E-Projects

steve_swinehart · July 16, 2009

I've been away from this thread for a bit ...so let me go through the posts and address them with my thoughts...

Fred Goldsmith:

"But I do think a lot of the images we see on our monitors are not meant to go any further."

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I can understand that, I just have a hard time (with my own work) of figuring out how I would produce an image that I felt was finished when viewed on a monitor. It's a matter of aesthetics (for me) directly linked to the viewed medium.

Luis G:

"I see this dichotomy as an also-and situation."

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And that's the part that I'm interested in, as the "and" portion directly changes the work whether the image was conceived as a print and is now being viewed on a monitor - or vice versa.

Luis G:

"I've judged many Salons and contests over the web, including one for Canon, over the web, and had no problem with it."

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That's really not the point - what you're describing is just an electronic extension of sending slides in to a juried show. My interest is in the change in image aesthetics and the effect of that on the viewer's perception of the work.

Luis G:

"The huge majority of images today will never be seen as prints, and in the future, will probably not be hung as prints, either."

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Yes, but, that's not much different than making a statement like, "The majority of images will never be hung but will exist as 4x6 machine prints." Again, only an electronic transmogrification of something from the physical world to electronic cyberspace.

Luis G:

"Have you ever seen a Dura-Trans print?"

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Yes - have had them made for commercial clients - but, viewing the image via transmitted light really isn't the point. I've seen photographic work that was conceived to be viewed as a backlit image. The aesthetics of the image were enhanced by that type of display.

Luis G:

"This is neither good nor bad, just what it is."

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This is not a good or bad judgement - and it's more than just writing it off as "it is what it is." The work is (or should be) in it's final display form because the artist decided that the image was best seen through a specific media choice - not because something was handy or easy to use. It's the importance of that choice and its relevance to the image that I'm interested in.

Johh Kelly:

"But we'll die off, leaving the Flickr people...a significant percentage of whom are fabulously creative despite Steve's distaste"

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Never mentioned Flickr or made a value judgement about creativity that might be found on any website. Please don't read anything into what I've stated beyond the words themselves - that's only you projecting something onto what I've written. However, wading through the dreck to find the jewels (especially on Youtube) is not an exercise I find enjoyable as opposed going to websites dedicated to the display of artistic works - the filtering has already been done by the website via their acceptance criteria.

Jeff Spirer:

"Second, for many people over a long period of time, the primary viewing of photographs has been in magazines."

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Your point being? Print media is its own aesthetic. When used for its inherent qualities it can enhance the viewing experience. That is what I'm attempting to understand for myself - how do you use web display of images as an experience that enhances the image?

Jeff Spirer:

"Third, the screen is fine, even on the phone, for many people. This is where it's at now. It may not be how you view the world, but a new generation sees it that way and there is nothing wrong with that. There are new ways of relating to photography, ones that are much more integral to one's life, much more prevalent, and they usually involve screens. Everyone should be celebrating what is happening because it has made photography much more important on a day-to-day basis."

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Not my point Jeff. What people will accept is whatever you give them. My questions revolve around what do you want to give them in relationship to your work as an aesthetic experience? Using the web is fine - I'm not making a judgement on that, but only how to formulate work that is enhanced by its display throught that medium.

Jeff Spirer:

"The number of people that see prints in galleries and museums is ridiculously small, class-driven, and irrelevant to photography overall."

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Again, not the point. This is about artistic choice NOT what you define as relevant or irrelevant to your perception of photography.

Jeff Spirer:

"It has to do with how people view and interact with photography."

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Exactly - the question is how do you use the web to get people to have the aesthetic experience you wish them to have?

Let me digress for a moment to give an example. At one time I did work using a 110 camera (and this is partly why I find the 640x480 work appealing). I had 36x48 inch prints made from the 110 film. When viewed from 20 feet or more away, they coalesced into identifiable images. However, as you approached the photographs, they gradually fell apart as the grain became more prominent until they were only pointilistic, grainy, color fields. That is an aesthetic experience that would be difficult to replicate through a computer monitor.

John Kelly:

"Steve S's OT began by indicating he recognizes that he's "above" that and proudly NOT classless.

Steve...am I right?"

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I don't think this has anything to do with class - either low or high - but, an examination of using the web as the desired medium of display for images.

Brad:

"I don't understand why this is being characterized as a new phenomena."

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No one is characterizing this as a new phenomena. The question is how to use it as the best medium to display an image for artistic intent. However, if you compare viewing prints on paper in person - with a 400 year history - versus viewing a monitor - then it is a relatively new and different way of interacting with the audience.

Norma Desmond · July 16, 2009

Steve--

Thanks for the clarification. It's much easier for me to understand now. And, I'm now as curious as you to hear people's answers.

My own case is that I seriously got into making my own photographs only in digital mode, so I don't have a history of printing much. For me, the question will be more the reverse. When I start printing more, and more seriously, what considerations will come in for me that I haven't been paying attention to in creating images mostly for viewing on monitors.

I have a long history of appreciating photographs, though, mostly prints. What I can tell you is that I think I notice more blatancy in images created for screen viewing. With prints, especially when you have control over good lighting for display, you can really nuance things and assume that the viewer will see them. I am very aware that monitors are calibrated all over the map and the people are seeing things much brighter or much darker than I likely am. So I may sometimes work something up to where it's really nuanced and subtle on my own screen, and then bring up the lows a little especially because of fear that many monitors will be losing what's in my shadows. I try to do it pretty subtly, but I am definitely aware of it.

With real important stuff, for instance those couple of portraits that I did for people who only wanted them for their personal web sites and not for prints, I make sure to look at them on my laptop as well as my better desktop monitor, knowing that many people are using laptops these days.

I'm conscious of trying to go for as universal an acceptable visual product as I can, whereas I imagine when printing, one is sticking much more to the personal, assuming people will see exactly what you see, with the knowledge that various lighting situations will make a difference.

My real bother in all this is color. I have seen my colors look so awfully different on friends' monitors and there's not much universalizing adjustment I can do on that, so I just have to live with it.

Interestingly, I think over the years, I have let go to some extent of worrying about what others are actually seeing, and hope that the work, care, precision, nuances, emotion, technique, etc. I put into the work, even if not seen as accurately as I'd like, will still read on a more intangible level.

It is fascinating to think how that aspect of haphazard viewing will affect one's aesthetic. I hope it doesn't make us photographers more sloppy to know that some of the details we stress over won't even get noticed. (That was probably always the case with most viewers even with prints.) But it might be affecting our own emphases, the way we choose content, etc.

Can't wait to hear others' take on this.

Thanks for your clarification and a really interesting topic.

aplumpton · July 16, 2009

"With prints, especially when you have control over good lighting for display, you can really nuance things and assume that the viewer will see them." (Fred)

Agree entirely, Fred, and I tried to communicate the same.

"It is fascinating to think how that aspect of haphazard viewing will affect one's aesthetic. I hope it doesn't make us photographers more sloppy to know that some of the details we stress over won't even get noticed. (That was probably always the case with most viewers even with prints.) But it might be affecting our own emphases, the way we choose content, etc." (Fred)

Steve, Fred et al: The dichotomy of serious printmaking and exposition versus facile and mass photo exhibition has always existed. We of a certain length of beard know that a few decades ago this was the curious comparison of 4x6 point and shoot Walmart (or the then equivalent) prints versus the laboratory (darkroom) print that required several hours to hone properly, not to mention the pre-visualisation and capture.

Today is no different, except for the great quantity of stuff that is out there that tends to dilute the significance of the traditional print exhibitions. Electronic and cybernet media and the highly variable monitor screen have replaced the corner drugstore.

Nobody obliges anyone to seek out a print exhibition. In my experience, it will always be there and will always be important. There is a good public for that. If as a photographer the gallery doesn't accept your prints, that is not the gallery's fault. My short experience as a gallery operator (part time, I have not the courage to do it for more than a few months per year) is that Mr and Mrs "Tout-le-monde" ("Everybody") who gracefully visit my gallery spend a lot of time appreciating and absorbing the content and appearance of each photo or painting.

Whether they buy or not, this time they spend in understanding each work speaks volumes to me concerning the perceived value of the photographic print. That's it.

Norma Desmond · July 16, 2009

Arthur--

Boy, have you missed the point.

This is NOT about the "dichotomy of serious printmaking and exposition versus facile and mass photo exhibition."

Reading Steve's careful replies and my response should make that profoundly clear. I'm surprised you're missing it.

This is about SERIOUS photographers working with the knowledge that their final product will be a monitor image. Believe it or not, there are some of us. These photographers are no more facile and mass than you are. Believe me, I spend countless hours honing my photos in my digital darkroom. Sorry if that's not serious enough for you. You flatter yourself . . . needlessly. Your long beard seems to have gotten the best of you. Geez.

And if you don't think, even in your day, there weren't some fine, serious photographers influenced aesthetically by the mass market, 4x6 Walmart situation, look again.

steve_swinehart · July 16, 2009

Let me roam a little further from the subject to give you some background as to why I am trying to figure this out.

I had to take art history courses as part of the art curriculum I was in. One of the classes was, "Art -Renaissance to Modern." The professor was very good, and the discussion slides were projected at a large size on a screen in a auditorium seating about 500 people (there were about 50 in the class but, the professor wanted that space specifically to make the projected images as large as possible).

We looked at numerous works projected and in the course text book (Jansen's History of Art). The first visual reset I got was viewing Picasso's "Guernica" in person at MOMA. The next was seeing Jackson Pollock's work where the paintings as reproductions looked random and drippy - suddenly looked like they weighed tons when viewed in person - and had voids that you could see back into giving depth to the work. Neither effect even remotely conveyed through either a projection onto a screen or reproduction in a book.

A few years later, at a Rococo painting exhibit, the paintings that were 4x5 inches in books were castle-size 10 to 12-foot high paintings with 1-foot wide frames.

Each experience built upon the previous and I became keenly aware that HOW a work was presented reinforced the content. That the method of display had a profound effect on your perception of the work; and that the full aesthetic experience of a work was an integral part of how it was viewed.

Translating this to the discussion and to my own work, I find that viewing my work on a monitor does not seem to show it to its best advantage. Much of what I do requires details to be seen, and even more importantly, the creation of spaces between objects. When the work is presented on a monitor, the details disappear and the spaces collapse.

Perhaps John Kelly is right in that in the future everyone will have large screen monitors - at that point, perhaps the images would work as conceived when taken.

aplumpton · July 16, 2009

Fred:

Touché, Fred, I did really miss the point, or posted to the wrong subjectline (more than once, here). Acknowledged.

In regard to the specific subject (and re-reading the original and some of the posts), I think the only downside is the question of visualising texture and nuances on the screen, however carefully calibrated it is.

In regard to serious post capture work on the monitor I too try to succeeed at that and do not consider lightroom activity at all inferior to darkroom, it is just different.

Getting a different perspective may be achievable by simply sitting back farther, or coming closer to the screen. probably best done in a semi-darkened room, to avoid visual interaction with other objects. As for other aspects of simulating print viewing via the monitor, perhaps Steve can establish "offsets" that can be calibrated, and which may be useful in future in visualising the difference.

Once again, sorry to have beaten a drum to the wrong tune. This may well be a function of my long beard!

Mastering (to some significant degree) post capture work on the computer is something I have not yet attained and I both envy and praise those that do so.

Norma Desmond · July 16, 2009

Steve: "Translating this to the discussion and to my own work, I find that viewing my work on a monitor does not seem to show it to its best advantage. Much of what I do requires details to be seen, and even more importantly, the creation of spaces between objects. When the work is presented on a monitor, the details disappear and the spaces collapse."

My guess is that when serious photographers tried to do with Polaroids what they had been doing with large formats, they may have been similarly disappointed. At some point, the creative types realized just what you are talking about, that part of the aesthetic is consciousness of both the medium and the final output, and started doing things uniquely geared toward using the wonderful, different, and various characteristics that the Polaroid had to offer.

When people are creative today, they will start noticing the unique characteristics both of digital images and the monitors they are being viewed on, and they will allow their aesthetic to envelop, utilize, and celebrate those characteristics rather than struggling to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Norma Desmond · July 16, 2009

Arthur--

I appreciate the gracious response.

Steve--

Your last comment, though, now has me confused! I thought I had nailed down what you were after, but now you seem to be talking about the disappointment you encounter when comparing prints to monitors, which I thought was not your larger point.

What I thought you were asking was not, "How do you try to imitate what a print accomplishes when using a monitor?" or "In what way is the experience of looking at an image as a print different from looking at that same image on a monitor?" I thought it was, "Knowing that your final product will be a screen image on a monitor, what aesthetic considerations do you make?" Not because you want it to simulate the film experience, any more than creative Polaroid users wanted to simulate the large format experience. But because you realize that you have a new and unique medium at your fingertips that has yet to be explored for the characteristics it has rather than grieved over for the characteristics it doesn't have.

If you are trying to get out of a monitor, with the same image, just what you get out of print, yes, I think you will always be disappointed.

jtk · July 16, 2009

Steve, a corrective and an apology:

The corrective: I don't think the future is monitors... it belongs to digital projection...visually-quality-oriented present is already owned by giant TV monitors. Much better than the best computer monitor.

My apology: I misdisremembered. You didn't dismiss folks on Flickr, you dismissed inhabitants of two other photo-heavy sites: "Places like Facebook and Youtube are more social utilities or freakshows" :-)

But I do admire your line of thought, these petty matters aside. Me, I'm sticking with printing for now because I don't have the fortitude to do extended projects.

This exhibit in Albuquerque is staggering evidence of that fortitude by one of New Mexico's finest...an RIT grad and another Armenian New Mexican :-)

<a href="http://www.cabq.gov/museum/CraigVarjabedianPhotographs.html">http://www.cabq.gov/museum/CraigVarjabedianPhotographs.html</a>

Varabedian camped in a storage room for 5 years, visiting Ghost Ranch almost daily, photographing it in 5X7....finest B&W prints I can recall.

luis_g · July 16, 2009

Steve,

Of course, one optimizes for the medium in which it will be displayed. These decisions always involve compromises, and the experience, as you mention with the art class slides vs the real thing, is not going to be the same for many reasons, many of which are at the core of representation, others more intrinsic to the method (translucence/projection vs reflected light, sharpness, color, monitor brightness, contrast, variations in all of the above, etc) others because of contextual variations (ambient room brightness, background wall coloring, type of lighting prints are viewed in, etc. All these things change the experience , as they have long before the advent of photography.

[sS] "That's really not the point - what you're describing is just an electronic extension of sending slides in to a juried show.

No. Trust me, it is not the same. I was describing personally dealing with some of the issues you mention in real time, and with the added pressures of competition for awards at stake, a deadline, a major corporation involved, -- more than a decade ago. In other words, this is not a new problem for me. It was very different from judging a print or slide submission contest. Due to these concerns, I ended up viewing the entries on my own and two graphic artist's friend's XXL large and professionally calibrated monitors.

There's still an inescapable Tower-of-Babel effect at play with digi viewing.

In the near future we will be displaying (at home and in galleries) images on a larger, far sharper equivalent to the digital frame. People will create precisely with this form of display in mind (send more megapixels!). The days of paper print dominance in the market are numbered. This will open up the distribution of images, and make the decisions you are talking about even more important.

[sS] "The work is (or should be) in it's final display form because the artist decided that the image was best seen through a specific media choice - not because something was handy or easy to use. It's the importance of that choice and its relevance to the image that I'm interested in."

I agree with the first part of that. Let's not kid ourselves, throughout history, artists adapt to, or subvert, the number and type of venues and social contexts available for them to exhibit in.

Stephen Shore photographed with a series of consumer grade P&Ses for years (I can hear the howls of derision from Pnetters!), and the work, by design , was made available only in book form, and they look great (I have seen two).

I do think the choice you mention is being made every day, and has been for years by a few PN members, Flickeroids, Smugsmuggers, etc. There was no transition involved for most of them, and they're used to showing their images digitally. It's their photographic consciousness. The method of display, presentation, everything matters for the viewers' experience. Is there a laundry list to make that transition, from print to screen? Of course not. It's different for each of us. Each artist has to confront that. I found it difficult to transition from slide to finished print, but found the transition to digital presentation easier than to printing from slides. YMMV.

As to your experience with the image deconstructing itself to its components as one decreases viewing distances, this is something Michal Daniels and I discussed nearly ten years ago at length. He was a little worried, and I told him I saw it as an asset and why. Although I do not recall the artists' names, I saw two large-print color exhibits, one more than a decade ago, one in a Chicago gallery about 6 yrs ago, in which the work riffed off this very idea. One with grain, the other with pixels.

Things like the illusion of space and the issue you have with detail is going to require developing new strategies (and there are many) to create that illusion in a new way.

I would be interested to hear Don E.'s take on this matter, because his awareness and fluency in his use of space is impressive and incisive.

________________________________________________

aplumpton · July 16, 2009

"The days of paper print dominance in the market are numbered. This will open up the distribution of images, and make the decisions you are talking about even more important." (Luis)

Luis et al, consider for a second what is happening outside of the rather narrow focus of exhibition photography. It can be instructional. Many suggested that printed books would disappear when the ibook (or whatever it was then called) appeared and you could have an electronic screen to read.

Nonsense! It just didn't happen to the degree that many predicted.

Electronic books are hard to find and not sought after as much as printed books. On the other hand, book fares in my region of the world are blossoming. Cities try to outdo each other with the presentation of intenational fares addressing the products of the contemporary book children of Guttenburg. Book sales and reader clubs are increasing. Some authors even mail printed chapters to subscribers as they write them, as the desire for the printed page is so great (One local author has 41,000 subscribees).

The electronic book looks like it is very much dead in the water (note that I am talking the reader-collector books, fiction or otherwise, which are expanding rapidly, and not electronic versions of admittedly decreasing newspapers, which are, like the Facebook example, everyday throwaway texts).

So, you may add some big screen monitors to your already overloaded electronic rooms and view your favourite images in that manner, if you so wish.

I believe it is a lot more attractive and much more satisfying to hang a print rather than a monitor on the wall, and to live with a particular print image you have sought and valued. Artists, including many photographers, respond to that desire. And you will see the print with much the same tonality and texture whatever angle you approach it. Try that with monitors, even the most expensive. It may be fun for experimenting artists and exhibits at MOMA or the Pompidou Centre (the most recent avant garde video and electronic art showing I saw in Tallinn, Estonia, in June), but hardly universally appreciated and not usually something you may want to install in your living room. "Interesting" was the strongest emotion the Tallinn show conveyed to me and my otherwise art knowledgeable guides, although I was very much interested in the electronic possibilities. With but a few exceptions it just didn't work as art.

Interior architecture is another impediment to electronic image exhibition. Images that we collect and exhibit in our homes, because they impress us or have touched some emotion or perception within us, must normally be exhibited in a manner that complies with the interior design of our homes. The framing and positioning can be chosen and created to match the decorative ambiance we have built for ourselves.

Do you prefer to have a Big Brother type screen intrusion within your home. Yes, some might, but I would argue that the print will better satisfy our home environment, and for a foreseeable time into the future, than large electronic framed monitors that cannot match the subtelty of a well made print, even if some day the details of the image can be better reproduced than today (although not the texture of a print or painting).

I question the either-or approach of those of this post who proclaim the impending death of the printed image, to which we might add the printed book and other printed media most commonly about us (signage, wallpaper, what have you).

As long as there are trees or some other material substitute for paper, we will value and use the printed image.

aplumpton · July 16, 2009

Lines 7 and 8 - "fares" should read "fairs". Thanks. Arthur

Spearhead · July 16, 2009

Electronic books are hard to find and not sought after as much as printed books...

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This is a terrible analogy. Because of the lack of portable and cost-effective devices for reading books, there hasn't been a transition among adults. (I mention adults because I see that my high school age son and his friends now use e-books for the ones they don't have to carry to class.) As soon as Apple brings out a suitable device, the market will shift rapidly.

One thing that I have noticed is that I have visited the home of exactly one non-photographer who had purchased a photographic print, excluding commissioned family portraits etc. Just one. On the other hand, I have walked into people's homes and seen Picasso, Matisse, etc hanging on the walls. In my parents' home, there are at least 60 paintings and lithographs and no purchased photographs. In my home, there are just three purchased photographs and at least 40 purchased paintings, and I'm a photographer.

On the other hand, many homes have books of photography, even if they are lightweight coffee table books. And everyone I know looks at photographs on the screen. Everyone. And if people here look outside their own generation, they will see a culture that truly enjoys photography, but on the screen. All of this talk about "looks better" etc etc is your own personal value system. It's not where the general public is headed. Instead of looking at some ways of defining superiority for viewing photographs, it would be more worthwhile to celebrate just how important photography has become as an element of daily life.

Norma Desmond · July 16, 2009

"I question the either-or approach of those of this post proclaiming the impending death of the printed image"

Me too, Arthur. I love the images I can display on the several monitors in my house and I love my hanging prints.

I'm planning an opening soon of a home studio/gallery I've created in the previously unfinished downstairs portion of my house. I will have many hanging prints, which I am currently working on producing myself, and I plan to have a monitor on a table running through a SILENT slideshow of many of my other images. I also have one wall which will have a couple of huge poster size prints hanging behind a scrim. The three methods of viewing will work together well. I doubt anyone at the opening will be keeping score on which one scores higher points. They will find detail where detail is and other things will move them where detail is not.

Though many people are comfortable with Netflix, and I watch movies on TV often enough, a lot of folks still go out to movie theaters often enough (damn those text messagers with their cell phones, though) . . . I had to wait on line to see Star Trek a couple of weeks ago even though we all know it will be on DVD soon enough, and it's not just that we can't wait, it's that we want that movie-house experience. And even though they've had talkies now for a while, a showing of The Wind with Lillian Gish sold out the Castro Theater last weekend . . . with amazing live organ accompaniment and two big wind machines. I doubt prints are becoming dinosaurs any time soon.

Lots of media can exist and thrive side by side. When one substitutes for the other, there will likely be some loss. But they will also each offer a set of native characteristics which will be utilized creatively by people who accept them for what they are.

Movies shown on TV aren't as good as when they're seen in a theater, for which they were made. But The Sopranos and Six Feet Under were made for TV, for viewing as series, and they did what little screen viewing does best. No one clamored for these shows to be shown in local movie theaters on bigger screens. Sex In The City wasn't near as good when it tried going big as when it stayed small, where it belonged.

There's long been a quality issue when showing people proofs instead of the finished print. Now there's a problem with showing them monitor representations instead of finished prints, for those still printing. That's the way it is.

Then there are those who aren't concerned with printing, for whom the screen image is the finished product. And they're tailoring their products for their medium and not losing anything by it.

All this can live in one little happy world.

Except for those who insist on creating false competitions between things that aren't even competing.

aplumpton · July 16, 2009

"It's not where the general public is headed."

That direction may be credible enough for some, but it is not usually the one chosen by very many artists, collectors, visionaries, intellectuals and a variety of other independent thinkers. Where the general public is headed is hardly a fundamental criteria for them.

A sad characteristic of (our) North American cultures, and increasingly of some others, is the bland acceptances of the latest popular pastime, gimmick or fashion, usually products of "what do we do next" consumerism, which are not often the rational choices of individuals involved in personal self-actualisation. Perhaps this has always been the situation of societies. We have lots of evidence of certain individuals or groups thereof that have always chosen other directions than the most popular or well-trodden paths. The US of A itself, Impressionist art, scientific method and early science, comprised movements that adhered to that independence of spirit.

Vive la différence. There are flourishing alternative photography groups throughout the world that have little need for either film or pixel sensors, using Daguerrotypes or other 19th century methods to practice and present their photography. No doubt other more modern forms of photography and the two dimensional print will carry on strongly, both independently and in parallel with new visual methods of image presentation.

luis_g · July 16, 2009

[AP] ""I question the either-or approach of those of this post proclaiming the impending death of the printed image"

I would too. I never "claimed the impending death of the printed image". Here is what I did say:

"The days of paper print dominance in the market are numbered."

It's not about competition, either, but about potential gaps in the market. Something between Book, poster and print, in a display form that can turn itself off when the room is vacant adjusts itself to the lighting, doesn't fade, costs nothing to insure, and refreshes itself.

And hey, Fred's already on the verge of doing it. :-)

We are going through a populist swing in photography, the analog to the introduction of the first Kodaks. It changed photography then, and it has now.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

I'll try one more time. The question at hand is not one of a populist swing, Luis, though we may very well be going through that. It's about MEDIUM.

It's about digital and it's about monitors. Many people consider the monitor their final mode of viewing. And so photographic aesthetics are changing to deal with that. As Steve pointed out, it's significant to take into account, AS PART OF THE AESTHETIC OF WHAT YOU'RE DOING, the MEDIUM you're using. So there are specific aesthetic considerations that can be in effect when the screen image is the product.

Those who work with screen images with the exact same aesthetic they used to work with print images are going to be lost in the dust. Very much as those initial Polaroid users who didn't understand how different a Polaroid was from a large format camera in terms of how it could be used and what could be done with it. Large format aesthetic didn't drive Polaroid use. Polaroid use drove a new aesthetic.

Some will continue to make prints and those will continue to be beautiful.

But those who are making images mostly for the screen but making them with the same aesthetic considerations they used to make prints are never going to realize the potential of this new medium and are going to be steps behind those who accept screen viewing for what it is . . . something different from print viewing. Those of you waiting for the quality of the screen to be as good as the quality of prints are missing the point. They are qualitatively two different mediums (not meaning one is better than the other, just that they have very different qualities). Some things about monitors may change to allow you to see finer detail. Sure. It will still be a qualitatively different medium from the print.

When I first started making the prints for my gallery downstairs, I was working on them during the day. At night, I'd go downstairs to look at them under my new lighting. I would call a friend and say that I had learned that the prints really dry differently and don't look as good to me dry. What I had really learned, eventually, was how different a print looks in natural light in my study upstairs compared to how it looked at night under artificial light. So I then had to start printing toward the lighting they were going to be seen under.

That's what I'm talking about. Think of it like that. You print differently for different lighting conditions. Many people see and shoot differently when they're holding a 35 mm, using a large format, and using a Polaroid. If you don't think differently and make aesthetic adjustments when working in digital, knowing that the screen image is for the most part what your viewers will see, then you are making the same mistake I made when printing for the wrong light.

It would be counterproductive for me to hang a bunch of prints in my gallery and whine to all of you that they were printed for natural light because natural light is how they should be seen and how disappointed I am with how they look in the gallery. No, instead I print for the gallery.

Those who know that backlighting has a different quality from reflected lighting will somehow make that part of their aesthetic, creating something where they've considered the medium in that aesthetic.

Steve asked early on "How do you conceive the images so that the best medium for the message is the monitor?" and I tried to answer to the extent my experience allows.

But I also asked those of you who have so much experience printing that I thought you would better understand the inherent differences and could give Steve and me a clue of what you actually do differently, how it makes you think differently knowing you have a different final output. NOT ONE OF YOU HAS RESPONDED. Which tells me you're not considering the significance of the difference. Which tells me the young uns, for the most part, will be leaps and bounds ahead of you in the creativity game when it comes to the newest direction of photography. It's a shame, because many of you probably have great skill and could really utilize this new medium in unique and creative ways. But you're all still thinking of the screen image as some version of a print . . . and it's not.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

Yes, the screen may eventually allow as much detail as the print. And that's still not the point. Because the print and the screen will still continue to have qualitative differences.

Beethoven didn't write harpsichord music for the newly-invented piano, which just happened to sound a lot different on this new instrument. He wrote piano music. Music changed because of the new instrument. It required different notations, new symbols to be created, learning to use the sound of overtones, the variety of textures you could get with pedal usage. Imagine where we'd be if, instead, Beethoven had spent his time trying to make the piano sound as good as the harpsichord.

aplumpton · July 17, 2009

Fred, you make some very good analogies between the problems of printing (the print dry down factor and the effect of degrees Kelvin or light source are well-known photographic printing problems we struggle with, and the latter is encountered with digital prints).

I guess one reason why there hasn't been a multitude of better targeted responses to your questions and to those of Steve is that monitors vary very considerably in their behaviour, such as - ability to cover the full RGB space (Adobe or otherwise) - the effect of viewing angle on the rendition (the laptops are very defficient in this regard and most desktop monitors are as well) - inhomogeneity of colour and intensity across the screen - departures from colour temperature (some are at 5000 degrees Kelvin, others at 6000K or 6500K, etc.) - reflections in the screen, especially if covered by protective glass or polymer - and other variations.

When the monitors become better (and I am not referring to expensive screen recalibration or top of the line Eizo monitors or the like, as they are priced beyond usage for most people (the public) interested in viewing photography or art) it will be worth the effort to explore your questions in more depth, because what you and Steve are referring to is very valid - the images using different media of presentation will have their own characteristics and different from prints (a good thing, like the difference between oils and acrylics in painting).

It can be countered that printing materials look different under different lighting conditions, but that is extenal to the beast and fully controllable at source (when printing). We know also that transparency materials used for back projection photographs (like the images that are or were in Grand Central Station), just like the materials made for photographic darkroom or lightroom printing, are very uniform in their quality and manufacture, which makes the act of printing predictable (controllable effects).

I look forward to the day when monitors for general use have all more or less the same quality for viewing, at which time the use of their particular qualities (and the mastering of them, as you suggest) will enable photographers to make images that can be reproduced as they intended, from monitor to monitor, from place to place.

The variation between monitors and their level of quality is one aspect that I think we have overlooked in this discussion.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

Thanks, Arthur, again a reasonable and helpful reply. And I agree that monitor variation is a huge issue, complicating the matter enormously. I did already bring up that variation, but like a lot of the rest of what I said, it seems to have gone unnoticed because others seem hell-bent on discussing populism and arguing whether the print is dead or not. See my post of July 16, 3:47 p.m. I go on for several paragraphs about monitor variation and conclude by suggesting that knowledge of such variation is likely affecting my aesthetics in ways I don't yet grasp. Yes, it may eventually become more standardized, but I think it will always be a bit of an issue (perhaps, eventually, no greater than knowing someone may hang your print in less than ideal conditions and all who see it will be missing a lot of your subtleties -- I assume that bothers printers at least to some extent, though perhaps not as much as the losses suffered on monitors?). And we do agree that even when the variation problem among different monitors becomes less glaring, there will still be qualitative differences that will effect how we see our process and our final results, aesthetically.

steve_swinehart · July 17, 2009

Arthur Plumpton:

Electronic books are hard to find and not sought after as much as printed books. The electronic book looks like it is very much dead in the water

</blockquote>

I'm not sure that's true (at least in the US). Amazon's Kindle is revolutionzing book distribution. With over 300,000 titles available; and the ability to download a book through a 3G wireless connection - you can access nearly any title you want in about 1 minute. The cost of new book titles in hard copy makes Kindle extremely attractive as the prices for new releases run from $4.99 to about $15.00 - far under the cost of a hard copy. Most new books listed on Amazon include a Kindle release.

Fred Goldsmith:

Your last comment, though, now has me confused! I thought I had nailed down what you were after, but now you seem to be talking about the disappointment you encounter when comparing prints to monitors, which I thought was not your larger point.

</blockquote>

Then let me try an clarify this. My work right now is made to be viewed at an image size of at least 18x30 inches (depending upon format used). There are small details that are inconsequential until the print is made to a certain size.

For example, I have a photograph of the sewage pond in Arco, ID. It looks like a man-made pond with rows of white buoys in it, and a small flat bottom boat in one corner. There is a horizontally stratified butte in the background illuminated by late afternoon sunlight, and framed with active cumulus clouds. But, the really interesting detail that cannot be seen until the print gets large is that the horizontal stratifications have numbers (and some intials) written along the entire length of the rows of stratifications. The numbers go back to the mid 1940's. Each graduating class from the local high school puts the class's graduation date on "Number Mountain." Without that detail - it's just another photograph of a sewage pond.

With the detail, it becomes completely different. People looking at the print initially get sucked in by the western scene with an illuminated butte, dynamic sky, and pond with clouds reflected in it. A "typically beautiful" landscape - except the title tells them it's a sewage pond...that sets up a dichotomy at the very beginning - "beautiful sewage pond."

Then the photograph becomes a bit different as they start to notice the butte has numbers on it, they get engrossed in reading what has been written on the butte - and the beautiful landscape aspect no longer matters. I have had people view the print, and 10 minutes later they're still reading the butte.

Without putting "please zoom in on the butte" as a direction if displayed on the web - you wouldn't even know the characters were on the butte. It's the viewer's discovery of details without overtly directing them that I have been working on for at least the last 5 years. Or, perhaps my lack of web display sophistication doesn't allow me to envision a way to put that image into a context on the web where the viewer would have the same type of discovery.

Fred Goldsmith:

"Knowing that your final product will be a screen image on a monitor, what aesthetic considerations do you make?"

</blockquote>

You are exactly correct with that statement. With the addition of - or, is there a way to use the web for the same aesthetic experience that is part of my current images when printed - am I just not aware of how to do that? Or, do I need to completely retool and rethink what I'm doing to make the images work in a web setting?

Luis G:

Of course, one optimizes for the medium in which it will be displayed. These decisions always involve compromises, and the experience, as you mention with the art class slides vs the real thing, is not going to be the same for many reasons, many of which are at the core of representation, others more intrinsic to the method (translucence/projection vs reflected light, sharpness, color, monitor brightness, contrast, variations in all of the above, etc) others because of contextual variations (ambient room brightness, background wall coloring, type of lighting prints are viewed in, etc. All these things change the experience , as they have long before the advent of photography.

</blockquote>

Either I wasn't clear or you've missed my point. The experience with reproductions versus the real thing made was only related as that experience made it totally clear to me that the choice of HOW something is displayed to the viewer can either reinforce or diminish a viewer's experience. Given that as a major operative in a creative work, several questions come to mind. What are the aesthetic strengths associated with viewing web-based images on a monitor? How does one use those strengths to best advantage? This has nothing to do with making the work available to millions, or the fact that generation zz never goes to museums and uses electronic devices exclusively - but, how you use the intrinsic qualities and display features available through web display?

Luis G:

In the near future we will be displaying (at home and in galleries) images on a larger, far sharper equivalent to the digital frame. People will create precisely with this form of display in mind (send more megapixels!). The days of paper print dominance in the market are numbered. This will open up the distribution of images, and make the decisions you are talking about even more important.

</blockquote>

And exactly the reasons I'm so interested in this.

I agree with the first part of that. Let's not kid ourselves, throughout history, artists adapt to, or subvert, the number and type of venues and social contexts available for them to exhibit in.

</blockquote>

I'm not sure I undrestand this statement. In my experience, the artist adapts the work to the medium being used. Michangelo used fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling because the finished surface of the building needed to be plaster - a simple, practical, building consideration (and part of what he was being paid to do beyond providing the "decorations"). But, fresco also provided him with a unique medium on which to paint - if you understand all of the technical constraints involved with fresco and adapt your painting style as needed to work within the chosen medium to use it to the fullest aesthetic value - I think it all worked out okay for him....

Luis G:

Stephen Shore photographed with a series of consumer grade P&Ses for years (I can hear the howls of derision from Pnetters!), and the work, by design , was made available only in book form, and they look great (I have seen two).

</blockquote>

Perfect example. The key to the entire example is "by design." And that is the conundrum and question I'm attempting to solve for myself. For web display - what does "by design" mean?

Luis G:

There was no transition involved for most of them, and they're used to showing their images digitally. It's their photographic consciousness.

</blockquote>

What they're "used to" and their "photographic consciousness" may only mean they haven't expanded their horizons past that point. I would like to see something on the web that makes me think that the web is exactly the perfect medium in which to display the _______ (fill in the blank - without holography it won't be a sculpture....)

Luis G:

I found it difficult to transition from slide to finished print, but found the transition to digital presentation easier than to printing from slides. YMMV.

</blockquote>

And I'm exactly the opposite. But, I would also say I'm inherently a print maker in that I like the finished product (prinit), and have used the qualities found in a variety of differerent types of printing (and materials) as key components for enhancing the viewer's experience. However, as I'm am always looking to explore new (to me) ways of visual communication, I'm very interested in how to best use web imaging.

As to your experience with the image deconstructing itself to its components as one decreases viewing distances, this is something Michal Daniels and I discussed nearly ten years ago at length. He was a little worried, and I told him I saw it as an asset and why. Although I do not recall the artists' names, I saw two large-print color exhibits, one more than a decade ago, one in a Chicago gallery about 6 yrs ago, in which the work riffed off this very idea. One with grain, the other with pixels.

</blockquote>

Terrific - I was using an Eddie Bauer 110 (cost $13.95) in 1986 for my image explorations. I had Kodak "Poster Prints" made as it seemed to fit the 110 aesthetic. That would make it ...mmmm 23 years ago?

Things like the illusion of space and the issue you have with detail is going to require developing new strategies (and there are many) to create that illusion in a new way.

</blockquote>

The strategies are exactly what I would like to understand.

Jeff Spirer:

Instead of looking at some ways of defining superiority for viewing photographs, it would be more worthwhile to celebrate just how important photography has become as an element of daily life.

</blockquote>

You know Jeff, rather than continually slaying dragons...how about participating in the larger conversation about HOW to use the web medium to best advantage? You have very strong opinions about the medium - but, how do you use it for the best aesthetic advantage for your work?

Luis G:

It's not about competition, either, but about potential gaps in the market. Something between Book, poster and print, in a display form that can turn itself off when the room is vacant adjusts itself to the lighting, doesn't fade, costs nothing to insure, and refreshes itself.

</blockquote>

Well let's not go overboard. I think my insurance agent would debate the "costs nothing to insure" statement. "Oh...that - it's covered under your personal belongings portion." "Do you need to increase that?"

One last thought based on Luis's comment. One thing I have wanted to do is to use an electronic picture frame (I guess a monitor would work, but you'd need some type of digital video server to drive it) - to display a time lapse of a scene taken every 15-30 seconds in which the image dissolves between frames and the entire work changes in sync with the time of day from pre-sunrise through post sunset. I have thought that might be portable to the web so that whenever you checked into the site, the image you saw corresponded to the current time-of-day at the location where the image was taken.

steve_swinehart · July 17, 2009

Arthur Plumpton:

Electronic books are hard to find and not sought after as much as printed books. The electronic book looks like it is very much dead in the water

</blockquote>

I'm not sure that's true (at least in the US). Amazon's Kindle is revolutionzing book distribution. With over 300,000 titles available; and the ability to download a book through a 3G wireless connection - you can access nearly any title you want in about 1 minute. The cost of new book titles in hard copy makes Kindle extremely attractive as the prices for new releases run from $4.99 to about $15.00 - far under the cost of a hard copy. Most new books listed on Amazon include a Kindle release.

Fred Goldsmith:

Your last comment, though, now has me confused! I thought I had nailed down what you were after, but now you seem to be talking about the disappointment you encounter when comparing prints to monitors, which I thought was not your larger point.

</blockquote>

Then let me try an clarify this. My work right now is made to be viewed at an image size of at least 18x30 inches (depending upon format used). There are small details that are inconsequential until the print is made to a certain size.

For example, I have a photograph of the sewage pond in Arco, ID. It looks like a man-made pond with rows of white buoys in it, and a small flat bottom boat in one corner. There is a horizontally stratified butte in the background illuminated by late afternoon sunlight, and framed with active cumulus clouds. But, the really interesting detail that cannot be seen until the print gets large is that the horizontal stratifications have numbers (and some intials) written along the entire length of the rows of stratifications. The numbers go back to the mid 1940's. Each graduating class from the local high school puts the class's graduation date on "Number Mountain." Without that detail - it's just another photograph of a sewage pond.

With the detail, it becomes completely different. People looking at the print initially get sucked in by the western scene with an illuminated butte, dynamic sky, and pond with clouds reflected in it. A "typically beautiful" landscape - except the title tells them it's a sewage pond...that sets up a dichotomy at the very beginning - "beautiful sewage pond."

Then the photograph becomes a bit different as they start to notice the butte has numbers on it, they get engrossed in reading what has been written on the butte - and the beautiful landscape aspect no longer matters. I have had people view the print, and 10 minutes later they're still reading the butte.

Without putting "please zoom in on the butte" as a direction if displayed on the web - you wouldn't even know the characters were on the butte. It's the viewer's discovery of details without overtly directing them that I have been working on for at least the last 5 years. Or, perhaps my lack of web display sophistication doesn't allow me to envision a way to put that image into a context on the web where the viewer would have the same type of discovery.

Fred Goldsmith:

"Knowing that your final product will be a screen image on a monitor, what aesthetic considerations do you make?"

</blockquote>

You are exactly correct with that statement. With the addition of - or, is there a way to use the web for the same aesthetic experience that is part of my current images when printed - am I just not aware of how to do that? Or, do I need to completely retool and rethink what I'm doing to make the images work in a web setting?

Luis G:

Of course, one optimizes for the medium in which it will be displayed. These decisions always involve compromises, and the experience, as you mention with the art class slides vs the real thing, is not going to be the same for many reasons, many of which are at the core of representation, others more intrinsic to the method (translucence/projection vs reflected light, sharpness, color, monitor brightness, contrast, variations in all of the above, etc) others because of contextual variations (ambient room brightness, background wall coloring, type of lighting prints are viewed in, etc. All these things change the experience , as they have long before the advent of photography.

</blockquote>

Either I wasn't clear or you've missed my point. The experience with reproductions versus the real thing made was only related as that experience made it totally clear to me that the choice of HOW something is displayed to the viewer can either reinforce or diminish a viewer's experience. Given that as a major operative in a creative work, several questions come to mind. What are the aesthetic strengths associated with viewing web-based images on a monitor? How does one use those strengths to best advantage? This has nothing to do with making the work available to millions, or the fact that generation zz never goes to museums and uses electronic devices exclusively - but, how you use the intrinsic qualities and display features available through web display?

Luis G:

In the near future we will be displaying (at home and in galleries) images on a larger, far sharper equivalent to the digital frame. People will create precisely with this form of display in mind (send more megapixels!). The days of paper print dominance in the market are numbered. This will open up the distribution of images, and make the decisions you are talking about even more important.

</blockquote>

And exactly the reasons I'm so interested in this.

I agree with the first part of that. Let's not kid ourselves, throughout history, artists adapt to, or subvert, the number and type of venues and social contexts available for them to exhibit in.

</blockquote>

I'm not sure I undrestand this statement. In my experience, the artist adapts the work to the medium being used. Michangelo used fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling because the finished surface of the building needed to be plaster - a simple, practical, building consideration (and part of what he was being paid to do beyond providing the "decorations"). But, fresco also provided him with a unique medium on which to paint - if you understand all of the technical constraints involved with fresco and adapt your painting style as needed to work within the chosen medium to use it to the fullest aesthetic value - I think it all worked out okay for him....

Luis G:

Stephen Shore photographed with a series of consumer grade P&Ses for years (I can hear the howls of derision from Pnetters!), and the work, by design , was made available only in book form, and they look great (I have seen two).

</blockquote>

Perfect example. The key to the entire example is "by design." And that is the conundrum and question I'm attempting to solve for myself. For web display - what does "by design" mean?

Luis G:

There was no transition involved for most of them, and they're used to showing their images digitally. It's their photographic consciousness.

</blockquote>

What they're "used to" and their "photographic consciousness" may only mean they haven't expanded their horizons past that point. I would like to see something on the web that makes me think that the web is exactly the perfect medium in which to display the _______ (fill in the blank - without holography it won't be a sculpture....)

Luis G:

I found it difficult to transition from slide to finished print, but found the transition to digital presentation easier than to printing from slides. YMMV.

</blockquote>

And I'm exactly the opposite. But, I would also say I'm inherently a print maker in that I like the finished product (prinit), and have used the qualities found in a variety of differerent types of printing (and materials) as key components for enhancing the viewer's experience. However, as I'm am always looking to explore new (to me) ways of visual communication, I'm very interested in how to best use web imaging.

As to your experience with the image deconstructing itself to its components as one decreases viewing distances, this is something Michal Daniels and I discussed nearly ten years ago at length. He was a little worried, and I told him I saw it as an asset and why. Although I do not recall the artists' names, I saw two large-print color exhibits, one more than a decade ago, one in a Chicago gallery about 6 yrs ago, in which the work riffed off this very idea. One with grain, the other with pixels.

</blockquote>

Terrific - I was using an Eddie Bauer 110 (cost $13.95) in 1986 for my image explorations. I had Kodak "Poster Prints" made as it seemed to fit the 110 aesthetic. That would make it ...mmmm 23 years ago?

Things like the illusion of space and the issue you have with detail is going to require developing new strategies (and there are many) to create that illusion in a new way.

</blockquote>

The strategies are exactly what I would like to understand.

Jeff Spirer:

Instead of looking at some ways of defining superiority for viewing photographs, it would be more worthwhile to celebrate just how important photography has become as an element of daily life.

</blockquote>

You know Jeff, rather than continually slaying dragons...how about participating in the larger conversation about HOW to use the web medium to best advantage? You have very strong opinions about the medium - but, how do you use it for the best aesthetic advantage for your work?

Luis G:

It's not about competition, either, but about potential gaps in the market. Something between Book, poster and print, in a display form that can turn itself off when the room is vacant adjusts itself to the lighting, doesn't fade, costs nothing to insure, and refreshes itself.

</blockquote>

Well let's not go overboard. I think my insurance agent would debate the "costs nothing to insure" statement. "Oh...that - it's covered under your personal belongings portion." "Do you need to increase that?"

One last thought based on Luis's comment. One thing I have wanted to do is to use an electronic picture frame (I guess a monitor would work, but you'd need some type of digital video server to drive it) - to display a time lapse of a scene taken every 15-30 seconds in which the image dissolves between frames and the entire work changes in sync with the time of day from pre-sunrise through post sunset. I have thought that might be portable to the web so that whenever you checked into the site, the image you saw corresponded to the current time-of-day at the location where the image was taken.

Spearhead · July 17, 2009

You print differently for different lighting conditions.

</blockquote>

I've never met anyone that does that. I've met many great printers, both darkroom and digital, and never met anyone who prints based on different lighting conditions. Most people have no idea where their prints will end up hanging, so it doesn't really make sense. Everyone I know tests their prints in daylight.

I question the either-or approach of those of this post proclaiming the impending death of the printed image

</blockquote>

How much time have you spent talking with teens and early twenties types about this? That's who will dominate photograph in ten years. They don't print much. My son shoots constantly, he's a good photographer, and he's never printed anything. His friends don't either.

We are going through a populist swing in photography, the analog to the introduction of the first Kodaks. It changed photography then, and it has now.

</blockquote>

This is what matters. Clinging to old ways of looking at photography only distances one from what is happening. Some people want to be stuck in the old ways. One becomes that person who says, "When I was young..." and turns off the new practitioners by not listening.

Norma Desmond · July 17, 2009

"You print differently for different lighting conditions."

"I've never met anyone that does that."

I have. As a matter of fact, the last three prints I bought were from a photographer very concerned about that. I saw the prints and loved them, at his gallery. He came over to my house, asked where I was planning to hang them, and printed for that location and its lighting. When I take them into broader daylight in other parts of the house, they look thin and not near as good. Had he printed them for typical daylight, those looking at them in my hallway would not see what he intended at all.

I understand this, of course, is not always possible, because you may not often know where your prints are going to hang and this kind of personal service might only be possible on a small scale and may certainly not be cost effective. But your concern in this thread has been aesthetic. That people are not seeing what you intended.

So now I'm really intrigued. Why do you care so much about people not seeing what you really intended when they view your stuff on monitors but you seem to completely have accepted or discarded what would be a very similar concern all these years when printing. It seems profoundly obvious that if you print for daylight and most people are seeing your prints at night in the lighting of their homes, they are missing A LOT of what you intended when they view your photographs. Why the sudden concern? Clearly, many people have already not been seeing what you intended, even before the invention of monitors.

Brad_ · July 17, 2009

>>> Clinging to old ways of looking at photography only distances one from what is happening. Some people want to be

stuck in the old ways.

Bingo. That was what I had in mind referring above to the shift being generational; being more difficult for older folk

strongly tied to the "good" ways of the past and mixed in with bit of gnosticism. Music is another great example.

I'm still not getting how this,being more about technology and not really new at that, is philosophical. But what the heck...

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