I feel for any traditional, non-digital process to be relevant nowadays the photographic process itself has to be somewhat part of the creative process, and somewhat relate to the subject-matter photographed. For me, anything digital inbetween takes away the magic, but people may differ here.
I miss my darkroom and printing with an enlarger: the acidly smell of the chemicals in my tiny bathroom/darkroom, feeling the electrostatic when removing a sheet of Cibachrome from the envelope, seeing and manipulating the image projected onto the paper, the elevation seeing the print slowly emerging from the Cap-40 processor, the excitement of washing a successful print. Printing with my office printer (ET-8550) is just not the same even if it's much more efficient and gets better prints. It's like printing a business letter!
I fully agree with you, for me the photographic process has definitely to be part of the creative process. The extent to which that happens, in my view, is personal - and, it's a line we all need to draw, whether working with a purely digital process, a mixed digital / analog process or a purely analog process.
With the nearly unlimited possibilities for manipulation offered by digital, the need for drawing a line might be more evident; but, a lot of manipulation can be done in a mixed digital / analog process, and in a fully analog one as well. For instance, see the famous Ansel Adams vs Mortensen debate, and the work of the latter, a master of analog manipulation over 100 years ago.
E.g., when working with my Phase One IQ4 Achro, or with any digital camera before that, my line was: single shots only (no composites, no focus staking, etc); cloning garbage, dust spots, etc is ok; adding anything is not OK; and so on.
With my mixed analog / digital process, my line is: single shots only (no composites, etc); cloning garbage and dust spots after scanning is OK; adding anything is not OK; and so on.
More, post-processing aside, for me the creative process starts in the field. Being able to work with a large ground glass, with a camera offering full movements, with the limitation of having much fewer shots available and the extra focus this brings, and so on, is definitely part of the inspiration and of the creative process.
Your "line" is not adding any digital step into an analog workflow, and I can definitely see the point of that. My "line" is a little less purist than yours, and the aesthetics of starting with an analog negative, plus the post-processing direction that doing so push you towards, paired with the ethos of using an analog camera in the field, are magic enough for me to insert an analog step in my workflow.
Best regards,
Vieri
Thanks again!
but I am fine with it.
