Where's the work?

Roger Hicks said:

Pretty much never. When does writing cease to be writing? When it's calligraphy? When it's a post-it note saying 'Your dinner is in the oven'? When it's visual poetry relying on mechanical typesetting? When it's a shopping list covered in doodles?

When does writing become literature, or poetry, or art? These are different questions. Similar considerations apply to photography.

Or to take another line of argument, were the cut-and-paste photomontages of the 1920s and 1930s 'not photography'? Or the true photomontages of the late 19th and early 20th centuries? Are bromoils 'not photography'? How much do any of these differ, conceptually, from Photoshop? Any can be well or badly done, i.e. successful or unsuccessful, but that is hardly a 'not photography' argument.

Those of us who greatly prefer silver halide may be unimpressed with digital for all manner of reasons, but it is still worth remembering Sturgeon's Law: 90 per cent of ANYTHING is rubbish. The percentage of good digital photography may be even smaller than the percentage of good silver halide photography, though I can think of no way to test that assertion, but how much does it matter?

Cheers,

R.

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Writing ceases to be writing when you type in a couple of words and the computer fills in the rest...

I've been following the answers and am very interested by the perspectives of thoses who put their efforts on the "human" perspective, whether it is finding the picture in other people or in themselves. I'm especially interested by those like Cheryl who nailed the medium manipulations to something simple, because that gives a whole other meaning to the idea of "skill," which is so often associated with mastery of printing (perhaps I'm talking from a guy's perspective here).

After reading countless how-to books because I wanted to know everything about making good photos, I bought Les McLeans's because it explained split-grade printing. I believed this was the secret lore I lacked to take my work to a new level.

Instead, it dawned on me that in the end there's no arcane knowledge that must be sought for years to create photos. When I look at the making-of of Les's photos, it's: get the exposure and the grade right, dodge/burn/flash if needed, and process. You don't need to fancy gadgets or printing-fu to get the print right, but you need a damn good mind first. With a limited number of tools you can create a lot.

Making things properly demand effort and dedication, even (especially!) if they are simple. In a way, Rodin only took bits off a stone with a hammer and a metal tool, but using his hammer won't make a masterpiece.

I'd be interested to know what do people who specialize in more technically involved processes like lith, pt/pd, dags, collodion, cyanotypes, cross-processing, etc, think about the role of medium in their work.

mhv said:

I've been following the answers and am very interested by the perspectives of thoses who put their efforts on the "human" perspective, whether it is finding the picture in other people or in themselves. I'm especially interested by those like Cheryl who nailed the medium manipulations to something simple, because that gives a whole other meaning to the idea of "skill," which is so often associated with mastery of printing (perhaps I'm talking from a guy's perspective here).

After reading countless how-to books because I wanted to know everything about making good photos, I bought Les McLeans's because it explained split-grade printing. I believed this was the secret lore I lacked to take my work to a new level.

Instead, it dawned on me that in the end there's no arcane knowledge that must be sought for years to create photos. When I look at the making-of of Les's photos, it's: get the exposure and the grade right, dodge/burn/flash if needed, and process. You don't need to fancy gadgets or printing-fu to get the print right, but you need a damn good mind first. With a limited number of tools you can create a lot.

Making things properly demand effort and dedication, even (especially!) if they are simple. In a way, Rodin only took bits off a stone with a hammer and a metal tool, but using his hammer won't make a masterpiece.

I'd be interested to know what do people who specialize in more technically involved processes like lith, pt/pd, dags, collodion, cyanotypes, cross-processing, etc, think about the role of medium in their work.

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'With a limited numder of tools you can create a lot'... Michaelangelo created 'David' from a block of marble, a hammer, and a chisel. Technique can include any technology, but art comes from the soul.

the medium has to be an important consideration in ones work - you need to know in advance what your intended output will be before you take the picture, because it will significantly affect how you take the picture. Not so much for pt/pd, where you can use negs shot for silver, and negs shot for pt/pd can be used with silver as well, but for something like wet-plate, your entire shoot, especially if shooting portraits with it, must be planned around the process, and the kinds of images you would look for would also be highly dependent on the process. There are certain poses I'd never ask a model to attempt if I were shooting wet plate, because I know you'd not be able to hold them for the eight to fifteen seconds required for the exposure.

The "work" is first in the seeing,
- then in the visualizing,
- then in the "capturing"
- then in making the right choice (i.e. editing)
- then in the creating the final product,
- then in the presenting of the final product.

The medium you choose should be related to the skills, knowledge and tools you have available to you.

Each medium has its own potential - whether or not that potential is realized is a question of skill, knowledge, experience, inspiration and luck.

The requirements of some media tend to lead to the development of some types of skills.

The strengths and weaknesses of the media chosen will affect how much effort goes into each stage of the work - e.g. the "capturing" done with an 8x10 view camera will mean very little time is spent editing after the exposure, and may lead to a relatively short amount of time over the contact printer, while the photographer who shot a whole roll of 35mm may have a lot of editing to do, and the skill and time and effort necessary to get the high quality print may be greater (emphasis on the "may").

And as far as the digital shooter with the full memory card is concerned - much editing, and potentially much time post-processing in the interests of trying to get a print of reasonable quality.

Some media are poorly suited for some needs - try to shoot sports, for instance, with a view camera. The necessary work might approach infinity.

It really is a question of how much quality you are looking for. If the medium is suitable, and the skills and inspiration are available, than extra work will yield extra quality.

The "purity" of digital "photography" is to me, pedantic. It is what it is, many times closer to design that incorporates images, than photography. So, no, I don't view it really as photography, but more of a Frankenstien of variously combined, and continually mutating technologies. It can be "art", but it is not hand made art, created by craft, with a rich tradition of teaching and history, and that is all the difference to me.

For me, the greatest revelation, the most work, was when I learned when not to make a negative. I shoot far fewer holders than I use to. I do not ever struggle with a mediocre negative trying to make it ok, trying to make it rise above mediocrity. I try to make a negative that sings, and then a print that rises beyond that. If I can't, I just walk away, and save wasting my time. I learned that by watching a true master and mentor.

For me the "Work" is in the preparation. Today I am shooting a portrait for a Christmas gift on 4X5. We have worked several hours planing this shoot but the more I prep now the less work I will need to do on the shoot and in the darkroom.

Jason, I take your point because while I agree that there is a distinction between the type of things that works of arts are, and what they are not, I'm not sure about our traditional separations between the arts.

I do think there is some distinction between a painting and a novel, just like there is one between red and blue, but the problem that a principled distinction would face is that we can have an infinite number of intermediary cases (you know there will always be artists clever or obstinated enough to prove wrong any sort of separations!), just like the color spectrum progresses gradually.

mhv said:

Jason, I take your point because while I agree that there is a distinction between the type of things that works of arts are, and what they are not, I'm not sure about our traditional separations between the arts.

I do think there is some distinction between a painting and a novel, just like there is one between red and blue, but the problem that a principled distinction would face is that we can have an infinite number of intermediary cases (you know there will always be artists clever or obstinated enough to prove wrong any sort of separations!), just like the color spectrum progresses gradually.

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If something is art or not, is completely separated from process, and I think that allot of people go astray at that point in these discussions. If its printed in a darkroom on fiber, or painted on a canvas, that hardly qualifies anything as art. Nor is something that has seen the inside and assistance of a computer disqualified as art. It doesn't help that the amatuer side is at this point, blissfully ignorant of photographic craft. Art and craft are distinctly separate things, anyone remotely familiar with the two processes can see that digital imaging and traditional photography or whatever semantic one wants to use are distinctly separate crafts. Some persons try to fool themselves and others, for a variety of reasons, and it is also a soft transition, from digital to hybrid to traditional as you pointed out.

The point is that art has nothing to do with it, and never has.

I do find it interesting that nobody seems to obfuscate, and rename traditional work so as to make it appear to have a digital pedigree.

But I do think this is off topic, and as I said, wholly pedantic. Those who percieve no difference, wont. They don't want to.

Robopro
I am happy there are still people like you, and I am also happy not a lot of people like you. Photography, when it comes to art consideration, is the most difficult medium at many points. Like always and anywhere, camera owners always try to make it less painfull finding every kind of shortcuts to results in desire to produce even several works of art weekly. Arguing with them is useless, especialy over internet.
www.Leica-R.com

A topical example of the problem I was trying to raise regarding photography is the reaction to Lasse Gjertsen's sampling work. Someone on APUG posted the link a while ago, and today it is on the front page of Slashdot.

Here you have someone who does not have "traditional" instrument-playing skill (just like many photographers can't draw) but who nevertheless produces music (just like a photographer makes a picture).

The threads on Slashdot show that Gjertsen's work challenges common notions of what a real musician because he does not have instrument-playing skills, even though he understands composition, harmony, melody and rythm.

Of course that's the same issue that occured with the piano, the synthesizer, the sampler, the computer-generated series of music, etc. But it's a case that illustrates the recurring unease we have when medium-specific skills are sidestepped, and that forces us to question what we really consider to be artistic talent.

Another item of contention on the value of his work was the fact that people have been sampling for ages. Some have argued that in fact it's the addition of video that makes it more interesting.

Ole said:

The difficult thing is seeing the picture in the first place.

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There is another side to this which now prevents me from destroying any negatives. Often, years later, I will see the photograph that my subconcious saw when I took the picture. (Immediately afterwards, my concious mind may not see anything worthwhile in the negative.) So the entire process can take many years.

Gerald Koch said:

There is another side to this which now prevents me from destroying any negatives. Often, years later, I will see the photograph that my subconcious saw when I took the picture. (Immediately afterwards, my concious mind may not see anything worthwhile in the negative.) So the entire process can take many years.

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That's what I consider one of the best things about LF: There are so many fewer negatives, and so much better chance that you actually saw what you took a picture of - and not just thought you might have seen something.