On Monday, March 17, 2003, at 06:49 PM, Tris Schuler wrote:
For illustration, a similar parallel could be drawn to painting. Imagine
the death of, say, oils. From a certain date only "digital oils" would be
made. No more brushes, no more smocks, only Paint Shop Pro. Or drawing.
No more pencils, no more gum erasers, just some CAD title with
years-ahead-styling and form.
I don't really think it is the same thing. The meaning of "photography"
is writing with light. Camera is short for "camera obscura" or dark room
because the first ones were rooms with a lens set in the wall.
Understood.
The point is that digital photography uses a similar camera and is writing
with light. The only difference is the form of light sensitive material.
Instead of emulsion spread on a glass plate, or a film, it is a light
sensitive circuit. There has been an amazing variety of light sensitive
materials already used in the capturing and printing of an image. This is
just one more way to do it. To equate photography just with the particular
process you grew up with is really limiting. Matthew Brady would probably
not have liked 35mm cameras and film cassettes, but it is still photography.
Winsor Crosby
But not photography as I've grown up with it, which is the distinction I
wished to impress Barry with as he asked me re same. I noted that half or
more of my process today engages the digital side, that this technological
turning has helped to enhance my work (it is easier, cheaper, faster to
effect good change in Photoshop than it ever was or could be in a
traditional darkroom). Indeed, it has come to the point that I don't much
care (within certain bounds) how my film stock comes back to me developed
from whatever lab I give it to, as I have trained myself to improve matters
(quickly, surely, ably) simply be subjecting my film to the scan/PSP/PS
digital workflow I've developed over time. No matter _what_ I get back, no
matter _what_ shape it comes to me, I can and do improve it dramatically
in a virtual flash.
Having said that . . . while the statement "it is easier, cheaper, faster
to effect good change in Photoshop than it ever was or could be in a
traditional darkroom" is true enough, this does not render the digital
process the same as the analog, it does not render the end result the
same--only similar to one degree or another on both counts. To restate:
analog and digital are distinctly different means to only similar ends.
(To complete this process-of-change circle: then we also have the ability
to resubmit our image back into analog form by translating what we get from
digital workflow back through a kind of printing filter, the result being a
hybrid image.)
Brady: I would hazard a guess that our colleague would have taken to
smaller, lighter and infinitely more capable equipment like a duckling to
water. Whether that means he'd have opted for a 35mm system or something
more along the lines of what Adams worked with or something in between I
don't know and find it somewhat pointless to conjecture--his work certainly
would have gotten along faster had he an SLR or rangefinder in his pack! I
think it's clear that _had_ Brady possessed more sophisticated analog gear
then his work must have benefited. For all we know Brady might well have
passed directly through the analog stage and embraced the first digicam
that came his way instead--newer, faster, better might, for all we know,
have been his soul's imperative all along.
Look: I have no wish to try and hold back the hands of time. I doubt
there's anyone on this list more eager to incorporate new useful
photographic technology than me. I admit that I am often put off on various
photographic sites by the bevy of digital shooters who seem wholly unaware
of the analog side of things and who, moreover, posses no apparent interest
whatsoever to discuss the process of photography but rather wish only to
present one pretty (and pretty much thoughtless at that) image after the
other. But then in truth my experience is there are not so many
photographers using analog gear who wish to engage much in the study and
discussion of photography but, again, only wish to "strut their stuff" for
whatever good strokes and gratification to be had. No news there.
Let's try to put that in context: I don't see the digital side of this
dichotomy of photographic technology to be an "enemy" or somehow
"responsible" in any way--that resides, if it exists at all, on the human
side of the equation.
Again: in and of itself I look on the advent of digital media to be a good
deal all around in terms of the greater potential it offers; in actuality,
however, I find problems.
Users of digital photographic equipment who work in utter ignorance of the
analog side of the greater photographic activity are something regretful,
regretful for the reason that I've never known ignorance to march for a
single positive step. Ignorance never does anything, it never could for any
reason. It is this dynamic which worries me down the road. Maybe it'll all
work out for the best, but I think we're headed for a state of greater
educated photographic idiocy. In-focus images with sparkling colors will
abound; photography per se will become passe.
As always, I hope I'm wrong, I think I'm right.
Tris
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