Self portrait

A self portrait for today and something to puzzle over!

I took this photo with my iPhone today and processed it through an app called Sketch mee.

My question is when does a photograph cease to be a photograph?

Although the image above now looks like a sketch (remarkable that a phone can do this) it is composed of the same digital information, the same pixels, the same 1's & 0's as the photograph that it was previously but now it has been abstracted to look like a pencil sketch but is it still a photo?

There are thousands of apps and filters that allow digital photographs to be manipulated to the point that they no longer appear to be a traditional photograph so at that point has it ceased to be so?

There are purists who still use SLR cameras & traditional film but as digital cameras can mimic this to a degree that is almost indistinguishable from film where does one stop and the other begin?

The line between art & photograph has grown very thin has it not when photographic effects can be painted onto digital imagery.

The iphoneography web site http://www.pixelsatanexhibition.com has some great examples of what I'm talking about