photography - is it real or is it art?

[Patricia Page]

http://davidduchemin.com/2016/06/cameras-dont-make-photographs/

[Avril Kirby]

Oh boy--your program looks intriguing, Paul. I may have to indulge myself...

[3bt08rlg1zzbt]

I don't think you would be disappointed. To explain it further, in my initial development of the Pictorial Continuum I was thinking how most 'art' is a result of aesthetic decision making as one goes along with the creative process. However in trying to program a computer to make aesthetic decisions I realized that art was dependent on an artist's dexterity and discipline in a given medium. Being a kind of 'lazy man's guide to enlightenment' type person I wanted to create a piece of software that gave the user the immediacy of only having to make aesthetic choices within a continuum of possibilities. I also realized that image makers and photographers are at heart looking to capture unique creative perceptions and it seemed natural that applying manipulations to photos might result in as many unique results as there is source material in our archives. My software is not about interesting photo filters or special FX so much as direct manipulation of the image that invariably creates very abstract expressions depending on the seed photo used. It was originally designed to work in auto mode, similar to a screen saver to create an infinitely changing work of art but I introduced a manual mode where you just pick numbers between 01 and 14 and interact with the results by tapping the spacebar. It's eazy peazy but can lead to hours of very cool creative results using all kinds of photos or art as source material. I use it to create texture maps in my virtual reality work, things like glass windows or building tiles.