Last week I wrote about why I find it irritating (and potentially damaging) when people use lazy language that confuses AI images with photographs. It was interesting to see how people1 read that headline and assumed it was just another “old fogey photographer doesn’t like AI” story. But I think they missed the point. It was at least a little bit nuanced, if I do say so, which they’d know if they had read it instead of skimming and inferring incorrectly (ironically, the same way AI would). Anyway, to further elucidate my point, I present you with this list of ten things that are also not photography.

Poetry

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.” Ezra Pound’s beautiful imagist poem. Paints a real picture. Alas, not a photograph.

Painting

Chuck Close, Big Self-Portrait. Larger than life. Immensely powerful. A work of genius and technical supremacy. Amazing as it is, it’s not a photograph.

Film

Lawrence of Arabia, cinematography by Freddie Young. A masterpiece of visual filmmaking. Incorporates photography. Essentially photographic. Yet, somehow, a different medium altogether. Photograph-ish, absolutely. Photography? No.

Fishing

Was there confusion about this? I’m surprised. Because fishing is closer to photography than some things oft-mistaken for photography. For instance, it occurs in the real world and is a physical action facilitated by a mechanical device. So in a lot of ways, it’s meaningfully closer to photography than AI is. Strange but true.

Sculpture

Another one that people don’t seem to be confusing with photography, but I’m not sure why. Some sculptures are incredibly photorealistic, like these Rodin pieces (beautifully photographed by Emmanuel Sougez). They even possess three-dimensional shape! That makes them actually more realistic than any two-dimensional image ever could be. Still… Not a photograph.

Trees

Trees are in an awful lot of photographs. Are we sure they are not actually photographs too? Correlation does not equal causation. We’re sure. They’re not.

People

This photograph of a person sure looks a lot like the real thing. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, the photograph is not actually the person himself. The photograph is a photograph, the person depicted isn’t. Seems like it should be straightforward.

Music

Songs don’t even enter your head the same way as photographs. It’s ears versus eyes. This one should be obvious. Lots of great imagery in songs. Incredible artistic value, too. Am I sure they’re not photographs? I’m sure. They’re not.

Cameras

Wait, are we positive about this one? Yes, we are. Cameras are crucial for the vast majority of photographic imagemaking, but cameras are not photographs. Weirdly, this one gets confused an awful lot, particularly in the photoblogosphere. Too many of my colleagues are cameraists, which kinda proves my point. Proximity to photography is not photography.

Birds

Be serious. Birds aren’t real.

Photograms

A bonus eleventh item? Amazing! But wait, this isn’t photography either? Just kidding. This one totally is photography. It’s made of light in the real world, reacting with physical objects, fixed and made permanent by everyone’s friend, Man Ray. Indisputably photography, whether it uses a camera or not. Way more of a photograph than anything a computer ever generated.

Can you think of anything else that is not photography? I bet I can.