Is there reconciliation between digital and analog world in alternative processes

Prof_Pixel said:

I can understand what you have said, but fail to understand how stopping the discussion of hybrid methods here in APUG drives that one way or the other.

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I was speaking more generally than just with respect to discussion on APUG, but since you brought it up, APUG is the Analog Photography Users Group, so it would seem to me that discussion of hybrid and digital technique doesn't fit on this particular forum.

Of greater concern to me were the environmental guilt-based justifications for substituting hybrid techniques for analog. Such thinking implies that analog processes are wasteful of resources and environmentally harmful. Continue to project that meme, and analog processes will soon be a thing of the past, viewed by society with the same contempt and disdain currently levied against smoking or being overweight. What's next? Persuade people that analog photography processes are like using tungsten light bulbs, driving an SUV, having too large a carbon footprint, and eating animals?

SkipA said:

but since you brought it up, APUG is the Analog Photography Users Group, so it would seem to me that discussion of hybrid and digital technique doesn't fit on this particular forum.

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... and by definition, hybrid techniques involve using analog technology.

Prof_Pixel said:

... and by definition, hybrid techniques involve using analog technology.

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...but do not entirely involve using analog technology which therefore means that it is not in accordance with the charter of APUG:

APUG.ORG is an international community of like minded individuals devoted to traditional (non-digital) photographic processes.

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nor the terms of service:

-Questions regarding digital techniques or digital techniques connected with traditional processes should be posted at hybridphoto.com (or the many other digital oriented sites).

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Its charter isn't:
...an international community of like minded individuals devoted to traditional (non-digital) photographic processes or hybrid processes that have some aspect of analog photographic processes (i.e. silver based capture/printing or similar).

Why don’t those that have issue with this realize, 1) Sean gets it, Sean is committed to investigating a seamless integration of DPUG with APUG - he has said that a few times now, 2) it looks costly (as he mentioned yesterday a few pages back), how about those that feel there is this urgent need for that to happen NOW, raise money to have that happen, Sean mentioned $10K, otherwise, simply login to DPUG and call it a day and wait for the technology to catch up (i.e. vBulletin 5) or other ways, which I think the solution is in our hands (i.e. $ raising…). I don’t do hybrid processes, but if there was a fundraiser, I would contribute, because I would rather see APUG succeed than folks attempt to change it in ways that it wasn’t conceived…

I would have no problem with including links to certain DPUG forums in the headers of certain forums here on APUG.

For example, something like: "Do you have a question about scanning? Try the 'Scanning' forum on our sister site, DPUG."

Or: "Do you have a question about Digital Internegatives? Try the 'Digital Internegative' forum on our sister site, DPUG."

Plus of course something similar on DPUG.

Bob Carnie said:

When I sit in front of my computer with PS active I thank all those developers who made such an incredible program.. Yes I know it boils to on/off.

But when I see the red ruby mask pop up to hold back areas I smile.
When I can adjust my brush size and opacity I smile
When I see colour corrections to local areas of the image I smile
When I can make the image dance I smile

A program is only as good as the operator.

and lest I forget , 20 years ago I thanked my lucky stars guys like PE were on quality control making the film and emulsions ..

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MaximusM3 said:

Amen!

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Bob & Max,

With respect for both of your darkroom (and PS) skill sets - which greatly exceed my own - I can only respond with what I consider to be the obvious. In your description of the above example, there are in fact no real Rubylith sheets in play. Nor are there real brushes being used. Nor even true optical opacity levels. (And what PE thankfully gave us all resulted in real emulsions, not virtual models of emulsions.)

All of those tools and adjustments have been abstracted into numeric values being temporarily persisted in addressable system memory locations. And even the numeric values themselves are no more than an enormous collection of abstract binary state values correlated as meaningful by application of the ASCII algorithm. Further, should this temporary collection of numeric data be permanently persisted to a storage device, that device will never become a sheet of Rubylith, or a brush, or be able to have its opacity adjusted. Only the abstract pattern represented by the numbers will be retained for later decoding.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. None of the above described tools is real. None of the real-world skills necessary to successfully manipulate those tools is required. Those skills are simply no longer relevant to the task at hand. Now the application of those imaginary tools becomes much faster, easier, cheaper, and more convenient via computerized manipulation of the abstract model. One doesn't need to use - or even know how to use - an Exacto knife to operate Photoshop.

So to bring this thread subtopic back to the original subject of reconcilation, in good faith I pose the following question...

Is the end realizaton of an artistic vision by an artist altered by the tools and processes used by that artist in that realization?

There is currently another thread on APUG examining in part the hypothesis that as photographers move up the scale in format square inches their subject matter, and hence their vision, must invariably change to accomodate that shift in tools. I'm asking, does the move from real tools and materials to virtual tools and materials result in an analogous shift in vision by the practitioners of alternative photographic processes today, even if that move is at present only a partial one?

Put another way, Michelangelo began his portion of David in late 1501 and spent over two years on his artistic realization. Would that final realization have been different if instead of chisels he had chosen some sort of programmable three-dimensional CAD-driven CNC surface grinder? Then outsourced the implementation of his concept to a team of CNC developers? Were something like that available in 1501 it might very well have also put a smile on his face. After all, David was a commissioned work for which he was being paid. In short order he could have then banged out as many dancing Davids as the market might have demanded.

But would it have been the same David?

Or did those two plus years of sustained, solitary, contemplative effort (with chisels) have an unavoidable effect on his final realization as he continually turned the concept over and over in his mind every day, slowly refining it as the work progressed? And could he have achieved a comparable contemplative effect if the virtualized realization had taken only two plus days?

And might there be a similar consideration at work for hybrid alternative processes today? Is a hybrid PT/PD print capable of the same realization as a traditional PT/PD print, once one starts down the accelerated and much easier path of abstraction and virtualization?

Ken

Ken Nadvornick said:

So to bring this thread subtopic back to the original subject of reconcilation, in good faith I pose the following question...

Is the end realizaton of an artistic vision by an artist altered by the tools and processes used by that artist in that realization?

There is currently another thread on APUG examining in part the hypothesis that as photographers move up the scale in format square inches their subject matter, and hence their vision, must invariably change to accomodate that shift in tools. I'm asking, does the move from real tools and materials to virtual tools and materials result in an analogous shift in vision by the practitioners of alternative photographic processes today, even if that move is at present only a partial one?

Put another way, Michelangelo began his portion of David in late 1501 and spent over two years on his artistic realization. Would that final realization have been different if instead of chisels he had chosen some sort of programmable three-dimensional CAD-driven CNC surface grinder? Then outsourced the implementation of his concept to a team of CNC developers? Were something like that available in 1501 it might very well have also put a smile on his face. After all, David was a commissioned work for which he was being paid. In short order he could have then banged out as many dancing Davids as the market might have demanded.

But would it have been the same David?

Or did those two plus years of sustained, solitary, contemplative effort (with chisels) have an unavoidable effect on his final realization as he continually turned the concept over and over in his mind every day, slowly refining it as the work progressed? And could he have achieved a comparable contemplative effect if the virtualized realization had taken only two plus days?

And might there be a similar consideration at work for hybrid alternative processes today? Is a hybrid PT/PD print capable of the same realization as a traditional PT/PD print, once one starts down the accelerated and much easier path of abstraction and virtualization?

Ken

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I'd prefer to think that artistic imagination is iconoclastic - it is bigger than any of the 'boxes' it's put in. These artistic 'boxes' can be stylistic, political, techniques, whatever. My point is that artistic imagination is not a limited thing. If the 'box' is placed first, rather than as a tool and aid to the service of the imagination, then that art, whatever it is, will eventually become a product of the 'box', rather than of the imagination.

I use film for my starting point for polymer photogravures, use a digital enlarged pos, then it's all old-fashioned hands-on with printing the plate. I see the enlarged pos as a really handy tool that helps me realise my imagination. And film too, I'm passionate about the look and feel of film and never want to use digital as my starting point for photogravures or for any of my 'straight' photography. But my point is that they're tools, not icons to be venerated. As I said, I think the artistic imagination is iconoclastic...

That said, I understand the scope of APUG and really value APUG as a resource. For me, it's a pity there's no hybrid subsection to discuss alternative processes, but I'm willing to accept that. Unfortunately, for me, DPUG hasn't really filled that gap.

As I said before though, I am appreciating the fact that we can have a good-tempered conversation about the issue here on APUG.

Ken Nadvornick said:

And might there be a similar consideration at work for hybrid alternative processes today? Is a hybrid PT/PD print capable of the same realization as a traditional PT/PD print, once one starts down the accelerated and much easier path of abstraction and virtualization?

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If the final product - the print - still requires knowledge and personal taste and ends up in a work which is the result of the skill and craft (or call it "artistic vision") of the photographer I think the answer of the above question is that the easier path of abstraction and virtualization does not matter, because what matters is the actual produce and its status as a work of craft, for the photographer, for Michelangelo, for most anybody else normally what counts is the appeal of the final work.

My personal hybrid technique is scanning film. That does result in pictures being published on some textbooks, travel guides, or newspaper to illustrate some concepts. Those images go to some agencies which license them to some publisher which uses them in their publications.

In the old analogue-only times, the slides (or copies thereof) would go to the agency, then to the printer, and the image would appear in the printed textbook without intermediate path of abstraction/virtualization.

Nowadays the scan goes to the agency, then to the printer, and the image appears in the printed textbook and is exactly indistinguishable whether it is printed from a slide or from a scan of a slide. The question being: in which way the intermediate path of "abstraction and virtualization" affects the end result which, for Michelangelo like for a cook or a smith, and for me, is the only thing that matters?

Digital photography is different from film photography because it affects the end result. When I use film I use it because it gives me more than digital in terms of resolution, dynamic range, ease of use, and it also costs less, gives less archiving problems etc. When I use digital I use it for some other advantages it has. This all has a very relevant meaning for my craft, it makes a difference in the final product.

I use this analogue technique (film) only when and because it helps me doing things better, not because it helps me do things in a more complicated way *

Certain posts in this thread seem to suggest the idea that complication and cumbersomeness in producing the final work are in themselves desirable and somehow express the meaning of the work, which is valuable because it is an expression of the manual skill/work of the maker, rather than finding its value in the final work itself.

This reminds me how much nature photography has evolved. 60 years ago the only pictures we had of wildlife birds were pictures of stuffed animals (mostly in black and white, with the colours described by the caption). Then, around the '80, pictures begun to emerge of real animal activities taken in real natural conditions (nesting, "dancing", hunting etc.). Those images required weeks or months of work, and either a lot of attempts before capturing the image or hours and hours or days of patient waiting.

Autofocus and motor drives made things easier. Then came infrared remote controllers, and photoelectric cells remote shutters. All this raised the general quality of the products, but still the best photographers do get the best shots. Nobody of them would go back to the old days of manually focusing a Novoflex photo-rifle while following a bird in fly. But that doesn't mean that it is the camera which takes the picture! Wildlife photography still requires dedication, intelligence, culture and a lot of craft, which are aimed to the final result which is the only thing that matters.

Pictures taken with a Novoflex rifle would not have an additional value because autofocus was not used, I say. The first rule my first photography book taught me was: nobody cares about how difficult it was to get the picture, the only thing that counts is the picture itself.

Artisans working leather goods in Italy still command high prices for their final products and you can be sure that they use CAD and lasers and everything the Devil invented in order to make their final product more and more appealing. Old crafts are not at odds with new and more practical tools. And their general public does not seem to devalue their products because of the added layer of virtualization (numeric control of cutting, or use of pantone for painting, or use of X-ray for quality control, or whatever).

* The central point of the matter being the question if we use analogue techniques because they help us doing things better, of if we use analogue techniques because they help us doing things in a more complicated way.

Ken Nadvornick said:

Put another way, Michelangelo began his portion of David in late 1501 and spent over two years on his artistic realization. Would that final realization have been different if instead of chisels he had chosen some sort of programmable three-dimensional CAD-driven CNC surface grinder? Then outsourced the implementation of his concept to a team of CNC developers? Were something like that available in 1501 it might very well have also put a smile on his face. After all, David was a commissioned work for which he was being paid. In short order he could have then banged out as many dancing Davids as the market might have demanded.

But would it have been the same David?

Click to expand...

Duplication has nothing to do with digital. A film negative can be printed an unlimited number of times. The fact that Henri Cartier-Bresson could bang out as many pictures of a certain shot as the market might have demanded does not make him less of a photographer and does not diminish the personal, individual qualities of his body of work. Digital photographic technologies are not radically different from analogue technologies. Analogue prints were and can be the result of an industrial process as well.

I think there's a lot of "romanticism" around this dichotomy analogue/digital, we tend to give analogue work a patina of mystery/witchcraft which in fact isn't there.

Diapositivo said:

I think there's a lot of "romanticism" around this dichotomy analogue/digital, we tend to give analogue work a patina of mystery/witchcraft which in fact isn't there.

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I beleive it is much simpler and more visceral than that for many of us.

I can touch, feel, smell, and manipulate traditional materials and tools in real space.

Ken Nadvornick said:

Bob & Max,

With respect for both of your darkroom (and PS) skill sets - which greatly exceed my own - I can only respond with what I consider to be the obvious. In your description of the above example, there are in fact no real Rubylith sheets in play. Nor are there real brushes being used. Nor even true optical opacity levels. (And what PE thankfully gave us all resulted in real emulsions, not virtual models of emulsions.)

All of those tools and adjustments have been abstracted into numeric values being temporarily persisted in addressable system memory locations. And even the numeric values themselves are no more than an enormous collection of abstract binary state values correlated as meaningful by application of the ASCII algorithm. Further, should this temporary collection of numeric data be permanently persisted to a storage device, that device will never become a sheet of Rubylith, or a brush, or be able to have its opacity adjusted. Only the abstract pattern represented by the numbers will be retained for later decoding.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. None of the above described tools is real. None of the real-world skills necessary to successfully manipulate those tools is required. Those skills are simply no longer relevant to the task at hand. Now the application of those imaginary tools becomes much faster, easier, cheaper, and more convenient via computerized manipulation of the abstract model. One doesn't need to use - or even know how to use - an Exacto knife to operate Photoshop.

So to bring this thread subtopic back to the original subject of reconcilation, in good faith I pose the following question...

Is the end realizaton of an artistic vision by an artist altered by the tools and processes used by that artist in that realization?

There is currently another thread on APUG examining in part the hypothesis that as photographers move up the scale in format square inches their subject matter, and hence their vision, must invariably change to accomodate that shift in tools. I'm asking, does the move from real tools and materials to virtual tools and materials result in an analogous shift in vision by the practitioners of alternative photographic processes today, even if that move is at present only a partial one?

Put another way, Michelangelo began his portion of David in late 1501 and spent over two years on his artistic realization. Would that final realization have been different if instead of chisels he had chosen some sort of programmable three-dimensional CAD-driven CNC surface grinder? Then outsourced the implementation of his concept to a team of CNC developers? Were something like that available in 1501 it might very well have also put a smile on his face. After all, David was a commissioned work for which he was being paid. In short order he could have then banged out as many dancing Davids as the market might have demanded.

But would it have been the same David?

Or did those two plus years of sustained, solitary, contemplative effort (with chisels) have an unavoidable effect on his final realization as he continually turned the concept over and over in his mind every day, slowly refining it as the work progressed? And could he have achieved a comparable contemplative effect if the virtualized realization had taken only two plus days?

And might there be a similar consideration at work for hybrid alternative processes today? Is a hybrid PT/PD print capable of the same realization as a traditional PT/PD print, once one starts down the accelerated and much easier path of abstraction and virtualization?

Ken

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The unfortunate presumption here is that digital=easy. Master digital retouchers aren't hacks. Digital processes don't axiomatically de-skill photographers and printers. Since I doubt you've seen Bob's work, it's troubling that you all but say it's somehow "less" than the non-computer based printing and darkroom work he did for years.

BTW, Michaelangelo didn't chisel David by himself, no more than Old Masters works didn't rely on underpainters.

CGW said:

The unfortunate presumption here is that digital=easy. Master digital retouchers aren't hacks. Digital processes don't axiomatically de-skill photographers and printers. Since I doubt you've seen Bob's work, it's troubling that you all but say it's somehow "less" than the non-computer based printing and darkroom work he did for years.

BTW, Michaelangelo didn't chisel David by himself, no more than Old Masters works didn't rely on underpainters.

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That is a poor presumption, I spent years getting skilled at PS, NX2, InDesign.... It is hard work to become skilled.

But to me that's irrelavant to the "should APUG allow digital (hybrid) discussion".

I don't push the NAPP to help me with film development either.

Ken

The designers/engineers of PS asked Photocomp specialists, Colour Correctors, Photographers what they would like to see in the program.

I have worked in two worlds, one with a knife and ruby , and another with a mouse and masks.
Daily I see the end result as being the same whether I work digitally or on an enlarger. I produce images meant to hang on walls.

It has taken me 6 years to learn PS and I am still taking training, It took me about the same time to become a decent colour corrector and then PhotoComp Specialist.
Those colour emulsions PE worked on are all gone, so is the ruby and knife, all I have to say is thankfully there is a Red Ruby Command on my keyboard.

Ken Nadvornick said:

Bob & Max,

With respect for both of your darkroom (and PS) skill sets - which greatly exceed my own - I can only respond with what I consider to be the obvious. In your description of the above example, there are in fact no real Rubylith sheets in play. Nor are there real brushes being used. Nor even true optical opacity levels. (And what PE thankfully gave us all resulted in real emulsions, not virtual models of emulsions.)

All of those tools and adjustments have been abstracted into numeric values being temporarily persisted in addressable system memory locations. And even the numeric values themselves are no more than an enormous collection of abstract binary state values correlated as meaningful by application of the ASCII algorithm. Further, should this temporary collection of numeric data be permanently persisted to a storage device, that device will never become a sheet of Rubylith, or a brush, or be able to have its opacity adjusted. Only the abstract pattern represented by the numbers will be retained for later decoding.

And therein lies the crux of the issue. None of the above described tools is real. None of the real-world skills necessary to successfully manipulate those tools is required. Those skills are simply no longer relevant to the task at hand. Now the application of those imaginary tools becomes much faster, easier, cheaper, and more convenient via computerized manipulation of the abstract model. One doesn't need to use - or even know how to use - an Exacto knife to operate Photoshop.

So to bring this thread subtopic back to the original subject of reconcilation, in good faith I pose the following question...

Is the end realizaton of an artistic vision by an artist altered by the tools and processes used by that artist in that realization?

There is currently another thread on APUG examining in part the hypothesis that as photographers move up the scale in format square inches their subject matter, and hence their vision, must invariably change to accomodate that shift in tools. I'm asking, does the move from real tools and materials to virtual tools and materials result in an analogous shift in vision by the practitioners of alternative photographic processes today, even if that move is at present only a partial one?

Put another way, Michelangelo began his portion of David in late 1501 and spent over two years on his artistic realization. Would that final realization have been different if instead of chisels he had chosen some sort of programmable three-dimensional CAD-driven CNC surface grinder? Then outsourced the implementation of his concept to a team of CNC developers? Were something like that available in 1501 it might very well have also put a smile on his face. After all, David was a commissioned work for which he was being paid. In short order he could have then banged out as many dancing Davids as the market might have demanded.

But would it have been the same David?

Or did those two plus years of sustained, solitary, contemplative effort (with chisels) have an unavoidable effect on his final realization as he continually turned the concept over and over in his mind every day, slowly refining it as the work progressed? And could he have achieved a comparable contemplative effect if the virtualized realization had taken only two plus days?

And might there be a similar consideration at work for hybrid alternative processes today? Is a hybrid PT/PD print capable of the same realization as a traditional PT/PD print, once one starts down the accelerated and much easier path of abstraction and virtualization?

Ken

Click to expand...

Ken,

As a person with deep appreciation for hand-crafted art, I can certainly appreciate your point of view. At the same token, the reality in the year 2012 (and beyond) is what we all have to live with and make the best out of. I also concur with Gavin's (coigach) philosophy. For me, it is a question of balance. I do not want technology to replace and/or automate the creation of good art but simply to aid when there isn't another choice, or in the case of Bob Carnie, at a more industrial/commercial level, to become more productive and accommodate clients who now expect a faster turnaround and high quality output...and yes, make his life maybe a little easier (nothing wrong with that). Having said that, I'm certainly not going to knock down those who use technology to the fullest to craft something beautiful that rivals or beats a fully analogue product. I firmly believe that if Michelangelo, or Ansel Adams, had the tools we have available today, they would be in awe and happy to use them. They didn't use them because they didn't have them and had no other choices. From an artist's point of view, I place far more importance on capture, vision, a good image out of camera. Any other argument is futile if there is no meat in that department, in my opinion. Anyone who thinks that waving hands like a raving lunatic under an enlarger, versus a bunch of PS steps, guarantees a fantastic work of art, is delusional. I find both processes just as daunting, frankly, and I have plenty of images that are just crap and could not make a fine print under either circumstance.

There is much value in learning how to make things by hand and certainly a great feeling of satisfaction, hence the reason why I just can't find much value in an inkjet print, no matter how beautiful. I still need to know that the artist had a hand in that print. Yes, he created the image, it's his vision, but for as compelling as the image may be, the print is a result of a fully digital process (or almost if it was captured on film) and not truly hand crafted. Also, every print will be exactly the same, as it is being spit out by a consistent inkjet printer, without the artist's "touch".

Going back once again to the original topic, the value of an hybrid approach within the realm of alt. processes, is in the indisputable fact that few digital tools are used and are at the service of the grander task at hand. I mentioned gravure, as I have embarked on this journey recently, as Gavin did, and that is the perfect example. Here is one of the very oldest, most venerated, difficult, beautiful processes, which can still be used and promoted today by throwing in a sprinkle of digital. The final print is by no means cheapened by the use of a digital step, because in the end, a good digital positive does not assure, by any stretch of the imagination, a good copper plate, or a good final print. It is a labor intensive, highly physical, hands-on (literally, dirty with ink) process that requires time and dedication to master. I don't think that just because 50 years ago was even more difficult using only film, that the resulting prints are any more beautiful or valuable. There was plenty of crap then, just like there is now. It is the same with Sandy King's carbon prints or the many beautiful pt/pd out there. I firmly believe that there are no real shortcuts, even with the aid of technology, to capture a compelling image and make a great print that holds value for us, a viewer, buyer, a collector, whoever.

Max

Agree, reading about shooting film on hybrid/digital site is what got me more interested in film and alternative processes and what ultimately got me here. IMO (based on my own journey)
A hybrid site will attract a certain amount of digital shooters who may have no idea about film and alternative processes, not unlike myself. who may find a whole new world of photography after being exposed to analog

Diapositivo said:

I personally find the distinction between analogue and hybrid very "artificial" as I find the distinction between APUG and DPUG very unfortunate.

If I were the owner of this site I would have no hesitation in opening a "hybrid" section on this forum (on the same hierarchic level of "Darkroom" and "General discussions") and close DPUG altogether, or leaving it open for digital photography that is.

Scanning is something that is necessary to be discussed by film users at the very least.

At the moment DPUG is a moribund creature artificially kept alive by continuous reference made on APUG. On the other hand, APUG has many more users than DPUG, many of those able in hybrid techniques and willing to help. The hybrid conversation here would be as rich and instructing as the analogue conversation. This Berlin wall is unfortunate both for hybrid users (who don't find sufficient traces of life in DPUG and find censorship in APUG) and for analogue users, because a hybrid section here on APUG would bring, I am sure, many digital users to explore analogue techniques as well thereby expanding the user base, spreading the analogue gospel etc.

To those who don't want to read the "hybrid" word on this forum I just say that they can ignore - through the bespoke site function in General Settings - Forum to exclude from view - the hybrid section (or the scanning section. I would prefer a hybrid section). They wouldn't see the hybrid posts in the "New posts", the "Today posts", etc. Moderators would move any conversation turning to hybrid to the relevant Hybrid section where it would go on normally instead of cutting it short and inviting people to go to another forum, where they typically don't even have an account (but even if they had it by default, it would still be a nonsense IMO).

Considering the forum platform already gives users the possibility to totally and automatically ignore hybrid conversations I don't see why this topic should be banned from an analogue forum site.

Hybrid process is partly analogue. Nobody would say that someone who brings his negative to be printed at Wal-Mart is not an analogue user, or doesn't belong here (!) because he doesn't print his own negatives with an enlarger or because his final product is only partly analogue.

The site would have a massive increase in users, and would benefit the analogue photographic community as a whole more than it does now.

More in general, I think the future of analogue techniques relies solely on hybrid techniques. Sales of film without scanners would be dead since many years. Digital negative printing can actually greatly promote analogue darkroom techniques. I think analogue materials can survive only with the towing of the digital materials.

Hybrid is the branch where analogue is sitting.

Click to expand...

Yesterday, I visited DPUG for the first time. I spent some time looking at the images in the hybrid gallery. There are some people doing incredibly nice work, over there. Some of the names will be familiar to those who visit APUG's galleries, and their work is as excellent as it is here. My visit left me more intrigued by the possibilities of hybrid image making.
Still, I think APUG should remain true to it's core purpose. DPUG is just a click away, for those interested. Too many digital sites become inundated with posts that are gear driven, as opposed to image driven. There are enough venues to discuss whether the new Nikon out-pixels the new Canon...
I will probably join DPUG. I would like to learn more about hybrid processes and, maybe, give some of them a try.

eddie said:

Still, I think APUG should remain true to it's core purpose. DPUG is just a click away, for those interested. Too many digital sites become inundated with posts that are gear driven, as opposed to image driven.

Click to expand...

Of course that never happens on APUG

Pioneer said:

Of course that never happens on APUG

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I find this site less gear driven than most others. Then again, maybe I just skip those posts...

If no hybrid technology is to be used/mentioned in APUG, I suppose the Photo Gallery should be removed since the photos posted there only got there via a hybrid approach.

Prof_Pixel said:

If no hybrid technology is to be used/mentioned in APUG, I suppose the Photo Gallery should be removed since the photos posted there only got there via a hybrid approach.

Click to expand...

That argument has been beaten to death many times.

There are clear guidelines provided on this too that pop up before an upload.

Prof_Pixel said:

If no hybrid technology is to be used/mentioned in APUG, I suppose the Photo Gallery should be removed since the photos posted there only got there via a hybrid approach.

Click to expand...

That's what I wonder. I'm not so sure there's such a thing as a 'straight scan'. I'm glad D/APUG are separate entities, but the gallery, by nature, displays hybrid work.

Diapositivo said:

This reminds me how much nature photography has evolved. 60 years ago the only pictures we had of wildlife birds were pictures of stuffed animals (mostly in black and white, with the colours described by the caption). Then, around the '80, pictures begun to emerge of real animal activities taken in real natural conditions (nesting, "dancing", hunting etc.). Those images required weeks or months of work, and either a lot of attempts before capturing the image or hours and hours or days of patient waiting.

Autofocus and motor drives made things easier. Then came infrared remote controllers, and photoelectric cells remote shutters. All this raised the general quality of the products, but still the best photographers do get the best shots. Nobody of them would go back to the old days of manually focusing a Novoflex photo-rifle while following a bird in fly. But that doesn't mean that it is the camera which takes the picture! Wildlife photography still requires dedication, intelligence, culture and a lot of craft, which are aimed to the final result which is the only thing that matters.

Pictures taken with a Novoflex rifle would not have an additional value because autofocus was not used, I say. The first rule my first photography book taught me was: nobody cares about how difficult it was to get the picture, the only thing that counts is the picture itself.

Click to expand...

Take a look at some of the bird photographs of Douglas Herr, who shoots manual focus Leica R equipment. The glass is different, and that changes the color palette, but what I think is most interesting about his work is that he has to be a better stalker than a birder relying more heavily on the latest gizmos. He gets closer than you can imagine with shorter than average lenses and no autofocus. Less technology, more in tune with nature.

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/

David A. Goldfarb said:

Take a look at some of the bird photographs of Douglas Herr, who shoots manual focus Leica R equipment. The glass is different, and that changes the color palette, but what I think is most interesting about his work is that he has to be a better stalker than a birder relying more heavily on the latest gizmos. He gets closer than you can imagine with shorter than average lenses and no autofocus. Less technology, more in tune with nature.

http://www.wildlightphoto.com/birds/

Click to expand...

It's old technology and is called "a hyde" or shooting hut . I think this kind of photography really begun being "widely" practised around the 1970s. Even with a hyde, you normally need a fairly long lens and even with a tripod colour material of decent speed was not available for that kind of pictures let's say in the '50s. The "problem" with this technique is that you only have pictures of birds on the ground or on a perch.

On the other end, getting a picture of a sparrow in flight is something quite more challenging (I am tempted to say "near impossible"). Big raptors, storks are somehow easier to photograph if you find them. Trying to get an image of a swallow in flight with a manual focus camera can be very taxing for the nerves.

I remember a famous series of pictures of a kingfisher made by Paolo Fioratti in the early '80s underwater with a Hasselblad. He also published how did he obtain them. They were widely "copied" subsequently. It involved the use of "traps" and a camera sitting for weeks in the water inside its water-tight case, the bird had to be studied for a long time and especially all the work in order not to frighten the bird (which would have left the spot) was very gradual and involved weeks of work. The images were absolutely stunning, normal focal length, and definitely no autofocus

I'm sure Doug shoots from blinds sometimes (as have I) and has taken advantage of natural forms of concealment in the field, but he's written about his technique, and often it's just knowing how not to look like a predator. Art Morris, who is more well known and is always up to date with the latest technology uses many of the same techniques. Both of them are naturalists first, photographers second. This is more important than the gear. Sure there are some amazing things done with focus traps and such, but they are no substitute for basic knowledge of the subject. Bird photography is a very tough discipline, and any way you slice it, it's a lot of time in the field, a lot of missed shots.

I wonder if woodworkers have the same philosophy. 2 different PBS shows that have different philosophies. Roy Underhill of The Woodwright shop
http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/
and
Norm Abram of New Yankee Workshop
http://www.newyankee.com/

Maybe a celebrity death match will settle who's the bestest woodworker?

I'm always in awe of the doodads and power tools at hand in the new Yankee workshop. He's got pretty much every tool and accessory for anything. I'd love to have a workspace like that. Though there is much pleasure to fabricate and create something with basic tools from the ground up, fun as well sometimes when you improvise.