What Group f/64 would have to say

[Bill Burk]

The problem with the theory put forth by this thread, is that 'digital' is not a medium.

It's not? That's a revolutionary thought.

 

[Darkroom317]

Oil, acrylic, watercolor, goauche and tempera are all considered painting. They all involve putting paint on a substrate. Photography is the act of recording light via a light sensitive material; therefore, digital is photography alongside several other techniques of photography.

 

[pdeeh]

I'm interested to understand what follows (in the logical sense) from statements like "digital photography isn't (real) photography"

If "true" (or "false") then what are the significant consequences for the World?

 

[Bill Burk]

Oil, acrylic, watercolor, goauche and tempera are all considered painting. They all involve putting paint on a substrate. Photography is the act of recording light via a light sensitive material; therefore, digital is photography alongside several other techniques of photography.

Digital and analog photography become separated from each other after the light has been recorded... they differ in how you accomplish the printing or display.

 

[Darkroom317]

Digital and analog photography become separated from each other after the light has been recorded... they differ in how you accomplish the printing or display.

But the same is true of gum bichromate, cyanotype and photogravure in comparison to silver gelatin methods.

 

[georg16nik]

It's not? That's a revolutionary thought.

Digital camera is like a scanner - digitizing, hence digital intermediate.
Photography, as in Group ƒ/64 terms or APUG terms, is very different kinda thing.

 

[Bill Burk]

But the same is true of gum bichromate, cyanotype and photogravure in comparison to silver gelatin methods.

Darkroom317, You make a valid point

 

[Roger Cole]

But the same is true of gum bichromate, cyanotype and photogravure in comparison to silver gelatin methods.

Not really. All those involve chemically light sensitized materials, chemically converted to viewable forms. The sensitization and chemicals are different, but it's an inherently chemical process. It has no electricity used from outside (had to throw that in before someone started talking about ions and such.)

The idea that "digital is not a medium" seems absurd to me. Care to elaborate on why not?

But the problem with having it take its own direction and be distinct in artistic expression seems to be that it's essentially doing the same thing (the points above) as analog - using a lens to focus light from the physical world onto a sensitized (electronically in the case of digital) surface in order to record a visual rendering of that world. By necessity it's going to look more like analog than different. It is true that you can do a lot more and more extreme departures from a realistic rendering using digital methods. Extreme HDR that was mentioned is one, easily combining different elements into a scene that never actually existed in nature is another. That can be done in the darkroom but is difficult and limited compared to doing it in Photoshop. But any time these get too far removed from reality or at least the look of reality they seem to get dismissed as excess. Maybe that's the key and what's being discussed here. As long as it's not portrayed AS reality, along with all the mischief that could cause in certain contexts, there should be less complaint when digital artists combine elements in creative ways.

 

[JeRuFo]

..What I feel, however, is that digital has not stood, yet, fully on its own feet, at least judging by the work I have been exposed to, with a few exceptions. I would like to see what digital can offer in terms of its own language, very much. I am sure there are amazing and unique expressions still to be discovered, and that we have not seen even the beginning of it, yet....

...It is a very exciting time to be involved in photography, a craft on the cusp of a major change in its artistic function.

I think you touch on a good point there. It is maybe a little early to see the full potential of the digital movement. With sensors ever increasing in potential, maybe it is not the prints we should be looking at. The images digital is likely to be able to capture very soon will be far beyond the latitude of film. But that is not common yet, so maybe it is a little early to adopt a separate vision on digital shooting. I hope the manufacturers don't think the same way however, there might be some work left in lens technology and printing to capture all of that in a final print.

But it is most definetely a very exciting time.

I will be sticking my head in the sand for a few years though. Getting back into film until digital has made a firm stand and looks like something that suits my style. If not I can at least buy Fuji with the savings I made by not buying new equipment every two years and keep shooting Velvia.

 

[JeRuFo]

JeRuFo,

You cover a lot in few sentences...

Only the last point, I don't mean to fault someone for wanting to emulate analog with digital... I just mean they should be excluded from membership in the movement...

There could be a separate movement for the mirror image of the old pictorialists, the digital photographers who want to create simulated analog prints. And they can be encouraged to do a good job. In a sense, their work is a form of... printing (reproduction). Their manifesto could be a sort of "democratization of the press". No longer is printing limited to presses that weigh several tons. An inkjet can do it. Or no print, just monitor.

Yes, I think you're right. You wouldn't need a new movement if you didn't actually change anything.

I feel you should keep the processes that you like and actually work well in the digital age.

It is quite hard to give a short view on this point. It probably differs per image and the purpose you want to give it. Democratization is a good word, time will do it's work and weed out the best loved and most practical techniques, the rest will hopefully be displayed by a few persevering artisans and eventually a friendly curator that doesn't mind some fumes in his clinical world of digital perfection.

 

[Bill Burk]

It is maybe a little early to see the full potential of the digital movement...

I will be sticking my head in the sand for a few years though. Getting back into film until digital has made a firm stand and looks like something that suits my style...

I'm fortunate to live in a town where a pioneer of digital photographer has his studio. His Grand Canyon photos from 10 years ago are remarkable, though at the time I had no interest in outfitting myself with a Mac laptop and Betterlight scanning back. I did not feel like going out like the old pioneers with their wet-plate darkrooms.

While reminiscing, I just found a self-portrait digital black and white shot taken May 3, 2003. In that shot the Bessa II is sitting next to me on the table... It's the same scene as my current avatar. So I used to shoot digital and film at the same time. Shameless

 

[BetterSense]

Silver gelatin, oil paint, bronze, are media. Digital files are information; a digital file could just as easily be a representation of a symphony or a text or a 3 dimensional world or anything. Digital photography may be a discipline but the media 'digital photography' does not exist.

 

[Roger Cole]

How about "ink jet" then? How about "monitor display" then?

I still don't agree and I think digital, or more accurately "digital sensors" are a medium.

 

[Chuck_P]

Digital camera is like a scanner - digitizing, hence digital intermediate.
Photography, as in Group ƒ/64 terms or APUG terms, is very different kinda thing.

Perhaps we call it a "digigraph", even still, it is a photograph, it captures light and the light forms an image.

 

[georg16nik]

Perhaps we call it a "digigraph", even still, it is a photograph, it captures light and the light forms an image.

Yeah, an image... after the analog data gets processed, digitally, hence is closer to an already existing term digital intermediate.
An image that is not archival out of the box, that's hell of an image, and lot cheaper than film.

I guess You can call it whatever You want, since a digitally captured movie (motion picture) is still referred to as film

 

[Bill Burk]

I don't want to focus too much on definitions because I know how they have waylaid us in the past...

But I am intrigued by the feeling of validation and mutual admiration, rather than divisiveness, that washes across me when I think of "them" and "us" as members of different groups with different manifestos.

Let each group come up with their own manifesto.

 

[artonpaper]

The time they have changed

Wow, what a great thread, I hardly know where to start. First, I think f64 formed as a later result of two diverse reactions to the invention of photography. First there was, ''That's end of painting, painting is dead,'' and there was, ''Photography will never replace painting. It's monochrome and lifeless.'' Baudelaire referred to photography as ''The humble servant of the arts.'' But for many pursuing photography, it gave them a chance to produce images as well defined and rendered than those produced by drawing, panting, etc, and they emulated the art forms they saw, which by the way, in the 1850s onward werepretty corny and pretentious by later standards, the impressionists not withstanding. The F64 group was right, I think to call for more integrity in using photography in a way that imitates no other art forms.

Today art movements are not so popular, I think, because everything goes. I teach in Brooklyn College and we have a vibrant MFA program, where one sees everything from straight painting to strange video techniques and conceptual installations and performance art. And of course digital photography.

And here we have the paradox, that digital photography, in conjunction with Photoshop and other software, is more like painting than ever, and that's what a lot of us have always been taught was undesirable. I do believe anything goes and I have the wonderful human trait of accepting some things and rejecting others. And I respectfully disagree that digital photography is not a medium. Color slides had to be projected to be fully appreciated and digital photo files look great when projected. And while the image may exist in a latent state before being projected or printed, that is very much true of analogue photographs until they are developed. And in case of negatives, while we photographers can read them, they are not usually the final medium, but, like a digital file, an end to a means.

I one time said that I take pictures so that I will have something to print. That's how much I like the analogue medium. I do use digital photography, and I teach it. I know that Ansel was interested in what was then thought of as electronic photography, and one of his students told me that Ansel said, had he been born in later times he would have pursued video. That is apocryphal, but I believe it.

 

[Darkroom317]

Not really. All those involve chemically light sensitized materials, chemically converted to viewable forms. The sensitization and chemicals are different, but it's an inherently chemical process. It has no electricity used from outside (had to throw that in before someone started talking about ions and such.)

Just out of curiosity. Not trying to make a point. How would you classify this?

http://wildernessoverload.com/home.html

 

[cepwin]

You've got an excellent point. With technology like the lytro still in it's infancy (change focus points after the fact and from what I hear now perspective to some degree) it will be interesting to see where digital can go.

I think you touch on a good point there. It is maybe a little early to see the full potential of the digital movement. With sensors ever increasing in potential, maybe it is not the prints we should be looking at. The images digital is likely to be able to capture very soon will be far beyond the latitude of film. But that is not common yet, so maybe it is a little early to adopt a separate vision on digital shooting. I hope the manufacturers don't think the same way however, there might be some work left in lens technology and printing to capture all of that in a final print.

But it is most definetely a very exciting time.

I will be sticking my head in the sand for a few years though. Getting back into film until digital has made a firm stand and looks like something that suits my style. If not I can at least buy Fuji with the savings I made by not buying new equipment every two years and keep shooting Velvia.

 

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

It is an exciting time in photography, not only because many of us are about to witness the adolescence of a significant new medium of expression, that digital is going to evolve into. What excites me even more, is the freeing of film-based, print-oriented photography, from the chores it had to perform for over a century, perhaps as painting had to do two centuries ago. As a film photographer, who prints, I am now free. My darkroom, and what I do in it, can more easily stand on its feet, no longer having to defend itself from the constant confusion with commercial photography, or a fun way of avoiding 1-hour photo labs. The more digital evolves and perfects itself, the stronger, and less popular, analogue photography, as an artistic pursuit, becomes.

I know that Ansel was interested in what was then thought of as electronic photography, and one of his students told me that Ansel said, had he been born in later times he would have pursued video. That is apocryphal, but I believe it.

Adams was clearly thinking what electronic means could obtain from his negatives. In his wonderfully direct, and honest autobiography, in chapter 23, 'Resolutions', he wrote, while referencing his archives about to be housed at the Center for Creative Photography in Carmel:

"In the electronic age, I am sure that scanning techniques will be developed to achieve prints of extraordinary subtlety from the original negative scores. If I could return in twenty years or so I would hope to see astounding interpretations of my most expressive images. It is true no one could print my negatives as I did, but they might well get more out of them by electronic means. Image quality is not the product of a machine, but of the person who directs the machine, and there are no limits to imagination and expression."​

 

[pdeeh]

He seems to have been a much more open-minded man than many are now

 

[Maris]

Digital pictures do not replace photographs made out of light sensitive materials.

There is a deep and somewhat abstract philosophical reason for deliberately choosing not to look at digital pictures but rather actively to seek out genuine photographs. It is precisely the same reason for preferring photographs over paintings, drawings, and digital print-outs of one kind or another. All those non-photographs (paintings, drawings, digi-pix) have the identical property that they are assembled piecemeal by a mark maker device working according to coded instructions. The coded instructions may be entirely or partially synthetic and their relationship to the subject matter of the picture is in the nature of description or testimony. We believe the picture only if we believe the picture maker.

There is a very small set of alternative image making processes that do not use coded instructions. These include life casts, death masks, brass rubbings, coal peels, wax impressions, and photographs made of light sensitive materials. In every case the relationship between image and subject is direct and physical and has the nature of evidence rather than testimony.
I believe photographs, the real ones, the ones generated by light altering a sensitive surface, because I believe that the laws of laws of chemistry and physics run their course reliably when no hand or mind intervenes. Testimony doesn’t come into it because a photograph has a genuine indexical relationship to its subject. In consequence of this a photograph constitutes an existence proof of the thing photographed. Not so with digital...or painting, or drawing.

Importantly, none of this well founded belief in the indexical qualities of original photographs grants me leave to be foolish or simple minded about what I think I see when looking at them.

 

[Chuck_P]

He seems to have been a much more open-minded man than many are now

How true, but would hope that he would still prefer the smell of fixer on his hands............

 

[JBrunner]

Digital pictures do not replace photographs made out of light sensitive materials.

There is a deep and somewhat abstract philosophical reason for deliberately choosing not to look at digital pictures but rather actively to seek out genuine photographs. It is precisely the same reason for preferring photographs over paintings, drawings, and digital print-outs of one kind or another. All those non-photographs (paintings, drawings, digi-pix) have the identical property that they are assembled piecemeal by a mark maker device working according to coded instructions. The coded instructions may be entirely or partially synthetic and their relationship to the subject matter of the picture is in the nature of description or testimony. We believe the picture only if we believe the picture maker.

There is a very small set of alternative image making processes that do not use coded instructions. These include life casts, death masks, brass rubbings, coal peels, wax impressions, and photographs made of light sensitive materials. In every case the relationship between image and subject is direct and physical and has the nature of evidence rather than testimony.
I believe photographs, the real ones, the ones generated by light altering a sensitive surface, because I believe that the laws of laws of chemistry and physics run their course reliably when no hand or mind intervenes. Testimony doesn’t come into it because a photograph has a genuine indexical relationship to its subject. In consequence of this a photograph constitutes an existence proof of the thing photographed. Not so with digital...or painting, or drawing.

Importantly, none of this well founded belief in the indexical qualities of original photographs grants me leave to be foolish or simple minded about what I think I see when looking at them.

Hi Maris,

I do more than a little interpreting in my darkroom. Basically, if you believe my photographs you'd be wrong, as they usually bear only passing resemblance to the actual scene. My world is more moody. How do you think that fits in?

 

[Bill Burk]

It is an exciting time in photography...the freeing of film-based, print-oriented photography, from the chores it had to perform for over a century, perhaps as painting had to do two centuries ago...

Yes! Now it no longer "must" be used to provide the illustrations for the times... Now we are free to use it to provide for images of leisure and emotion. (to badly paraphrase Moholy Nagy).