View Camera magazine article - Seeing in Silver

[james phillips]

In the most recent View Camera magazine I read and then re-read the article by ?Gordon Hutchings: Seeing in Silver?. This has caused me to ponder the current use of a digital darkroom in regards to the time honored method of a traditional ?wet? darkroom. For those of you who have not seen the article there were specifically two points (amongst various others) that raised my eyebrows. The first is that he states "While the basics of Photoshop, for example can be learned in an afternoon, it takes hard work to really know it, and all computer technology is a constantly moving target, requiring continuous learning?" He continues on in his article towards explaining how, just like a traditional darkroom one must spend hours upon hours of learning digital techniques in order to be able to produce a fine quality print.

 

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His second point that has interested myself is that he goes on to suggest that if "One could simply scan in a color slide and push the ?Monet? or ?Rembrandt? button and out of the printer comes a near-perfect rendition of the print" then how long would it take before the person creating the print becomes dissatisfied with the process. He suggests, "By the end of the first half days output I suspect there would be a complete burnout followed by disgust, disappointment and total boredom with the whole project.?"

 

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So let?s start with the second point. I suspect (by reading posts over the past year) that there is more than a few photographers who would rather spend their time shooting rather than printing, and are welcoming and perhaps even embracing the ease with which digital printing is permitting them to produce quality prints with a minimum of effort. Am I wrong about this? Are these people not relieved in that they do not have to use a ?wet darkroom? and that changes are much easier to implement in a digital environment?

 

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In regards to the first point, I personally have found the computer capable of making tasks that use to consume much time and effort to now be almost effortless. I also am not a ?computer guru? and most of these tasks have been quite easy to learn. For instance the creation of this topic in a word processor, which I can spell check, cut and paste to restructure content, and change the fonts, and bolding of words so as to add emphasis where I feel it is necessary. If I had been using an old fashion typewriter I would have found this to be quite a task and one that would not have been done so well. I also feel compelled to point out that the ability to use these features is easily acquired in a single evening just by playing around and experimenting with the software. Would it not also be possible to learn how to do ?digital printing? by enjoying a few evenings of experimentation with a program like Photoshop and the appropriate hardware such as a good scanner/printer combination?

 

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In conclusion I just wish to say that I use a traditional darkroom and have no intention of going digital at this time but felt compelled to question Gordon?s presumptions based upon my own computer experiences. I now seek your opinions on whether using digital techniques requires many hours of practice and after becoming proficient if you thing that you would become bored with the whole process? Please no flames on the spelling or grammar as I am becoming a ?spelling/grammar checking, semi-illiterate, word-processing type of guy? who is trying to kick the habit. :>)))

[michael_alpert1]

GreyWolf,

 

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Thank you for bringing these ideas to the forum. There seems to be two

components to this question: (1) what works fast and well, and (2) what

brings happiness. If you are under great pressure to produce something

super quick--well, then, you'll sit in front of a foolish screen and

get it done. But if it's art that you're after, then you might love

screens or you might love darkrooms. I happen to love the darkroom way

of working. I think it takes time to understand an image, and often a

shortcut would leave the image half completed. I also would find

Photoshop (which I work with at my office) amazingly stupefying,

regardless of its versatility and power. But I do not love make-work or

busy-work, so if there are new ways to come to a correct exposure or

contrast-level within the darkroom environment, that's great. I know a

writer who sometimes uses a manual typewriter. He wants to enjoy the

time when he is writing, and the computer screen is really a problem

when it comes to the exercise of imagination. Similarly, I want to

enjoy my time with photography. Still, there's a understandable

difference of opinion with this issue of technology, and there is no

need to reject any technology in all applications. For instance, I

value this forum, so I am willing to sit here at a keyboard in front of

a screen in order to contribute to it.

[david_clark4]

Hi Grey Wolf, I don't think you are going to get closure this issue.

With regard to my own response, I've enjoyed prints from photographers

who I've thought of as primarily printers and photographers who I've

heard were point and shoot and send it to the lab for processing.

My own prejudice is with the printer. And that digital stuff seems a

whole different ball game to me. I have no doubt that great art will

come from someone using digital imagine making. But I'm not so sure

that at some point it doesn't become something different than

photography, and I'm not a purist, too much. When the goal is an

image, I don't know how anyone can prescribe the way one gets

done, but to become a master of a art is hard pains-taking work by

definition. If you want to shoot film, scan the product, and do a

straight off print through the easy version of Photoshop, if you

find that satisfying, who's to say it's wrong? or why would you listen

to them?

 

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As an aside, when the heck did this site all of a sudden become

interested in becoming picky about English grammer?

 

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Best, David

[kevin_kemner1]

Grey,

 

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I work in a field that has been increasingly dominated by the use of

the computer and digital imaging, architecture. In our firm we have

one of the most advanced imaging departments in the region and we

have one person on staff who's sole responsibilty is to be a

photoshop artist. While others can do the same things on the

computer that he can there is a significant difference in the level

of quality simply based on the fact that he has been a photoshop

professional for several years. I can go back through several years

worth of computer generated renderings and immediately spot the ones

that have been manipulated by him. So the short answer to your

question is yes it takes a great deal of time (years) to become more

than simply proficient with photoshop and the digital darkroom.

 

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On the other hand our computer images are less valued by our clients

than the water colors we hire a renderer to produce. Often the

computer renderings are returned to us by clients because they "don't

have space" even though they may cost more to produce. I think sub-

consciously people prefer something that isn't easily reproducable.

This ultimately may be the biggest difference between the digital and

traditional darkrooms.

 

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The social critic and philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote an essay

titled Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. (or something like

that). I think I'm going to re-read it this week.

[jim_chinn1]

I would have to agree with Mr. Hutchings to a certain extent. I am

no expert about computers or software, but i am confident I could buy

a scanner, photoshop and quad ink sets for my printer and produce

good looking prints in a few days of learning and trial and error.

But to produce exceptional or gallery quality fine prints to rival

the best that a master sliver printer can print would take a much

greater investment in time to learn the nuiances of the software.

Once one really understands the software, the porcess probably

becomes much quicker but still great time and effort will be involved

in making various proofs, applying masks, digitally dodging and

burning, adjusting contrast, sharpness etc.

 

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I think you can make a realistic comparison to learning how to print

in a wet darkroom. With some instruction and trial and error a

person could produce straight representations of negatives in a

couple hours of practice with out a whole lot of effort. Yet this is

a long way from producing a fine print that coveys what was felt when

the negative was exposed. That only comes with learning all the

tools and techniques at your disposal and exposing a lot of paper in

the process.

 

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It really is a matter of the quality of work you want to produce.

Right now my time is so limited I feel I am more productive in the

wet darkroom where I can produce quality work. I will probably learn

digital someday but right now I would rather spend the time further

refining my wet printing skills.

[matt_sampson]

Is there anyone else out there who does their photography in their

spare time and who sees the darkroom as a break from staring at a

computer? I guess it depend what you do for a living but if you work

with computers, as many of us do these days, the last thing I want to

do is spend another couple of hours in front of one. I can see the

advantages of digital printing and every time I produce something

from my 200 Quid Epson I think maybe there's something in this but I

have yet to sentence myself to learning enough to match what I can do

in the wet darkroom. For me it's the hands on craft thing and the

physical effort involved that still wins out as much as anything

else. I think it is over simplifying things some what to think that

the love or hate of digital methods is down to whether you think that

they are better than conventional methods or not...I realise I'm way

of the point by now...so I'll call it a day.

 

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Matt Sampson

[jim_chinn1]

You are right Matt. maybe that is the other reason I don't delve

more into the digital realm. For myself there is a certain ritual

and serenity in setting up the darkroom for work, mixing chemicals,

manually manipulating the exposure with dodging, burning, flashing

masking, anticipating the result as the print emerges. All the

processes require a patience that is hard to practice for most people.

Maybe these aspects of the wet darkroom will be a strength to keep it

alive as photographers who in the future know nothing but digital

cameras and computer screens return to the slower more meditative wet

darkroom.

[huw_evans2]

I normally avoid digital/analogue discussions like the plague, but I

couldn't resist the urge to turn off those bold italics!

 

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</i></b> </i></b> </i></b> </i></b>

So, having done that, I may as well add my two penn'orth. 'Kevin'

said, "I think sub- consciously people prefer something that isn't

easily reproducable." Essentially I agree, although I'm not even sure

that it is necessarily subconcious. A hand-made print - like any

hand-made artefact - has a uniqueness about it that, for many people,

makes it inherently valuable, in a way in which the mass-produced

artefact is not.

 

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A digital file may be reprinted any number of times at the touch of a

button, and by anyone in possession of the file, whereas if a great

photographer only made a hundred prints from a given negative in his

lifetime, then that is all there will ever be. They might be copied,

or others may print from the negative, but the result will not be an

original from the hand of the master.

 

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I can see the digital darkroom thriving as a tool of the commercial

photographer, or of the amateur who doesn't want the hassle of a wet

darkroom, but for many of those who have pretensions to produce

serious works of art it will remain absolutely essential.

[dean_lastoria]

Wlter Benjamin talks of two values of art: Cult and Exhibition. Cult

value is magic, a cave painting or a fresco in a church.

Exhibition: "In photograpy, exhibition value begins to displace cult

value all laong the line. But Cult value does not give way without

resistance" (Art in age of Mech Rero)

I'd say, silver salt has taken back the cult. The cave dweller, the

magic, the alchemist. Probably exhibition, it doesn't mater (or won't

soon). The archetect photo-shop artist, I would say whould have

Exhibition as its intent, where the water-colour would be some kind

of Modern cult value to the Blue Sky past of all thoes archetect dads

from the 50's and 60's TV shows -- not the same magic as a cave.

 

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Magic, in my mind sums it up. I'm of the Cult of Silver.

Dean

[dean_lastoria]

That word is "along" and I can't seem to cult-and-paste (sorry) into

the old spell checker today.

Dean

[dan_smith]

In todays world we have art & then we have 'collectables'. The art

will last, being up on the wall or on display and when rotated, put

back out again and again. The 'collectables' are the commonplace that

we put up to cover the bad spot on the wall, give as gifts when brain

dead and buy when advertising hype overcomes common sense. They gain

in value as the years go by only by virtue of survival. With so many

reprints of the same old low quality prints, whether digital or

traditional silver, much work falls into the 'collectables' catagory.

The hands on aspect of traditional printing gets more respect due to

the work involved and much of what is now a collectable will

eventually fade due to being poorly printed, using RC materials, etc.

The finest prints are going to be in demand always. Weston and others

fit well here. The very finest digital will be in demand but my guess

is that on a percentage basis, comparing a Uelsmann to a newer

digital guru, the Uelsmann will be in greater demand for a much

longer time.

 

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The talent and skill needed to produce the highest quality digital

can't be dismissed. It takes time, dedication, skill and a

certain 'touch', just as silver or alt process printing does. One has

to be more than excellent to be thought of highly among a group of

people who look at the images & say "I can do that on my computer &

printer at home". The old line photogs have a similar line in "I

could have done that". In both pursuits few will ever "do that" in

reality. While one can clone almost anything on a computer doing so

in the real world with a camera in the field, wet hands in the

darkroom & the time needed to become good at it will always make the

final result worth more in the long run. There is still a major

difference in a real Rembrandt or Weston and a computer

generated 'similar'.

[jim_galli4]

I've made a tiny transition over the past year. I used to make an

11X14 of most of my negs, just a work print, and I would go through a

love/ hate/ is there any value in this picture phase to decide if it

was worth spending half a day in the darkroom trying to actually

produce a fine print. For lack of time, or laziness, or whatever,

that task has now gone to the computer. But when that one in 500

picture does come along that I think may have the potential to be an

artistic piece, into the darkroom I go! And I relish those times, as

time seems so hard to get for that. For some reason, God made me a

bit of a loner, and I love to go into the dark, put in a tape, and let

the creative stuff go.

 

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"Ansel Adams at 100" comes to mind. Swarkowski (please forgive if

spelling is incorrect) has made a whole show over subtle differences

that he interprets as different phases in the artists motivations over

a lifetime! If Digital had come on the scene 50 years ago, that show

would be pointless. Once the file is made......just keep pushing the

button and each is perfectly (OR NOT) like the last."

 

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I've asked the question before on this forum and I'll ask again;

What's the difference between a $17 poster of "Moonrise" in a poster

shop, and the $40,000 original? OK, what's the difference between

that $17 poster and a good Piezography "fine art" print?

 

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Ultimately, and on a different level, personal preference comes into

play. For me the computer is "work" and the darkroom is "play." For

someone else, the computer is "play" and the darkroom is "work."

 

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Jim Galli

[andre_noble4]

Perhaps a little off the subject: I'd like to know what equipment

some of you digital bandwagoners are using to make your "exhibition

quality" prints?

 

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Aside from service bureau Light Jet type prints which blend advanced

laser optics, computer technology and traditional silver-based

photography, every other digital print I've seen, I could tell by

looking closely at it that it was made off a photo printer, and not

under an enlarger.

 

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Even for a budding large format guy such as myself, I'd have to say

I'm sorry, but digital just has not arrived yet(even still). The

difficulty of contrast control in traditional printing is to me less

of a demerit than lack of fine resolution and striations visible in

today's top of the line consumer digital prints. Andre

[sandy_sorlien]

My friend photographer David Freese has an interesting theory about

computer screen work vs. darkroom. We were talking one day about how

rare it is to see great digital work in our classrooms and galleries,

and he said that perhaps a different part of the brain is engaged when

you are physically handling something three-dimensional and tactile

(e.g. the paper, filters, dodging tools, and chemicals in the

darkroom). Perhaps the brain is stimulated to a greater degree or in a

different way than it is when everything is "virtual" on the screen.

This makes sense to me. I know Photoshop (though I'm no expert) and

use it to prepare images for the web or e-mail, but you'll have to

drag me kicking and screaming out of the darkroom for anything else.

[squareframe]

the obvious solution is to move the computer with Photoshop and Epson

printer into the darkroom. pour a few trays of Dektol and fixer,

ignite the safety light, turn on a faucet, add a fan and the buzz of

a few transformers, and start hammering away at the computer.

[c._w._dean]

The speed with which one achieves proficiency in digital imaging (some

call it the "learning curve") will vary widely among individuals.

Photoshop and the associated hardware are loaded with idiosyncrasies,

subtle difficulties, and extremely complicated features. If you buy

the wrong printer, scanner, or monitor the troubles can be endless.

I believe very experienced photographers find it easier to make the

transition especially if they first seek good advice and training.

They bring into the new craft the discipline of the old craft and have

a better chance of producing exceptional work. I'm seeing many so

so photographers rushing into digital imaging where they become so so

digital technicians producing so so results.

[sean_yates2]

Andre's question brings me to ask,

 

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Aren't "traditional" methods still MUCH cheaper than digital? How

much does a quality outfit run? How does the cost of a scanner and a

printer and computer and monitor and software and system calibration

and the inks and the paper and zip drives and so on compare to the

cost of some trays and chemisty and paper? Even if you include the

cost of a cold light head enlarger?

 

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How many prints and how many years would you have to amortize the

digital gear over to get a per sheet rate equivalent to traditional

silver? In other words, the start-up costs are pretty much

prohibitive for a lot of us - which leaves the service bureaus, which

sort of begs the question, doesn't it?

[sandy_sorlien]

Dan.

I've wanted to take a hammer to my computer many times.

[joe_lipka2]

Craft takes time, so, yes, it does take some effort to become

proficient with Photoshop. LF has its own set of skills, as do both

wet and digital darkrooms, too. All are photographic "tools of the

trade" and have their own learning curve. For me, the advantage to

digital darkroom work is the versatility of the output. In a wet

darkroom, you make a print to hang on a wall. In the digital

darkroom, you can make a digital print, a digital negative (to print

in your wet darkroom), post on the web, create a CD, create a book

using the digital prints or if you really want to get crazy, print an

iron on transfer for your T shirt.

Far from becoming bored, having a digital darkroom(for me) expands

photographic horizons. I am now thinking in terms of multiple images,

projects and themes that I have treated over the past thirty years of

photography. I recently completed a project of making a portfolio of

fifty images to send to fifty friends. The output was a CD. This was

not something that I could have done economically with wet darkroom

methods.

One other thing, there's tons more gadgets to buy once you start using

your computer.

[jeff_buckels]

I learned like everybody else with traditional photographic processes,

including wet darkroom. For me, it's magical. I have no interest in

digital. There's nothing about it that seems attractive. -jeff

buckels

[james___]

Joe Lipka hit the nail on the head. It is the greater variety of end

uses for the product that makes digital so appealing to many

photographers. Once you learn the rudiments of digital you have so

much you can do with it. I would never have been able to have so many

people view my work had it not been for digital. Not that I've used

it's full potential. But most photographers aren't fine art type

photographers. Most don't care to get more than a picture. they are

not too concerned with contrast ratios and color balance but with

digital they can send it, recieve it, change it, combine it, ect, ect.

That's what most do with digital. I think it's great. James

[michael_mahoney1]

I've observed and enjoyed many of these digital/traditional

discussions, and feel that the silent majority of workaday

photographers simply don't step foward and make themselves heard. I'd

wager the vast majority of photographers would not call

themselves "fine art" printers, and have no interest in producing

that kind of work. Yet often in these types of discussions, we hear

from the "fine art" printers who say digital printing has not reached

the quality level required by them. I'm not about to argue that

point, but for every one "fine art" photographer, there are twenty

commercial photographers who rely on PhotoShop or similiar to produce

the kind of work required by and paid for by their clients, who

require a digital file for web use, magazine reproduction, or

printing. This file often needs to be manipulated to varying degrees

to suit the job.

In raw business terms, clients expect you to have the ability to e-

mail proofs, show a portfolio on CD, and communicate with their pre-

press and advertising firms in digital media.

[jeffrey_scott]

There is a use and a place for both traditional and digital. I happen

to run a custom B&W photo lab in Cleveland, Ohio, Labwork, where we do

traditional processing and printing for both fine art and commercial

clients. Depending on the final use the print will be either RC or

Fiber Base; digital has it's place primarily for commercial work and

the majority of that work is Color, not B&W, so we do not get

requests for it. In the end I feel color will go digital and B&W will

be traditional for the most part. For the above responses that stated

how versatile digital is in that they can do so many different things

with these images, well doesn't that just make those images a

commodity as opposed to art?????

[katharine_thayer1]

I collect photographs as well as making them; whenever I have a

successful show or make an especially good sale I use some of the

money to buy a print from

someone else whose work I admire. (And yes, by the way, I AM a fine

art photographer. I've been amused at the umbrage which this useful

label has

evoked on this forum; it has certainly done nothing to deserve the

abuse that's been aimed at it. "Fine art photographer" is simply a

job title that identifies a professional

photographer who

doesn't do weddings, doesn't do commercial work, isn't a

photojournalist, but whose work consists in making photographic prints

for exhibition. Sally

Mann is a fine art photographer. Robert Adams is a fine

art photographer. It's what they do. I am a fine art photographer.

It's what I do. Being less well-known than they are doesn't make me

any less of a fine art photographer, just as the photographer who

works for the local paper is still a news photographer even if he

doesn't sell his pictures to Time. It's

just a job title. I

don't think for a moment that I'm on a different plane or that my work

is better or more creative than commercial photographers or

photojournalists, but what I do is not commercial photography or

photojournalism, it is fine art photography. I'm surprised there are

photographers who seem to be unaware of this commonly-used

terminology.)

 

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Anyway, as I was saying, I do sometimes buy photographs, and I can

hardly imagine buying a digital print. To me it would be like

buying a page out of a magazine; it's the same kind of mechanical

reproduction, whether printed with ink on a press or printed with ink

on a

digital printer. (And there's my answer to Jim: to me there's no

difference between the $17 poster and the digital print). I suppose if

I really admired an image by a person who only printed digitally, I

might consider buying it but only if the price were very low, as for a

poster.

 

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I've earned these strong opinions by virtue of once

being the person "pushing the button" to make my photographs into

digital Monets, except it was more complicated that because I was

using the very first version of photoshop and there were no "Monet"

filters, I had to do a lot of stuff with channel operations and

calculations and the like to create a "painterly" effect. I must have

thought they looked pretty cool at the time, because I framed a bunch

of these dye-sub prints and

showed them at an art fair, but I am eternally grateful no one bought

any, and I have long since destroyed the prints as well as the

computer files that generated them.

 

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Some of the discussion here is apples vs oranges. I think most people

appreciate how important digital work is to commercial photography and

to electronic transmission of images. The

question is what place the digital print will have in fine art

photography, and I think each fine art photographer has to answer the

question

for him/herself as far as his/her own work, although in the end it

won't be photographers who will make the ultimate determination, it

will be

the people who buy photographs; whether they will value digital prints

as much as traditional photographic prints still remains to be seen.