The idea behind the Sofatography project came to me while, appropriately, I was sitting on the sofa with my iPad in hand.  I had decided that day to use Google Maps to virtually travel to Yosemite National Park and see if I could use Google’s Street View to locate some of Ansel Adam’s “tripod holes” (meaning, where he might have stood to make his iconic photographs). 

When I “landed” in Yosemite with Street View, I remembered that the iPad can make screen shots by holding down the power button with one finger, and pressing the home button with the other.  I pretended I was standing in front of the mountains, composed the image on the screen, pressed the buttons, and with a flash and shutter sound I had made an image!  I then thought, why not open the image in Photoshop Express and make it a black and white landscape.  Sure enough, after manipulating the image a bit, I essentially had my first image of Yosemite National Park.  The process, including “travel time”, composition, and post-processing took about 5 minutes.  It was after this first image that I decided to start the blog.

Upon reflection, this process sparked two questions.  The first:  Is what I just did photography, or some form of graphic art?  The second:  Was this my image.

When contemplating the first question, I thought about photography in general terms.  There are many disciplines with this art form:  Macro, landscape, documentary, etc.  One can make an image of the stars, or make an image of microorganisms, and both images are considered “photography”.  However, despite the differences, one constant with all areas is that all the images are of subjects that exist in the “real” world.  So what is it that I’m doing?  The images that were captured with Google’s Street View lenses exist in the real world.  However, I captured them in a virtual environment (the internet).  What I’m doing is taking that raw data and applying photographic techniques to render a traditional “fine art” image (albeit, a very low-quality image).  So is it photography?

The second question, is it my image, is just as tricky.  Admittedly, it was not my lens that was aimed at the landscape.  My eyes were not physically present at the location when then original image was made.  However, I did use the raw data from Google to create images that are substantially different from what they captured.  My images are not 360-degree views.  They are monochrome.  They are composed carefully on the screen.  I look at it the way a hip-hop artist would look at samples from other songs.  The sample that a hip-hop artist uses was not of their creation, but they manipulated it to make that raw data their own.  I’m doing the same.  So is the final image mine?

I can’t say that I have the answers to these questions.  It’s my thought that this project may spark a debate on what photography might look like in a new, digital age.  When I say digital, I really mean “virtual”.  With the existence of virtual worlds in games such as “Grand Theft Auto”, or “Second Life”, are the people who might decide to make screen shots in these worlds “photographers”, and are their images “photographs”?  If not, is it because the worlds are not natural?  They don’t exist in reality?  For gamers who play these games for hours at a time, these worlds are very much a part of their reality.  People have become married in "Second Life"!

Imagine a future where a large, extremely wealthy company such as Google strapped 9 top of the line Nikons to a car and imaged every road in the world.  All a photographer would have to do is compose on their computer, and make a screen shot.

Ah, but would they be a "photographer"?