Creative Photo

About "Photo"
The word "photo" has two basic meanings. Firstly it stands for photography. The word "photography" is derived from the Greek language: photo means light and graph(on) means written. Photography is defined by the Webster and other dictionaries as the art or process of producing images on a sensitized surface by the action of radiant energy and especially light. This is not a rule or an immutable eternal law, but simply the technical and scientific definition of the term "photography," used in English and many other languages. Photography has changed, but its definition is still valid. A digital camera obtains images by the action of light on a light sensitive surface. The images are photographs (and thats the second meaning of the word „photo“), although the action of light is physical and not chemical.


Are images created by a computer photographs? It is agreed that slides or prints corrected or modified by a computer are photographs. On the contrary, images made by drawing or painting without using a camera or light are not photographs. The digital compositions containing both photographic and non-photographic material form a debatable gray area. The main issue here is not the nomenclature, but the eligibility for photographic exhibitions. Contests must have rules to be meaningful and exhibitions need standards. However, the border between photography and digitally created graphic art is diffused. The PSA Consolidated Exhibition Standards [PSA Journal, 68 (1) 16, 2002] require that the photographic content of the image must predominate. This criterion is open to interpretation. Hence, the decision which images are acceptable as photographs is left to the judges of the exhibition. Professionals choose the imaging technique most likely to please the client. Amateurs are free to make images by any process they enjoy.


The Importance of photographs

Photographs are amazing. Through photographs, we preserve history - our child's first steps, a decaying landscape, or rare and endangered animals. We use photographs to recall the first steps on the moon, the inauguration of a new president, the lifting of a flag on a far-away hill during war. Mothers laboriously decorate large scrapbooks just to protect their precious memories. Photographs evoke the essence of places we have not been, we perhaps will not return to, and should never forget. Photographs are visual artwork. They take something ordinary and elevate it to a position of honor. A strand of barbed wire fencing becomes romantic; the seed of a common weed fires the imagination.


With a photograph, we can bring someone from his or her spot on the globe to mine. They can stand with us in the midst of a pine forest or walk in hushed silence through the musky light of a swamp. In reverse, through the images of others, we have walked across hot, sandy deserts; we have stood on immense mountaintops, and pushed our way through steamy rainforests.