P3D Re: Holga vs. Hassy, for instance!

[John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 19:06:16 -0600
>From: "David W. Kesner" <drdave@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: P3D Re: Holga vs. Hassy, for instance!

Further exploration of the philosophical implications of equipment
quality:

>My "definition" of art is when an image is created by a person 
>through their own means. My definition of "photography" is when an 
>image is simply captured by a piece of equipment. Art is an 
>interpretation of the image and a photograph is a recording of the 
>image.

>As I stated in previous posts, this line can be blurred when a 
>photograph is manipulated by hand such as the Polaroid print that 
>is scratched while it is in the process of being developed.

If you pose your cousin Seymour in a Nathaniel Hawthorne costume in front
of Mt. Rushmore, and use a fill flash with red cellophane in front, and
a star filter on the camera lens, and deliberately tilt the camera 17
degrees clockwise, then what parts of this process are the art, 
and what parts are the photography? (In other words, to what extent
is this a useful distinction?)

I suspect that unless the subject is something like passport photos, it's
very hard to isolate the art from the photography.

>One last time again. You are confusing what is most pleasing and 
>desirable to you to what is superior. The quality and superiority of 
>anything is based soley on its own measurable merits and not how 
>it is liked or disliked by any one individual.

>In optics the piece that can pass an image with the least amount of 
>distortion of ANY kind is the most superior. This in no way implies 
>that it is the best for every use.

So where on the superior-inferior scale is the primary mirror of the Hubble
Space Telescope? Its construction is horribly inaccurate, and it produces 
terrible distortion, but it's so phenomenally precise that near-perfect 
compensation (in the rest of the system optics) has been possible.

:-)
John R


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