I know this is what we have all been waiting for, the discussion on digital!
I personally do not know, or I should say, cannot at this time define, why the use of a digital process is inherently not photography, but it is this which I do so strongly believe.
*A quick clarification: by photography I mean the art of the medium. Those images that are created by artists and which leave a lasting impression upon our history and lives. This is not a discussion about commercial photographers using the digital medium, as that is a business-first method of use that requires one to take advantage of anything easier, quicker, cheaper. One doesn't learn about wedding photographers when one learns the history of photography. And, just so this clarification doesn't leave a bad taste in one's mouth, I will, here and now, state that if I were a wedding photographer (or any commercial photographer for that matter), I would definitely think about using digital. OK, so that should make things known for this and any future talks about digital.
So, for this discussion I have come up with three main points that I will use to try and prove there is a substantial difference between traditional (film, or any other chemically constructed process) and digital.
One of the main reasons why someone might hold the belief that digital is not photography is because of the belief that the true value of photography is not only in the represented image, but also in the process and craft of creating that image. In today's world one must be well aware that plenty of time and effort are afforded to the creation of a digital print, however, that time and effort are related to staring at a computer screen clicking a mouse and tapping on a keyboard. This is not a craft. It may not be easy, but it is not a craft because one really doesn't use the hands to create, which is the basis for increased skill and knowledge. "When any human being works with his hands, whatever he does will be translated into the brain as knowledge. This knowledge, in turn, will react on his emotional self. That is how a higher level of personality is achieved." -Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. This pretty much sums it up. Any art created is about using the hands, physically creating to achieve that end result. There is absolutely no knowledge or skill required of the hands when digitally making a picture.
One might say, "Well you still must have a vision just like any film photographer." This is true, to a certain point. As important as the hands are in the physical act of photography, the eye and mind must be in the act of the capture. The difference comes in how much one must actually know to achieve their desired result. As anyone who has used current model digital cameras knows, the shooter does not need to have a professional education on what the proper exposure needs to be, let alone proper color temperature. The camera does it all. Even if the photographer doesn't utilize the little screen on the back of the camera to check the histogram, they only have to plug the card into a computer and play around with the multitude of exposure correcting sliders in the camera raw adjustment. Of course, knowledge of these specific adjustments is best for making an exact replication of the shot taken, one really does not need to know anything about them and can figure it out within minutes. Playing around with the levels (using the crafting tool I refer to as a 'mouse') until an optimal image appears on the screen takes little more education than telling the difference between green and magenta. This might be an oversimplification of all this, but the whole point of the digital process is to make it easier to get what one wants, at the expense of the mind. As one learns to use a calculator, they suddenly start forgetting how to add double digit numbers without it.
On the film side of things, the photographer must remain knowledgeable of the type of film, current light conditions, and exposure settings at all times. It is true that the light meter in some cameras is incredibly easy to use, and after a short time on a shoot one begins to inherently know what to tell the camera to do without a second thought, but the process is more intact because the photographer remains unaware of the outcome (which is one of the major draws towards film that any artist should respect...the photographer must complete a process to get a result, this has always been the way of photography). Furthermore, if the results captured on film were not correctly recorded, a process of chemical manipulation (using the crafting tools I refer to as 'hands') has to take place to get the "proper" image.
As one can clearly see, in each step of the process the adjustments vary; from the calculator help of digital cameras and computers, where knowledge of only the most basic of functions will allow one to begin pumping out pictures, to the retained knowledge a photographer must have in order to fully create an image. As go the hands, the mind also goes to the non-digital user.
"OK, so what if I don't care about using hands or having a mind," the digital photographer stammers, "I really like my calculator, and have you seen that new Mac mouse, it is awesome! What about the eye, that is really what sets photographers apart. Their vision, how is that different?"
The answer lies in one word, used as a verb, and bound to cause controversy; cropping. Now, this is quite a major topic which deserves much discussion (especially from opposing viewpoints) that, for the sake of my writing hand (and the already lengthy post this has turned out to be) will not be fully addressed here. But, to get the point across, cropping is bad. There is a reason the camera a photographer chooses to use has the framing it does, and that framing should be fully utilized without a crop to show the photographer's specific vision. This is the only real way for a viewer to get an understanding of the photographer's eye; an un-cropped, full framed image, using each corner to an exacting degree. The photographer rested the lower right corner of the camera's frame right where they did, not an inch lower or to the left. This is the only real way to judge the vision, as one must assume that if the image was cropped, the photographer was either told by another pair of eyes that the image didn't work as is, or the photographer himself noticed after the fact and decided not to trust their own eyes. Either way, the artist's true vision has been compromised and can no longer be judged alongside an un-cropped image (I know there are many many excuses for cropping, and again, I have more to say about this topic in general, so the promise is made to return to the discussion soon).
Alright, so there it is, three distinct features of the photographic medium; the hands, the mind, and the eyes. All of which are necessary for the creation of a photographic print, but none of which are even close to being fully utilized by the digital process.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
verry nice and edumacating
Hey Derek – Good to see more posts up. I think, however, you’re falling into a trap – the trap of the conservative reactionary. All your energies seem to be spent in keeping certain people out of the elite and rarified realm of “photography” (namely the people who enjoy photography but must also derive a profit from it and the people who are uneducated in the more technical aspects of photography. In a world where funding for the arts is constantly being slashed by certain groups in Washington (and Ottawa), it seems unproductive and self-defeating to spend our time trying to cordon off the arts to certain groups or building higher walls around what we consider “true” art.
A few years ago, NPR featured a story about a man named Baba Brinkman, an undergraduate majoring in English and an aspiring rapper. He was frustrated by the fact that his friends from home shared his passion for rap, but not his passion for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. He decided to select passages from Chaucer’s tale and put them to rap music – a conflation that quickly earned him (and Chaucer’s fourteenth-century tale) international twenty-first century recognition – his show tours all over the world. The point here is that Brinkman made the decision to embrace the plurality that art offers rather than the elitist standpoint (that art also offers!). Rather than build a wall between the “taste” of his friends from home and his more “sophisticated” taste for Chaucer, he recognized that possibly they weren’t that different.
The same can be said for any adaptation of Shakespeare’s plays – few companies today perform them exactly in the form they have been handed down to us – many modern dramaturges have mixed in their own interpretations into the original work (a production a few years back on the Boston Common of Henry V was set in World War II London).
Although the reactionary position seems to be the position of PRESERVATION (“Once more into the breach, dear friends”), it is actually a position of SELF-ASPHYXIATION. While it intuitively seems that art lovers must create boundaries around certain forms/approaches to art to keep out philistines, this approach, in fact, only kills off the art itself. The problem for traditional photography seems to be that it already finds itself in the position of The Canterbury Tales: it has become elitist and rather inaccessible to most of us. Rather than take up the fundamentalist and nostalgic position of remembering a time that probably never actually existed, how about thinking of ways that traditional and digital photography complement each other? To me, digital photography doesn’t debase traditional photography, it actually highlights the strengths of traditional photography (just as Rock and Roll (which I think can be considered music?!) highlights the strengths of Classical music and often complements it). The same can be said for film - is any movie that isn't filmed with the bulky pre-digital technology of the 1940s not a true film? The problem with using TECHNIQUE as the final arbiter of quality or what counts as art is that there are a lot of crappy films/photographs/novels created through traditional techniques and a lot of amazingly poignant, innovative, and sophisticated films/photographs/novels created digitally over the last few years! (but this position doesn't mean we have to throw Eistenstein's films, Steiglitz's photographs, or Austen's novels on the fire) Let's not be Luddites about contemporary art!
This is not at all about being ignorant of contemporary arts. This is not at all about recognizing B&W silver prints as the only true photographs, or anything other than Stieglitz of a lesser quality. But, as it pertains to photography, I think technique can be looked at as an arbitrator. What I am trying to say here is that any image created has artistic value, but those created with a focus on process should be looked at with more regard to the artist, not just the picture. I find all photographic processes of value, with the exception of the digital process for the reasons outlined in the essay. The digital process so reduces the amount of time and craft an artist has to spend on a work that there results in little to no benefit for the artist.
Post a Comment