report from Chicago

[julian_4860]

From other threads, I understand you have to have the last word... that was a good one, I'd leave it at that

[tim atherton]

"Thank you Samuel! It is good to read the opinion of someone who actually works at a museum as opposed to the sales clerk at the Calumet counter."

Is that Samuel? William Linne? W? Bill? You show up as all those in your posts - is it Samuel William Linne?

Exactly which small private art college is that. I'll be talking to at Sandra Phillips SFMOMA early next month about an article I'm editing - maybe I could mention your name? Which do you go by?

[Joe Smigiel]

Jeffrey wrote: "Apparently I don't buy into the 'greater than thou' attitude of some chemical workers who have either never worked an image digitally, or never learned to do it well...When are they going to finally see that we are all doing the same thing, with the same desires and goals?...Have you ever created a custom shape graduated mask with a variable opacity and a defined feathering on an adjustment layer?"

You make an error assuming the first. Many of us who have come to prefer the traditional, nondigital methods are/were fluent in the digital techniques before we made the decision to reject the medium. I learned to do it well, actually won a juried show prize with a digital piece, and taught a course in the subject at the college level, finally finding it to be a vacuous medium for my own work. I much prefer traditional and especially alternative process photography.

I suggest that you learn a few things about the Dektol and Pyro you mention before making your comparisons and pronouncements. By your own admission, it is you that lacks the alternate experience. Similarly, an increasing number of digital advocates share your lack of experience with traditional darkroom processes and I'm afraid that trend will unfortunately continue with more exclusively digital imagers naively claiming the two media are the same thing. I also suggest that if you wish " to realize (your) photographic vision" that you actually attempt photography using photographic materials and processes rather than trying to imitate the media with digital technology. OTOH, if you wish to enjoy and succeed in your digital vision, more power and success to you. But please don't confuse the two. Enjoy what you do and take pride in your accomplishments with it but also realize it is a different medium and please promote it as such.

Second, we are all not "doing the same thing, with the same desires and goals." I already have "long lasting materials" and could care less about "the respect of the 'art' community, gallery sales, and success." I'm in it for me and am not motivated to be in the limelight. You again presume to much and project your own motivations upon others erroniously.

As to your final statement, true, I have to admit I have never done that using an adjustment layer. I learned to do it on my own before adjustment layers were incorporated into Photoshop. Without shoes, in the winter, uphill...

[Brian Vuillemenot]

O.K., guys, let's stop arguing, and go make some photographs...

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

From other threads, I understand you have to have the last word... that was a good one, I'd leave it at that

Atta boy.... :-)

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Thanks, Joe, for your reply. Some clarificarion is in order:

You said "You make an error assuming the first. Many of us who have come to prefer the traditional, nondigital methods are/were fluent in the digital techniques before we made the decision to reject the medium"

That's why I included the word 'some'. I'm glad you are involved with both, and not specifically the type of person I was referring to.

You said "I suggest that you learn a few things about the Dektol and Pyro you mention before making your comparisons and pronouncements. By your own admission, it is you that lacks the alternate experience. Similarly, an increasing number of digital advocates share your lack of experience with traditional darkroom processes and I'm afraid that trend will unfortunately continue with more exclusively digital imagers naively claiming the two media are the same thing."

Yes, I know nothing of the chemical darkroom, yet I made no comparisons or pronouncements. Re-read my post. Yes, the trend is strong, but not unfortunate. And where did you see any claim that the two media are the same thing? At least not in my post. I was, however, indicating that we usually all want a satisfying piece of work when our process of choice is complete, typically a print.

You said " I also suggest that if you wish " to realize (your) photographic vision" that you actually attempt photography using photographic materials and processes rather than trying to imitate the media with digital technology. OTOH, if you wish to enjoy and succeed in your digital vision, more power and success to you. But please don't confuse the two. Enjoy what you do and take pride in your accomplishments with it but also realize it is a different medium and please promote it as such.

Yes, I create photography using photographic materials and processes. Just different ones that yours. Not an imitation, just different. I fully acknowledge the differences, and am not confused by the two.

You said "Second, we are all not "doing the same thing, with the same desires and goals." I already have "long lasting materials" and could care less about "the respect of the 'art' community, gallery sales, and success." I'm in it for me and am not motivated to be in the limelight. You again presume to much and project your own motivations upon others erroniously."

I presume nothing about any one individual. I simply gathered up the many common comments and motivations that I hear on the boards and was creating a stereotype in order to make a general point. I'm sorry if that idea offended anyone.

[Mark Sawyer]

"When are they going to finally see that we are all doing the same thing, with the same desires and goals?..."

Every photographer who has ever made a photograph has his own unique desires and goals.

Except me.

[Joe Smigiel]

Jeffrey, the crux of the problem, debate, whatever one wishes to call it is contained in your statement:
"Yes, I create photography using photographic materials and processes. Just different ones that yours. Not an imitation, just different. I fully acknowledge the differences, and am not confused by the two."

IMO you are confusing the two. IMO and that of other purists (dinosaurs, dogmatists, whatever) an inkjet print or CRT tube/LCD image is not a photograph since it has not been directly formed by the action of light on a photosensitive substrate. Where do you use photographic materials? You are certainly making images, prints, illustrations, giclees, etc., and they may be wonderful and creative, but they are not photographs. They are transcriptions of photographs. You may be a gifted digital imager, digital illustrator, digital artist, printmaker, graphic artist, camera operator, video artist, etc., but your use of the camera does not make your final product a photograph and so at some point the label "photographer"gives way to another in my belief system.

Popular opinion, the opinion of a digital photography rag, or the opinion of museum curator or institution does not change the fact that to me and many others, photographs are only made using light-sensitive materials. Inkjet prints are something else. One process captures and the other expels. A narrow and perhaps archaic definition, but nonetheless a significant one that will not allow a different interpretation. An inkjet print is no more a photograph to us than is a cereal box printed by an offset printing press.

Apparently this debate will never end, enlightenment will be achieved by neither party, and we will never, ever convert one another.

Good luck in your artistic endeavors.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Joe, I certainly see your point. Some say the classic definition of photography is 'Painting With Light'. I can't disagree. The light you must be referring to is the light landing upon your sensitized paper. I don't have that. I do have light landing on my films or sensors, so maybe there's a little 'painting' going on there, but clearly not what you are doing on the print end. I think the more contemporary term I was searching for earlier is 'imagemaking'. We both do that, and had I used that term then, I might have made a clearer statement. We both create images on paper (or some physical medium). That was the common ground I was seeking. I've enjoyed our discussion. Thanks.

[tim atherton]

"IMO you are confusing the two. IMO and that of other purists (dinosaurs, dogmatists, whatever) an inkjet print or CRT tube/LCD image is not a photograph since it has not been directly formed by the action of light on a photosensitive substrate. Where do you use photographic materials? You are certainly making images, prints, illustrations, giclees, etc., and they may be wonderful and creative, but they are not photographs. They are transcriptions of photographs"

Joe

When I was a youngster I used to enjoy attending the Leica slide show extravaganzas (six or twelve projectors, big screens, exotic locales) as well as a number of slide shows by famous mountaineers.

Most of these images were never ever printed (a few were - for magazine and promo purposes). But the vast majority were only ever produced on slide film and projected.

My father, like many of his generation, shot boxes and boxes of Kodachrome of us all growing up. He still has them - stack upon stack of slide cases. I think he has maybe had a dozen at most printed over the last 40 or 50 years. All the rest have only ever been projected to view.

Presumably those Leica camera carriers, those mountaineers and my fathers generation - because they never output their "images" by means of light onto to some kind of light sensitive material, were never really photographers, nor did they ever take or make photographs. What exactly was it that they were doing then?

BTW I make my photographs on negative or transparency film. I work on them in photoshop and then produce them by means of light on a light sensitve substrate. I presume those are photographs?