When Does a Photograph Stop Being a Photograph?

Capturing reality was never photography's sole purpose—it always flirted with imagination. But in an age dominated by digital tools and AI, how far can we push photographic art before it stops being photography?

When I began my meander down the Photon trail many years ago, I faced certain limitations. Most of those limitations had to do with my lack of knowledge about the photographic process, both in film processing and in printing, but I soldiered on, knowing that my destiny in life, or at least a significant part of it, was tied up in the art of creating photographs. I consumed information at a prodigious rate—like a sponge soaking up water. If there was someone who was an “expert” in the field and available to talk to or listen to, I was there, absorbing everything they had to say. When the technical sales representatives for Kodak, Beseler, or Omega were in my local purveyor of photographic goods, I was there, picking their brains—those who had one—for as long as they would allow me. The reader must remember that these were ancient times, photographically. We had just gone through a paradigm shift from black and white only as a consumer product to “natural color” (color negatives), as it was called, becoming popular. We were moving from C-22 and E-3 processing to C-41 and E-4, and then E-6 processing for color films. Interestingly, black and white films were readily available and haven’t changed significantly from those years. With the notable exception of T-Grain technology, black and white films still work just like they did when Tri-X Ortho and then Tri-X Pan came on the scene. At that time, the canny photographers of the day processed their own black and white films, and some even processed color films and printed from them in small darkrooms. Having said that, our limitations in that time frame were far greater than they are now.

This photograph, Narrows of the Virgin River, is the first photograph I ever made where I thought I had begun to explore the creative possibilities available to me and was one of the first large format images I had ever made that I liked. Interestingly, I used a very antiquated Crown Graphic 4x5 camera with very limited movements and an old 135mm Nikkor lens. So the sophistication of the tools you use has much less to do with realizing your photographic vision than your determination to find your own voice in your photographs. By the way, in this image, the wall in the distance was darker in tonality than the canyon walls nearest to me, so I used the very elementary tools we had at the time to create something completely out of rhythm with how the scene actually presented itself.

At that time, our materials for wet darkroom processing were much more limited than today, and digital photography wasn’t even a smile on a photographer’s face yet. As I read books by the great American photographers—Ansel Adams, of course, but also Edward Weston, Morley Baer, Eliot Porter, Paul Strand, and many others—I became aware that I wasn’t getting anywhere near the creative potential from my images that was possible.

The big creative question at that time was, “How far should we take the creative process?” There were, and still are, many people who think we should only show actual images as they came out of the camera—no burning, no dodging, etc. Many felt the presented image had to be exactly as the photographed scene or subject appeared, not even allowing cropping of the image.

At that time, a few very creative people figured out how to combine multiple images from different negatives onto one piece of paper and make it so seamless that it seemed to be a real portrayal. The now-deceased photographer and darkroom genius Jerry Uelsmann comes to mind.

Uelsmann’s work was always controversial to some but embraced by others. Some said it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of reality—well, no, it wasn’t. But anyone looking at it would immediately recognize that. Others were more subtle in their renderings.

Here, for your consideration, is an image of mine from many years ago. In the original image, the sky was blank with an even overcast, so the light was diffuse. But it was boring—so very boring—and I wanted to “kick up” the visual interest of it. I rustled around my file of sky images until I found one that I thought would fit and figured out a way to print it in.

The question for us is, does it change the character of the original image? Yes, it does. Next, does it lie about the location of the image or present something that never could be? No, it doesn’t. The scene is real, and the possibility of this sky happening is very real and promising. If one were to camp out there long enough, there probably would be a time when something like this—or even more interesting—could happen. And other than being visited by the occasional bobcat or elk, it would be a solitary stay!

Here’s another where I added a sky to an otherwise blank sky. The conditions were very harsh. A 40–50 mph gale was coming in off the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and it was so strong that it literally blew my tripod over before I could attach the camera to it. A large format camera in those conditions is a lot like having a kite attached to the tripod! There was a very cool sky above the structure, but the wind was blowing so hard that the sky rendered as a light gray blur on the original negative because the actual exposure time ended up being 90 seconds—not uncommon when using these large and unwieldy cameras. The problem was solved in the darkroom by creating a series of masks using a specialized darkroom film that allowed me to print an interesting sky into the image without leaving a halo around the trees on the structure or burning down into the structure itself. The goal was to add a sky and make it believable. Again, does it change the character of the image? Yes, it does! Does it misrepresent the scene and portray something that could never be? No, the scene is very plausible as presented. (By the way, in the darkroom print, there are 28 brown pelicans clinging to the sea stack for shelter from the wind!)

The advent of digital cameras, Lightroom, Photoshop, and a dozen other photographic software programs has changed everything. And with the rise of AI, the question is all the more pressing. How much is too much? There is no truly objective standard, as we have been able to alter photographs to suit our artistic preferences since photography began. However, I do believe that to be a truly photographic image, light must travel through an optical lens to a medium that responds to it and forms an image. I suppose anything is okay—I only ask that AI-generated images be labeled as such. While AI is very alluring and easy, there must come a time when AI images are differentiated from actual photographs because they are digital creations. There needs to be a clear understanding that an image was created using AI.

It’s an interesting phenomenon and time we’re living through. I have had people say that an image I presented had to be done using AI. When I reply that no, it was done using film, that usually settles the discussion. I make no assertion that one medium is superior to the other. My only intent is to spark discussion, and I welcome a civil discussion on the issue. I think it is important for us as photographers to come to a clear understanding of “How Much Is Too Much.”

(Info on the lead photograph: I had an okay but boring image made in the badlands of Northern Arizona, with a featureless sky. Many years earlier, I had photographed an annular eclipse at a state park near my home, but the images were of the sky only—no land under it. The two images were combined using Photoshop only.)

I get all of my expendable supplies like film, paper, and chemicals from B&H Photo Video in New York—great suppliers of almost any photographic item you would ever need.

Uelsmann photograph used with permission of the Jerry Uelsmann estate, Maggie Taylor - Administrator.