How has your personal photography changed over the decades?

<p>I have been thinking about how my approach to photography has changed over the slightly more than six decades that I have been taking pictures and making photographs (I view only some of my pictures as "photographs"). The technology has certainly changed a great deal from the days of the Argus C3 that I started with through the whole line of Nikon Fs, Hasselblads, Arca Swiss view cameras into the digital world where my iMac, Macbook Ai and Software are as much a part of my photography as my studio and darkroom used to be. The transition from chemistry to digital has been profound. <br>

I reflect back on my days in art school, time with Ansel Adams, my fellow photographers in Seattle in the '60s and '70s... all fond memories. The expansion of the horizon represented by digital image creation and management has been transformative. I now see my camera and lenses as only minor components in the process -- much like brushes and canvas when creating a painting. Digital image state of the art today is basically at the point that if you can imagine it, you can create it.<br>

Today I see my camera much as I did the sketchbook I carried with me in art school and for years afterward in which I would capture visual ideas that I would later execute on some larger scale. The captured image for me today is that same point of departure that a sketch in the sketchbook was. <br>

Today I spend more time looking to do things I could never do with a camera, light, chemistry and paper in the '60s. I rarely will attempt to do a digital emulation of a photograph I could have made back then and instead look to do things only digital imagery make possible. <br>

I seek to explore, build on and visually expand on what might be considered traditional photography. I wonder if Degas or Rothko or Pollack would work in digital images today and what they might produce.<br>

I'd love to hear from others about how they see their work today compared to years past. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy Visual New Year.</p>

<p>I see dead people.</p>

<p>Or at least I see ghosts. Layers, and layers and layers and layers of ghosts hovering around everything I look at through the viewfinder. Think Dante's circles of hell.</p>

<p>I see the zillion times, the visual ghostly layers and layers, where I tried shooting that before and it was either 1) <strong>bad</strong> because ... (and I can vividly remember what/how/why it was <strong>bad</strong>); or 2) good -- in which case I don't want to do it again because ... it's been done and/or it would be lazy to just repeat what I know is a safe shot.</p>

<p>Then there is the .0000000001 percent of things that I see that don't have ghosts or layers. Trust me, there's a good reason why, in all these years, those little bits have remained unmolested.</p>

<p>All of which probably explains why I am now a compositor, not a photographitor. My current project, which I am absolutely in love with, would take me five single-spaced pages just to explain ... You do not want to know.</p>

<p>In my earliest years many of my photos were meaningless, in terms of content and composition. I was trying to learn the basics of manual film photography with a B&W darkroom and workflow. Now, photography is so much easier. I can time and compose images of my favorite subjects, without obsessing over technique. I feel totally liberated. Other old duffers in our photo club enjoy seeing my work, and I enjoy theirs. My family loves what I do with recording our favorite holidays and times together. It's so much better. And I absolutely love what current auto-everything can do. Who cares what skills are leaving me? No one.</p>

<p>Julie, are you familiar with the concept of the "salient" image?</p>

 

<p>No, I'm not familiar with that.</p>

<p>I can't help thinking that the only place I'd want a salient image is in a courtroom or a doctor's office. Convince me I'm wrong.</p>

<p>When I look back I can see I should have bought a Leica in the 60's and should still just be shooting B/W film with it. But I went from B/W to slide film, then color film, digital and now moving back to B/W film. I guess I am pretty much in the same place that I started only with several large trunks of old photos and a mass of digital files. My subject matter never really changed. I just took pictures of the places I went, family and friends. </p>

<p>Julie, it is a concept of image analysis that I thought you might find interesting given your earlier comment about layers.</p>

<p>When I look back at my early photography, I can see the roots of what I do now. I was shooting landscapes, sporting events, and occasional astronomical events over 40 years ago. My photos have improved over the years largely because of better tools. I started scanning film and learning how to manipulate tone scale with Photoshop 20 years ago. I "went over to the dark side" and switched to digital 10 years ago. The rapid feedback and the ability to shoot many more images prompted more learning. </p>

I look back to where my journey started 40 years ago at age 8 and it was me just trying to get the basics of film down with a Kodak X15F 126 camera. I then think to where my mind was at age 13 after mowing lawns all Summer to buy my first SLR when I knew this would be my career and life.

 

Then along comes 1994 and my world is turned upside-down, forced by editors at the paper I worked at to "Lead the charge" in making the transition to digital....It sucked and I hated it. So here I am 21 years later and I still use digital, some of the best in the biz too ( Leica M240, Nikon D750, D810, Hasselblad CFV50c ) and the thing that excites me the most, will get me out of bed well before sunrise tomorrow after this snowstorm....?

 

 

Film & the darkroom.

 

 

Yep, you read that right, the fact I will be shooting black and white film that I can make a real print with my real hands in my real darkroom, that is what keeps me in this career. After 21 years and possibly a million images made with it, digital is just as old hat to me as film and the darkroom is to most on here.

 

Nowadays, all my camera systems have to have digital and film components that play nice together...because any camera system that is digital only is pretty much useless to me.

 

The brightest part of my future is black and white film and the darkroom.

<p>Interesting EJ. Salient image seems sort of a visual corollary of the Gestalt concept of foreground/background. But it isn't something I consciously work on, except for when I finish a print, i will use tonality and other means to move the eye to where I want it, but I'm not sure that's the same thing. What I'm interested in is if the change to digital media and the capabilities it provides has really changed the kind of pictures people take? Besides the passing of time when some things naturally change, do people find themselves looking for different things when photographing due to the medium? For me, I'm not sure its made that much of a difference, but I can see that if someone is a process artist the media itself can certainly effect how they work and what they look for and really be a big part of it.</p>

<p>Barry, for me digital photography has certainly changed the way I look at photography, not so much how I view the world. Today I still enjoy pulling out the patterns and colors from a subject. Years ago I would do that with pigments on paper or canvas. Today I can do that with photons and ones and zeros in digital photography. My camera (and CPU and software) have become the medium of choice for producing abstract images. The "graphic" in photographic has gotten a huge boost with digital photography. I rarely take what might be considered a traditional photograph any more.</p>

<p>For me, what digital has taken away (its pluses are almost infinite for me), is that little -- or not so little -- coating or atmosphere of affirmation that I used to get before digital. To make, in my own darkroom, an 8x10 enlargement and give it to someone was to be showered with gratitude, admiration, and respect. The picture didn't even have to be very good; just <em>enlarged</em> was awesome. Family, neighbors, schoolmates, all looked at me as having <em>special</em> skills. I was <em>specia</em>l. We like being <em>special</em> ...</p>

<p>Nowadays. > <em>sigh</em> < Not only does everybody already have their own pictures, they can enlarge them to any size; heck they make books out of them without turning a hair. I am most emphatically <em>not</em> "special" anymore.</p>

<p>The core of what I do, my own explorations and enjoyments of photography are not affected by this loss of <em>special</em>-ness, but not getting a steady feeding of affirmation and admiration just for what I am (or was) -- me with my camera and my darkroom and my dark arts -- leaves me a little less supported emotionally, etc.</p>

<p>I accept this. Further, I am sick and tired of those who don't, who lie on the floor and have big-baby temper tantrums, screaming, I AM SPECIAL!! I AM SPECIAL!! Grow up. The cavalry is dead. Any peasant with a long rifle can pick you off without even putting down his sandwich. Film work ought to be an admirable hand-crafted niche form that is, instead, in danger of becoming known as a home for needy, "I AM SPECIAL" pain-in-the-asses.</p>

<p>Julie: You failed to mention the smell of the chemicals and prints out of the dryer...</p>

"Film work ought to be an admirable hand-crafted niche form that is, instead, in danger of becoming known as a home for

needy, "I AM SPECIAL" pain-in-the-asses."

 

Well thankfully the art buying world does not view it that way, or else I would be left without a career & life path that truly

bears my fingerprint or personally satisfies.

 

Thankfully, I have found balance in doing both....<div></div>

<p>57-years ago, at eleven, I started out very serious, buying a Yashica 44 TLR with lawn mowing money. There was a darkroom at school and our graphic arts teacher had us make pen-hole cameras and process our own photographs. He taught composition and gave us little projects. That stuck with me and later, in college, I bought a Pentax Spotmatic with a 50/f1.8 and a 200/f3.5, shooting sports car racing, girls and a bit of wildlife. After middle school, I didn't have access to a lab, so I tried to rely on commercial labs, but never found one that was consistent and would follow instructions.</p>

<p>In my twenties, everything was stolen and I replaced my rig with P&S cameras and limited my shooting to kids and travel. My travel shots from that era still hold up to my work today.</p>

<p>In 2007 I bought my first digital camera, a Canon G7. An epiphany occured when I used the Canon-provided software to crop, straighten and adjust exposure and color. Suddenly I realized that I could do all the things that I'd been trying to get labs to do in the 1970s. By late 2008, I had a Canon 5D MkII, a 24-105/f4 and a 70-200/f4 IS and I was off and running.</p>

<p>In early 2009 I started shooting in Raw and using DxO Optics Pro to convert my images. A trip to the East coast of Florida and a chance encounter with a hunting osprey led to the purchase of a 400/f5.6, which led to a 500/f4 just a few months later.</p>

<p>Now, I spend around 30-hours per week on my hobby (it's actually a very small business now, but growing), concentrating on birds, wildlife and landscapes. When I travel, I shoot with a vanity book in mind, that'll document our travel and destinations.</p>

<p>In the 1960s and 1970s, a shot such as follows, was a dream shot. Now I take the equivalent several times per year. I'm in control of the whole process, except printing, which I have done by an exceptional artisan.</p>

<p><a title="Coyote Hunts In Snow - Explored'" href=" data-flickr-embed="true"><img src="https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5807/23164426546_3b7bf6105d_c.jpg" alt="Coyote Hunts In Snow - Explored'" width="800" height="534" /></a></p>

<p>Interesting E.J. When I post-process digitally, I find myself still thinking of a print or a file in a similar way as when in the darkroom, only with enhanced capabilities. I don't often use the more graphical features, except maybe in book constructing. But I still look at photographs or what to photograph in similar ways. I have to really think about it to determine if it has actually altered the way I see an recognize photographs. Sometimes there can be a change in ground, that pervades all the ends as well as the means. But at the end of the day, I do sometimes miss the smells of the wet darkroom:)</p>

<p>In the height of my professional career I was very fortunate to make the acquaintance of Ansel Adams -- a consummate print maker. I loved my darkroom and making prints. However about 99% of my work was transparencies that led to separations that led to mass media publications or catalogues. Today 99.99% of my work is viewed on the screen. I do produce the rate commission print, but it is a rare event. I have embraced the digital information age (I actually hold method patents in digital information analysis). I rarely find that I am up against the digital envelope when trying to produce an image or effect that I envisioned. One of the things that has remained a constant over my 60 plus years of photography is that I am continually inspired by the work of others!</p>

<p>E.J. I have actually started this last year making prints 18 x 24 or thereabouts digital, and I'll tell you, I still discover that there is a definite essence of printing an image that, for me, is beyond screen viewing, though the vast majority of prints are viewed on the computer. But there is energetically definitely something that comes full circle in the picture creating process when printed. Was wondering, when you working with transparencies did you ever use the dye transfer process? I've never seen it done, but I've seen results, mainly W. Eggleston, and they are beautiful. </p>

<p>Back in the day I was an advertising photographer and my work was one for mass publication, not for display. So, to answer your question, no I never did dye transfer prints. My darkroom was a black and white darkroom, but even there it did not get a lot of use. Most of my work was sent out to commercial labs. I worked with art directors and creative directors, who would make the final selections and the transparency (mostly 4x5, but some 2 1/4 and rarely 35) would be sent to a lab of their choice and then on to production and eventually to the printer who would produce the adds or catalogues. <br>

I have thought from time to time about producing my own prints, but investing several thousand in a printer, hundreds in inks and paper for a few prints never could be justified. The few works I do produce today that get made into prints I send out to one of two print houses to make for the client. </p>

<p>I've always found that nothing topped large transparencies. They have a significantly larger luminance range. Of course they are also very expensive compared to prints. This is especially true in larger sizes. From a tone scale and color gamut point of view, a digital display surpasses a print. The modern 4K and 5K displays have imperceptible pixels. The most impressive image format I ever saw was the 18x60 ft Colorama in Grand Central Terminal. </p>

<p>What has changed mostly for me since the late 60's when I started shooting black and white, developing my film and printing in the darkroom, is the transformation to digital, and I am now shooting more and in color. Interestingly, my style itself has not changed much. If you look at my black and white folders here, especially the photos of people, you will see a similar look and style to my current work. </p>

<p>Thanks E.J. </p>

<p>Mine is exactly the same, just better technically. </p>

<p>Started with 35mm b&w 25-30 years ago, tried 35mm transparencies, went back to b&w. Started with medium format about 15 years ago and loved it. Tried digital and really tried to like it 10 years ago but went back to MF. Large format came to me soon after MF as did ultra large format.<br>

I will probably stay with MF and LF now. Digital is a wonderful tool and I can see its uses and appreciate it, but personally, I don't enjoy it, and that's what its all about. I don't "need" to take photographs, I take them because I "want" to.<br>

Its a bit like making something out of wood or metal. I could use a CNC mill/lathe but personally would prefer to use a chisel/file.<br>

My photographs are more simple now-a-days. Less in them, printed bigger and generally FB paper. I take far far fewer than I was years ago but I am pleased with a far higher percentage of them.</p>

<p>This:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... a chance encounter with a hunting osprey ... — <em>from David Stephens' post, above</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>.<br /> [<em>below is</em> not <em>from David Stephens</em>]</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... The beautiful object is unconcerned with me ...</p>

<p>... the aesthetic experience is <em>intense</em> precisely to the extent that it is devoid of interest.</p>

<p>... The scandal of passion is that it is utterly gratuitous: it has no grounding, and no proper occasion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>— <em>all above quotes from S. Shaviro</em></p>

<p>I know, I know, I shouldn't bring passion and aesthetics into a Casual Conversation, but it's something about "the beautiful object [that] is unconcerned with me" that was the fuse when I started out, and which remains deliciously available for me, via photography. It's not everything, but it's often the initiating "turn."</p>