A photograph of Elliott Erwitt - my hero! - appeared on my Facebook page this morning. He was showing off a T shirt that said "Warning! Digital manipulation kills photography" Hmmm, discuss!
Well, I suppose it depends on what you mean by "manipulation" doesn't it?
I mean, I 'manipulate' my photographs on the computer. I dodge, burn, spot, crop, sharpen .. but it's nothing that I didn't do in the darkroom of old. If that were the case you could argue that using Ilford Multigrade filters was tantamount to 'manipulation'. Oooh, boosting the contrast are you? Damn it, don't you realise you're killing photography? So, in my book, manipulation means using all the crappy 'effects' that are offered in Photoshop. Turning someone green, with horns, and making them float above the moon in a tutu .. now that's manipulation! But 'killing photography'? Nah, it's just created another branch of ART. It's just another way of giving people an outlet for their latent creativity. I might not like it but, hey, I can't stand Adele and look how popular she is, so what do I know? If anything I think that kind of photography - let's called it photo-art, or phart, for short - just gives all the more meaning to my kind of photography. Real! Accurate! Trustworthy!...
Elliot Erwitt is killing T shirt design!
©Martin O'Neill 2012
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