When is a Photo No Longer a Photo?

This question has been a hot topic of conversation between Steven and me. When does a photo no longer qualify as a photograph?

Usually, photographers do one or more things when processing their images. They may crop (change dimensions), adjust for color or brightness, even take out distracting or unnecessary objects. By making these changes, is it a photograph since some items were changed or even removed? Ansel Adams, who photographed stunning vistas in the west during the 1940s, used processing tools to achieve the look he wanted in his work.

I did a little research online and, apparently, this has been a hotly discussed topic for years. Some qualified it by percentage of image changed and others by when the finished product looks nothing like the original.

The top picture I took at a farmer’s market in my hometown. I took out some distracting objects and post processed it in a program that makes it look like a painting. However, it still looks very much like the original ladies and place. The second picture Steven took. The original was a color photo of a tiger lily taken at a vista on the Blue Ridge Parkway. He processed it as a silhouette and changed the location and size of some of the flowers and stems. It still resembles the original but much has been changed.

In my opinion, I would not classify either of these as a photo, but instead a type of digital art.

Steven has a different take on the answer. He starts with the fundamental difference between a photo and every other medium. The difference is, of course, that a photo is an image captured by a camera. The type of camera can vary widely from cellphone cameras, to digital cameras, to film camera, and any other type of camera. If you crop an image, or change its color, or remove distracting items, or change it to a black and white image, it was still originally captured by a camera. In a contextual situation, the distinction between a photograph and something that is not a photograph may be applied artificially to the image but it doesn’t change its origin.

Of course, we reserve the right to change our minds at a future date.