The lowest form of photography is ...

Just some harmless idle thoughts here, so don't get too worked up.

By form of photography I mean the genre and the intent ... not the gear, and not the subject. Some forms would include portraiture, sports, street, landscape, family, photojournalism, etc. I'm excluding anything that is not specifically framed and shot by a human - things like security cameras, satellite cameras, etc.

The lowest form that comes to mind is the hand-held selfie (and yes, I've shot some of those myself). Any other opinions?

"Up skirting photography on crowded public transport?

If it was anything other than a harmless idle thought, I might make such an effort. As it is, I decline.

Any shot where editing is used to alter what the original scene actually looked like. Sky replacement, the liquify tool, etc. I'm fine with minor edits and even touchups where the intent is to be faithful to the original scene, but where major changes in shape or content happen, that's just sleezy to me.

There's one I hadn't thought of, and it even works on more than one level.

camera on the ground, shooting pretty models 🤪

Mine shafts go much lower than that.

how about under 😁

If those weren't taken in a mine shaft, they could be lower.

If the intent of the final image is a documentary version of the scene when the photo was taken then yes, I agree.

But if the intent is to make an artistic version of the scene then any editing is ok.

Pornography

HAND.

Hi,

This brings Selfie Pornography to mind....

AKA Sexting.

Stan

You didn't understand the 'rules'. Almost every genre and every photo has some kind of subject. I intended to focus on the genre and intent, and one genre is portraiture, which includes self portraiture. And selfies usually also include backgrounds, as well as other people and things.

Rather than spend further time debating the point, you can pretend I didn't include the phrase 'and not the subject' and just let it go.

I kind of disagree, unless you specifically say it's not real or it's so obviously not real that you don't have to say it.

For me, photography is a documentary medium. Paint and so forth is for creating from nothing.