It's fascinating to hear what everyones' relationship to digital is.
Does it make you get sloppy? I always ask myself if auto-exposure and
auto-focus has made me sloppy...I still prefer my manual Nikons when I shoot 35mm
but I have been known to go out with several small auto-everything pocket
cameras - all with "prime" lenses of different focal lengths - in my vest pockets
and use them. Personally, I miss the days when I just had obe camera body and
a fifty mm lens...I used to shoot like crazy and, in retrospect, these were
some of my strongest images. Were they technically perfect? Not always, but
I doubt that I would even have a tenth of them if I had held out for
technical perfection. I had to become a good printer to get a decent print out of
some of them and it not only made my printing technique better but it made me
more concious of how I could get more printable results by being smarter while
shooting. The improvement of technique had a "trickle down" effect (thanks,
Ronnie!) on my shooting when I moved into medium and large format. I learned,
I adapted.
Digital occupies that niche for me now. I have a lot of digital images that
I wish I had made with silver halide materials just because they're good
images. I can only do so much with them as digital files...of course I could
make internegs out of them if I wanted but it's just not the same!
Do we make value judgements on the quality or legitimacy of an image based on
the format or medium that it's made with? Rhetorical question. Is an 8X10
original of a mundane or mediocre image inherently more legit than a 35mm
original of a really inspired image? If the process is simple is it less
artistic than an arcane and labor intensive one?
questions, questions, questions....
argon
Received on Tue Apr 13 16:14:48 2004
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