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

Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay

Henry,

Thank you for your thoughts on painting and photography. More food for thought for me.

I had completely forgotten about the: 'from today painting is dead' statement, which could well have become 'from today photography is dead'. But it hasn't. We seem to have failed to fully note how 'real' (old, analogue) photographic knowledge, and its concepts, objects, tools and actions have, almost by stealth, been replaced by non-photographic technologies and knowledge, simply by clever marketing - by classifying the new technologies under 'photography' and its tools and products as 'photographic'. Hmmm

Don Sweet's remarks earlier (28/05/08)(or is it 05/28/08 in American?), a propo my post regarding the photography controversy here in Australia, where police have alleged that Bill Henson's photographs are pornographic (and have raided the National Gallery of Australia and other galleries around the country confiscating Henson's photographs) is interesting here I think. Don suggested that:

"If Mr Henson's current problem has something to do with the extremely close
correspondence a modern colour photo appears to have with its object, then
finding a means of expression that reduces that correspondence, or increases
the distance between images and objects, might provide a solution for him.
On that purely speculative basis I wonder whether he would be safer
operating in the lower fidelity world of alt photo"

Henson's photographs are very low fidelity in fact. They are dark, Baroque, and there is a romantic painterliness about them - a softness, and the colour is very limited. They are almost monochrome. They are also grainy; in a sense, the image is made up of fragments rather than being a smooth and seamless unit. (Makes me think of a colour Fresson print I saw once.) They are C41 which he prints himself, I understand. The images suggest pointillist painting, and alla in all, appear to be a long way removed from 'straight photography'. Yet Henson's prints are 'real' photographs - however dark, opaque and lacking in specific detail they are. A digitally processed 'photographic' print might look far more 'real' having infinitely more detail - Dan's amazing new prints come to mind here - mind boggling in their endles detail. For all its detailed reality, however, the digital print has undergone many more interventions than an analogue photograph - both human and technological interventions - than a C41 print. Much like the contemporary alt print has many activities, spaces and processes which take place, in order, over a period of time, before the image is fully realized.

And around we go. Gotta stop.

many thanks again Henry and to others who have so kindly responded.

Catherine


Henry Rattle wrote:
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