Through a scanner, darkly.

[SilverStag]

Error created a really nice image for Five is Right Out using a scanner, and as someone mentioned in-thread, some camera phones and iphones use the same technology as flatbed scanners. This is eventually going to lead us into a rules quandary, I feel, so I’ve created a little poll to get your take on this. Please think it through, and comment as you see fit.

[Uranus]

Nice work SS ! came here to do this but, as ever, you have come out ahead of me on voting 😀

/I fully intend to put my shitty scanner to more artistic use than I have to date

[Elsinore]

It may help to find the original discussion thread on this issue…I’m looking for it but haven’t found it yet.

[Elsinore]

Here’s the thread that prompted the original discussion. Unfortunately it was part of a weekly theme thread, and while I could separate those posts, they would lose some context, as the issue came up on an entry that week that was a scan of a piece of paper. Discussion starts on page 4:
http://www.farktography.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2066&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45

[SilverStag]

Here’s the thread that prompted the original discussion. Unfortunately it was part of a weekly theme thread, and while I could separate those posts, they would lose some context, as the issue came up on an entry that week that was a scan of a piece of paper. Discussion starts on page 4:
http://www.farktography.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2066&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45

Wow, I missed that discussion entirely 😯

I still think there’s a discussion to be had, however. Suppose, as a thought experiment, that I mounted a Sinar 125mm lens in an 18 inch square box, and in place of the ground glass, I used a scanner bolted to the back wall somehow. I’d need a laptop in place of a shutter release. Is it photography?

[CauseISaidSo]

I think in that case, yes. The scanner becomes the imaging plane, no different from the sensor in our dSLRs (except for the actual digitization method, of course). As I stated in the other thread, I have no problem with it, I just don’t think using a scanner to directly create a digital image is necessarily photography.

Oh, and just to clarify, I’m absolutely not advocating the removal of the current image in question.

[linguine]

I think I’ll stick with my vote from before that while neat, scanner art stretches it a little too far for these contests and can lead to a slippery slope for what is and isn’t allowed.

[orionid]

This blue flower is pretty. I should give it to my friends.

[Elsinore]

From this week’s thread, to add to the discussion (which I would love to see hashed out more fully): I think I’m ok with it if it’s truly being used for photographic purpose and not document scanning. Which brings me to the conclusion that maybe what separates the two is 2d vs 3d subjects. If it’s scanning a 2d piece of paper, that’s very different from imaging a 3d subject as Error did this week. Of course, this distinction is not without its issues either–we’ve had plenty of photos that were taken of 2d subjects, so I’m not entirely certain how that’s quantitatively or qualitatively different from scanning a piece of paper. There’s a part of me that wants to allow scanner photography on a case-by-case basis, but the practical side of me always cringes at the possibility of not having concrete, objective boundaries as to what’s allowable/not allowable.

[Author]

Posts