Photography Is Dead. Long Live Photography

[aplumpton]

Nothing like a neophyte's comments to rouse the spirit. Steve (and Al) are right on, and we should not let this guy spout his simplistic half truths to such a wide readership (but of course he will, as he did. Unfortunately).

 

On the other hand, we can take pleasure in remarking that such banal main streamn opinions seldom make it to the history books or to the chat rooms in the halls of academia.

[dickhilker]

"And what use do we have of all this "imagination and range of expression?" Overdone HDRs with halos? Cats and dogs sleeping together?"

 

While those are surely possiblities, it doesn't seem reasonable to attack the democratization of photography simply because they exist. In the hands of those who have developed taste and a sense of responsibility, the new tools give creative efforts a broader horizon. What's done with it is up to the artist, as it always has been.

 

As an old-fashioned guy who shoots film and does minimal manipulation in Photoshop, I have no use for any of the over-the-top distortions that are currently so popular, but if they're someone else's honest expression of his artistic vision, I wouldn't feel right criticizing them.

[eugene_scherba]

<p><i>that such banal main streamn opinions seldom make it to the history

books</i></p>

 

<p>You didn't read TFA, did you?</p>

[jtk]

Looks like Plagens gored some oxen. Nobody's addressed his points, they've just denigrated him.

 

Amusingly, one person has said he shouldn't be "allowed" to say what he said (welcome to the Fourth Reich), and others have obsessed irrelevantly on details photo history.

 

Others have denied that "reality" (what about truth?) is relevant.

 

There's obviously a lot of anxiety about those gored oxen.

 

The same people who avoid Plagens point might claim science fiction is, as a category, of significantly more literary worth than, say, romance novels. :-)

[Matt Laur]

John, I think the problem here isn't gored oxen, it's bored oxen.

[Allen Herbert]

The last art form to be tethered to realism, its factual validity has lately been manipulated and pixelated to the point of extinction.

 

Just another lament for the good old days. More about getting some of the "lost in time" old dudes hormones working than anything else.

[don_e]

From Plagen's article: Digitalization has made much of art photography's vast variety possible. But it's also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul.

 

***

 

Back before digital cameras and before Photoshop, back before high quality scanners, 24bit displays, and inkjet printers (and before the www) were available as consumer goods, there was such a thing as computer art and artists. Often enough, photographs were involved. There are today computer artists doing much the same thing with far more flexible technologies.

 

Now that such consumer goods (and the www) are available, both photography and computer art have become much more visible and 'democratically' distributed and participated in. Along with that has been the 'explosion' in technology, and people tend to test the limits of newly available technologies.

 

Computer art is often created wholly in an image editor (or olde skool "paint program"), more often it is a 'collage', including photographs.

 

I don't know what motivates such an artist to identify their work as photography or as computer art. I assume such categorization is not too big an issue for them. It may depend on social and economic issues. I don't know. It appears to be a big issue for photographers, though, and that indicates confusion and doubt.

 

If the "medium has lost its soul" it means photographers have lost their souls. That, I don't see.

[Allen Herbert]

Seriously, boring. Thankfully, i only read the first bit.

 

Jeez, how many times do we have to read about some bloke going on about the wonders of a model T ford.<div></div>

[jtk]

Allen, you didn't find anything at all of interest in Plagens' thinking?

 

I didn't notice any reference to Model T.

 

I did notice some conceptual exploration, sloppy though it was (as that sort of thing always must be).

 

"Boredom" ALWAYS points to a personal deficiency...such as lack of better things to do...

[Allen Herbert]

Digitalization has made much of art photography's vast variety possible. But it's also a major reason that, 25 years after the technology exploded what photography could do and be, the medium seems to have lost its soul. Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that

 

I didn't notice any reference to Model T.

 

 

Really, John, you need to stretch your imagination.....

 

 

"Boredom" ALWAYS points to a personal deficiency...such as lack of better things to do...

 

 

Sweeping generalisation,John.

[jtk]

Allen, boredom is what lazy minds do. It's easier and less frightening to do boredom than to take responsibility for creating one's experience.

 

You evidently think "art photography" is a meaningful concept, just as Plagens does. Two peas in the same pod.

 

As you are made anxious by critical comments about digital photography involving the word "soul," you seem to agree with Plagens that there actually IS some sort of soul to "the medium". Bizarre! Tell us more about "soul."

[Matt Laur]

Photography is a collection of tools and techniques that produces a range of artifacts and output. It is utterly souless. Just like "carpentry" or "audio recording," the only soul involved is that which the practitioner invests in the process and the finished work (or in the appreciation thereof). Guns don't kill people, and cameras don't make photographs. People do. To the extent that a person has a soul, they can bring it to the image they capture/manipulate/present using ANY tool or technique. Souless photography, or carpentry, or musical performances, are produced by people who aren't dipping into their skulls past the hairline, or haven't yet the skill to show that they are. Fussing over the medium is sophistry.

 

Of course that's not to be confused with passionate, motivated, soul-wrenching or uplifting photographic efforts that just plain turn out... badly. Plenty of people have failed to show me their soul while working with film and a wet darkroom. And some of the most inspiring and soulful things I've ever beheld happened to be shining through some glittering little pixels. Bah, I say, Allen! Humbug! But, an Analog New Year to you, none the less.

[Norma Desmond]

Matt--

 

Dickens was keen to the irony of questions like whether or not guns kill people and

whether or not photography has a soul. His take would be that to the viewer moved by a

photograph and the person killed by means of a gun, the answer to the question has little

relevance. Someone is no less moved and no less dead by virtue of whatever the answer is

to the questions. The perspective that guns don't kill people is probably of little comfort to

the parents of a child killed because someone pulled the trigger on one that was loaded

with a bullet capable of stopping the heart of a human being upon impact.

 

Both the gun and the camera do their share of contributing. To the extent that

photography has no soul because, as you recognize, it's a collection of tools and

techniques, humans also have no soul, because we're a collection of molecules and brain

cells.

 

Reductionism works both ways and is usually a bit scary.

[Allen Herbert]

Allen, boredom is what lazy minds do.

 

John, what are you talking about? Nudge, nudge, methinks you are starting to meander off the subject....soon you will be telling me about your great granny's birthday party and how you got told off for eating all the cream cakes;) It's a boring article about the wickedness of digital photography being the Devils work. The author finally states there will a second coming (could he mean a revival of film?) , and hopefully, we will all live happily ever after in a nice new way.

 

How many of these articles do you have to read before you finally fall asleep? Think I'll stick to counting sheep, John.

 

you seem to agree with Plagens that there actually IS some sort of soul to "the medium". Bizarre! Tell us more about "soul."

 

You forgot the 'so there', John....would have been funnier. Why do keep shouting the odd word?

[cyanatic]

I find the comments/reactions to this article -- both here and on the Newsweek website -- far more entertaining than the article itself.

 

Whether one sees them reflected here, or on flickr, or on some other photography website, the same schools of thought emerge over and over again.

 

1.) The "Old Guys Suck and are Threatened by the New" School

 

"The author sounds like an old-fogey that doesn't want to accept where the world is going and the article seems full of misconceptions."

 

Yes, rabbit guts on a scanner bed, or totally fabricated people and landscapes are vastly superior to captures of Jewish giants or Parisian night life.

 

2.) The "They Manipulated in the Darkroom Back in the Day, So Everything I do in Photoshop is Justified" School

 

(For some reason, this school always seems especially fond of holding up Ansel Adams as an example. I'm surprised no one cited the famous "He once removed a cloud" incident.)

 

"Find the origin of the darkroom and with it you fill find the origin of photo manipulation. As previous comments have mentioned, Ansel Adams used a variety of manipulation techniques in the darkroom, including dodging and burning, both of which are tools whose namesakes still exist in a similar form in Adobe Photoshop."

 

3.) The "Photography Isn't Really Reality, Anyway" School

 

(One of my personal favorites...take the reasoning of this School to its logical extreme and you can just as easily point out that what human beings see with their own eyes is not fully "reality" either.)

 

"Photography has never been about the truth, never. Photography is for instance 2D, it has a frame. How does that represent reality? In no way it does. It just copies certain elements, and recreates them in a 2D frame."

 

4.) The "Digital Will Never Be As Good As Film" School

 

This school was conspicuous by its absence in the comments following the article. Perhaps I missed it?

 

5.) The "Photoshop Has Freed My Artistic Soul" School

 

"Over the years I have created images such as a Lake Erie shoreline enhanced by a Maui sunset."

 

I'm sure there's more, and many subsets of each, but they inevitably reveal themselves in discussions like this.

[Norma Desmond]

Steve--

 

You make great observations and I probably agree with your cynicism about a lot of ideas

strewn about on the subject. But, in all honesty, I agree with the statement that "what human

beings see with their own eyes is not fully 'reality' either." I wish more people would consider

that possibility both about photography and about their own perspectives.

 

--Fred

[devin]

<i>"Reality isn't digital (no-thing is digital), and digital is less real than film because...hang onto your hat...you can't TOUCH it. "</i>

<br /><br />

Reality is entirely relative. What does it mean to "touch" something? As an ignorant young whippersnapper who grew up in an entirely different world than most of the members of this website, my definitions of things that are real and can be touched are much different than yours.

<br /><br />

For me, something is real if I can pick it up, turn it over, poke at it, look at it closely, smell it, taste it, and other forms of examination. I don't mean a single one of those things in the physical sense, either. Sure, physical contact can be very powerful, but for me, it's not always the most telling. I may not be all that great at photography, but when it comes to 1's and 0's, I'm in my element.

<br /><br />

While some of you might be good at seeing patterns of light and shadow, subtleties of color, composition, and depth of field (skills to which I aspire), I am good at seeing other things. I can pick out patterns in the flow of all sorts of data, collecting, sorting, filtering, calculating, and composing it in useful ways. I have algorithms that I've developed for certain complex tasks that I find no less beautiful than a print of an amazing sunset.

<br /><br />

Where some might be good at combining the right proportions of chemicals in perfect balance to achieve the desired result, I am good at combining multiple scattered sources of data, and resources (both human and digital) into a productive work flow.

<br /><br />

That's one of the reason's why I'm generally confused by the arguments against digital photography that have to do with storing, organizing, and editing vast collections of files. For me, those are things that are as simple as tying my shoes.

<br /><br />

So, what is real? Is it something that is a collection of molecules gathered together in a certain form, or is it in the flow of information? Who are any of us to say what is real and what isn't? I certainly don't want that responsibility.

[Norma Desmond]

Devin--

 

You're smart and you're right in many respects. Keep up the good thinking. Reality will be

yours for a lot longer than it will be ours, so your voice counts more. Reality has quite little

to

do with what one can touch! Please don't think all old-timers think like that. Not all of us

grew up in a world full of such dogmatic and definitive (and silly) statements. What you

think is quite real and I've never met a thought I could touch. Same for digital files.

 

--Fred

[don_e]

True/Truth, Real/Reality...the issue is usually an artifact of language which is capable of forming sentences that 'do not compute', no matter they are good sentences with subjects, objects, and verbs.

 

If god had wanted us to communicate he would have given us a better sense of smell.

[cyanatic]

This truly is the Philosophy forum.

 

"We stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley?s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I shall never forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.' "

 

Devin -- Your comments got me to thinking about film & digital as it relates to old & young. I know 3 different people in their early to mid-twenties who work exclusively with film...one of whom is quite militant and vocal about the superiority of film over digital. Whatever. That's a debate I want no part of. On the other hand, I'm 53 and only took a serious interest in photography some three years ago thanks to digital cameras. I "know" photography from a digital standpoint. My "darkroom" consists of a computer and, primarily, Adobe Lightroom. Although I was recently given a older film SLR, I haven't started fully utilizing it yet. Like most people my age, I took many shots with film cameras, but just your common vernacular shots of vacations, family events, etc. It was the ease of digital that launched me into the world of caring about composition, f stops, tones, subject matter, interesting light, etc. Stating the obvious, but digital has made the photography learning curve much less steep for those interested in applying themselves.

 

To me this relates particularly to Plagens closing comments: "The next great photographers?if there are to be any?will have to find a way to reclaim photography's special link to reality. And they'll have to do it in a brand-new way." I don't necessarily agree with his assumption that photography's main link is to reality, nor that someone must "do it in a brand-new way." More significant to me is that he touches upon the effect that the digital age (for lack of a better term) has had upon many creative endeavours. The learning curve, and the accessibility to an audience, has been eased for music and videos as well as photography. The price paid for ease and access is a glut of data and a shrinking audience that doesn't have time to wade through it all and sift the wheat from the chaff. The average man or woman's work is better (some might debate this), but there's also more of it, and fewer people interested in seeing it or able to find it even if they are interested.

 

In 1810, I might have earned a living as a poet, in 1951 I might have been a minor blues harmonica star, and in 1955 I might have been a contributor to "The Family of Man" exhibition. I could drive myself crazy worrying about which art form is "dead", or nearly impossible to distinguish oneself in. I enjoy, even love, photography. It makes me happy, it gives me satisfaction, it scratches a creative itch. I do not believe that video is a replacement for a still shot and will supplant it. And if it does, so be it. In 100 years or less people may study prior time periods via full immersion, 360 degree, smell-a-vision, taste-a-vision, feel-a-vision, holograms. And in 110 years or less, there will be an article entitled "Is Holography Dead?"

[Allen Herbert]

I could drive myself crazy worrying about which art form is "dead", or nearly impossible to distinguish oneself in. I enjoy, even love, photography. It makes me happy, it gives me satisfaction, it scratches a creative itch

 

Too many folk worry about what art form is dead, too many folk worry about what process they should use, too many folks worry about what cam/number of pixels/format/lenses to use.

 

Too many folk have too many worries to be able to take anything other than crap photos.

 

 

Cause they have too many worries.

 

 

Just a thought.

[Norma Desmond]

Yet Van Gogh had enough worries to slice off an ear and look at what he accomplished.

[Allen Herbert]

Proper worries, Fred. Sort of like his attacks of epilepsy, anxiety, and depression. Not the worries of, if there were not enough pixels, dancing around at the bottom of his garden. I'm talking about the ones with little fluttery wings, and mini skirts, Fred.

[Norma Desmond]

I always find it interesting when one person decides what another's proper worries are

LOL. That seems like, perhaps, a worry you shouldn't be so worried about :)

 

Then again, I agree with you to an extent. In some forums, it seems like processing

method and pixel collection is more important than the impact, meaning, emotion, or

expression of an image.

 

Then again again, a debate has long taken place in musical circles say between the artistry

of Calls and Sutherland in opera or between Serkin and Pollini on piano.

 

The former of each pair is known more for expressive power and less for technical merit.

The latter of each pair can be stunning to listen to on a certain level but fall short for some

in their expressive capabilities. There's a good case to be made for developing technical

capabilities and worrying about them. Those who think they can become great artists

without practicing their scales or knowing photographic process (digital or darkroom) are

kidding themselve. My guess is that Callas and Serkin did a fair amount of worrying about

technique but not as much as Sutherland and Pollini. There are some times when I want to

simply be dazzled by Pollini's playing and I will turn it on and love it. Same goes for me

opening up a book of Ansel Adams. I don't do it for the gut emotion he elicits from me,

because he doesn't. But he dazzles me where he can.

 

As is usually the case in these matters, a good balance is everything.

[Allen Herbert]

Those who think they can become great artists without practicing their scales or knowing photographic process (digital or darkroom) are kidding themselve.

 

Well,i agree with you,Fred,to some extent.However,there's always exceptions. Nothing is written in stone, Fred.