Lost

[704 studio]

I have been wrapped in my own reality for the past few years, not really paying

attention to how photography has been changing. I happened across Flicker for

the first time last month, gazed at the work of some of the photographers, and

was amazed by what I saw. 17 year olds, having been making pictures for about 1

year, were creating visual masterpieces which in my eyes seemed more

sophisticated and visually arresting than anything an old-style master darkroom

printer ever created. Photographer after photographer were creating pieces which

were not only technically perfect (beautifully thought out color balance,

contrast, composition, etc.), but were also quite inspiring. I have dabbled a

bit with a digital camera, but am still working mainly with film and chemicals.

Having come so far in my printing skills (16 years of work), it was rather

depressing to realize that photography with Photoshop surpasses what can be done

in the darkroom, at least with color, although from what I have seen of the b/w

on Flicker, that too seems superior to most darkroom creations. I am currently

teaching myself the basics of Photoshop, and it is quite fun to use. However, I

don't find myself very dedicated to it like I do with the darkroom. I realize I

can crawl back into the mental hole I was in and continue to work in the

darkroom, making the best prints I can, but a part of me objects, seeing it as a

waste of time and effort. The main reason I make photographs is to satisfy my

own visual curiosities, but I also like the potential of selling a decent

photograph. It is a good feeling when someone hands me $100 for an 8x10 piece of

paper which has no practical value. From the selling side, I feel as if darkroom

work can still get the job done, but digital is clearly superior. The thing that

bothers me the most is that the 2 processes are quite different, but the end

result is identical - a photograph. In this sense I feel like a clean athlete

who is trying to compete with a juiced one - digital photography is traditional

photography on steroids. If I don't change to the superior method, I will be at

a disadvantage (for the selling aspect). It also bothers me that darkroom work

is more physically demanding and work intensive than sitting at a computer, but

the physically easier work produces better results. If there was some way to

differentiate the work between the two methods, I wouldn't mind so much, but

knowing darkroom work will be compared against digital, with no way of knowing

which is which, seems a bit absurd. The reason painting was and still is popular

after the invention of the camera was because of the noticeable differences

between the two methods - the painters had to concede that they could not

compete with the visual accuracy of the camera, but they could counter attack by

becoming more abstract and painterly. Seeing no way to differentiate a darkroom

print from that of a digital one, I think it best to either move to digital, or

to give up photography altogether, at least as a serious pursuit. I am

considering moving into painting, but I need more time to reflect on all of

these confusing issues. Does anyone have any comments that could help me see

things more clearly? Also, I realize that what I am seeing on Flicker is on my

monitor, and I don't know what the actual digital prints look like, if indeed

the maker even bothered to make a print. I am assuming that a professional

printout from these digital files would be quite beautiful.

[waltflanagan]

You seriously need to break up your post into paragraphs. It's difficult to read.

<i><p>

It also bothers me that darkroom work is more physically demanding and work intensive than sitting at a computer, but the physically easier work produces better results. If there was some way to differentiate the work between the two methods, I wouldn't mind so much, but knowing darkroom work will be compared against digital, with no way of knowing which is which, seems a bit absurd. </i><p>

It bothers you but you can't make people care. Do I care if a chef chops all the vegetables himself instead of using a Cuisinart? It doesn't taste any different, why should I care if the chef spent more time on it?<p>

Age doesn't matter. Some people are natural artists. I know 7 year olds that can draw a million times better than I can. They've had no formal training and I actually took a 3 week course.

[ian green]

i do not know how to sooth your pain of all this wasted life and work of yours but i do know one thing - looks like you got some prints stuffed around you and most of this Flickr crowd don't

 

you know kind of old Sergio Leone's western movies - "there're only two kinds of folks..."

[asher]

<p>Your photos are quite good, IMO. And I really couldn't care what methods you used to

produce them. Perhaps I would feel differently if I were viewing actual prints, but I doubt

it.<p>

Your post reads like an introspective digital vs. film debate in your head. If I may, why not

use both media in parallel? I've never understood this pervasive need to choose between one

and the other.

[janc]

Hi James!

 

I feel the same way that you tell above, you had made a very nice report about how times are changing in photography.

 

When I was reading you, it remenber me when I go, from time to time, to have a walk with my Leica M4 and Summicron 50/2 with a b/w film, it is a big diference in the mental process, with film we need to have a big intention to make every shot and it must last in the memory until we arrive to the darkroom and develop film and prints.

 

But when I shot with a digital camera, things are quite diferent, I have no need to think about if that shot could o could not be interesting, I just shoot it because perhaps it can be a good shot after, if it is not, just delete and go on.

 

Now we only need some dvd for backup and a hard disc for keeping our photos, with searching systems that can locate them in seconds. Darkroom is a program, a keyboard and a mouse, there is no darkness, close rooms, enlarger exposing times, developers, smell to acetic acid, time to dry, dust in films...

 

But I am happy because now I do not need too much time and money to know if my next photo experiment can take me to a valuable image.

 

Nowadays life is faster even in photography.

 

Until now my best shot was with a camera that I do not remember and tri-x-pan film when I was almost a child. You can see it: http://www.photo.net/photo/5810580

 

Best regards.

 

P.S. Escuse my english, I am spanish :-)

[don_e]

"Does anyone have any comments that could help me see things more clearly?"

 

Don't believe everything you see or read on the internet, including great looking 100k jpegs.

[sknowles]

I started with digital about year ago, and so far, compared to my slides going back 38 years now, it's just a different format with different characteristics. To me it's advantages are the total capabilities of the cameras for a variety of light conditions, replacing different films or color correcting filters and the immediate viewing.

 

I agree too often digital images look cool and nice with all the bright, crisp colors, but it's still about the content. I still like film and carry one digital and one film body camera and also shoot 4x5. That, to me is the beauty of it, it's all personal and you can produce what you want and like.

 

Others' work is interesting to view, but I don't see digital better, just the current technology.

[jtk]

James,

 

Your B&Ws are better, in the absolute sense, than most of the B&W digital work we see.

 

Your way of seeing is distinctive. Keep seeing.

[waltflanagan]

After rereading your post it sounds like you are jealous that other people get better results than you AND they do it faster. I don't get jealous of 7 year olds or 17 year olds that are better artists than I am. I ask them if they'd be willing to teach me their technique. Last week I learned a lot about dinosaurs from a 7 year old at the museum. I'm 32, I'm not embarassed that a 7 year old knows more than I did.

[Matt Laur]

Don's very, very right. If looking at screen-resolution JPGs is shaking your world view, then you need to slow down and think it through. I've got some images that play pretty well at on-screen resolutions but which would never stand up to a critical printing job. Likewise, I've made a few images that are delightful in hardcopy, and just never seem to come across on a computer display.

 

I will agree with you, James, that you'll see more talented people bubbling up than before, mostly because there are fewer time, money, and logistical barriers in between a mental vision of a shot and a "finished" image on Flickr in front of a giant potential audience. Amongst the tidal wave of dreck, there are certainly some talented people that might never have explored the medium if they'd had to deal with lab costs, etc. Mostly, though, I find all of this naval-gazing to get clumisly in the way of getting off my butt and going out to shoot. The willingness to do it - to actually get up, camera in hand, and make images - is far, far more important than the tools you use. That being said, if I had to come home and turn on the exhaust fan while mucking with chemicals like I did in the 70's and 80's, I simply wouldn't be doing much of this at all.

[alan_b.arglebargle]

Just buy a film scanner, then you can have your cake and eat it too.

 

Just kidding, sort of. Sometimes the grass is only greener due to the cesspool beneath it. The journey is what really counts. If getting into digital photography will enhance your journey, then perhaps that is what you need to do. FWIW, I recently got into painting, but I still prefer photography. I still highly recommend it though.

 

I don't think switching to digital will enhance the saleability, though it might eventually save money. Think of film based photography as sort of a limited edition sort of distinction. It won't be around forever. Today it may be rarer than digital photography. You'll be doing something that not so many people are doing anymore. Some people care, some people won't. It's the final image that counts, anyways, in the end. But telling people you made this print by hand the old fashioned way rather than spit out by a machine might be a positive sales pitch. Why give up 16 years of experience just to be in the same boat as everybody else?

 

Sorry if my post is a little ambiguous, it has to be your choice, what would be better for you to do, as an artist. It is my personal theory that great art arises from two conditions, either social upheaval/progress, or the invention of a revolutionary artistic process that encourages people to explore the possibilities of something new. That's probably a discussion for another thread, but the digital process certainly does qualify. It's just too new to really see it.

[Spearhead]

<i>The thing that bothers me the most is that the 2 processes are quite different, but the end result is identical - a photograph.</i><p>I fail to understand why this bothers some people. You can mix your own chemicals from scratch, you can develop C-41 at home and make color prints at home, you can walk five miles in the pouring rain to the store instead of driving, and you can take a ship from New York to London, but so what? Photography has been evolving since day one, and it has always been about improving something, and usually speed. While you may enjoy certain processes more, in the end, people look at the photograph, not the process.

[steve_swinehart]

"In this sense I feel like a clean athlete who is trying to compete with a juiced one - digital photography is traditional photography on steroids."

 

How do you figure that? I can do things with darkroom processes that are nearly impossible to duplicate in PS - and vice versa. Each has its own intrinisic and unique capabilities.

 

"It also bothers me that darkroom work is more physically demanding and work intensive than sitting at a computer, but the physically easier work produces better results."

 

Put your computer on a drafting table and stand all day while wearing ankle and wrist weights...I fail to see what "physically demanding" has to do with anything.

 

"...the painters had to concede that they could not compete with the visual accuracy of the camera, but they could counter attack by becoming more abstract and painterly."

 

Hence the photo-realist movement in painting in the '70's and '80's.

 

"Seeing no way to differentiate a darkroom print from that of a digital one, I think it best to either move to digital, or to give up photography altogether, at least as a serious pursuit."

 

I'd suggest giving up...or being happy with working within what can be created using traditional technologies - or, exploring digital and finding out that if you look at it as a new method of print making (not photography - but print making) there is totally new, visual territory to be explored.

 

I printed something last night using an inkjet printer, that had been put together using Corel Painter X and Photoshop that could absolutely NOT be done in any other way for a print done with ink on paper. That's what working digitally can be about - doing things totally unique to the entire digital process chain. Don't duplicate photographs digitally - move into the unknown.

 

 

"I am considering moving into painting..."

 

Then don't look at Corel Painter X - you'll only have the same problems you're currently having with photography....the real difference being that you can't duplicate the build up of paint (impasto, palette knife, etc.) 3d final look - other than that - Corel Painter is a total computer translation of painting and its effects from water color though oils, pastels, charcoal, ink, air brush, etc.

[bobtodrick]

This too is something that used to bother me but doesn't anymore.

 

 

I use both digital and film...film primarily for B&W, digital for color. In the past I worked primarily in B&W because I like to have control over the printing process...and I was not a competent color printer. But Photoshop changed that...I can now do in color what before I only dreamed of.

 

But you're right...it is only the finished product that really counts. As discussed in the thread about family albums...in a hundred years you may leave behind some images that people will look at and be inspired/awed...I doubt they'll really care if the image was produced on film or a sensor.

 

So what it boils down to (at least for me...and sounds like you to) is that I really enjoy the darkroom. Going down to the basement with 1/2 bottle of Jack Daniels and a box of fibre paper is just a whole different feeling than sitting down to a computer screen.

 

But as someone else said, it doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. I shoot a lot of digital color nowadays...but I still like to wander around with the Leica loaded with Tri-X knowing that eventually I'll end up in the darkroom with Jack.

[jtk]

To say "it is only the finished product that really counts" seems a huge mistake

 

What counts most is how people respond: they will add whatever they learn about you, the photographer, and your process, to the value of the print.

 

If you say "gelatin silver print" or "archival pigment on watercolor paper" many will say "oooooh!" If you say Canon 20D and Prosumer Lab, they'll say "oh, like my uncle."

 

It's all one. A print isn't just a piece of paper with a picture unless one thinks that little of his work.

 

Even online, the best are adding value providing important context about how a particular photo was produced, how it relates to other photos and about the thinking, perceptions, and experience of the photographer.

[Spearhead]

<i>Even online, the best are adding value providing important context about how a particular photo was produced, how it relates to other photos and about the thinking, perceptions, and experience of the photographer.</I><p>This is very different than talking about materials and processes, which are mostly standardized even if there are several different ones.<p>I have over 200 books of photographs, and many of the photographers talk about how they came to make the photos, what inspired them, what they see in them. I don't think one of them talks about what camera or what lens or what film in any one of them. What is interesting that a few talk about the actual printing process for the book, in other words, the final material, not anything in between.<P><i>If you say "gelatin silver print" or "archival pigment on watercolor paper" many will say "oooooh!" If you say Canon 20D and Prosumer Lab, they'll say "oh, like my uncle."</i><p>You've convinced me that I should say that any one of mine is a gelatin silver print using archival pigments with watercolor paper.<p>I find that at the appreciation end the same thing is true. When I have shows, the people that ask what something is, where it is, how I found it, all these questions, these people care about photography. Then there is the person or two who asks what camera I used or what printing technique, these people really don't seem to care about photography, they should become materials scientists or camera salespeople. I can't recall one person that asked first about the equipment and/or process and then had anything to say about the photograph itself.<p>I see it the same way with music. If a piece of music makes me feel a certain way, I don't care if it's made with instruments the musicians spent twenty years building or with a bunch of Rolands. I can be impressed with someone's dedication making those instruments, or similarly, using an alternative process that takes days to get a good print, but it doesn't affect how I feel about the print. It either works or it doesn't. If I want to buy a good story, I can go to the bookstore.

[alan_b.arglebargle]

Most people can't tell the difference between a diamond and a Cubic zirconia either. To me they look the same. Why is one worth more?

[Norma Desmond]

I think the impact of artists' statements about their lives and processes or their

relationship to a particular work is variable. It can serve as much as a distraction as it can

supplement positively the experience of the work.

 

Sometimes the work speaks louder and with more cogency and/or feeling by itself. A

photographer or any artist may get too specific, therefore affecting the universality which

his or her work may actually be attaining. The artist's particular "feelings" may not be

relevant to the Feeling (capital 'F") and emotion which an audience or viewer may be

experiencing by viewing the work.

 

Context can be of great benefit and it can also muddy the waters. Some of the beauty of

art and photography is in its stimulation of the mind and senses, the flight of the

imagination which may ensue. That flight may be brought crashing down to earth with too

much "knowledge" and information.

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>Most people can't tell the difference between a diamond and a Cubic zirconia either.

To me they look the same. Why is one worth more?</i></p>

 

<p>Because one of them has involved child slave labor, and the other one hasn't.</p>

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>I think the impact of artists' statements about their lives and processes or their

relationship to a particular work is variable. It can serve as much as a distraction as it can

supplement positively the experience of the work.</i></p>

 

<p>The only way an artist statement would be a distraction for you is if you have read it

before viewing the work... But, you know, most artist statements are supposed to be read

after viewing the work (and sometimes they are even placed at the very end of it).</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Eugene--

 

I experience most art over time, coming back to photos and paintings, films and sculptures

again and again. So I'm not sure when I am "supposed to" read the artist's statement and

when it would not possibly interfere with my experience of the work (if, in fact, it is the kind

of statement I would find distracting). It is true that there's nothing like the first time one

sees a photo, but great ones often grow over time.

[Matt Laur]

The only thing more distracting than reading an artist's statement before viewing the work is reading a critic's statement about the work. It's one thing to know that a critic I respect thinks it's valuable for me to go to my first-ever, say, Mark Rothco exhibit. It's entirely another to have a critic try to tell me what the painting is supposed to mean to me.

 

When a work (and here, I'm picking on Rothco only because he's a famous cause of many arguments around my family dinner table), in and of itself, doesn't contain enough information to convey or inspire a specific message from the artist, then it's up to the audience to synthesize that meaning, or try to derive it from some larger context. The context can come from the nature and circumstances of the exhibit (in which case it's the curator sending messages to you, not the artist), or from background knowledge that one might have about the artist/school/period/technology, etc.

 

An artist who must use a written statement to make sure that I "get" the work is, I think, either aware that the work itself is somehow a little weak, or is using it as insurance to prevent a curator, collector, or salesman from poisoning the well. Because there ARE artists' statements that are helpful that way, almost every artist feels compelled to follow the convention. The result is a hideous kabuki theater ritual of platitudes that remind me of corporate 'mission statements.' Everyone thinks that they have to have one, and since they're all so often trying to say the same things, they overthink it and descend into a sort of absurdity that's sometimes more entertaining than the work itself. Wow, I had one too many coffees this morning.

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>I experience most art over time, coming back to photos and paintings, films and

sculptures again and again.</i></p>

 

<p>This is how I do it: View art -> Read statement if there is one -> View art again to see

how far from the mark my initial interpretation fell.</p>

 

<p>The artist's statement is often crucial to a deeper understanding of the piece. Refusal

to read the statement is a refusal to understand the work on a deeper level, and a

reduction of the work in question to merely "a pretty picture." Almost universally,

understanding is valued more than the aesthetic pleasure one gets from looking at the

work. Oftentimes though, the two come together, and the viewer gets a more intense

reaction from looking at the work after having read what it is about.</p>

 

<p>In other words, artists put their heart and soul in the work, and if they prepared an

artist statement, they did not do it for nothing.</p>

[eugene_scherba]

<p>To illustrate why I said that "the viewer [often] gets a more intense reaction from

looking at the work after having read what it is about," look at one of the greatest 19th

century paintings by Turner (featured on S. Schama's "Power of Art" series), <em><a

href="http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/turner/i/slave-ship.jpg">Slavers throwing

overboard the Dead and Dying - Typhon coming on</a></em>. In the 19th century,

artists did not make art statements to go along with the work, which is why Turner gave

his painting a long title. The title was lambasted by the critics at the time for being too

long, but, in fact, the whole concept behind the painting requires a long, written message,

to be understood correctly.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

Eugene--

 

Yes, that's it. I'm just interested in pretty pictures. My goal will from now on be to attain the

deep level which you do. Wish me luck.