Devaluation of photography?

[Spearhead]

<i>So it seems to devalue the skill of the photographer</i><p>

 

Quite the opposite. Instead of an automated machine making decisions about how a photograph will look, the photographer is doing it. It's a refreshing change and people know that they aren't going to have to take whatever low cost processing cranks out for them. Control has been given to the photographer for many more people than in the past.

[dave_powell2]

If St. Ansel were still with us, he'd be all over digital and Photoshop...and doing memorable images without chemicals.

 

Dave

[wispos]

For the majority of digital users, they have happily handed over complete control to the camera. In essence, all that is needed is to point the contraption, and press the shutter-release. There is auto-ISO, auto-exposure, auto-focus, auto-aperture, auto-shutter speed, auto-white balance. By extrapolation, therefore, the simple digi-shooter assumes your artistically Photoshop-tweaked masterpiece is quite within the gambit of their own limited ability. The mystery is all but gone. Boasting now that artistry in photography has come down to one's mastery of a computer programme, well, good for you. You can count me out.

 

The old ways still fascinate me. I find the tactile experience of a view camera, of messing about with chemicals etc., a far more therapeutic experience than my encounter with a Canon Digital Rebel. I recently conducted a small poll at an art show here. Of the 735 respondents, 87% said that they would prefer to view landscape photographs taken with an old-fashioned view camera rather than photographs taken with a digital camera. Not an example of a particularly unbiased group, but food for thought.

[Spearhead]

I find that if the pictures are strong, nobody cares how they were made. If I was doing it for therapy, I could see how people would care, since I doubt anyone would have any real interest in therapy experiences other than their own and Woody Allen's, and the materials and tools would be more interesting than the results.

[wispos]

Yes, that's what I thought too, Jeff. In this pilot study into behavioural/cognitive conditioning, we timed (on 2 separate nights at a photography exhibition) with a stop-watch how long attendees viewed particular photographs. On the first 2 nights, the photographs were unlabeled. The analogue photographs (15 of them) were viewed for an average of 44 seconds each, comparable to the great majority of digital shots (15 digital). On the third night, all photographs were labeled with the type of camera used, and the medium (including 3 digital shots that were labeled as "film"). Analogue view times jumped to 2 minutes 40 seconds, on average. The three large format camera images displayed jumped to 3 minutes 10 seconds view time, on average. Digital viewing dropped to 17 seconds, on average.

 

The 'art' community represents the socioeconomic elite in Trinidad. We'll be repeating the show for the socially disadvantaged here (in the hope to encourage some appreciation of the arts in the process) and the study will continue. If other studies of this type are applicable to our environment in Trinidad, I expect to see the exact opposite results. That is, digital pictures would attract more interest. So, people do indeed care how a picture was taken. The majority anyway. People who don't care are more likely to fall 2 standard deviations away from the mean/median on measures of educational background, and upbringing. Then there are those who SAY they don't care (they said so on our questionnaire) but their view times beg to differ.

[Spearhead]

The test sounds about as un-scientific as possible. Unless the photos are identical or similar, nothing is proved. Sounds like a way to kill some boring time, wasn't there something to drink?

[wispos]

Ha ha. Thanks for the input.

Regards,

[kelly_flanigan1]

Jeepers I miss the 1960's. UFO's from garbage can lids, UFO dodging tools.

[woolly1]

Rory, I tried your methodology and in the first shot got a great image of the side of my cupboard, a little bit of keyboard and some lovely coloured marker pens.

 

Next I went outside where the sun was just going down, clicked and there was a fantastic Arty view of the top of my shoe gently brushing aside the blades of grass. I managed to add dynamic value by not holding the camera still.

 

Finally, in the dying rays from the sun there happened some dramatic golden hues across the west face of the house - got a great shot of the back half of my dog and the wife sans head.

 

In essence think there is more to it that just pointing the digital contraption.

 

 

 

On the subject of the gallery viewing times, all else being equal the increased time could just as easily be attributed to the artsy viewers romanticising the analogue prints. Although if the analogue prints at a hangable size came from the Arca-Swiss 8x10 it would hardly be a fair test against a 24x16 sensor derived digital exhibit.

 

The next time you run a test like that try labelling the digital prints as analogue and vice versa and tell us what the outcome was.

 

 

Regards

 

 

My name is Bond, Basildon Bond

 

I have letters after my name.. :)

[matthew_newton]

Well since everyone is throwing in their opinions, why don't I?

 

If your co-workers have a problem with your pictures, their loss. I have to agree with the people who say that even a slide film picture taken straight from the slide to paper is manipulated in some way. Either it is from the photographer choosing certain exposure settings, or aperatures, manipulating the scene maybe by posing people, etc. When it comes to digital though it is much more likely that a picture is manipulated (though many are not, at least not any more then what the processor in the camera does from the raw output of the sensor).

 

I have to admit that I fall into the group where I feel like the less a photograph is manipulated the 'purer' it is. That doesn't mean to me that a photograph that is heavily manipulated is not art, I feel it very much is, but I feel that at a certain point in manipulation it ceases to be a photograph, and it is simply a picture. Art, most certainly, but no longer a photograph (and likely not to bear a great resemlance to what was seen either by the film, the sensor, or the human eye at the time that the shutter was snapped for some truely heavily manipulated pictures).

 

This is part of the reason why I enjoy so much working with my olympus OM-1 and 35mm film. Sure with negatives there is a certain amount of manipulation in the end photo, because frankly the color balance is set on each photo (though if using the standard processing and printing it is probably pretty 'standard' between your prints for color balancing). However, I like to feel like they are as close to being what the film captured as is completely possible.

 

My photos are as much art as someones heavily manipulated digital 'photos', but I like to consider mine true photos where as that person's work is merely a picture.

[zapata_espinoza]

Well, consider the face recognition software (i.e. Fuji S6500fd), auto framing mode (Casio EX-Z1000), pixel diet (slenderizes someone i.e. HP), revive shot ('restores old pictures' casio), perspective control, pre-shot, advance shake reduction (many) built into digicams. The next step is already at the door in the form of beautification software (google Dr. Leywand, Rehovot, Israel) and tourist remover software (search for futureLAB). You still take your digital pictures for real?