I believe the process is inseparable from the final image, and as a result, it is only about the final image because that is the culmination of the effort.
However, the chosen process to produce the final image is, in many cases (but not all) what makes the final image a unique, artistic object.
I say "but not all", because some processes serve only the needs of the craftsman, and not the consumer of the object. As an absurd example, perhaps I could set up a scene in a studio, measure it a point at a time with some sort of meter, enter that information manually into a text editor, convert the resulting data into a tiff file, then print that tiff on an inkjet. It might take me 5 years of painstaking, highly skilled work to pull that off.
But I could take a simple digicam and photograph the scene, and print the captured image on the same inkjet in 5 minutes. In this admittedly absurd case, the consumer perceives no difference in value, regardless of the effort of the craftsman. Why? Because while the craftsman was working very hard for years to produce the result, he wasn't adding value in any way. The bits weren't prettier, or more archival, or more accurate, or more abstract. Nothing of the craftsman shows through the result.
Dipping into the grey a bit, a film photographer and digital photographer could capture the same scene on the same day, one with a 35mm leica, one with a digital back Contax 645. Lets say the film photog then drum scans his negative and ships it to a commercial printer to produce a lightjet print on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. Lets say the digital photographer does the same thing. Same image, same light, essentially the same bits sent to the printer, same archival result. Is it the image or the process? Is the film shooter's result somehow better because he caught it on film? To the consumer, I presume the answer is no. (Perhaps this is APUG heresy, but I don't think so.)
What if one of the photographers above, after scanning the image, changed the result, adjusting levels, or performed local enhancements in some other way to improve the image? What if that photographer did so in such a way that was perceived by the consumer as "better"? Is it somehow more better if that effort was done by the film photographer rather than the digital photographer? I think not.
Greyer still: same image, but the film photographer carries the print completely through an analog process, by hand. No hybrid digital process in path of print production. The photographer is a master printer, and the result looks identical to the commercially printed result: both equally rendered images, beautifully produced, archival, fiber paper, well mounted. However, the film photographer's print is enscribed on the back as being an "Authentic archival wet process photograph, hand made by Adam Jones on xx/xx/xx".
In this case, I believe the consumer perceives additional value, even if the two prints are otherwise identical. There is an intangible "collectors" value at play here. This is a unique object, unlike the commercially produced print from a digital image. That one can be mass produced by machines, this one can only be made by hand. And the next one made may not be exactly like this one, so it is essentially unique. This is different from the first example, because somehow the consumer can understand this effort, and can appreciate (even if scientifically unmeasurable) the added quality of a hand made object. (Porsche has served a market that appreciates hand made objects even though arguably higher quality objects are available at a lower price that serve the need.)
Again, and maybe this isn't clear from the examples, the image and the process are fused, but in the end it is still about the image (the result, the object.)
Hmm, I'm not sure even I'm clear with myself. But I'll let this note rip anyway, and see what folks think...
-chuck
