How will imaging affect nature photography?

How do you think imaging (and digital capture) will ultimately affect nature photography? Are you excited about it, currently involved with it, or opposed to it--and why? Will there be a place left for the "purist"--the photographer who refuses to corrupt reality and endure the increased expense and complexity???

I think digital imaging won't too much to nature photography. The only thing you can do with your computer is to repear your faults or put a moon on a picture where there was no one - but nobody would spend time in drawing a bird and put it on a nice landscape saying that this was one of his best shots.

 

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Digital photography will become more important in the newspaper bussiness as it'll be faster than developing a film, make a print...you can feed your picture right from the camera to page one of the paper - maybe 15 sec. for all.

 

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I think there're no one out there who carry a digital camera out to the highlands, as you always have to carry a laptop with 2 GB of discspace for archiving. Taking a SLR Camera and a handfull of films is much easier and more creative...

For it or against it is pretty irrelevant. Digital will replace film eventually, though how that will take is anybody's guess. It'll happen when the "increased expense and complexity" go away, which they no doubt will. <P>Digital doesn't inherently corrupt reality any more than traditional techniques. What's "reality" -- the image you get on Kodachrome or the one you get on Velvia? The one you get with the orange filter on b&w film, or the green filter, or the one you get on infrared film? The image you get with polarizers, warming filters or graduated ND filters? Burned and dodged or straight print? Toned or untoned?

It will effect traditional photography just as the Kodak hand held camera did the older wet plate processes. Quality is quality & reality os open to interpretation. Digital will have to overcome a number of limiting factors. Battery power is #1. Electrical & magnetic disturbances are biggies. Take your digital camera out in the cold & all hell conspires against you. Nylon & pile generate a lot of static electricity & will effect digital files. Dry & cold help transmit static. Electrical storms & high tension power lines will effect the digital files. But, if all this is overcome it will work. Long term storage of these digital images will allways be a problem. Right now the best digital & optical/magnetic technology is losing bits of info within 5 years-including the photo CD's. Even Kodaks top digital experts will tell you if you want it to last back it up with the silver based image. We know it will last because it has been around over 100 years. We won't really know if digital will untill the 100 yrs has passed. Another problem is reading todays digital in 5-10 years(tried to buy an 8 track stereo tape system for your car lately???) But, if you want to see the future of digital in nature, look at images by Ron Sanford of Gridley, CA. Ron is an excellent shooter & his digital work, in collaboration with a digital master(apologize here as his name escapes me) is the best out there in nature work. Ron tries to get scenes he actually sees but that traditional photo methods won't capture. He is succeeding. As far as digital goes, If AA were alive today, no doubt he would be mastering the medium. It is another creative outlet, nothing more. No, it won't replace film any more than digital imaging has replaced oil painting. Art is art & part of the process for many people is the tactile experience. Learn to enjoy the creative process & don't worry about the future, it will come whether we want it or not.

Good luck.

Digital simply offers another tool to the photographer. No doubt the time will come when it replaces silver, but that is not today. Current digital images do not guarantee that the image will be around in 20 years. The biggest change that I see is will be the need for a new standard of authenticity. Today, ethical photographers will clearly identify animal photos taken at a zoo or at a ranch with a handler. Digital images will require the same level of honesty. Check out the review of Sam Abel's class done by Glen. When National Geographic moved a pyramid they caught a lot of flack. Other than that I don't see digital as much of a threat to photography. Color correcting an image via filters or software is still color correction.

Anthony's point about standards of authenticity is a good one. Perhaps two months ago Outdoor Photographer had an article on this very point, expressing the view of the purist (Galen Rowell I believe) regarding a digitally manipulated photo. The image maker added to the picture an additional cub, presenting a number of cubs not known to exist in a litter (I think the number in the image was 6, as opposed to 5 in "real life").

 

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So yes, digital is another tool; Ansel Adams dramatically changed "moonrise over hernandez" in the darkroom, and I have never seen anything like Jerry Ulesmann's images in the wild. With slide duplicating now, its easy to add the moon as Carsten noted. But don't you want to know when an image has been altered? Why shouldn't such manipulated images be viewed as a different class of nature photos "lesser" nature photos, given *their* hand of man?

Always, always I see Ansel Adams used as an example to justify the manipulation of images. What's missed is that while he did indeed alter contrast and brightness, he didn't composite different portions of an image made from different exposures. It was the rapture of the observation of what was happening at that single moment that moved him to lug the camera out of the station wagon, get it set up, and figure out how to best bend the rules of film and darkroom to get his visualization of that image over the frailties of the medium. He didn't insert a moon over Hernandez that wasn't there to begin with, unlike a lot of the manipulation that's going on today. In the case of Uelsmann, there is no attempt whatsoever to disguse the content as a representation of reality. But in some digital manipulations, such distinctions are not made clear: for example, Art Wolfe rightfully took a lot of flak for not properly labeling manipulated images in his book on patterns in nature. To me, this is purposefully misleading the viewer, since the viewer has no basis with which to decide whether this moment actually existed, or existed only virtually.

 

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It is true that no image can truly represent reality. It is in fact an image, and not reality. There is room in the wide world for all sorts of images made with all sorts of methods. Still, my personal preference is for those images which capture that one split second of time and stand on their own as a testimony to the beauty of what actually occurred and the artistry of the photographer who had the skill and the luck to capture that particular fraction of a second in time. See http://wild-light.com for some examples of photographers who subscribe to that ethic...and if you're interested in exhibiting there, drop me a line.

Perhaps my reference to Adams was too subtle; rather than *justifying* manipulation because he did it, I mean to lump him with the most obvious of manipulators, Uelsmann. For me, the difference between them and digital reimaging is one of degree, and not one of kind.

 

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And for both ends of the spectrum -- the most obvious compositing of Uelsmann and the value-shifting Adams -- and for digitally manipulated images, I want to know what the photographer has done to change the scene. This is where I think digital photography will present a challenge -- the temptation to tweak images is present, and the means will become simpler, I believe.

 

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I like the work of Uelsmann and I appreciate the work of Adams. But I know that their images are these photographer's visions, and not (always) exactly captured moments. Likewise, some of the work being done in digital imaging is very impressive for what it is, digital imaging. But in the end, I share Duane's preference for honest imaging (and I commend his web-site). Thus I certainly hope that standards of labeling altered images will emerge.

even if digital imaging becomes at the forefront, there will still

 

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be those of us who prefer to spend most of our time at our craft

 

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in the field with the fresh air and the sounds and smells of the

 

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outdoors as well as the wonderful sights. the thought of spending

 

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hours sitting and manipulating my images just does not appeal.

 

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if i do manipulate, it comes when i am with my subject, not

 

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changing , but merely enhancing what i see in front of me. it is

 

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a real challenge to capture an image that is so well placed, so

 

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well lit that manipulation isn,t necessary.

 

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yes, i understand that spectacular, in your face explosive imagery

 

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is in demand and that is not natural nature photography. am i being

 

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too primitive in today,s hi-tech society? maybe, but i know there

 

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are others out there too. like the village blacksmith we will

 

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persevere and carry out our ancient craft and be appreciated.

 

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jeff hallett FL

It is not obvious to me that digital will in fact replace film. I think that we are likely to discover that digitally stored pictures have their own "flavour" which is different to what you get using classical film. A good example of this, I think, is the comparison of video cameras with normal film cameras. While I know that I am not comparing like with like when I say that what you see in a cinema looks better than what you get on your TV, there are some obvious differences between the two media, that do not make them exactly interchangeable.