What does "No Digital Manipulation" mean to you?

[ykia]

Judging from the flood of recent contests, with some stating the condition of "No Digital Manipulation", what would be your guideline if you were the judge?

Could it be...
- Straight out of the camera only, without software corrections?
- Software corrections allowed (e.g. cropping, WB, sharpening, etc) but no enhancements (e.g. adding, posterizing, convert to B&W)?

To add to the complexity, some camera software will do auto-rotation, resize and other corrections the moment you plug it in and start the download.

Or is this rule totally irrelevant in today's context as some higher end cameras can do quite a bit by themselves and pose a severe disadvantage to the less well equipped?

Shouldn't the creator of the work be left to choose the tools of his/her trade and be judged on creativity/originality? Image if Michelangelo was told "No Metal Tools"

 

[leeter]

Use film bahz !?

But personally i felt that anything u do, as long as it does not distort facts/truth of whatever you are taking, it's not digital manipulation.

 

[Expiredyoghurt]

imo, since film goes through processing too ... i'd say wb correction, cropping, sharpening, noise reduction and perhaps conversion to B&W should be acceptable ...

 

[eikin]

Use film bahz !?

But personally i felt that anything u do, as long as it does not distort facts/truth of whatever you are taking, it's not digital manipulation.

interestingly, we see this statement all the time. to expand the discussion, who and what define this parameter? :think: end of the day a photograph is an image, it may not even be capable of visually represent the subject in its truth and reality (think IR photography) even a black and white image may not truthfully represent the subject in the eyes of some.

in any case for the 'normal' competitions they have defined photography pretty narrowly, a photograph can be made without a camera (you'll just need the film and chemicals for developing negatives or slides) so where is the truth or fact?

Also, more or less everyone acknowledges that 'manipulation' in the darkroom is part of photographic art, then can we say that softwares such as Photoshop can be regarded as the equivalent of traditional darkroom and therefore the digital manipulations done in the software is part of photographic art? :think: i would think one of the reason why many do not accept digital manipulation as an art is due to the ease of doing them with the advancing technology, but isn't this a good as denying the fact that times have changed and our mode of production has changed as well?

maybe we should go back to the basics and ask ourselves 'what is a photograph? what is photography and what is the art of photography?'

i'm just confusing myself :bsmilie:

 

[zekai]

i feel that, resizing, sharpening, color adjustment, cropping, contrast & level adjustment all acceptable as relatively intact form. you can do any of these with film too.

 

[billpepsi]

Judging from the flood of recent contests, with some stating the condition of "No Digital Manipulation", what would be your guideline if you were the judge?

I've no idea, how about contrast/colour adjustment at the photo lab, is this manipulation too??? :dunno: :dunno:

I guess their concern are double exposure, bracketing, cloning, cropping etc...

 

[ricohflex]

means
don't use your fingers to push the photo around. :bsmilie: