>>3199635>it now includes all 3D renders, which people generally do not consider photographs.The argument I’m trying to make is more that there is a continuum from things that are definitely not photography to things that definitely are photography, and this falls closer to the “is photography” end of that spectrum. And I consider it a very interesting discussion to ask “what, fundamentally, is photography as an art?” And I consider the prevailing answer in this thread of “what happens when you hit the shutter button on a camera” to be a very facile and boring argument.
To me, what I think the fundamental process of photography is is taking four dimensional experience and slicing it down to the best 2 dimensional scene you can. It’s cropping the world.
So if you’re just taking a screenshot of a game where you’re on rails the whole time, that falls very low on the continuum. But if you have a 3D scene and the freedom to explore around it and you have procedurally generated landscapes and inhabitants, if you can choose your angle and your perspective and your timing and the game is rendering different lighting environments and so forth, that’s very close to the photography end of the spectrum, to the point where I feel like the distinction isn’t all that meaningful.
Things like 3D renders, you’re building the scene up from nothing. It’s closer to painting—you never have to crop a painting because you just only draw the things you want in frame. Similarly, with a rendering, there’s not that curatorial aspect where you’re searching for the best angle or perspective; you’re just building it from null with the angle and perspective you want.
And then there’s shit like Richard Prince’s cowboy “photos”, where he just took a photo of someone else’s ad photo. Is that photography? I’d put that way lower in the continuum than an interesting screenshot.
