Death of photography... again

[Jorgen Udvang]

I've always tended to agree with Erwin Put's claim that photography died with digital. Photography does not exist
After watching Nokia's latest technologies, I agree even more; it's no longer photography, it's computer manipulations. Sometime in the near future, people will keep photographic renderings of themselves and their friends in their mobile phones, together with blue skies and other pleasant "memories", enabling them to create perfect holiday shots whatever the circumstances may be.

Camera Extras for Nokia Lumia -- More Options for Capturing Great Pictures - YouTube

I never saw a better argument for using more film.

 

[stephengilbert]

As Puts said so well: "On montrera que l'improprement nommee 'photographie numerique' deborde totalement la photographie par sa matiere, son mode de circulation, son fonctionnement et son regime de verit - seuls certains usages la relient momentanement encore a la photographie proprement dite."

A clear step forward from simply using turgid English: use French in an English language article. Bravo, Erwin.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

What a load of stale BS.

This sentence says it all - "The essence of film-based photography is not only the fact that the mechanism of capturing an image and fixing it in a silver halide grain structure creates a final picture that can hardly be altered. "

Yeah right.

and another - Digital image detection with pixellated solid-state sensors is based on a reconstruction of sampled images and is recorded electronically. There is no one-to-one relationship with the original physical scene.

In all the arguments for film over digital I've heard over the years I have never once heard such pretentious nonsense.

 

[Vivek]

I never saw a better argument for using more film.

Why only film has to be associated with photography? Medium of capture and reproduction always changed (had to otherwise it would have died) with time.

[Glass plates had their own charm. Other types before that are in collector's domain now.]

Apple have patented an interchangeable lens phone.

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Why only film has to be associated with photography? Medium of capture and reproduction always changed (had to otherwise it would have died) with time.

That's a question of how one defines photography. Literally, the word photograph means to paint with light (Greek: phos – light and graph – paint). What it has mostly come to mean during nearly 200 years of photography is to capture a visual moment in time the way the photographer saw it when it happened. Although there has always been editing and manipulations, they have mostly been seen as exactly that; manipulations. Just think about how many politically sensitive photos have been criticised for being manipulated by removing or inserting people, changing or emphasising elements in the photo etc.

With digital photography, the options to edit and manipulate have become almost endless. Most of us, also those who didn't do any editing whatsoever with film photographs, are doing our best to make our images look better using computer software. But that is not "painting with light". That is modifying pixels with a computer, and although one can always claim, like many do, that Ansel Adams spent as much time in the darkroom as he did taking the original photo, the question arises when a photo is no longer a photo but some kind of digital art.

When a computer program can manipulate a photo by replacing images of faces with some that has a more pleasing look, the photo becomes fiction, since it doesn't any longer reflect the mood of the original scene. It's not a photo anymore, but rather a "digital collage". One can hardly criticise the technique or the motives behind it, and it's even possible to claim that it's closer to painting which is 100% manipulative and clearly an art.

But is it photography?

 

[jonoslack]

Film has always been manipulated as well.
It's not the medium . . it's the massage, and you can massage any medium.

Going back to film because of over processing of digital images is like going back to a horse drawn carriage because you don't like DSG gearboxes!

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Most photographers are not "going back to film", but some of us are using it more now than just a few years ago. In my case, it's partly because of the film "look" and partly because it's a different experience altogether. Still the fact remains that digital photos are more easily manipulated, and because they are, it's more often done and more radically so.

With the technology announced by Nokia (and similar technologies announced by others earlier), my question is: How much can we change a photo and still call it a photo? When we talk about "photographic memory", we use the expression to describe a person who remembers things exactly as they were. But when a photo describes something that didn't really happen (we all wished that aunt Augusta had smiled in that family portrait, but she didn't, so we exchanged her face with a photo of her where she did smile), is it still a photo or is it a collage, a collage of smiling faces?

When do we cross the border, or have we crossed it already?

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Family photos isn't journalism. All this is doing is saving the time of having to shoot the picture again. The end result is what we wanted when we put the camera to our eye. It does not need to be 'honest'. We do not and never have wanted it to be honest.

I'm a wedding photographer. Practically everything we do photographically would and is considered dishonest by journalistic standards. Always has been.

Fine art photography is again heavily manipulated and always has been. So is fashion, product, portraiture, etc, etc.

The way you use lighting is telling a lie to the reality, ditto positioning, ditto focal length usage, ditto a million other aspects of photography. Even pointing the camera here and not there is making a personal statement about how you want to record a scene.

A friend of mine saw my project work and remarked 'it's amazing how you manage to show our city in a way that you don't see the dirt and the garbage'. He didn't mean that I had cloned it out, just that I knew where to capture the essence of how I saw the city, without the negative elements. All of my work is a lie by journalistic standards.

The idea that photography is some kind of pure recording medium is and always has been a joke. The idea that an already extremely false argument can be used to somehow prove that film is more true to 'photography' than digital is farcical.

The comparison to memory is even more of a joke. Our memories are extremely subverted to our own wishes and emotions. They are very far from the actual truth of what happened. We remember that our Auntie was happy at that party, why should we want a picture of her not smiling and why is swapping that picture with one taken a few seconds before using software not true to either what happened (she did smile) or how we percieved them to have happened (she was happy). If anything the photograph was a lie, using the fact that is is capturing in 2D in a split second, it has shown Auntie not being happy when in actual fact she was!

In other words, I call BS to any claim that photography has ever been a frozen memory of how things were. Most of the time it is, was and will be far from that.

 

[fotografz]

I've always tended to agree with Erwin Put's claim that photography died with digital. Photography does not exist
After watching Nokia's latest technologies, I agree even more; it's no longer photography, it's computer manipulations. Sometime in the near future, people will keep photographic renderings of themselves and their friends in their mobile phones, together with blue skies and other pleasant "memories", enabling them to create perfect holiday shots whatever the circumstances may be.

Camera Extras for Nokia Lumia -- More Options for Capturing Great Pictures - YouTube

I never saw a better argument for using more film.

The closest form of "pure photography" is crime scene stuff ... that's about it. That doesn't depend on what media is being used, it depends on the chain of evidence not being compromised.

One has to wonder if photography had leapt from wet plates directly to digital capture would none of the great photographers and photography have happened? Since they were great because of content not media used, I'd argue nothing would have been different.

Basically, most photographers have always wanted to alter the image after the fact. Excluding contact printers (maybe), every image ever taken was manipulated to some degree. Intent is the driver, not the process itself. Post work could be grossly over-done with film just as much as with digital images ... and was. However, it is true that with digital being so easy, more people are prone to doing it ... but they don't have to, they choose to (i.e., intent, not process).

When I was a young Art Director (before digital photography existed at all), I was always amazed by the skill of the photo retouchers ... they could convincingly turn a 4 door car into a 2 door, and change the color of the car from blue to red. That didn't change with digital, except make it faster and easier.

IMO, the better argument for using more film, especially B&W, is to keep it's unique beauty alive, manipulated or not. Random sized grain is aesthetically different in result compared to regimented pixels all lined up like good little soldiers. As good as digital has become, as good as post programs may be, there isn't any digital image in existence that looks the same as a film based image ... IF you care about such things ... which some do and some don't.

-Marc

P.S., I don't speak or read French. English is my first language, and my second is American ... pardon my ignorance

 

[Vivek]

The closest form of "pure photography" is crime scene stuff ... that's about it. That doesn't depend on what media is being used, it depends on the chain of evidence not being compromised.

Not what I hear from some folks familiar with what goes on with some of the "experts".

To borrow Jono's saying: "it is the massage".

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

I read this thread with interest. I'm apparently on a different track driving a different train. Might as well stay there

 

[Vivek]

Jorgen,

Whatever you do, do not ever take any of the digi cams apart! If you see the innards of the modern wonders, you may even give up photography altogether!

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Oh well, there's no way around digital cameras, at least part of the time, which means there's no way around electronics as well. Even some of my film cameras are full of circuit boards, which I don't mind as long as what comes out in the other end has a "natural" look, whatever that is. It's interesting to see what cameras "speak my language" and which ones don't. That's different from person to person I suppose, but the search for technical perfection becomes increasingly uninteresting. When I find a camera that does what I want it to do, without the need to dive into menus and user manuals, it's a keeper.

Oh, and I don't care if aunt Augusta smiles in the photo. Life is full of imperfections. Photos that tell another story lie. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm a lousy event photographer in general and a terrible wedding photographer in particular. I have to try CMS 20 with the GX680. Nowhere to hide with a film like that in medium format. And a drum scanner. Good thing that the life is endless, isn't it? So that we can experiment into eternity, searching for whatever soul we are looking for in our photos

 

[robertwright]

maybe it is more of an ontological (?) argument than anything, the presence of a scene in front of a lens, a light ray from that object to the presence of film inside a box via a lens. There is a a one to one correlation between subject and record ie; the record is a photochemical imprint which exists after development and is un-alterable in that it is not plastic or malleable, or ductile, unless you want to physically push the emulsion around like with polaroid.

Digital removes the fact of the record, it is just data, and it has no colour either, that is inferred via mathematics. A different math would produce a different colour. Also the pixels are not altered in the same way that grain is altered, they are not permanently changed. It is like chipping away at a marble block and the block is restored the next day.

Someone mentioned that they doubt that the best photographs over the last 100 years would have changed if we had simply moved from wet plate to digital. I'd argue something completely different, that the limitations of a medium are directly responsible and enabling of the art produced. The physical mastery of the dumb art object is what produces something more, like a piano or violin- simply programming tones into a computer does not create a performance, or if it does, it is a very different human performance.

I would argue that the history of technology is that it takes real experiences and creates synthetic ones, ones that are diminished, impoverished and neutered. I'm happy to have technology create vaccines and water purification and energy, but I'd like less of it in my art thank you.

Digital technologies hopefully free us from the jerry uelsmann effect- the need to beat what is a perfect medium for capturing reality into one for producing fantasy. But I don't have much hope: whenever I see a former film photographer adopt digital and do the same thing inevitably the result is worse. If Sally Mann ever switches I will shed a tear.

(somewhat tongue in cheek but pretty much straight from the heart.)

 

[Stefan Steib]

Well compared to the computing power of our brains using our eyes as image detection systems with a constructed reality , filling in assumptions of "possible" recognition by experience and memory, I would say even Digital Cameras are still very primitive. So there is plenty of room for "art by limitations".............

And if this would be the case, why is then painting supposed to be real art and photography which in reality is much more primitive (scaled from the complexity of the reception model) supposed to be only mechanistic sampling ?

I beg to differ, the results are not worse, they are different. If this is for the better or the worse is probably beyond objective judgement. Maybe a personal opinion.

regards
Stefan

 

[fotografz]

maybe it is more of an ontological (?) argument than anything, the presence of a scene in front of a lens, a light ray from that object to the presence of film inside a box via a lens. There is a a one to one correlation between subject and record ie; the record is a photochemical imprint which exists after development and is un-alterable in that it is not plastic or malleable, or ductile, unless you want to physically push the emulsion around like with polaroid.

Digital removes the fact of the record, it is just data, and it has no colour either, that is inferred via mathematics. A different math would produce a different colour. Also the pixels are not altered in the same way that grain is altered, they are not permanently changed. It is like chipping away at a marble block and the block is restored the next day.

Someone mentioned that they doubt that the best photographs over the last 100 years would have changed if we had simply moved from wet plate to digital. I'd argue something completely different, that the limitations of a medium are directly responsible and enabling of the art produced. The physical mastery of the dumb art object is what produces something more, like a piano or violin- simply programming tones into a computer does not create a performance, or if it does, it is a very different human performance.

I would argue that the history of technology is that it takes real experiences and creates synthetic ones, ones that are diminished, impoverished and neutered. I'm happy to have technology create vaccines and water purification and energy, but I'd like less of it in my art thank you.

Digital technologies hopefully free us from the jerry uelsmann effect- the need to beat what is a perfect medium for capturing reality into one for producing fantasy. But I don't have much hope: whenever I see a former film photographer adopt digital and do the same thing inevitably the result is worse. If Sally Mann ever switches I will shed a tear.

(somewhat tongue in cheek but pretty much straight from the heart.)

This doesn't quite make sense even though I inexplicably agree with you ... :ROTFL:

If the digital image is just data, is it not even more like a dumb violin just waiting for some artistic soul to master it and extract that personal interpretation?

So, if Barnack had come up with a M9 at a time when everyone else was toting around a view camera, the decisive moment movement would never have happened? HCB would never have developed his approach? Doisneau? Boubat? Kertesz? Chim? These are humanist artists and would have used what ever to express themselves. To say they did because of film does them a disservice IMO..

Film is not, nor ever was, pure as the driven snow like it's being implied here.

BTW, I never tried to mimic Jerry Uelsmann with film, and for the most part don't do much more with digital than I did with film. Just because you can, doesn't mean you do.

Break out your hanky, I believe Sally Mann has a Leica M8, or did ... my Leica dealer sold it to her.

-Marc

 

[robertwright]

now I have to go bone up on primitivism...why I like this forum.

 

[robertwright]

well hcb did have the 'latest technology' with him- leica and fast film. So I guess you can say that they would have done what they would have done with any tool- however I don't actually believe that since tool matter a great deal, and the limits imposed by tools and the way a tool "cuts" or the marks it makes are distinct, they vibrate, etc. I like Vittorio Storaro when he says the vibrations of the light are impressed on the film, and then when the film is projected the vibrations are sent back out to the eye. From his heart to my eye.

Storaro is not adverse to digital technology but he does romance the opto-electro-chemical part of film, and I think i believe him.

I think of Weston doing a 5 hr exposure of a pepper and I know in my heart that it would not be the same on a phase back....

This doesn't quite make sense even though I inexplicably agree with you ... :ROTFL:

If the digital image is just data, is it not even more like a dumb violin just waiting for some artistic soul to master it and extract that personal interpretation?

So, if Barnack had come up with a M9 at a time when everyone else was toting around a view camera, the decisive moment movement would never have happened? HCB would never have developed his approach? Doisneau? Boubat? Kertesz? Chim? These are humanist artists and would have used what ever to express themselves. To say they did because of film does them a disservice IMO..

Film is not, nor ever was, pure as the driven snow like it's being implied here.

BTW, I never tried to mimic Jerry Uelsmann with film, and for the most part don't do much more with digital than I did with film. Just because you can, doesn't mean you do.

Break out your hanky, I believe Sally Mann has a Leica M8, or did ... my Leica dealer sold it to her.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

Oh well, there's no way around digital cameras, at least part of the time, which means there's no way around electronics as well. Even some of my film cameras are full of circuit boards, which I don't mind as long as what comes out in the other end has a "natural" look, whatever that is. It's interesting to see what cameras "speak my language" and which ones don't. That's different from person to person I suppose, but the search for technical perfection becomes increasingly uninteresting. When I find a camera that does what I want it to do, without the need to dive into menus and user manuals, it's a keeper.

Oh, and I don't care if aunt Augusta smiles in the photo. Life is full of imperfections. Photos that tell another story lie. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm a lousy event photographer in general and a terrible wedding photographer in particular. I have to try CMS 20 with the GX680. Nowhere to hide with a film like that in medium format. And a drum scanner. Good thing that the life is endless, isn't it? So that we can experiment into eternity, searching for whatever soul we are looking for in our photos

When people smile at me at a wedding, I walk away. While there are some "Grip and Grin" shots one has to do to stay in business, it is usually about 1/2 hour of a 8 hour day of candid work. If it is more, I send the client to a different photographer that specializes in that approach. Imperfection makes some of the best wedding photos.

I do understand the affection for film photography and some of the tools. I miss two specific tools to this day, my mechanical Hasselblad V and Leica M cameras ... I just cannot stand not having a winding lever on a M camera ... there was just something about that whole visceral involvement of cocking a M4, M6 or MP.

It has crossed my mind to just chuck the whole wad of digital stuff, and use the money to pay technicians to process the film and make prints to my specifications. I did that way back when I first started, where I didn't have a darkroom and was to busy with my career to do all that ... I hired a photo student to do it. It was a great relationship that lasted for about 2 years. I still have some of the prints.

We have lost something and we have gained something.

-Marc

 

[Godfrey]

... When I find a camera that does what I want it to do, without the need to dive into menus and user manuals, it's a keeper.
...

I'd simplify that further and elide the digital and film bits:

"When I find a camera that does what I want it to and doesn't piss me off in the process, it's a keeper."

I don't care whether I need to use a menu, a button, a knob or dial, or a user manual. I do care that the controls and the explanation for how to use them is appropriately accessible, understandable, and rememberable for the tasks that I need to do.

I have no illusions that this is easy to achieve either.