OBA's Photography: 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…