8x10 negs

roy · Nov 28, 2003

jdef said:
Well, that's encouraging, but what about the "soul" of these prints?

I believe it is still there because all you are doing really is to manipulate the material just the same as if you were making an enlarged negative under the enlarger. In a manner of speaking, you are exchanging one tool for another. The finished product is still going to be the Kallitype or Salt print or whatever, that you have made. The manipulation to produce the required negative is carried out in camera with subsequent development to provide the correct density range, just as would be the case if you had to make a big neg by enlargement where you could dodge and burn etc. Does it matter if the negative is made of film, OHP material or even paper as can be the case ? YOU are making the finished print and your 'soul' would have gone into that.
IMHO that is !!

roy · Nov 28, 2003

jdef said:
I also believe that there is ample opportunity to exploit hidden potential in the digital domain.

In the eyes of the Royal Photographic Society (and I am unaware of the views of the Photographic Society of America) a print is a print, is a print and they are not concerned as to how it was made. They view the image and not the method. It is up to individuals such as the members of this forum individually, as to where they consider the integrity lies.

clay · Nov 30, 2003

Hi all:

Been eating turkey for a few days, but when I got back,my inbox had a message from Chicago Albumen Works that emphatically stated that they are NOT going to be discontinuing this paper, and in fact, that things are as good as they have ever been. So order away without fear of having this wonderful paper disappear!

Sean · Nov 30, 2003

"they are not concerned as to how it was made"

personally I think that is sad. Anytime a human creates an artistic expressionc by craft, it should have more value to the human race than what a machine creates. I understand that a human is controlling the machines, but I guarantee you this is quickly diminishing. The digital mantra is "You no longer have to work or think to achieve great photos!". Sony's new digicam advert has a guy sleeping in bed, arm extended taking photos, the caption something like "take great photographs in your sleep". Software is in development that actually composes the photographs for digital camera users. Don't be fooled by the current "hard work" many digital users go through to achieve digital 'fine prints' (this will be a thing of the past soon judging by the current evolution of digital technology). Software filters such as "The Weston Filter", "The Ansel Adams Filter" will come about that will allow anyone with a 100megapixel camera to nail a specific style and tonal range with a few mouse clicks. This is where it's ultimately heading. So these photographic societies will end up applauding a computer composed image, adjusted by an Ansel Adams filter, then inkjet printed by machine. This will have value and be considered the same as a handcrafted image made by man? Why are people so afraid to place value on artistic human craft these days. Could it be corporate marketing by any chance? hmmm

Sean · Nov 30, 2003

"If a photograph is only appreciated for it's technical merits by other photographers, it is not of much artistic value"

Sure, a technical 10 out of 10 does not make a piece of art and should never be all that matters. But it's the technical merits that digital imagers hide from everyone that scare and frustrate me. If you recall a soldier easily cut and pasted in photoshop to look like he's aiming his gun at an Iraqi child. The pyramids in Egypt shuffled around by National Geographic. The technical merit of creating fake shadows flooding out of a field of trees in a remote mountain location. The technical merits of added thunder clouds and lightning bolts cracking above a glowing mountain as a cut and pasted eagle escapes by a hair. I feel the new 'final image' that is 'all that matters' in this new age of digital imaging is becoming a digital sampling of sorts, with the artistic value of a cheap Britney Spears re-mix. Then to top it off it is stamped "Photograph" and given a rating of 10 out of 10 by 1,000's of photographers on those other websites out there. Call it a 'digital illustration' and I would be ecstatic to support that medium and embrace it, because it would stand on it's own as a powerful form of visual communication. But no, they are out for blood, corporate driven, and they feel traditional photography is for stupid luddites and will be replaced by digital... They will call it photography and there is nothing we can do about it.

There is a bit of trust involved for me when it comes to photography as an art form. Most traditional fine art images are fairly straight. You have a sense of trust in the image and photographer that it is an artistic representation by the artist of something that is real. To know it was taken with 8x10 processed in pmk, printed on x paper is reassuring. I feel no trust with digital, with digital I feel trickery. I feel it in my gut, I can't believe in it. The photographer scanned the image into photoshop, then what did he do with it? In my digital imaging classes in college my professor enjoyed the trickery, and strived to make perfect images that no one would be the wiser they were heavily manipulated. For every straight digital photographer there must be 100's that want the "money shot" and will perform whatever heavy manipulation necessary to get it. Traditional photographers embrace the craft and typically enjoy describing the creation of their images. I find most digital artists run like hell from this, no they say, I do not need to tell anyone this image is a composite from 6 negatives because the final image is 'all that matters'... judge my final image regardless if it is real or not.

Discussing this really pushes me to the limit of my mental abilities. I can only squeeze so much out my brain to cope with the vastness of this argument. One thing I enjoy is watching some of you brainy types really unloading on these discussions. I don't want them to be arguments, and hope no one thinks I'm trying to start an argument. Just like to explore this topic. Apologies I've derailed this thread off-topic. Sean

roy · Dec 1, 2003

Sean said:
I don't want them to be arguments, and hope no one thinks I'm trying to start an argument. Just like to explore this topic.

We are big enough in this forum to be able to put our thoughts and opinions into print simply because the topic has been raised and it is one that will not go away. It does not stop any of us from continuing in the work we like doing irrespective of what other opinions are. Who knows, we may even be inspired by others' comments. I like to think that some of the modern technology has acted as a spur to those who are committed to more traditional ways of working.

Michael A. Smith · Dec 1, 2003

Jdef: " a great photograph has value beyond technique. If a photograph is only appreciated for it's technical merits by other photographers, it is not of much artistic value."

That is true. However, no work of any artisitc value has ever been created in any medium, including photography, that was not well crafted. And no great work of art in any medium has ever been created that was not excellently crafted.

What is well-crafted? Craft that is consonant with the expression. A great photograph that was made as a work of photojournalism does not need to have the same print quality as an 8x10 contact print.

Which brings me back to the original topic: If the intention of the photographer is to make 8x10 contact prints in a 'traditional' manner, they need to be printed as well as can be conceived if they are to have a chance of even being considered as serious art.

doughowk · Dec 1, 2003

Digital is a different medium. The mistake is to call a digitally captured/manipulated image a photograph. Practitioners of the digital medium all too often make it their goal to fool people into thinking that the image they present is a photograph. It may be a work of art but it is graphic art. Is an image that contains audio or visual animation a photograph - a nude that winks at you? In the realm of the technically possible, such an image can appear to be a photograph/print hanging on a gallery wall; but it is a fake of a photograph for photography implies working within the limitations of the medium. As an artist, you may wish to expand/extend the medium in order to realize your creative vision; but you should not call it a photograph. Before digital, there were many inventions that made it easier to take a picture - auto-wind, auto-focus; but the end result was still a photograph with all that the word implies ( ie, trust by the viewer that it is a moment in time of reality). Just as in photojournalism, that trust is being undermined by the digital medium.

efikim · Dec 1, 2003

doughowk said:
... the end result was still a photograph with all that the word implies ( ie, trust by the viewer that it is a moment in time of reality) ...

and nobody ever double exposed a negative or print, added a more dramatic sky at the printing stage, or manipulated a negative before printing, or the print? And no-one ever stage managed a 'news' shot?

lee · Dec 1, 2003

efikim said:
doughowk said:

... the end result was still a photograph with all that the word implies ( ie, trust by the viewer that it is a moment in time of reality) ...

Click to expand...

and nobody ever double exposed a negative or print, added a more dramatic sky at the printing stage, or manipulated a negative before printing, or the print? And no-one ever stage managed a 'news' shot?

This last Saturday I was at the Amon Carter Museum and viewed the Edward Weston exhibit currently on display until the middle of Jan. One of the parts of the multi-sectioned display was of clouds that Edward photographed. The written information that accompanied this section indicated that this was the first of the cloud images he photographed that were more than just clouds to cover a bald sky. So, it seems that the moment in time is not very much of a reality even with someone like Ed Weston.

Richard Avedon the other night spoke how photographs were not true but FAKE. They speak only to that one moment if they speak at all to that. In The American West, a book he produced 25 or so years ago, is not about the American West. It is about people that Avedon chose to REPRESENT the American West.

One other thing, digital photographers really get pissed when you call what they do as PIXELOGRAPHY.

doughowk · Dec 3, 2003

According to a rather broad definition of photography, my spot meter is a camera and the resultant reading is a photograph. Or do I need to print the reading to qualify as a photograph? I don't think its being pedantic ( or fascistic) to try to restrict the use of terms so that they convey meaning. The term photography is in danger of becoming meaningless when it includes a binary stream of bits & bytes, ie digital image. Instead of pixelography ( pixels are how a digital image is displayed on a monitor), why not bitography?

roy · Dec 3, 2003

doughowk said:
The term photography is in danger of becoming meaningless

I think we should get on and make our images and not get bogged down in the finer points of definitions. From whichever side of the fence you stand, you are probably going to call the results photographs and I bet a penny to a pinch of snuff that any comtemporary definition of the word will be all embracing !
I am not in the least bit interested in the digital process but if I have to use this as a tool, eg making enlarged negatives for contact printing, I shall do so. The craft will still be there as far as I am concerned, in the finished print.

Donald Miller · Dec 3, 2003

roy said:
doughowk said:

The term photography is in danger of becoming meaningless

I think we should get on and make our images and not get bogged down in the finer points of definitions. From whichever side of the fence you stand, you are probably going to call the results photographs and I bet a penny to a pinch of snuff that any comtemporary definition of the word will be all embracing !
I am not in the least bit interested in the digital process but if I have to use this as a tool, eg making enlarged negatives for contact printing, I shall do so. The craft will still be there as far as I am concerned, in the finished print.

Click to expand...

Very well stated. I agree. For myself photography is about making photographs and not about debating the number of angels that may reside on the heads of pins or whether angels or pins, for that matter, do in fact exist.

c6h6o3 · Dec 3, 2003

We shouldn't be so hard on digital photography. The pictures produced via this process are really a lot better than they look.

(With apologies to Mark Twain.)

Michael A. Smith · Dec 4, 2003

jdef: " To suggest that one method is more real or valid than the other seems a bit arbitrary to me, and to try to dissassociate the photo part of digital photography suggests a misunderstanding of the technology. To associate a photograph too closely with reality suggests a misunderstanding of reality."

Your entire response was very clear and well put, but an assumption you make is simply not true: that the types of energies involved are equivalent. Scientifically, photographs are related to reality in a way that digital imagery is not. See my post in this thread of November 27. Whether that matters aesthetically is another question, and we all have our own opinions about that, but energetically, the two methods of working with the energetic medium of light are not equivalent. I do not know why this is so, but I do know that it is so.

In addition to what is in my previous posting about this: radionic photographs were made of single spots of blood, and then in special devices, from these photographs, images of selected parts of the organism from which the blood came could be "dialed in." The reult was a photograph of that part of the organism that was dialed in. These photographs of these things that I have seen do not look like ordinary photographs, but look like some sort of weird x-ray. The interesting thing is that what they show, they show with such clarity that extremely accurate medical diagnosis can be made. (These photographs were made for that purpose, when other methods failed to show the cause of the medical problem.) My understanding is that this cannot be done, and it cannot happen, when the energy is transformed into pixels. For some reason, and I don't pretend to understand how it works, the live energetic connection is lost.

Of course, this has, perhaps, nothing to do with photographs as all of us make them, but I find it profound, and very likely, on a deep pre-conscious level, part of the appeal of photographs.I believe they affect us in an energetic way that goes way beyond mere representation, and in a way that digital imagery simply cannot.

Sean · Dec 4, 2003

"In digital photography, the information remains in an energetic state until committed to it's final media."

I don't think that statement can be valid can it? The "energy" in question remaining in this "state" is not representing the same energy from the moment of the digital capture. At digital capture, that original "energy" interpreted from the light is immediately added to by interpolation, compressed, and modified (or as I like to say 'destroyed'). As soon as photoshop manipulations take place, the energy is even further destroyed into an energetic state that is false in comparison to the original information that once existed. At digital capture that energy is soon gone, turned into something else. Isn't the result a false truth?

Sean · Dec 4, 2003

"Why do you feel that chemical energy is more real than electrical energy?"

I guess personally because the chemical energy is kept in a physical state the entire life of the traditional photographic process. I can look at it, hold it, work with it physically, etc. I can relate to it as being more real. It's not sucked into a hidden realm, broken down, built back up, changed into something completely different, then spit back out on a computer display or computer print. I want a physical connection to the image I captured and I can't get it with digital. The physical connection I get feeds the emotional connection as well..

Michael A. Smith · Dec 4, 2003

Well, this is getting interesting. Not least for me because jdef and I are communicating civilly, for which I am grateful.

First, although some might call that side of me "mystical," I don't see it that way. My understanding of these things is based on science, although admittedly, not mainstream science, and science that others might indeed call "mystical."

jdef: " However, I feel that to deny that digital photography is in fact photography is a logical miscalculation, and the assertion that digital photographers are less serious or less valid than traditional photographers is elitist, devisive, and counterproductive."

I happen to think that digital photography should be called something other than photography, but I believe that digital practioners are no less serious or valid than those of us who work in more traditional media. Many of them, in fact, are harder-working and more serious. And certainly, what they do is valid. As far as art is concerned, it does not matter how it is made, or what the ideas are that are behind it (to touch on that other concurrently running thread). Ultimately, for visual art, the only thing that matters is what the work of art looks like. For me, a major problem with digital is that the results are not as beautiful as those produced traditionally. If I thought they were, it is not entirely inconceivable that I might work digitally myself (although there still is that energetic problem).

Other: Light energy and electrical energy, I believe are fundamentally different, qualitatively. Light has a living quality; it moves in waves. Electricity is jagged (think of lightning). On some level, and I cannot explain what that level is--way beyond me--I feel that is what makes the difference. (I feel it--maybe that would be called "mystical" by some.)

Equating a photograph to reality: Photographs are real. Very real. They are real photographs. As jdef said: [real] "grains of silver." They are not the scene, but abstractions of that scene, object, person. Abstractions that have certain physical, and I believe, certain energetic, qualities. But they are clearly not reality. People, most of them anyway, are not as literally two-dimensional as their portraits are.

Ultimately, none of this matters at all. At least to me. I make photographs because I get deep pleasure from the process of doing so; if I felt otherwise, I would stop immediately.

noseoil · Dec 4, 2003

"Other: Light energy and electrical energy, I believe are fundamentally different, qualitatively. Light has a living quality; it moves in waves. Electricity is jagged (think of lightning). On some level, and I cannot explain what that level is--way beyond me--I feel that is what makes the difference"

Some similarities between light, electricity and water. All three have similar properties which we regulate on an everyday basis. Water pressure would be how much pressure a hose is holding. This is like voltage or light intensity. The amount of water which actually flows is a function of opening the valve. This would be similar to light, as we regulate it with the aperture(exposure = light intensity x time) or electrical current as it flows through a device like a 300 watt bulb (300 watts = 120 volts x 2.5 amps).

In this sense, we do the same thing with these seemingly different and unrelated everyday things. This is a rough relationship, it is not scientific, but will suffice for this discussion.

Michael A. Smith · Dec 4, 2003

Well, jdef, we have come a long way, haven't we? I'd sign with a handshake, but feel a little gunshy just yet.

Sean · Dec 4, 2003

So, if you create a hand made oil painting you call it an oil painting. If you have a digi-tablet, use a brush style for oil painting, paint an oil painting on the digi-tablet, then export that digital painting to paper using oil based injet inks, it is still an oil painting?

If you hand craft a wooden table, then laser scan it, then have lasers cut an exact duplicate out of a block of wood, has it created another hand crafted table?

If you have a digital piano that produces the same sounds as a real piano, then isn't it a piano?

If I go to NASA, hop in a space shuttle simulator and do some flying, do I go home and tell everyone "I flew the space shuttle today"?

There are many arguments that digital photography is the same exact thing as traditional photography, just given to us in a different way. It's hard to put my finger on it, but it's that minute difference that overshadows the whole foundation of digital methods vs. traditional methods. I will not disagree that traditional and digital are similar. They have similarities, but I think their differences justify digital being classified as a new type of artistic expression. Another example, we have hand drawn animation, and the more recent computer animation. I don't see computer animators calling their work hand drawn animation, or animation for that matter. They've created a new medium and recognize that new medium by classification. So why can't "digital photography" do the same and call it "digital imaging"? I believe this is because the marketing powerhouse behind digital imaging needs to use the word "photography" as the cornerstone of their sales pitch.

Sean · Dec 4, 2003

"Isn't the "digital" modifier enough to sufficiently differentiate it from traditional photography?"

BINGO jdef

The 'digital' modifier is being removed by the digital camp as we speak. I am starting to loose count of how many digitally created images I see now that are just called "photographs". The digital camp does not want the "digital" modifier and are working hard to remove it. Lightjet prints are not even called lightjet prints anymore, they are being called C-prints. I believe it is digital photography's intention to replace traditional photography, not work along side it as an additional type of photography. Computer animation does not need to do this because it can stand on it's own. However the digital photography camp refuses to stand on their own as a new and independent form of expression. I find this sad because they would have NO problem standing on their own as a powerful form of artistic expression. I think they are selling themselves short by trying to become another established medium.

Francesco · Dec 4, 2003

If indeed the "digital" modifier is being removed as you suggest Sean then that is IRRITATING. Maybe it is an admission that they wish they could replicate what could not be completely replicated digitally. Otherwise why the removal?

efikim · Dec 4, 2003

I've been sitting here reading the discussion with interest, and think its maybe time to say what I think!

Firstly, I'd dissociate the taking of an image with a camera from the printing of the image, as I see those as distinct activities. To me, it doesn't matter whether the camera uses film or a digital sensor; the act of taking that image is photography. You may want to categorise it sometimes (eg infrared photography or digital photography) when distinctions matter for some reason, but all are branches of photography, and rather than 'taking an image' taking a photograph' is a valid description. (I don't want to have to say I don't know whether I'm 'taking a photograph' until after I've decided how (or if) I'm going to print it.)

Printing an image is a different matter, and I have some sympathy with those who want to say that a digital print is not a photograph, as technically it isn't as no light is used in this stage.
A suggestion was made earlier that 'photograph' should be reserved for all the light-based processes (including platinum, cyanotype, gum etc.) and digital prints should have another name. In practice though, those that use the 'other' processes don't generally refer to their prints as photographs, but describe them by the process - platinum prints, cyanotypes, and gum prints. Why not then, if we are proud of the process you use, name your prints accordingly - lith prints, silver gelatin prints (or perhaps silver prints if you use that expensive Berger Prestige Fine Art paper), toned silver print. This then gives us an opportunity to explain the distinctive features of our craft, rather than lumping our prints in with the prints that people get for a pittance from the chemist (drugstore for our American friends).

I should add, as I haven't got round to writing an introduction, that I do sell digital prints from my website, and have no problem naming them as such, and explaining a little about them. I might some day also sell darkroom prints, and if I did would name them as above, and describe that process too.

doughowk · Dec 4, 2003

Ultimately, the two mediums are competing for the same markets: 1) fine art print collectors who want to be sure that their collections are unique & archival, 2) professional photographers who have to create/capture images for clients whose requirements are speed & cost, 3) amateur photographers with varying requirements. The corporate world recognizes that digital is a cash cow (technological obsolesence), but needs to appear to meet requirements of all the above. Being recognized as part of photography helps marketing.

If analog computers had remained a viable alternative to digital computers, we would also have analog electronic cameras as well as analog film cameras & digital whatever.

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