I agree for the most part with Kurtz’s article but there’s one line of his that seems too decisive and less thought out for me: “It is as if Hershman, by using digital tools rather than inventing her own, has become a mainstream digital image maker” (123). When I read it, I felt the words of one of my undergraduate video teachers echo in my head about the use of digital effects in Final Cut pro; something to the tune of “only use them if you have a very specific purpose for it, that’s aware of itself.” Basically, kids had fun with the sepia tone, or the scratched film filter, or the fancy wipes for cuts, and many video projects were splattered with these effects. The problem was that they were using it just because it was there, not because they had set out in their project intending to do it. The effects were mainly just a way to gloss over the bad material they had put so little effort into in the first place. So seeing these projects, I understood, and consequently began to abhor the silly effects and filters in Final Cut. It wasn’t until I had taken a class on image manipulation that I realized part of the reason why these digital effects existed; because if used right, they can actually look good, and can be something of your own creation. It then became not a cop-out to use digital tools that you hadn’t created yourself, but it was your invention in how you chose to intricately layer them or manipulate their functions within the program. Image manipulation produces art that is aware of the fact that it’s manipulated and it then becomes how the manipulation was used, not whether or not you can hide it. So to agree with Kurtz, it is separate from “straight” photography, but I think it knows this for the most part, and it’s not trying to hide it. It becomes a process of working with a new set of tools, rather than using ones that are not yours. Did Hershman use tools that were created by her for her previous images? I find it interesting that Kurtz first mentions in the beginning of the article that she is not a photographer because of the mixed media she has within her work, and then goes on to say that she is still not a photographer, but in the sense that she has lost something. “…digital tools therefore compel us to imagine images that are not manipulated photography – not photography at all.” If the act of taking a picture with a digital camera is not considered photography, then his statement makes sense to me. 

 

            An example of a crappy digital effect (which I wouldn’t mind the doing away of) attempting to gloss over poor picture quality:

Although I would agree that this is a digital tool that's been slapped on, it's still a photograph to me.