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Death of photography... again

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
I have a feeling that part of the difference in opinion originates from the way different people define differences in visual expression. If I look upon photography as an absolute visual value, digital and film photography are in the same group, since the basis for the creation is the same, although the media are different, as opposed to painting etc., which follows a different process.

If I look at digital and film photography as different values along an axis, where all visual arts are placed somewhere along the same line, the definitions become much less obvious, and where the borders between different forms of art are placed will depend on the individual observer.

I tend to think along the lines of the latter, but both obviously have their merits.

Did this make sense?
 

Mike M

New member
I have a feeling that part of the difference in opinion originates from the way different people define differences in visual expression. If I look upon photography as an absolute visual value, digital and film photography are in the same group, since the basis for the creation is the same, although the media are different, as opposed to painting etc., which follows a different process.
Yes, that makes total sense. I understand your ideas but just might use a different language to describe them. What you're describing is the simulation quality that is unique to digital. For example, film photography and painting can both be used to represent the same object, but neither medium could take the place of the other. On the contrary, digital can easily assume the form of both mediums and this gives it the quality of a chameleon or imitator of mediums.

The key point to understand is that a simulation is not the same as the real thing. So, even though digital can emulate the visual aesthetics of film photography it cannot honestly share the same relationship with an object. Digital's relationship to it's object is more similar to painting than to film. In fact, digital could easily be used to simulate the abstract object of a non-mimetic Mondrian painting in a way that could never be achieved with film.

If I look at digital and film photography as different values along an axis, where all visual arts are placed somewhere along the same line, the definitions become much less obvious, and where the borders between different forms of art are placed will depend on the individual observer.
Yes, absolutely! I believe that the "axis" you're describing is the 2-dimensional plane. Digital imaging (in it's current form), film photography and painting are all mediums confined to be displayed on 2D surfaces. Undoubtedly, this surface quality allows them to share many of the same visual characteristics with each other that they would not be able to share with 3-dimensional volume based mediums like sculpture and architecture.
 

Mike M

New member
As far as your criteria of using a medium in a way that "makes it specific," that seems like an arbitrary classification.
Apparently, you're having a really hard time with this...

The qualities related to medium specificity are determined precisely because they are NOT arbitrary. They are the exact qualities that make a particular medium individual and unique from any other. To the contrary, the qualities that mediums share between each other are the ones that are arbitrary.

Beyond the use of light, there is no limitation within photography, which is why cameraless photographic forms exist. I don't understand your exclusion.
Light IS an object. So, when you claim that "beyond the use of light there is no limitation to photography" then you are actually agreeing with me. That's another way of saying that photography is directly tied to it's object.
 

robertwright

New member
I agree with mike

I think there is something about presence in analogue photography- its is hard to get over that fact when you look at film under a loupe say, you get that feeling that there is a miniature version of the world imprinted physically on the film. Negatives and positives have the same quality, it is tactile even, you can examine the film under different lights and it is like looking at the world from space- miniature hills and valleys, undoubtedly real tiny recreations.

The "objectness" of analogue photography I think is the defining difference. Certainly in digital you can make prints, even analogue prints, but there will never be a connection to the real light-imprinted, sculpted original. Digital is a simulation of that imprint, but is not that imprint. This is the "indexical" that Mike is talking about I think.

So even if you are talking about what the eye finally sees- the finished print, you can fool the eye and make a simulation of an indexical print, but you cannot make an actual copy. This is an irony of analogue and digital- people denigrated analogue photography as mechanical reproduction, you could make hundreds of copies- well, those copies are not the same kind of copies as a digital copies, true copies- bit for bit. I guess digital is the logical conclusion to the photographic idea, pure mechanistic reproduction.

Thats kind of a contrary conclusion isn't it?

I think its funny that one could prefer the analogue copy process over the digital copy process simply because it is inferior:)

It is not surprising tho since we like our signifiers to be anchored, the pure anarchy of the post-modern sign system is very uncomfortable to go back to Mike's post. I'm way over my head here...
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Apparently, you're having a really hard time with this...

The qualities related to medium specificity are determined precisely because they are NOT arbitrary. They are the exact qualities that make a particular medium individual and unique from any other. To the contrary, the qualities that mediums share between each other are the ones that are arbitrary.



Light IS an object. So, when you claim that "beyond the use of light there is no limitation to photography" then you are actually agreeing with me. That's another way of saying that photography is directly tied to it's object.
Then you must agree with me as both film and digital photography use light.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
I agree with mike

I think there is something about presence in analogue photography- its is hard to get over that fact when you look at film under a loupe say, you get that feeling that there is a miniature version of the world imprinted physically on the film. Negatives and positives have the same quality, it is tactile even, you can examine the film under different lights and it is like looking at the world from space- miniature hills and valleys, undoubtedly real tiny recreations.

The "objectness" of analogue photography I think is the defining difference. Certainly in digital you can make prints, even analogue prints, but there will never be a connection to the real light-imprinted, sculpted original. Digital is a simulation of that imprint, but is not that imprint. This is the "indexical" that Mike is talking about I think.

So even if you are talking about what the eye finally sees- the finished print, you can fool the eye and make a simulation of an indexical print, but you cannot make an actual copy. This is an irony of analogue and digital- people denigrated analogue photography as mechanical reproduction, you could make hundreds of copies- well, those copies are not the same kind of copies as a digital copies, true copies- bit for bit. I guess digital is the logical conclusion to the photographic idea, pure mechanistic reproduction.

Thats kind of a contrary conclusion isn't it?

I think its funny that one could prefer the analogue copy process over the digital copy process simply because it is inferior:)

It is not surprising tho since we like our signifiers to be anchored, the pure anarchy of the post-modern sign system is very uncomfortable to go back to Mike's post. I'm way over my head here...
This is called a straw man fallacy. You present the argument then reason through it so it fits your conclusion. What you are really taking about is your sentimental attachment to film photography. In digital photography there is a "real light-imprinted, sculpted original," or at least just as much of one as in a photochemical process.
 
V

Vivek

Guest
I think there is something about presence in analogue photography- its is hard to get over that fact when you look at film under a loupe say, you get that feeling that there is a miniature version of the world imprinted physically on the film.
You can always make those hard copies on film from a digital capture and look under a loupe instead of a looking at a monitor.

Check this out (the last paragraph):




Review Nikon D2H

You should really check out his gymnastic images.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Of course, the other problem is that the frame Mike has chosen to use to define photography is a subjective one. Most of the concepts in art criticism are problematic because they are never tested--and yes, you can test these. And these concepts are stuck in time. And Collingwood (and Joyce) with this concept of being able to divide art into proper and improper types is hugely problematic.
 

robertwright

New member
This is called a straw man fallacy. You present the argument then reason through it so it fits your conclusion. What you are really taking about is your sentimental attachment to film photography. In digital photography there is a "real light-imprinted, sculpted original," or at least just as much of one as in a photochemical process.
show me a digital sensor with a real light imprint on it and I'll buy that..:)

in the photochemical process the medium is altered. in the digital process the medium is not altered, it is an electron counter that resets each time.

I think you are having a film -etch-a-sketch problem.

but yes I am sentimental how nice of you to notice. :)
 

robertwright

New member
You can always make those hard copies on film from a digital capture and look under a loupe instead of a looking at a monitor.

Check this out (the last paragraph):




Review Nikon D2H

You should really check out his gymnastic images.
perhaps. but I was relating more the feeling you get from experiencing photographs, the wow you get when you see for example a 4x5 transparency on a light table. I trust my feelings more than any rational argument you can make about this.

that said- just this week I worked on a job and we had digital capture and there was a macbook with a new retina display, and also an eizo side by side- I wanted the eizo so I could see what I was familiar with and the retina is a new thing for me so I don't trust it.

everyone preferred the retina- mainly contrast of course, it is like the iphone in that it makes things look "sexy"- but the other part of it and i think this gets back to the feelings we get when we look at film under a loupe or examine a print closeup, the retina starts to get to the detail level you need for the eye to really fascinate on an object.

pixel peeping has all those negative connotations but there is a connection i think to that and this object-fascination, it is great to look at a digital capture at 100% on screen, it is a pleasure of looking.

The retina screen is much better in that regard, it feels more luxurious to the eye and there is an emotional pleasure in that, so I think we are starting to see the possibilities of digital capture to offer the same satisfaction as the analogue looking process.

Articles today in the news also about the Hobbit in 48fps and the new Star Trek in imax 3d screened for the press also hint at this new digital pleasure in looking, the result of better processes.

Of course I am nostalgic and sentimental about film, but I know I am judging digital against it and digital is very immature in comparison, we are just beginning to see what it can do.
 

Mike M

New member
So even if you are talking about what the eye finally sees- the finished print, you can fool the eye and make a simulation of an indexical print, but you cannot make an actual copy. This is an irony of analogue and digital- people denigrated analogue photography as mechanical reproduction, you could make hundreds of copies- well, those copies are not the same kind of copies as a digital copies, true copies- bit for bit. I guess digital is the logical conclusion to the photographic idea, pure mechanistic reproduction.

Thats kind of a contrary conclusion isn't it?
That's a great point. For example, 1000 prints could be made from a single film frame that could all appear visually identical to each other. However, each individual print still maintains it's own unique material structure (atoms) or "fingerprint," so no two prints are ever truly identical with one another. Meanwhile, 1000 copies of a digital image could appear visually and structurally identical. No individual copy is capable of honestly retaining anything that could be mistaken for a unique fingerprint.

There is a bit of a "digital paradox" in the sense that film may be a more honest reproduction of an object, but digital is a more true reproduction-of-a-reproduction of an object.

in the photochemical process the medium is altered. in the digital process the medium is not altered, it is an electron counter that resets each time.
That's exactly the right path of thinking!
 

Shashin

Well-known member
show me a digital sensor with a real light imprint on it and I'll buy that..:)

in the photochemical process the medium is altered. in the digital process the medium is not altered, it is an electron counter that resets each time.

I think you are having a film -etch-a-sketch problem.

but yes I am sentimental how nice of you to notice. :)
In digital, the medium is the RAW file. It has a real light imprint. Both film and digital are a process and a process that can become less and less direct. Slides are essentially an imprint of darkness, because that is what you are left with--positive processes need an intermediate process to create the image (and Mike already dismissed chemical processes which this is). The only "direct" image is a latent one because once you start a process you are affecting results and processes don't always have a linear relationship to exposure. Basically, one processes is encoded in density, one in values. Both are directly a result of the process, but neither is actually light.

There is nothing wrong with loving a process. I loved running my color darkroom and dye-tranfer printing. There is nothing wrong about being sentimental. I just don't find it a very useful position.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
However, each individual print still maintains it's own unique material structure (atoms) or "fingerprint," so no two prints are ever truly identical with one another.
The atoms in my inkjet prints are identical?
 

robertwright

New member
In digital, the medium is the RAW file. It has a real light imprint. Both film and digital are a process and a process that can become less and less direct. Slides are essentially an imprint of darkness, because that is what you are left with--positive processes need an intermediate process to create the image (and Mike already dismissed chemical processes which this is). The only "direct" image is a latent one because once you start a process you are affecting results and processes don't always have a linear relationship to exposure. Basically, one processes is encoded in density, one in values. Both are directly a result of the process, but neither is actually light.

There is nothing wrong with loving a process. I loved running my color darkroom and dye-tranfer printing. There is nothing wrong about being sentimental. I just don't find it a very useful position.
I like this idea that the raw file is a unique "imprint"- you just have to adjust your idea of imprint to be something non-physical.

It is true that the raw file is a unique set of data, and no two raw files will be identical- the smallest fraction of a second will produces a different raw file, even if you just figure the random noise level in the sensor.

And both analogue and digital process are latent in the sense that both require "development" to reveal the image, ie, dev or debayering.

I've never really thought of a data set as an object but I guess it is if you consider one quality of objects is that they are discrete.
 

Mike M

New member
I like this idea that the raw file is a unique "imprint"- you just have to adjust your idea of imprint to be something non-physical.
But that's exactly what makes digital an imposter. The moment that a non-physical object (abstract) substitutes for a physical object (concrete) is the moment that reality becomes a simulacrum.


It is true that the raw file is a unique set of data, and no two raw files will be identical- the smallest fraction of a second will produces a different raw file, even if you just figure the random noise level in the sensor.

And both analogue and digital process are latent in the sense that both require "development" to reveal the image, ie, dev or debayering.

I've never really thought of a data set as an object but I guess it is if you consider one quality of objects is that they are discrete
.
Concrete objects have defined boundaries. Abstract objects do not. Which one of those categories of object would a data set most likely fit within? There are all kinds of points to talk about here.... unfortunately, I just don't have the drive to continue with the current discussion at GetDPI. However, I just wanted to bring up one more thing before leaving...

Most all of the arguments encountered from people that are fanatical about making digital and film equivalent mediums (or counterparts) stems precisely from digital's position as a simulation of mediums. Digital is always saying, "Hey, I'm just as good as film or even better." But it's never trying to be it's own thing. In other words, it's always seeking to emulate, equal, or better an already defined medium but never attempting to define itself. Paradoxically, that lack of definition is exactly what defines it! It's a simulation, a chameleon and an imitator. It is a distinct medium and it does operate by it's own rules. But it can never admit that to itself because that would expose it for the imposter that it is.
 

robertwright

New member
But that's exactly what makes digital an imposter. The moment that a non-physical object (abstract) substitutes for a physical object (concrete) is the moment that reality becomes a simulacrum.




Concrete objects have defined boundaries. Abstract objects do not. Which one of those categories of object would a data set most likely fit within? There are all kinds of points to talk about here.... unfortunately, I just don't have the drive to continue with the current discussion at GetDPI. However, I just wanted to bring up one more thing before leaving...

Most all of the arguments encountered from people that are fanatical about making digital and film equivalent mediums (or counterparts) stems precisely from digital's position as a simulation of mediums. Digital is always saying, "Hey, I'm just as good as film or even better." But it's never trying to be it's own thing. In other words, it's always seeking to emulate, equal, or better an already defined medium but never attempting to define itself. Paradoxically, that lack of definition is exactly what defines it! It's a simulation, a chameleon and an imitator. It is a distinct medium and it does operate by it's own rules. But it can never admit that to itself because that would expose it for the imposter that it is.
perhaps the point I made about the newer display technologies is where digital is heading- hi dpi colour accurate hi contrast ratio and (ugh) 3-D?

Lots of things to think about - I agree that it is hard to see data as an object and to love that object in the same way as the film/photograph object.

That started me thinking, what other "data sets" or symbol groups do we fascinate over and love? Books. Books as objects can be themselves art objects but you can read Tolstoy in a cheap paperback and that really is an art experience in a data set- it all "develops" in your head. And we love those experiences. So if we get over the abstract/concrete thing then you could see the raw file as the photographic "novel" of reality.

?
 

Mike M

New member
started me thinking, what other "data sets" or symbol groups do we fascinate over and love? Books. Books as objects can be themselves art objects but you can read Tolstoy in a cheap paperback and that really is an art experience in a data set- it all "develops" in your head. And we love those experiences. So if we get over the abstract/concrete thing then you could see the raw file as the photographic "novel" of reality.
Cool! You're describing "imagination." Imagination sits in the border region between the concrete and the abstract. It's not really sensation or reason and shares qualities of both. There is a direct comparison to be made between digital files and text that goes back to the sign system from semiotics. A digital image can never be an indexical sign because it remains disconnected from it's object. However, it can be an iconic sign and indirectly represent an object in the same way that a text can indirectly represent an object. Non-literal representation is what digital shares with Tolstoy.

We can try and think about it like this....If an author were to write, "John is angry," then that would be similar to a literal or direct representation of John's anger. However, if an author were to write, "John's face is red, his blood is boiling, and he's stomping his feet," then that would be a non-literal or indirect representation of John's anger. Both sentences written by the author are representative, but one is literal/direct while the other is non-literal/indirect.

These examples of representation in literature can be compared to the differences in representation between digital imaging and film photography. Film, because of it's power to directly represent, is similar to the first sentence "John is angry." On the contrary, digital, because of it's power to indirectly represent, is more similar to the second sentence. Which type of representation would be more interesting in literature? Well, most folks would probably say the second because the first is so literal that it's boring. This is the key to understanding the proper use of digital in representation. It operates best when it is non-literal because that is precisely how it sparks the imagination to it's fullest. Usually, when people attempt to use digital to directly represent then it becomes boring with an audience.

The real power of digital imaging is it's talent for non-literal representation. This is what makes it so good at creating fictions (iconic signs) and fantasies (symbolic signs.) On the other hand, film has a talent for literal representation and that's what makes it better suited for non-fiction (indexical signs.)
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Interesting from a guy that makes art with an iPad drawing program.

Kodak must have had a horrendous overstock of fixer 8-years ago when they stopped producing the stuff as it is still in stock:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Kodak+fixer&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=Kodak+fixer&hl=en&client=safari&tbo=u&rls=en&source=univ&tbm=shop&sa=X&ei=cnoIUebrI4j00gHX1YDgCw&ved=0CD8Qsxg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.41642243,d.dmQ&fp=282a5fa2d48afa70&biw=2370&bih=1235

I am glad he is not into bondage. WTH?
 
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