[Alt-photo] Re: Process or filter?

[Earl Johnson]

I know that my diatribe has holes, but I think that my point is made.

My entire childhood is recorded on Kodachrome stereo slides that are 
wonderfully well preserved. It is so cool to see my parents presented 
alive and well and in their twenties! In the case of color slides, the 
film itself is the photograph, and the projection is the physical object.

My point is that the physical object trumps the digital file. Kodachrome 
slides are definitely physical.


On 3/26/2013 8:36 PM, B Singer wrote:
> 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
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Alt-photo-process-list | lists.altphotolist.org/mailman/listinfo
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Alt-photo-process-list | lists.altphotolist.org/mailman/listinfo
>