Re: digital and analogue photography -the essay
I've been a lurker for the past few months but I've just submitted a masters
proposal very close to this thread of analogue and digital pros and cons. I
appreciated very much your paper Catherine and reading all the posts
following.
I can't remember where I read this exactly (in some photo magazine
somewhere) but it seemed right on the money. With the arrival of digital we
should perhaps create a new category of ' image-maker' apart from that of
'photographer'.
Colleen Leonard
----- Original Message -----
From: "Catherine Rogers" <chrogers@bigpond.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 8:42 AM
Subject: 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actions have, almost by stealth, been replaced by non-photographic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
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