[Alt-photo] Re: Process or filter?

B Singer bsinger at sasktel.net
Wed Mar 27 01:36:14 UTC 2013


Are all my old Kodachromes not photographs?

B Singer
On 3/26/2013 7:28 PM, Earl Johnson wrote:
> I don't chime in very often here, but this thread invites my comments.
>
> I think that there is a fundamental difference between an image and a 
> photograph. I would argue that the former you can view on your 
> computer screen, and the latter you can only hold in your hand and 
> look at with your own eyes. The distance between a nice image on the 
> screen and a print that sings is so far that anyone who thinks that 
> digital image files are equivalent to good photographs has not seen 
> good photographs. Anyone who has struggled to make the paper print 
> work with whatever process knows that the object differs fundamentally 
> from the source image.
>
> I submit that photographs must be physical in order to be called 
> photographs. I further submit that we should not judge the quality of 
> photographic images unless we are able to see them in person. Compare 
> a computer-screen rendition of one of Sandy King's carbon prints to 
> the real animal, and you will not be tempted again to equate digital 
> images with real, live photographs on paper. I only use Sandy because 
> I think that his carbon prints are superb, and I have not had the 
> opportunity to hold the prints of the rest of you wonderful artists in 
> my own very hands.
>
> The art world will come to appreciate the lovely photographs that are 
> being produced in the  beginning of the 21st century, but few of them 
> will be solely digital. The physical, tactile, emotional photographs 
> that exist as objects will be much more valuable.
>
> Earl Johnson
>
>
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