U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay

Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay



Ohhh Catherine,
You were the subject of a controversy on a list? How novel :) Dish the dirt--do tell what was the main crit!! A lot of us aren't on the history list--for me, one more list would be undoable but I do wonder if the reason this list is so DEAD is people are on all sorts of other lists like APUG and Photo History. Heck, for some reason, I will send this letter today and I am not getting my own mail back from alt, AGAIN. This has happened before. The letters are showing up on the web mirror, tho.

Seriously, if I could only list the things people have told me on lists, it would be helpful to you to feel you have company. My favorite came from a person on another list who said something to the effect of with how little I know how could I be teaching?

Let me make one brief comment as I am reading through the paper, as I could comment LOTS. I totally agree with your point about people sending off their work to be printed digitally now. Our students send their work to a place called Whitehouse Custom Color and get these big-ass digiprints back for really very cheap. This has been since we dismantled, sadly, our huge color processor last May. I still cannot get used to this. I used to labor to get my prints perfect, free of dust, in focus, color balanced within 1/2 point of magenta, etc. etc. and they do none of that. It seems so...unfair, almost like cheating.

But the prints are gorgeous, and the excellent students use their extra free time to produce really good work. My biggest complaint is those who take crappy images and print large uncolorbalanced crappy digiprints as if bigger were going to make a bad image or badly printed image good. Quality still stands, whether analog or digital. And I would say I see this issue on a weekly basis in my classes.

And the digital revolution has completely made alt easier and better IMHO.

More later after I read the whole paper.
Chris

----- Original Message ----- From: "Catherine Rogers" <chrogers@bigpond.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 12:35 AM
Subject: digital and analogue photography -the essay


Dear all,

Some of you may remember that around this time last year I asked the
list for personal responses to the advent of digital 'photographic'
technologies and how these affected their work with alternative
processes. Many of you very kindly responded - some at length. I was
extremely grateful and very pleased that so many took the time to
respond so thoughtfully.

Well, I wrote a paper and presented a compacted version of it at a
conference of university art school educators here in Australia, at the
end of last year. While there was too little time for discussion, it got
quite a good response, I think, because so many here are struggling with
the new technologies in very under-resourced (public) universities. The
paper, and now, essay, didn't quite turn out as I originally envisaged.
As I wrote, it morphed into a broader essay about digital technologies
in an analogue photography world, with a subsection about alternative
processes. I have recently started work on turning it into an extended
essay which I have added to my website.

I recently attempted to contribute this expanded essay in response to a
question about the history of digital print technologies in photography.
Those of you who are also on the photo history list will already know
how that was received. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief. I won't
go into details here but to say that I have spent the weekend in a
vacuuming, tidying and cleaning frenzy. The vacuuming part has been
quite useful - I ran through my recollections of the many helpful and
thoughtful contributions I received from a variety of practitioners and
artists on this list; and I also thought about about the specificity,
depth and breadth of discusssions that have been held here, over the
years, concerning the employment and uses of digital technologies in
alternative processes - despite some brief, initial resistance many
years ago.

It struck me (as the vacuum cleaner sucked up all the bits out of the
carpet on my study floor) that there was a sense of irony here, that
practitioners of handmade, labour-intensive and old (and old-fashioned),
quirky, photographic processes, should have already come to terms with,
used, and, I think, understood some of the ramifications of digital
technologies with respect to analogue photography and to ideas of
'photographic'. This understanding has come through practical use,
teaching and in other ways such as the often very detailed and specific
discussions held on this list; to the development of a number exciting
and creative reponses using digital print technologies, such as software
applications and procedures developed by Mark, Dan, Michael/s and others
(sorry if I have missed some of you). It appears to me that many
alt.proc. practitioners here had not only come to terms _practically_
with the advent of digital in photography, but that many have thought
about the bigger picture (ha ha) of the commercially-driven, so-called
'photographic', digital technologies that are  'replacing' analogue
objects, actions and concepts.

All that was to say that my essay is available for perusal and comment.
A number of alt. people who intially responded to my request for their
thoughts on the topic,  expressed an interest in seeing the finished
product. So here it is. Perhaps I should be wary of inviting more
commentary after my recent experience, however, I would indeed value
further thoughts, suggestions, comments and discussion.
Go to 'essays' on:
www.catherinerogers.com.au

thanks all
Catherine