From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 12/19/02-09:30:38 PM Z
On Thu, 19 Dec 2002 ARTHURWG@aol.com wrote:
> I guess what I mean about "typically digital-aged" is that now that we
> have the technology/capability to alter things by computer we feel
> compelled to do so. It's not that the need for digital arises out of the
> subject, but rather that the subject arises out of the technology. Maybe
> that's OK. But look at it this way: The world is awash in pictures, and
> most of them don't command anything more than a passing glance; others
> actually make us sick, like several I saw today in a Bulgarian photo
> mag. So many of these pictures, perhaps most of them, really seem to be
> a form of garbage, or "waste." Thanks to the digital age, we can
> falsify and produce an ever increasing number of pictures, adding to the
> ever growing mountain of visual "waste." Perhaps this makes me a
> complete reactionary. I do prefer Gustave Le Gray to Cindy Sherman.
> Arthur
You're "preferring" one of the great masters of his time, as revealed by
the passage of time, to one of the multitude in OUR time, not yet
winnowed. Not fair.
Who would the "greats" have been in the time of Gustave Le Gray? Probably
photographers we never (or hardly) heard of.
As for visual "garbage," there has never been a shortage...If you flip
through the popular photo magzines from, say 1900 to 1970, you'll find
enough garbage images to make Bulgaria cry uncle.
But all this talk about pinhole makes me wonder... Granted, the image is
charming, the distortion effective, and so forth. But going around with a
camera that has to be re-loaded for every shot is tiresome (or I find it
so). Marcia Sheer used to go out with a shopping cart FULL of pinhole
cameras, but that has its own limitations. (Also there's the long exposure
required.)
True, you can do standard sizes with film holders -- but how about
something else: With all the Photoshop plug-ins -- where is the plug in
for "pinhole," and while they're at it, give me one for "Diana." Then I
can shoot my nice comfortable 35 mm, 38 frames at a pop, & be "different."
(Dial in less Diana and get Holga, dial in more and get pinhole in a
match box.)
J.
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