What if ???????

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

What if Photography was invented in a digital form first , how much would we have had missed out on ... I can't even imagine my life without analog photography...

I am posting this because this thought came to me after I put the best print that I could attain from the best New England digital printer next to my Azo print on a wall under a gallery light , the radiant glow and three dimensional feel is none existent in a digital print...

This is not a Digital bashing post , but rather a post about something we hold in our hands that is so fragile ...and thanks to historical "progress" in photography that we started there and not the other way around ... can you imagine if digital was invented first how much we would have missed out on...

ILYA

Christopher Walrath · Jun 17, 2009

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Just a natural progression seeing as God created silver and salts way back when and man only came up with computer technology in the 60's.

Paul Jenkin · Jun 17, 2009

Another interesting 'poser' is......given 150 years of ongoing process and technological improvement, how good will digital imaging and printing be 150 years hence?

Is digital, in-line with Chris's comment above, a 'natural progression' to film. Or is it the Devil's work?

Or is it just a parallel technology that some people choose to use (or not use) - a bit like having a car and a motorcycle....?

Christopher Walrath · Jun 17, 2009

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If digital was first, AC Moore would be selling a lot more oils and acrylics. And if the sensitivity of silver salts were to be discovered afterwards it would truly be a hobbyist's pursuit.

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

Chris,

Yeah I know ... I am just wondering how kids feel growing up today having digital available to them as opposed to film and how different I felt when I was growing up , what got me into photography is a print of Joseph Sudek , what would get a kid interested in photography today? an internet image? a digital image from Wal-Mart ? what ?.... just rambling

I mean these master's works are still out there to inspire new generations , but are there photographers working today with the new technology and not in a cyberspace that I am missing that would inspire me or others to follow their steps ? have you or others seen an exhibition that would make you think twice?

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

"how good will digital imaging and printing be 150 years hence? "

Paul, good point , so are there Sullivans, Westons, Strands, Steiglitz, Adams of today working with digital?

Christopher Walrath · Jun 17, 2009

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G.A.S. Used to make me think twice. But sticker shck always helped it pass.

Vonder · Jun 17, 2009

ilya1963 said:
I am posting this because this thought came to me after I put the best print that I could attain from the best New England digital printer next to my Azo print on a wall under a gallery light , the radiant glow and three dimensional feel is none existent in a digital print...

ILYA

I don't know. I have seen images online that are remarkable, that when I say "Wow that must be film-shot" I look and discover it's a Nikon D80 or somesuch. Each process is a special craft. Mastery of one does not equate to mastery of the other. Indeed, with digital files nearly always being printed outside the traditional darkroom (inkjets) or by a lab (Fuji Frontier machine) it's often hard to compare because of the variable skill of printing, which we, in our own darkrooms, have total control over. The print made by hand, carefully exposed and cropped and focussed will almost always look better than one made by a machine, but if you could print a digital file in your darkroom couldn't you make just as fine a print?

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

Wolfeye
"I have seen images online that are remarkable, that when I say "Wow that must be film-shot" I look and discover it's a Nikon D80 or somesuch."

Yes, I have seen them as well , but beeing a bit of an old school a print that I love I want to see on a wall day after day ...

"but if you could print a digital file in your darkroom couldn't you make just as fine a print?"

Is this the answer to my question? I mean is that what I am torn about?
We can live without a film but yet to come up with something to duplicate the silver print?
If that's the case and when we do come up with something close we then could live without silver paper?

Is that what is happening around us ?

When I say "we" I mean the moles that live in a cave

just trying to understand ... what my choices are when I am standing in a middle of my darkroom and have no materials to work with, other then making everything from scratch my choice would be to turn digital...I don't really care for those choices. I like to be in the dark,may be setting a printer and a motitor in the dark would work ...

VaryaV · Jun 17, 2009

Interesting thoughts here - me, I am a process person. From the beginning of a conceptual thought to the framed piece. My background is in painting and design so I am a hands on type person and I like to get messy. I got into the digital thing for a while but the process left me completely cold, empty, numb. My hands and head were not getting enough action while I was sitting on my butt in photoshop. I felt like there wasn't enough of a struggle in it for me, computer did the work I wanted to do. The sense of accomplishment of timing, exposure, dev. was missing.The digital thing never felt right for me. Not enough emotion. I am not knocking it as it works great for some folks and I have seen some beautiful stuff. Though digital output in comparison to Sudek's work or a platinum/palladium print that takes my breath away doesn't have the same impact. I compare that to analog music from the past to present today.

Darkroom317 · Jun 17, 2009

ilya1963 said:
Wolfeye

"but if you could print a digital file in your darkroom couldn't you make just as fine a print?".

There is such an enlarger; however, it is expensive. I've heard $30,000!

I enjoy working with my negatives.

Vonder · Jun 17, 2009

Process and coldness

VaryaV said:
Interesting thoughts here - me, I am a process person. From the beginning of a conceptual thought to the framed piece. My background is in painting and design so I am a hands on type person and I like to get messy. I got into the digital thing for a while but the process left me completely cold, empty, numb. My hands and head were not getting enough action while I was sitting on my butt in photoshop. I felt like there wasn't enough of a struggle in it for me, computer did the work I wanted to do. The sense of accomplishment of timing, exposure, dev. was missing.The digital thing never felt right for me. Not enough emotion. I am not knocking it as it works great for some folks and I have seen some beautiful stuff. Though digital output in comparison to Sudek's work or a platinum/palladium print that takes my breath away doesn't have the same impact. I compare that to analog music from the past to present today.

Comparing darkroom work to what can be done with inkjet technology is hard. They produce different output. But what if the output was the same, a traditional, hand-printed silver print? Sometimes we talk about silky-smooth grainless images, and as digital is grain free, wouldn't the output mimic the output from Acros, for example?

Someone needs to invent a low cost digital enlarger/projector... but that's a topic for the hybrid joint.

archphoto · Jun 17, 2009

As photography did not phase out painting, neither will digital outphase analogue photography.

Where will analogue be in 150 years ? Hard to tell..... If we don't teatch our youngsters how analogue feels and works, probably a lot less than today, at least for the "family-type" shots, for the arts it will stay as painting stayed.

Where will digital be in 150 years ? ISO's we just can dream about today and a lot less noise and maybe totaly replaced by holographic imaging.

Peter

Darkroom317 · Jun 17, 2009

"If we don't teach our youngsters how analogue feels and works, probably a lot less than today"

I am 19 and what I am noticing is a revival of film in my generation. There is a perception among my peers that film is better. When one friend and I were talking about my photographs that I posted online, he made the comment, "so that is why your photographs are so ridiculously clear". Even scans of my negatives and slides that I use to post online beat my families digital cameras.

I try and promote film use as much as possible. I carried around my Rolleicord Va at an outdoor art show this weekend. I got several comments about me carrying a "real camera". People told me how much fun it was to work in the darkroom and how they miss it.

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

Darkroom317 said:
"If we don't teach our youngsters how analogue feels and works, probably a lot less than today"

I am 19 and what I am noticing is a revival of film in my generation. There is a perception among my peers that film is better. When one friend and I were talking about my photographs that I posted online, he made the comment, "so that is why your photographs are so ridiculously clear". Even scans of my negatives beat my families digital cameras.

I try and promote film use as much as possible. I carried around my Rolleicord Va at an outdoor art show this weekend. I got several comments about me carrying a "real camera". People told me how much fun it was to work in the darkroom and how they miss it.

___________________________________________________________
What got you in it in the first place ? a photographer ? a photograph?

It is nice and interesting to hear from this generation to see what influenced them

Darkroom317 · Jun 17, 2009

Good point. My father was into photography in the 1970s. In 2002 he bought me an AE-1 and gave me all his lenses that he used to use. He has since gone digital but after seeing my slides on a light table, he has decided to pick his A-1 back up and shoot some slides.
Also, seeing an Ansel Adams exhibit influenced me further.

Vincent Brady · Jun 17, 2009

What if photography was colour from the very start, would we be shooting in B&W to the extent that we are?

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

TEX said:
What if photography was colour from the very start, would we be shooting in B&W to the extent that we are?

Yeah ,

How dull would the world be without all those shades of grey?

EASmithV · Jun 17, 2009

If that were the case, then film would be a recent invention. I remember somebody posting that if film were recently invented, it would be considered a bargain for its information storage capacity.

EASmithV · Jun 17, 2009

archphoto said:
As photography did not phase out painting, neither will digital outphase analogue photography.

Where will analogue be in 150 years ? Hard to tell..... If we don't teatch our youngsters how analogue feels and works, probably a lot less than today, at least for the "family-type" shots, for the arts it will stay as painting stayed.

Where will digital be in 150 years ? ISO's we just can dream about today and a lot less noise and maybe totaly replaced by holographic imaging.

Peter

Here's hoping I won't outlive film.

Q.G. · Jun 17, 2009

Yikes!!!

Yet another film vs digital thingy in the ethics and philosophy section of APUG!

railwayman3 · Jun 17, 2009

My own schooldays were back at the time of the space-race-to-the-moon when any kind of "science" had a great appeal to myself and my contemporaries. It was the science aspect of photography which first got me interested, a chance to mess around with chemicals, lenses and cameras to produce images....any ideas of photography as an "art" form came much later, indeed subjects like art, music and literature were for wusses who were not ready for the great future of science and technology!

Thankfully, I got over these ideas when I grew up, and art (photographic and other) and music became my main interests.

But, if there had been only digital imaging available, I wonder whether I would have missed out on a lot of this, and photography would have been nothing more than just another use for computers.

ilya1963 · Jun 17, 2009

Q.G. said:
Yikes!!!

Yet another film vs digital thingy in the ethics and philosophy section of APUG!

No not that.

A point for this post was/is to think out loud about our journey and how we except what we see in front of us and why when it comes to hanging it on a wall ...two processes are totally different and do not replace one another , if digital was invented first do you think there would have been a need or want to invent analog/film/silver paper ?

What would be our standard for comprising then ? I can't help but to compare , can you not ?

railwayman3 · Jun 17, 2009

ilya1963 said:
......two processes are totally different and do not replace one another , if digital was invented first do you think there would have been a need or want to invent analog/film/silver paper ?

I'm sure that some form of imaging using light and photosensitive substances would have still been invented. Probably not for everyday photographs, but mainly as an artistic medium, just as artists through the ages have adapted and used many different media to get the effects which they seek.

Vaughn · Jun 17, 2009

When our university's Art Dept was looking for a new full-time photo professor, some in the department felt that since wet photographing was on its way out, we should be looking for someone who was fully digital in training and in his/her own art...and there seemed to be a feeling that digital art was just a continuation of traditional photography. I wrote a letter to the search committee about what I felt was the direction the Art Dept should take (and for which I got my butt chewed out for because I was only on staff and not a professor...oh, well).

But my take was that the dept should be looking at digital not as digital photography, but as digital art. In the near future, I feel that digital art will be primarily multi-media, and to limit it to just photography would be a mistake. My suggestion was to not turn the Photo Area into a Digital Photo Area, but instead consider creating a new Digital Art Area, if the Dept wanted to be on the cutting edge of the new technology.

The painting professor (who claimed wet photo was dead and that the students are going to demand digital) was taken aback when I suggested that her future students might be demanding digital drawing tablets...and that such tablets will be powerful enough to incoporate drawings, photo imagery, music, and who knows what else in the future.

But what the heck -- I also got looks of shock at a dept meeting when I suggested our History of Photography courses also contain an element where the students actually make some prints using the historical processes. Our Department Chairperson, who was also one of the Art historians, was shocked that anything so crass as art historians actually making art might be suggested.

I guess I should have known better, but I don't have an art degree...

Vaughn

What if ???????

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