Talk:Pseudo-photograph

This article says nothing about what a pseudo-photograph is... Dysprosia 23:52, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Why not tell define it? After all, it IS a stub :-) Have you read the article on pseudo-photographs under UK legislation?

I think a See Also reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorealism would be useful. The pseudo-photograph strikes me as a special case of trompe-l'oeil, an article on which is linked from the Photorealism article. The latter includes interesting remarks distinguishing the photorealist painting (which is always seen as the painting that it in fact is) from the trompe-l'oeil painting (whose objective is to be seen not as the real painting that it is but as the object it depicts); for isn't the objective of a pseudo-photograph to be seen as a photograph without being one? Should it not fool the eye by possessing all the attributes of a photograph except for the identity as a photograph? From this UK Parliamentary webpage https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldbills/033/en/09033x-f.htm I quote: "A pseudo-photograph is an image, whether made by computer-graphics or otherwise, which appears to be a photograph and includes a copy of a pseudo-photograph and electronic data capable of conversion into a pseudo-photograph." That definition sees the pseudo-photograph as a special case of the image. I am especially intrigued by its implication that pseudo-pseudo-photographs could exist, for what else would "a copy of a pseudo-photograph" be? Also that it envisions virtual counterparts of such things (if indeed they are things and not mere constructs) that take the form of "electronic data capable of conversion into a pseudo-photograph." The late 20th-century and ongoing concern with the pseudo-photograph is to my mind of a piece with the nexus of phenomena famously explored by Baudrillard; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation . It is symptomatically post-modern even as it preserves the 19th-century error of taking photographs to be direct reproductions of natural reality. The (pseudo-)logic seems to be that if a photographic portrayal shows 'a child is being beaten' it can only be because 'a child was beaten' (thus denying altogether the technology of the special effect, which is by definition 'obscene' in the sense of 'off-stage'), and further that a pseudo-photograph that 'shows' [viz., purports to show] 'a child is being beaten' must also 'show' (or 'seem to show' thus 'pseudo-show'?) the 'actual' -- though in fact purely imaginary -- beating of a (necessarily and naturally non-existent) child. For non-controversial (because non-photographic? though they are arguably in some sense pseudo-photographic) examples of images of non-existent children, ubiquitous in western art including not infrequently in erotic contexts, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putto . Another related, because contrasting, phenomenon is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photographic_manipulation , in the products of which actual photographs purport to show scenes that could never have been actually photographed (since they did not happen). The therefore ironic congruity of the manipulated photograph with a huge fraction of western religious pictures, accounts perhaps in part for the manipulated photograph -- as well as its counterpart, the pseudo-photograph that also seems unproblematically to show things that never happened or humans who never existed -- being so disturbing. The discussion here, which references "virtual cinematography," also provides food for thought on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King_(2019_film) . See especially the sections on Development and Visual Effects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.179.75 (talk) 22:16, 10 December 2019 (UTC)