Really? I spend hours and hours in my darkroom trying to get a print to come out the way I want. What are you doing that I'm not?Originally Posted by Jim collum
and both require the simple pressing of a button to produce a print(ok.. maybe sometimes a foot switch)
Digital and analog photography These are just not the same. Not the process, nor the end result, nor the perception of the qualities of each.
I'm sure some will argue which cardboard works best. I for one found cutouts from Big Mac boxes offered better detail to the image that standard cardboard can't match. I've now graduated to the burn & dodge tools in PS for infinitely more control.A printer would be an equivalent of the darkroom with only the wet side, but no enlarger (or contact frame).
If you want it to produce an image, you still need a computer. Or the old fashioned thingy where you stick the negative on one end, the paper on the other and then you wave with a piece of cardboard in between...
You are still describing details. Bigger than the difference between, say, one type of gelatin silver paper and another, but smaller than truly major shifts in technology that changed the way photography presented the world (like the invention of the hand camera, or color film). And much bigger than the truly revolutionary shifts--like the invention of photography in the first place.
I can think of only a SINGLE substantive change brought about with digital media. That is the existence of the disembodied image. With a digital image, you have an image that is separated from physical media in a way that is much more distinct than with any analog medium. So we have files that can be viewed on a screen, printed many different ways, transmitted instantly, etc. etc.
Everything else I've seen cited as a unique quality of digital photography has precedent in the analog world. Including ability to be manipulated by hand, the ability to be printed in ink (or other non-light sensitive media), the ability to be reproduced mechanically, etc. etc.
this debate goes back and forth, never really coming to any conclusion.
i spend hours in the darkroom as well.. but once i have that print the way i want it 'for now', i can print many copies a lot quicker.. with the goal being that any subsequent prints are identical as much as possible. i come back in a week, with the same print in mind.. and it probably doesn't take as long as the first one did.. i already have it mapped out. i have contrast masks made already, color masks, a diagram for dodging and burning, with the appropriate development and exposure times, with the correct grade paper. Print #1= many hours, print#2-100 *much* quicker.. in reality.. not much more than going thru the motions and pushing a button. This is exactly what happens when i print digitally. print # 1 takes hours of work, print #2-100, much quicker. 10 years later, i look at the print. want something different, and start over with print#1 again. (for both digital and film).
the reason for the 'just a push of a button' statement is the most common arguement i see against digital is that all you have to do is push a button. .that there's nothing else involved. in that sense, that would be true of film as well.
the whole thing seems pretty silly. alt-proces people feel silver printers have it easy (they don't coat their own paper or mix their own chemicals!!), dye transfer doesn't even use light sensitive materials to produce the final print.. they use *ink* .. so they can't be photographs at all.
all in all , it really doesn't matter to the vast majority of people who take, hire, publish, buy, collect photographs. (that doesn't mean it doesn't matter to some... ). for the rest of the world, a digital photograph is a photograph. an inkjet print can command prices equal to similar prints created chemically.
unless you coat your own film, build your own camera/enlarger, coat your own paper, mix your own chemicals from scratch.. there's automation involved. does the amount of physcial activity make film more involved than digital? when i set up a 4x5 and expose using a scanning back.. there's a *lot* more activity going on than i've ever had when shooting film from the same camera.
... as a point though, i do use film for specific purposes.. based on the nature of the analog process itself.. it's much better at very wide latitude images than almost all digital (but not all. the scanning back technology is pretty equivalent to film in latitude). i like the way that certain film/dev combinations compress the tonal range. I love the way a platinum print looks (and as a result, most of my work is Pt). grain doesn't bother me (in fact, in most cases i add 'grain' to images.. i don't like the pure continuous tone i get with my digital.. in life, there seems to be a background 'grain/detail' that i don't get with a noiseless digital image).
Yeah, we all played with cardboard at some time or the other. But in the end, nothing beats a good set of curves...I'm sure some will argue which cardboard works best. I for one found cutouts from Big Mac boxes offered better detail to the image that standard cardboard can't match. I've now graduated to the burn & dodge tools in PS for infinitely more control.
See, you're comparing the two. IMHO its apples and oranges. There's no point in comparing them. No one denies that there's automation involved in analog photography. Its just that analog photography is simply "different" than digital, and so each have their own unique characteristics. A darkroom is not the same as a printer. This isn't to say that a darkroom is "better" or "worse" - its just not the same thing. So the discussion about digital vs analog is really basically meaningless.
I see your point but you're disconnecting the process from the outcome. My point is that the process of analog photography is part of the outcome. Sure, both digital and analog can result in images - but the processes involved are different. You can perhaps equate a printer with a darkroom in the most abstract sense that both give you an image - but a darkroom is still just not a printer. And the process of creating an image using a darkroom is considered by some to be a desirable characteristic of the resultant image.
I don't really consider the issue from an "evolutionary" perspective anyway. I don't for example consider a stone lithograph or woodcut as being any less "evolutionary" advanced than a film photo. They're just different art forms and each "presents the world" in their own way, that's all. And despite the fact that image-creation technology has changed significantly, woodcuts and stone lithographs are still art forms that are quite alive, desired, and collected. Same can be true about film photography.
well in the same vein, b/w processing is different than color processing is different than dye transfer, 4 color carbon, etc
but they're all photographs.
Well, the process is the process ... it effects the resultant image, in the sense that a silver print will look different from an ink print or a platinum print or a carbro print, etc.. But the process isn't actually a characteristic of the image. The nature of the process might be important to you--it almost always is to a practitioner, and it sometimes is (as a matter of annecdote at least) to certain non-practicing admirers of the work. This is different from saying the process is part of the product.
I agree with you here; I wasn't using evolution to suggest some kind of heirarchy, or to mean that a medium or the work it produces somehow improves as time goes on. I just mean it in terms of historical progression. The changes are evolutionary because they inform each other and build on each other as one thing leads to the next.I don't really consider the issue from an "evolutionary" perspective anyway. I don't for example consider a stone lithograph or woodcut as being any less "evolutionary" advanced than a film photo...
I also mean use the term to distinguish gradual evolutionary change from radical, revolutionary change. The invention of photography could be seen as revolutionary in the context I'm discussing.
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