Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay
Title: Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay Catherine, Thank you for your thought-provoking essay. It started so many thought-trains running that I can’t get them all down, so here are a few disconnected (possibly incoherent) ramblings: When photography was invented, some thought painting was dead. Well, it would have been if every painter had become a photographer. What actually happened was that painting became different. It moved away from the things that photography could do better, and developed in new directions. Arguably painting is stronger, richer today because of it. So the invention and development of analogue photography broadened the horizons of artists in both media. The range of possibilities for expression got wider. When I “went digital” I thought of selling off my 25-year old Nikon FE’s and even my 5x4 Ikeda. Thank goodness they were worth so little that it wasn’t worth selling them! Now I have it all - the possibility of analogue or digital, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Like Chris, I rely on digital negs for tricolour gum – but if I want a good monochrome gelatin-silver print, I hope I’ll be making the real thing and not an imitation, however convincing (or not...). I’m glad that Chris’s students are producing good work via the digital/commercial route – but at least as glad to see that they are getting a grounding in the darkroom. That way they keep their options, and aren’t tied to the photographic syntax decided by the mathematicians and physicists employed by Sony, Canon, Adobe, Epson et al. (not that I have anything against physicists – I used to be one myself) Finally - In my living room I have a tiny collection of Victorian portrait photos, including a daguerrotype and some ambrotypes. These, like every photo, are objects in their own right – but there is a frisson to knowing that this is the actual piece of glass or metal whose coating reacted to the light falling on the sitter on that particular day perhaps 150 years ago. No digiprint is ever going to do that. See the danger of writing a paper – you make people think! We have gum, albumen, platinum, silver – we won’t let go of those, and we’ll tap digital for whatever it can do for us in support and enhancement of our craft. Best wishes Henry
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