Kevin O'Brien (kob@paradise.net.nz)
Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:49:02 +1200
There is now way the digital tide will be rolled back. Within 10 years all
film will be only available through an art supply house.
Film is only a receptor of light and the grains of silver are logically no
different from microscopic light sensitive cells where information can be
frozen electronically. At present the digital light receptors are not small
enough or of sufficient number to capture the same information density as
silver halide emulsions. It is only a matter of a few years before
inexpensive receptor modules of comparable capacity are available. Storage
media are available and printing technology has just caught up.
Those of us who are printmakers may still get our hands wet with hypo.
Though the darkroom will be relegated to the art studio I am certain it will
continue. In 20 years we may even have special packages of nostalgia; P&S
camera, real b& w film, contact proofer & chemistry.
Photography is essentially ephemeral and if an image lasts for a generation
its purpose is usually well served. Working on family history I prize those
photos I have that have survived, some mint, for nearly 150 years and I can
look in wonder at people who were born in 1815. These pictures owe their
longevity as much to luck as to good craft. Digital storage may enable even
better archiving. A digital image doesn't suffer chemical attack and can be
reproduced generation after generation without change. 'Digital film' (DF)
will be a solid state memory chip and already its trivial to 'burn' a rom
where the contents, encapsulated in ceramic, are immutable and the lifetime
of which will far exceed that of my granchildren. Prints on paper media will
always have a limited life so far as roaches are concerned. Perhaps a
gallery dealing in archival work in future will include the DF in the sale
replete with verfied digital sig.
We tend to think of digital photography as the print which is only the
mechanism of revealing the image to the human eye. The essential processes
of making a photograph remain: a view must be had, transformed optically,
captured for storage, expressively manipulated and revealed as a
photographic work. A dull LF image is not changed by the inert storage
medium. If the photographic eye is missing nothing will rescue the work.
What the digital processes enable is to dispense with variable and expensive
chemical ones and to eventually reduce costs. DF gives instant access to the
image, just plug it in and view or print it out on command. This is what the
public want and must drive the development of commercial photography. The
artists can do their thing with the DF as they do with any other neg or
transparency. It has taken time for us all to learn how to manipulate a
silver image, latent or otherwise we must expect similar effort on learning
how to manipulate digital images. Many workers on this list are effectively
pioneers in the technical revolution which is underway. Another step in the
near future will be increased bit depth for greyscale or colour value and
hue description. Computers will get fatter and faster as will the software.
These are fascinating times.
Beam me up Scotty.
Kevin O'Brien
> > > The next issue, which scares me the most, is with the wholesale
> embracing of
> > > this new technology to create images, what is to keep the companies we
> count
> > > on to continue to supply us with materials in which to do our work?
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