When is a photograph not a photograph?

January 28, 2001 1:01 PM

When is a photograph not a photograph?
...and does it matter? Photosnobs get bent out of shape at Photo.net.
posted by normy (16 comments total)

Personally, I prefer shots of nujde girls.
posted by Postroad at 1:15 PM on January 28, 2001

Ok: NUDE
posted by Postroad at 1:15 PM on January 28, 2001

The first couple of comments were generally positive.
posted by hobbes at 1:22 PM on January 28, 2001

...but some were hostile... geesh, haha.
posted by hobbes at 1:25 PM on January 28, 2001

The ceaseless degree of self-satisfied snark over frivolous trivia, coming from internet strangers, never ceases to amaze me.
posted by crunchland at 2:12 PM on January 28, 2001

Crunchland, if they weren't strangers they wouldn't dare be so pissy. As someone says in that discussion, "I still cannot understand what all the fuzz is about." Nice picture.
posted by rodii at 2:55 PM on January 28, 2001

The cat-scan.com site mentioned in one of those comments is kinda cute.
posted by gluechunk at 3:21 PM on January 28, 2001

Yeah, and you should see some of the comments that site has received. Someone accused them of being cruel to animals, apparently because they thought people were actually closing the scanner lids on their cats.
posted by kindall at 3:47 PM on January 28, 2001

Bonsai Kitten no longer resolves.

<pout>
posted by baylink at 4:27 PM on January 28, 2001

Bonsai Kitten does resolve, it's now hosted by rotten.com
posted by gi_wrighty at 4:52 PM on January 28, 2001

Eww. Mushrooms are gross.
posted by Succa at 6:24 PM on January 28, 2001

It's no different than here. Only there is visual.
posted by jessie at 6:29 PM on January 28, 2001

hey, with regard to my mention of cat-scan.com up there, I just realized that this relates to the earliest surviving MeFi thread.
posted by gluechunk at 7:11 PM on January 28, 2001

Hmm, I think a photograph is technically defined as an image captured through the processes of photography. Is scanning a photographic process? Interesting question indeed. It is a process of capturing reflected light, but without a conventional lense of any type.

Photograms, which capture images by laying objects directly on photosensitive paper is considered a process of photograhy, so it could be said that scanning is a digital photogram of sorts, with much more defintion.

Huh, I'll have to ponder that one some more, I never realized that digital image capture might be technically different from photography.
posted by Hackworth at 7:34 PM on January 28, 2001

It is a process of capturing reflected light, but without a conventional lens of any type.

Actually, scanners do have lenses on the scan bar. Each CCD element on the scan bar is like a little camera with its own lens.
posted by kindall at 8:21 PM on January 28, 2001

Who knew a cheap scanner could produce such high quality images.
posted by bshort at 6:45 AM on January 29, 2001