Making it old

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Brad, all I can do is go on what you say. The only two statements you had made that I was responding to were: 1. Do what makes you happy. 2. What you do is of no concern to me. I thought it was worth noting that there is more to photography than pleasing ourselves. If we agree on that, fine. I had no way to know that your thinking might have been more complex from the words you wrote. I hear "All I want to do is please myself" a lot on PN. And it sounds lonely, isolated, and out of touch to me. I offered an addition, as I did to what Luis and Arthur originally said, the communal/cultural one which is often enough left out of discussions to warrant emphasizing every now and then. I'm glad they recognized the usefulness of that addition.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Arthur, a lot art movements of old were reactionary in nature, mostly to other movements that had become the conventions of the day. Since movements went out pretty much with the onset of Postmodernism,which is/was a condition, not a movement, reaction to that was much less facile. The tectonics of the culture aren't as clear as they once were. I would guess that today there is more emphasis on proactive strategies than reactive ones.</p>

<p>There is also going back to explore or expand on prior movements and or vectors left behind.</p>

<p>We are all from somewhere, of course, though some nowadays are more global than others, in literal/physical terms and culturally. If nothing else, geography is a convenient categorization to look at art & artists through. </p>

[Brad_]

Not flippant or superficial, Fred. Just direct.

 

>>> I was offering an alternative, the communal/cultural one which is often enough left out of discussions

to warrant emphasizing every now and then.

 

We should talk sometime.

[szrimaging]

<blockquote>

<p>Are we not modern?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, wouldn't that mean you want to make it look like something from the 50s or early 60s? I mean, that was modern art.</p>

<p>Personally, I see contemporary art as a grab bag of past periods and new influences. A blending of new and old as we explore more recent mediums and transitions that the technology has caused. But hey, what do I know?</p>

[andrew_gardiner]

<blockquote>

<p> Are we not modern?</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>No we are post-modern. We play with the language of photography like architects play with their references to previous styles in achitecture.</p>

[rossb]

<p> Well I do like old stuff usually better then new stuff. But generally I like a good B/W print that is actually kind of old. A new picture that was rubbed in the mud to look old probably would just make me feel sad. </p>

[mjferron]

<p>Will a viewer of our photos 100 years from now really give a rats ass if we went retro or modern with our style? I think the only reason any of our photos will be viewed in the future at all is because they are entertaining or thought provoking. </p>

[stephen_hipperson]

<p>Goodness.<br>

Need to give the thread a proper read - just got few minutes - but to clarify ....in my parlance<br>

Black and white, alternative processes, pinhole. etc are not in themselves making an image 'old'. I suspect my original terminology was off - I meant 'artificially age', ie to make a photo look as if it's been around for years, worse for wear, etc. <br>

Sure a response can be 'why not' - (why did you paint the wall red - why not - oh ... did you watch the match last night?). Perhaps not a good idea to speak at all. Personally, I don't see any point in making a photo 'look old', for course you can, but why, I don't understand, help me. I have a niggling fear that our digital photos (I am particularly referring to prints) will never become 'aged' in a way that previous media has (have you ever spilt coffee on an inkjet print, not something you can quickly rub off in my experience!)<br>

I will review your gracious responses properly as soon as I can.</p>

 

[AJHingel]

<p>Stephen I agree with your "goodness" !</p>

<p>I think that "making-it-old" is less an effort of making photos look like photo prints of the old days, as seen by us today, but more an effort to represent present days reality to look like these older days, as seen in old photos and in our more or less distorted long term memories. There is a difference between mimicking photos and mimicking imaginative realities.</p>

<p>In general I believe that the most common way of "making-it-old" is B/W conversions, as mentioned by several above, especially in Street photography. Not only were photography of "streets" in the "old-days" and very-old-days, due to obvious technical limitations, in B/W, but most western cities were themselves less colorful due to fashion and not least to air-population (coal heating and the resulting falling tons of soot). Visit Chinese nowadays industrial cities of the main land to see what it was like in Europea and America at the the heydays of B/W photography.<br>

Current B/W conversion in photography could be called soot- fascination, but survives because of an ever present nostalgia of times passed.<br>

It surely also survives because of the objective (?) aesthetics of black and white expressions as again Chinese ink paintings, etchings and lead drawings have shown for centuries - all still wide-spread use of expressions, independently of any longing back in time, by making-it-old.</p>

<p>In fact, I believe we are also (almost) all "making-it-old" by our shared obsession of photography as a distinct medium of expression. The futur has since some years (10 years or so ?) belonged to mixed media expressions. Look at contemporary art on the rise, and the trend becomes clear. </p>

<p>Being "modern" might be to long back to older days, or not. If it is common, it is "modern", in my eyes, whether we like it or not.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Why? Not to be crass, but in some cases, it's simply be because a good number of customers want that sort of look and are willing to pay for it.</p>

<p>Maybe the bride and groom who wanted their wedding done "antique style" in a few years will go to Branson, MO, pay to dress up as Matt Dillon and Miss Kitty from "Gunsmoke", and have their photo taken in a simulated bar scene. Maybe it's little more than a novelty to them. For others, I suspect it a yearning for the past, thinking it was "better", "represents classic values", "not so sterile", etc. etc.</p>

<p>This, of course, doesn't explain why it is seen on photo.net in obviously non-commercial photographs. Perhaps the previous posts in this thread provide some insight, perhaps it's budding photographers who simply want to build their chops and show that they can "do anything" with an image. </p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[don_essedi]

Stephen: "I meant 'artificially age', ie to make a photo look as if it's been around for years, worse for wear, etc"

 

Thanks for the clarification. There was a discussion here some years ago about the found print (I think the example was a Capa taken in the USSR) and whether it ought to be restored or left as-is. There might have been some discussion about 'aging' a contemporary print. I recall it stemmed from a discussion in a photo classroom. It did not go well for the OP. I can try to find it, if you like.

 

Anders: "but most western cities were themselves less colorful due to fashion and not least to air-population (coal heating and the resulting falling tons of soot)"

 

I live in Pittsburgh, once the Steel City and poster child for air pollution. Since the 1980s, the mills have gone away and the light is very different from what it had been. In the 1980s, the University of Pittsburgh funded a photography project for the purpose of comparing photographs of the then current city to those from the past (taken between 1890-1960) -- the same scene from approximately the same setup spot. The decision was made to use b&w film. All the older photos were b&w, and the contemporary ones were shot in b&w for purposes of comparison. Today, if I were to set up shots for comparison to some Gene Smith took here in 1955, I would not hesitate to use color instead of b&w, because the change in light has been dramatic since the University's project in the 1980s, which was still closer to the light in 1955 than what we have today.

[AJHingel]

<blockquote>

<p>Today, if I were to set up shots for comparison to some Gene Smith took here in 1955, I would not hesitate to use color instead of b&w,</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I totally agree Don. I draw the same conclusion when shooting shots of the city of light", Paris. Colors is what mark also contemporary Paris - <a href="../photo/14671512&size=lg">like here</a>. However also I fall in for the temptation and frequently use B/W which is clearly a question of nostalgia - <a href="../photo/11947892&size=lg">like here </a>- for a time, that I have not experienced, but been influenced by, through films and photos of Paris before the 70's.</p>

<p>However, this is a cultural and ethnological specificity of the place, as others have referred to beyond. For example African countries have always been characterized by colors more than B/W despite photos of "old days" like it is the case in Far Eastern, countries - <a href="../photo/4241509&size=lg">as here.</a></p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>People use different styles to be different then others. Each of us has an inherent need to stand out in the crowd. So we tilt photos, smear them to look like watercolors, convert them to B/W and then add some plug in adaptation, or tone them, HDR them, or use any one of thousands of variances hoping that our shot stands out. Saturate, de-saturate, change the format, go pano, go contact, scrape the negatives, add old grain, make them clean. Doesn't matter. Just be different. The manufacturers cater to this. Look at all the art modes in cameras and in PP programs. Then we get bored and will go back to natural, un-cloned, honest, oh wait, wasn't that in style a couple of years ago. Matters little, it will be again soon. </p>

[sfcole]

<p>People spend hours making photos look old for a couple of reasons. The first is that digital photography is not really its own medium--it's simply a synthetic electronic facsimile, although much is admittedly technically sharper. Black and white photography reached its zenith in the 40s and 50s, and has rarely been bettered. Most of what is done today seeks to imitate film photography, whether cross-processing, sepia, or whatever. The only thing uniquely digital is HDR. There is no other characteristic that digital brings to the medium, much like a synthesizing keyboard: you either get a perfectly-tuned fake piano sound, or something dreadful.<br>

The other reason is that nostalgia sells. This is the same in the violin-making business, where antiqued instruments outsell new-looking ones. Wedding photography makes good use of this--for what else is it but the nostalgia business?</p>

[GBarrington]

<p>Is using an older style of presentation, making it 'look old'? I don't know, maybe. I've had shots that people tell me they can't tell what century it was taken in. While not unaware of the presentation style I was using during PP, it was how I felt at the time of PP. I tend to use whatever works for me. In my mind it is a contemporary presentation regardless of the techniques I use.<br>

<br /> The problem is, the original question comes very close to classifying any photo that uses certain presentation techniques as somehow inferior based solely those presentation techniques. I'm OK with people not liking my work, but I would hate for people to close themselves off from my photo before they even attempt to SEE it.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<blockquote>

<p><br /><br />"The first is that digital photography is not really its own medium--it's simply a synthetic electronic facsimile" </p>

</blockquote>

<p>That is absurd. Digital imaging is a medium. A photograph made with a digital camera isn't a <em>facsimile</em> photograph any more than a <em>Wurlitzer </em>isn't an electronic gadget trying to be a piano.</p>

[sfcole]

<p>Alan,<br>

Of course digital imaging is <em>a</em> medium, but what, besides HDR, does it offer artistically besides imitate film photography, especially in the realm of B&W? Film emulation software is the epitome of this, and it's essentially fakery.<br>

A Wurlitzer isn't an electronic gadget trying to be a piano--it's an electronic gadget trying to be an organ.</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Film emulation software is the epitome of this, and it's essentially fakery.

 

How is it fakery?

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>what, besides HDR, does it offer artistically</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Immediacy, variability of viewing possibilities (i.e. backlit monitors), noise, pixellation, often a more metallic rendering, more defined transitions, innumerable photoshop filters, the ability to process color files in black and white (probably the most significant aspect for my own usage), reaching more and a wider variety of viewers, and anything else that a photographer without a closed mind is willing to discover.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Digital is its own medium. Besides all of the other qualities mentioned above, for me the range of controls available in color are a world apart from film. All of those qualities allow a photographer to more closely approximate his vision, and gives the potential to further individuate their work.</p>

<p>I think we're seeing the same old film vs. digital thing here in a slightly different guise.</p>

<p> </p>

[GBarrington]

<p>The film vs digital argument comes from the lack of understanding that film and digital are two DIFFERENT mediums who share a superficial resemblance to each other. They don't even share much of the same technology except for optics. What happens after light leaves the rear element of the camera lens, is radically different between digital and silver based photography.</p>

<p>And even design considerations for lenses are slightly different between the two mediums. How often have digital photographers have been disappointed when they attach their favorite film based lens to a digital camera? LOTs of times!</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I can't go as far as Glen does and say they share only a superficial resemblance. The fact that we make PHOTOS digitally or by using film tells me that there's a substantial resemblance. Each, though, has distinctive characteristics which can be mined or not.</p>

[don_essedi]

"However also I fall in for the temptation and frequently use B/W which is clearly a question of nostalgia - like here - for a time, that I have not experienced, but been influenced by, through films and photos of Paris before the 70's."

 

Anders, I don't think your linked example is 'retro' or 'vintage' looking. Is shooting b&w in itself "a question of nostalgia"? I wouldn't agree with that. Contemporary lenses and b&w emulsions or digital conversion produce a contemporary image out-of-the-box.

[aplumpton]

<p><strong><em>"Should we not try to get the most accurate/sharpest/well exposed images as we can? Or is it just a case of 'I can so I will', without worrying about what they create..?" </em></strong></p>

<p>Stephen, my answer here has to be NO to both of your questions. Why? Because the camera and its user are not obliged to be just a perfect recording system and partnership. While accurate/sharpest/well exposed images are often the objective in some cases, the use of photography in a more artistic way sometimes leads the user to either override the camera's automation or to modify exposure, add blur and do many other controllable things that make the image something else than a so-called "realistic" reproduction (including accurate/sharpest/well exposed). "I can so I will" has always been something that artists and notable photographers have adopted and have not been afraid of. Putting photography into an apparent straightjacket is simply a way of denying other possibilities, of which former approaches and techniques may be just a few. Art has always had its share of re-interpretation of past modes, such as neo-gothic, neo-classical, and including the penchant today for the "retro" design. The art can still evolve in those cases.</p>

<p><em>"Each, though, has distinctive characteristics which can be mined or not." </em></p>

<p>Yes, agree, and if someone really wants to understand and benefit from film black and white photography, its benefits and its disadvantages compared to digital conversion, the way is evident and one does not have to look back (up to date techniques and materials are readily available).</p>

<p> </p>

[stephen_hipperson]

<p>If I look at a box of old family photographs they have, as a general rule, a certain 'age' to them, scratches, smears, tears, marks, which to my mind give a layer of 'something'. When they were new, they were created to be the best possible, subject to the tools and materials at the time. 'Age' is inherent in the object because it has passed through time. If I prepare a black and white print using film/darkroom and choose to tone it using sepia, this isn't an attempt to make an 'old photograph' but simply making a photograph using an old technique, not the same thing. If I then take that photograph and crease it, rub it, putting a coffee stain in one corner, maybe put a couple of scratches across it, I am making that image 'look old'. Why would anyone want to do this? Of course we hear about similar techniques being used to create 'fake' furniture and other objects.<br>

What seems to make little sense to me, is to actually fake the fake when we come to digital imaging. ie, introduce the ageing process as part of the image itself - something that can be replicated at will - to me it's a pseudo effect - (I have seen some people refer to their approach to this as 'Fine Art' whatever that is).<br>

Of course it's up to individuals to pretend what they will - however, if I have this opinion about this particular pseudo effect, I guess I must say the same for any 'pseudo' effect applied to digital images - can't get the real thing anymore (polaroid), can't work in a darkroom (sepia), can't paint (watercolour effects) . <br>

As the Pictorialists fought for photography to be considered 'Art' by making their images look like paintings, are those who push towards making their digital images look like something else kidding themselves? - ie a picture is older than it is, made by a process it wasn't, or making up for a lack of skill in a particular field?<br>

Please don't think I'm saying you or anyone shouldn't do what the hell they like - I'm just trying to looking at things a little deeper in what is becoming an increasingly psuedo/superficial world.<br>

BTW - I have some work top in my kitchen which is pseudo marble, antiqued furniture (ply carcase with wood veneer), prints instead of real artwork - all because I can't afford the same thing. Of course I'm deluding myself that I'm wealthier than I am? </p>