Go Digital!
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It's with some regret and misgivings that I contemplate the future of traditional silver nitrate photography when compared with everything that the digital age has to offer. I mean, really, first there was George Eastman's "Box Browning" making the need for a chemistry degree redundant for taking a photograph. Cameras became smaller and smaller, emulsion technologies became more accurate (including color) so now there is no doubt - you shoot it, we print it. All of this technology has rendered photographic creativity an impotent eunich.
But is it? If you had been alive when Leonardo DiVinci was painting the Sistine Chapel and said, "Hey Leo, there's a better way. Why spend three years of your life with a brush when you could use a 'camera obscura' to create the outline and then you just paint by numbers?" Certainly possible as such technology had been extant since the time of Aristotle. Do you think Leo would have gone for it?
Original manuscripts of famous artists fetch tens of thousands at auctions. How much would someone pay for the original scribblings of John Lennon as he sat to pen "Strawberry Fields Forever?" Why would you pay that much when I can give you the words and music neatly typed in wordperfect detail and impeccible, unmistakable musical notation?
There are several answers and each one testifies to why traditional photography will always have a place in the world (for example, as digital becomes more prevalent and silver nitrate becomes more of an "antique black art" it will, thus, become more highly prized). Firstly, it's original, just as John Lennon's manuscript is original. You don't want the words and music to "Strawberry Fields" - you want to know that you hold a piece of paper that John Lennon held. Hell, it could be a shopping list - it really doesn't matter as to what is on the paper - it's the fact that he once held it.
Sound ridiculous? Possibly, but the fact remains that, although he took a lot of flak for the statement, there was a lot of truth to his assertion that the Beatles were "more popular than Jesus" and, in many ways were treated as such. But this is misdirecting us from the argument at point - there are many other examples of the "original is valuable" mentality. The Mona Lisa is priceless, but has been represented in alternate form, ad nauseum (it's not a difficult task to find a copy of the Mona Lisa). Similarly, the theft of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," while often charicatured and represented in alternate form, was considered a grave loss to the art community (and Munch painted four of them - three of which are still in known locations).
So why do we place so much passion in "the original?" There is definitely the "touching the artist's hand" as noted by the John Lennon example, but there is something else. Let's assume, for a moment, that silver nitrate photography did go entirely out of favour. Let's assume that artists the world over decided that there is no point in painting pictures because they can get a much closer representation of reality by using digital photography....
...wait a moment. Why didn't artists do that long before now? Photography, in some form, has been with us for almost three hundred years. So why do artists exist? I own an original print of a photograph of musical legend Frank Zappa. It was a gift from my wife, but I know it's still valued at over three hundred dollars. Well, that's the "touch" argument alluded to, before - it's a print of a limited edition. Hey, I've got a scanner - I can make copies. Well....no not really, because the photograph is a silver nitrate print, whereas a scanned and reproduced print would use other technologies that betray its authenticity.
Not convinced? Well, consider a photographic print of the Mona Lisa. While technically perfect in every detail, it will never fetch the price of the original. Now, if you consider that art is simply an accurate representation of a perceived reality, such as a Campbell's soup can, then digital photography has it all over all traditional forms of art. I can accurately represent anything that can be perceived with the human eye. Henceforth, all artists are out of work.
But wait a moment...let's consider that soup can. If I could just "take a photograph" of that soup can and have it be just as good as the real thing, then why did Andy Warhol make such a statement by painting by hand that which was commercially printed? Surely this is insanity. Well, um, no, not really. There is, partially, that "first hand" aspect involved here, but there is also something else going on...inaccuracy!
Serously, let's consider this. We have two very closely related, yet seemingly contradictory concepts at work here (just like time - Rex will contemplate this at some time in the future...no pun intended). That work is highly valued for accurate representation (the Mona Lisa - her eyes follow you as you move because her pupils are so accurately represented as focused on the "camera lens") and that work is highly valued for its inaccuate representation. You could be forgiven for assuming that this is a bizarre paradox of the art world that makes its doctrines incongruous with common sense (for example: I don't know anything about art, but I know what I like).
But really, there is a kind of logic here. I can get a rock anywhere. Wherever I get one it's a fairly accurate representation of a rock. But I can't get a diamond anywhere. But when I do get one...it's a fairly accurate representation of a rock. So what's the difference? Rarity, certainly. But these days we can make diamonds. They're called "cubic zirconia" and they're almost perfect in every detail. In fact, they're too perfect. Some hunk of compressed carbon dug up from a two mile deep mine in Africa will always fetch a higher price than a cubic zirconia. Why? Because it's imperfect. Anyone who has seen the original "Pink Panther" movie will realize that. The Pink Panther was so valuable because it had a distinctive imperfection - a defect that looked like a pink panther.
So we can assume that there are three elements (so far) that define the value of art...well, there's a fourth, desirability, but that seems to stem from the first three, and they are: the first hand (for want of a better term - I'm not an art major...well, I am, but a major in literature, not graphic art, so I'm not totally sure of the terminology)...hey, maybe if I put it into Latin it will sound more impressive. Let's call it the Prima Manus (which, I'm sure you've worked out, means "first hand").
This is probably the most important part, but next there is the accurate representation. Now, certainly, the likes of Jackson Pollack throw a wrench in the works, here, but this really wasn't crucial to my argument, anyway. Suffice it to say, that he represents a different genre of the art world - one that has no real, tangible, basis in reality except for the concept of complimentary color. For an equivalent in another art form, consider some of Paul Simon's music, which he creates lyrics for, not because there's any deep meaning, but simply because it "sounds good."
Finally, there is inaccurate representation (and Mr Pollack may come in here, too - sadly I'm not overly acquainted with the background meaning of his works - they do look like maniacal scribblings of a lunatic with a good sense of linear mathematics and a grasp of the color wheel...to which Rex the Strange says "hey, way to go - very expressive and two thumbs up!")
But I digress...
Go digital! Absolutely. If you want to show Aunt Mary-Jane the kiddies opening presents at Christmas. Then you will have picture perfect images of what really went on at that time with no interpritation or personality. No art.
Not even that. Photography has pretty well been bastardized since George Eastman took your precious rolls of film into his laboratories and "did all the rest." Go digital if you want to show Aunt Mary-Jane the kiddies opening presents at Christmas. But go photographic (and do your own processing - defects and all) if you want to create: "Kiddies Opening Presents."
Be sure to over-expose it...or make sure there's some dust on the lens of the enlarger...or be sure to make it just slightly a titch out of focus with a bright light source behind it. Or...what the hell!? Move the camera violently while taking the picture and blur it while enlarging. Put your hand over the photo lens while enlarging and, hey, has anyone tried what will happen if you add grape juice, white wine or 110 proof bourbon to your developing fluid? Try doing that with your digital picture!
I've developed two pictures in my darkroom so far that I'm very proud of and, trust me, they both suck big-time from a photographic accuracy stand point. One is a print of my backyard taken from a pinhole camera made from a USPS packaging box and the other is my father and my daughter, taken with too much exposure and out of focus from a one-hour-lab negative.
I've also taken several pictures with my wife's digital camera (which I bought her for Christmas) of kids, family, my darkroom (just drips with irony, doesn't it...kinda like Andy's soup cans). But I'll autograph the pinhole backyard and "dad and daughter" and, if any of the thousands of photographs I have or will take survive a thousand years from now, I'll bet those are it. They're certainly not perfect and that's what gives them that intangible quality of being "art" |
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