I have been thinking about how my approach to photography has changed over the slightly more than six decades that I have been taking pictures and making photographs (I view only some of my pictures as "photographs"). The technology has certainly changed a great deal from the days of the Argus C3 that I started with through the whole line of Nikon Fs, Hasselblads, Arca Swiss view cameras into the digital world where my iMac, Macbook Ai and Software are as much a part of my photography as my studio and darkroom used to be. The transition from chemistry to digital has been profound.
I reflect back on my days in art school, time with Ansel Adams, my fellow photographers in Seattle in the '60s and '70s... all fond memories. The expansion of the horizon represented by digital image creation and management has been transformative. I now see my camera and lenses as only minor components in the process -- much like brushes and canvas when creating a painting. Digital image state of the art today is basically at the point that if you can imagine it, you can create it.
Today I see my camera much as I did the sketchbook I carried with me in art school and for years afterward in which I would capture visual ideas that I would later execute on some larger scale. The captured image for me today is that same point of departure that a sketch in the sketchbook was.
Today I spend more time looking to do things I could never do with a camera, light, chemistry and paper in the '60s. I rarely will attempt to do a digital emulation of a photograph I could have made back then and instead look to do things only digital imagery make possible.
I seek to explore, build on and visually expand on what might be considered traditional photography. I wonder if Degas or Rothko or Pollack would work in digital images today and what they might produce.
I'd love to hear from others about how they see their work today compared to years past. Merry Christmas to all and a Happy Visual New Year.
