Can art be mechanically reproduced?

When something is reproduced for so many times is that art? What's the importance of the mechanical reproducibility of the art? What was the impact on mechanical reproducibility on the society?
Of course, when something is reproduced for so many times, it’s still considered art. As Edgar Allen Poe quotes, “Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term art, I should call it "the Reproduction of what the senses perceive in nature through the veil of the mist.” Everyone looks at art from his or her own perspective and senses images in their own way. Many famous paintings and photos have been reproduced from the past to show a modern version of the original. A photo of a building, object or person can be reproduced by retaking similar shots of the original from different angles, altering lighting (day or night time), and special effects to portray certain moods or feelings. The importance of mechanical reproducibility of the art has made a big impact in our society. We are in an era of digital reproduction, and have the advanced technology and ability to reproduce an image of the original. There's no longer an “original”, since there have been so many copies, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between the original and replica. For example, genuine money is produced, along with counterfeit money in the black market. But the different security features the government has added on throughout the years has proved how are society is improving day by day to help prevent illegal activities.

CN Tower - Night & Day

Is photography art, or contribution to the art? Is it just a tool used by artists?
Photography is considered ART. As human beings, we vision things from different point of views. A photographer will use different positions, gestures, lighting and effects to capture certain motions in time, whereas a painter will use different shades and colours of paint to draw a certain vision. Whether it’s a picture or a painting, there’s still a meaning behind it at the end of the day.

Rainbow Eye

How and why Henry Pitch Robinson created Feading Away? What was the reason?
Henry Pitch Robinson created Fading Away by using the five negatives in this one photo. It shows a girl dying of ingestion (known as tuberculosis) and depressed family members surrounding her. Robinson created this photo to portray the true and painful human experiences the family had to go through. It was very rare for photographers to take depressing photos like this one.

Robinson's Fading Away (1858)

Photography has impacted the world of art and influenced some changes in the area of accessibility to art. If mechanical reproduction created revolution, what is happening now with the digitalization?
Mechanical production has created revolution for digitalizing art and photography. Digitizing is becoming more common and everyone is depending on computers to edit images, videos, etc. Whether it’s to change the contrast, brightness, sharpness, and quality of a picture or to alter sounds, effects, and clips, in a video. Software products are being introduced in the markets such as new and enhanced versions of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Elements or Premiere that allows us to digitalize an image or video. The possibilities are endless…

Madonna - Before & After

Sources:
Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction
A History of Photography, by Robert Leggat: ROBINSON, Henry Peach

The role of portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today

The main differences and similarities between portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today were the types of photography or quality of images, and the purpose of use for the photos taken. In the 19th Century, there were different types of photography such Daguerreotype, Cyanotype, Waxed Claotype Negative, Salted Paper Print, Wet colodion negative, Albumen Print, and Carbon Print. Portraits in the past were black and white and did not portray as much details as they do now, since all of our photos are high quality in full colour today. The different angles we use to take our photos now were not common before, because photos were taken only of important people, places or architectures. The angles they used before were usually straight, and the hand gestures or postures of the individuals in the pictures were the same. Nowadays, you can take photos for anything or anyone, for any purpose in every position. For example, people use photography to capture special moments in life such as weddings, birthdays, graduations, etc. Companies use photography to take commercial photos of people, cars, products, etc. for advertisement or publishing purposes. People take pictures to remember the past events and moments in history, and that’s one of the same reasons we take pictures today. Not only do words help remember the day something important took place, but also pictures help visualize an image in one’s mind.

Portrait of John R. Connon standing beside a camera, [between 1860 and 1900]
Glass Plate Negative

Tina Fey in Vanity Fair Photographed by Annie Leibovitz

The cost of becoming a photographer in the past was very expensive. Today, anyone can become a photographer by buying a digital camera in the price range of $50 to $300+ plus. Professional photographers today spend a lot of time, money, and equipment to ensure their photos or their clients photos come out in high definition. Photography is no longer an expensive hobby, as it is affordable for just about anyone. Today, everyone wants to finest high quality images with the top of the line camera, rather than worrying more about the cost. The subjects of photos in the past were generally focused more on people, instead of physical objects, landscapes or buildings. Photos were taken of people who were usually rich, famous, memorable and important. Now, you can take high quality photos of anyone or any object because being rich or famous is no longer important, and it’s more meaningful.

Nikon D60 Digital SLR Camera

Technology has advanced significantly throughout the past years. Today, photos are developed by machines and computers instantly, and not in “black rooms” one by one. Even though black rooms still exist through out the world, some people prefer to use the traditional positive and negative developing method, instead of modern day technology. Now, software’s such as Adobe Photoshop are available to edit, enhance, resize, adjust exposure or brightness, red eye reduction and change every little detail in any picture with a click of a button. You can even share pictures online immediately using Facebook or various image-hosting web sites such as Flickr, or Picasaweb on Internet. As technology changes everyday, new ideas and methods will be introduced and we will have to adapt to the changes.

Adobe Photoshop and PhotoTools Professional Edition

Using Adobe Photoshop to edit photo

Sources:
Historic Photographs - Photographic Processes
Stereo Photography
Sprinkled in Pink (Tina Fey Picture)
Nikon D60 (Picture)
Adobe Photoshop Screen Shot (Pictures)

Welcome to My World

Hey everyone,

My name is Osamah Asif, currently enrolled in the Business Accounting program. I have past experience in web designing and photoshop. However, I'm fairly new to blogging and "professional" photography, as I started taking photos this past fall of 2009. Photography has always been my passion, because I feel that it's very inspiring to capture those special moments in life and look back at them a few years later. After all, Photography is art, you vision something with the eye, and make it come to life. In 1999 at the age of 10, my uncle gave me my first (disposable) camera. By 2004, I learned to use a camera and bought myself digital camera from working a part-time job. In the summer of 2009, I bought my very first professional digital SLR camera (Nikon D60). I chose to take this elective course on purpose, not only because of the credit, but to learn the true meaning behind photography, past history, different techniques of taking pictures, learning to blog and more. Feel free to leave any comments on any new posts or photos as I would appreciate any feedback. I look forward to working with everyone online.
Have a great semester and best of luck!