the reality by using the amazing realist painting skill.
Untitle (1972) by Richard Estes
Benjamin believes that the invention of photography absolutely has the significant impact on modern art: the reproduction of photographic destroys the “aura” of original art works. Nevertheless, Photorealism using photography as a creative source, they dissipate the replication of the images with their superb skills. When the unity of creation is from the mechanical reproduction of images, the questions such as “what is aura?” and “where is aura? cannot be explored anymore.
Reality and fabrication has become extremely difficult to identify their differences since the occurrence of digital photography. Lev Manovich discussed this subject further in ‘The Paradoxes of Digital Photography’. He suggested that, “Computer images are not inferior to the visual realism of traditional photography. They are perfectly real -- all too real.“
Nevertheless, the difference between traditional and digital photography is that the former believes in fabricating the image with objectivity and the intension of photography while the latter stands for opening its fictitious process. Nowadays we live in a society of artificiality, therefore, the virtual image has become rather indispensable in our lives. The comparison between image and reality is no longer as important as it used to be, which allows the world lies somewhere in between dreams and realities.
Digital photography allows the infinite freedom in imagination. Through working on collage pieces, I try to deconstruct the realities in photography by intentionally place conflicting elements into one image to create the narrative imagery. For instance, River Thames becomes a green field where lie two face-to-face camels and a man on the cell phone in the desert. However, only by adjusting colours and hues would make the elements seem exist in the same time and space. In my opinion, contraction is the most important feature in digital photography.
Reference:
Untitled (2003) by Gregory Crewdson from Luhring Augustine
http://www.luhringaugustine.com/index.php?mode=artists&object_id=66#
No title (1972) by Richard Estes from Collection of the National Gallery of Australia
http://nga.gov.au/PrintedLight/details/40365.cfm
Benjamin, W. (1936) The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.
In: Liz W. The Photography Reader. Routledge. P.42-52
Lev M (1995) The Paradoxes of Digital Photography. In: Liz W. The Photography Reader. Routledge. P.240-249
Peyton Chiang 04/06/2009
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