digital vs traditional photography

[chris jordan]

Hi guys, I thought it might be appropriate for me to finally weigh in with a perspective that some of you might not have. I just returned from Santa Fe, where I was attending an event involving 100 photographic artists selected from around the country, and about 50 art museum curators, book publishers, critics, gallerists and collectors from all over the US. Some of the most important names in the photographic art world were there. We met in groups of various sizes over several days and discussed a wide range of issues that pertain to the making and selling of photogaphic art.

Virtually all of the color prints presented were made digitally (I counted at least seven different color digital process), and many of the images were recorded with digital cameras. There were digital black & white prints, as well as a very small number of traditional darkroom prints, and a whole host of interesting hybrids including darkroom prints from digital negatives, bromoil prints made from digital camera exposures, and the like.

The attention of the photographers and the reviewers focussed on the substance and relevance and originality of the images, and only secondarily on the quality of the prints--which was judged by how the prints looked and not how they were made. The abstract questions of whether digitally-made photographs are more or less valuable than traditional photographs, or more or less artistic or creative or expressive, were not raised even once by anyone there. I think any argument about these issues would have seemed short-sighted and kind of silly in the presence of the brilliantly creative and beautiful work being presented there.

My point here is that these arguments that you guys keep making over and over again here about digital versus traditional photography are irrelevant to the rest of the fine-art photographic world. The important artists, museums, critics, galleries, and private and public collectors have already weighed in over the last few years, and have determined virtually unanimously that digital photographic processes have just as much merit and value as any other photographic process, and that the expressive value of photography lies with the message, not the medium.

So you guys can keep on getting involved in this same fight again and again, but in doing so you are missing a bigger point, which is about supporting the creative process and the making of art. It is sad, because I think that you tend to bring each other down in these discussions (which really seems to be the unspoken intention of the people who dominate these threads, as far as I can tell).

I propose that maybe it's time to put this bickering to bed and get back to a more mutually supportive atmosphere around here.

[David Luttmann]

Truer words......

Funny, this is exactly what some of us have been saying all along. Deaf ears I guess.

All the best, Chris.

[paulr]

Amen.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Sorry to disappoint the cheerleaders, but the US is not the center of the universe. I attended a similar function here in Mexico where we had curators, book editors and gallery reviewers coming from places like France and Spain. Nobody here presented ink jet work but one American guy and his work was not very well received. So this notion that "the art world" has accepted ink jet is more like the US art world. Then again if they organize a portfolio review and everybody brings ink jet, what are they supposed to do, shut it down? This sounds to me more like shoving down the throat than "acceptance."

No matter, in the end I think that once the novelty of big posters wears out the outcome will be different, at least in the art world.

[Todd Schoenbaum]

"You run into the most beautiful woman that ever lived, she also gives you the hottest, the most passionate and satisfying sex you ever had, does that mean you mean you get rid of her because you find out she wears a wig?"



Actually, I think that a more appropriate analogy would be if I found out that she was a robot, or a plastic surgery queen, or used to be a man. Would that change how I felt about that very same person ... damn right it would.
Neglecting the means used to achieve the end, in any situation is a very dangerous approach. I'll let you come up with examples on your own. Oh, I cant resist... think baseball players on steroids, beautiful but poorly made cars, all sorts of political events, etc.



" How can you backtrack and unlike something?"
Because the means are important to me. This is the depth of a photograph, what lies beyond the image itself. The final result is the most important thing, but how it was achieved matters very much to me as well.



"Isn't this really a matter of despite you not prefering digital, somebody getting over on you with a digital image and you're not willing to admit it?"
Getting it over on me with an image? Like I lost to a digital image at a contest? Yeah, that sort of think would probably piss me off, but so would losing to a hand-colored silver print. But I dont enter contests. And as far as I know, no one has ever "gotten over on me" with a digital (or traditional) image.

The reason my words may seem strong or offensive is that I care about my craft, deeply. I dont like things that cut it down, that reduce it to techno-gimicry. I feel that computers dilute the craft. You dont... fine. I dont really care. Actually I am glad for the digital (d)evolution. I would never have been able to afford the quality of the equipment that I now use. Also, I think that digital will prove to be a wonderful method for seperating out the photographic craftsman from the dabblers.



Sorry for all the fire, but passion burns bright.

[Jeff Moore]

Very well put, Chris. I don't think I have ever agreed more with any words that have been written on this forum.

[Jonathan Brewer]

'I feel that computers dilute the craft. You dont... fine. I dont really care. Actually I am glad for the digital (d)evolution. I would never have been able to afford the quality of the equipment that I now use. Also, I think that digital will prove to be a wonderful method for seperating out the photographic craftsman from the dabblers.'....................................I can respect anybodies preference for choosing to work in whatever medium, and I do, and it's not a matter of whether you think computers dilute the craft, and/or you think that I don't, which incidently doesn't happen to be the case, since I shoot straight film for the most part, I do manipulate shots w/photoshop when I feel like it, on the occaision when I have an idea that I can accomplish using those particular tools.

Because you use film doesn't make you a craftsman, you are either good at your craft or you're not, and on top of that you choose to use certain tools, there are plenty of people who are so called purists that make lousy pictures, so this thing w/craft is an individual thing exclusive of what's used to execute the final image, quite a bit of digital is flashy, unimaginative, gimmicky, BUT NOT ALL OF IT................................but none of this has anything to do with the 'doublethink' you engaged in when you said you saw something you liked, found later it was digital and suggested that you couldn't appeciate it, I mentioned the beautiful sexy woman w/a wig because as ridiculous to you as it may sound, it fits what you're saying to a 'T', you enjoyed these images, finding out some other particulars about an image whatever they may be isn't going to change that.

You eat something,....... it's delicious,.......................................... you find out later that the ingredients don't agree w/you, that doesn't changed the fact that you enjoyed it, regardless of whether or not you knew what was in it. In terms of the other examples like the analogy of meeting what you thought was a woman who turned out to be a man, I'm sure you'd be pissed but then again in this day and age maybe you should have looked a little closer before you leap.

I don't wish to get into a pissing contest, but my take on what you said was that you liked something, found out later it was made w/a process you don't respect, so somehow you rework it some kind of way to where you say that didn't really happen.

If the idividual who did the image was good enough to use a process you don't like to get you to like it(however brief that might've been), then he did 'get over on you' in a sense, you just don't like that fact, that he/she was good enough to make you like it and you would've kept on liking it, until you found otherwise, now that position is an untenable one to defend but I'm sure you will go on defending it.

Let's get one thing straight, I'm for enjoying/being inspired by good work, I'm not for the dilution of craft by anybody using anything, and I think it's disingenious of you to suggest otherwise because I don't happen to agree w/you.

[Wayne]

Very well put Chris, but nothing you said hasnt already been said.
BTW, its not surprising to me that it doesnt even come up at a conference of "selected" photographers who mostly use digital. Thats like sampling a Southern Baptist convention for their views on Roe Vs Wade.

Jonathon, yes it would matter a lot to me. You are free to feel differently and sleep with passionate, wigged women. He didnt say he never liked/enjoyed the picture originally, he said he changed his mind after finding out it was digital. Are we not allowed to change out mind as we learn more? Have you never liked someone or something and then changed your mind when you learned more? What if you found out your woman was having that same passionate sex with your best friend too? A whole lot more than the image matters to a lot of people-might as well get used to it, its not going away.

[David Luttmann]

"Sorry to disappoint the cheerleaders, but the US is not the center of the universe."

And Mexico is? LOL

Sorry, but it is painfully obvious what is really going on here. For some on this thread, it no longer has anything to do with quality, craft, or workmanship. It has now become outright snobbery. It comes down to a fear from those using old methods not willing to accept that they no longer have to go through all the drudgery in the darkroom. Just because the photographer doesn't use film, or prints digitally, does not detract from the image. And thankfully, as is obvious in Chris' message, it appears that those interested in the image greatly outnumber those obsessed with a method.

It is safe to say that in the end, it is the final image that matters.

Oh and Jorge, inkjet was accepted readily at showings I attended in Hong Kong, Germany, the UK and here in Canada. And I do recall you turning up your nose to France before. I guess France is now on your "OK" list if it suits your argument.

My daughter could probably sum up this thread better with her "whatever."

[tim atherton]

"BTW, its not surprising to me that it doesnt even come up at a conference of "selected" photographers who mostly use digital. Thats like sampling a Southern Baptist convention for their views on Roe Vs Wade. "

I don't believe that "using digital" was a critera for selection to go to the conference. More along the lines of some of the best up and coming fine art/creative photogrpahers working in the medium today and having the chance for some of the more important curators, editors, art directors, publishers, gallery and agency reps review their work - from George Eastman House, to Magnum, to Aperture to SteidlMACK to Stephen Bulger and so on.

That a majority of those selected happened used digital at some point in the production of their work, and that this in itself was not a point of debate with the curators editors and publishers et al - the art world chattering classes - is telling, and what I believe was Chris's point.