An obsession with hardware could be an obstacle to art regardless of the hardware. The best musicians usually sound great on even an average instrument. Is a poet limited by a haiku, or liberated by it? When I look at a Brett Weston print, I see the "glow" whether it was an 8x10 contact or a 6x6 or 6x7 enlargement. Perhaps there is even someone out there who can create that look with digital. But for me the print like the haiku is the art. The image on a screen is only an approximation.
A digital version of Brett W ? - sounds like a 60's Japanese clay-model Godzilla movie! I've seen some of his prints competently reproduced using rather expensive press techniques; but even that is no substitute for the real deal. Even the 100:1 price tag would give one that clue, if they can't see the difference for themselves. I was frequently in that neighborhood at one time and could spot a BW print clear across the room, with that signature "glow".
I have the Lodima Porfolio series, but I agree. While the reproduced photos are good. They cannot match a real print. I have been lucky enough to closely examine half a dozen originals owned by friends and acquaintances and see others up close in shows. They never fail to inspire me.
Flikr Photos Here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/18134483@N04/
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
― Mark Twain
Despite having been a computer technician in the late 1950s, I didn't get serious about digital cameras until 10 years ago. Of course the best of those old analog photos were better in some ways than the best of the digital images. Yet, I've perhaps done more for more people with photography in those 10 years than in the 60 years before. That is more satisfying than merely pleasing myself.
Is analog gear an obstacle to art? Personally, I don't think so. Aim and spray with a digital camera and post on a FB feed or on Instagram....you can call it art. Yesterday I ran across this video of Adam Jahiel (if you don't know him, a respected pro photographer), talking about his process, & I think it adresses the choices that artists make.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV7G...26gaqlrCs17Wvk
Obsessing over anything other than one's art will be an obstacle to one's art, unless one's art is about one's obsession(s).
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
I have never followed trends in my approach to photography. Despite maturing as a photographer in the 35mm era, virtually all my work from 1971 to 2002 was in medium and large format. I drifted from film based cameras as the industry changed, and despite owning some nice printers I have never found the prints satisfactory in comparison to silver based prints. This places the digital photographer in a non-objective limbo where the final image is commonly electronic rather than a printed medium. Having gone to school in the 1970’s I was educated in an environment where non-objective and minimal art was explored and validated. This is not related as an object remained, it was just a replacement of the physical with electronic image reproduction. Historically the printed photograph as an artifact was central to documenting non-objective art movements. For me working with digital cameras was never parallel to using a large format camera. The casualness of the medium implies a lack of purpose that is hard to overlook - there is rarely a practical limit to the number of exposures, the ability to post process, and the ability to distribute the final image.
I tried a number of 35mm cameras made from the 1950s to contemporary full frame digital. Returning to film there was an immediate change in care for exposure - and therefor the examination of light on the subject. I learned the craft of photography from my father who was an architect worked as a professional architectural photographer for many years. He also approached photography as an art form in a modernist style, and it provided a strong foundation to build my own practice of the art form on. The 1980’s development of automation in cameras, there subsequent digitization, and eventual replacement with a phone surely changed the approach of students new to the medium. For me film is the discipline that unites me with the subject. First there is the increased purpose - a single exposure based on experience and a mechanical reading of the light. Then there is a stage that does not exist with a digital camera where the image remains latent, followed by a period where the negative can be examined before printing. The latent stage of the image allows the photographer time to consider the ideas visualized when the photograph was composed and exposed. Now when printing, there is a mature concept to be achieved through printing.
After evaluating the results of the 35mm film I had taken, I saw that the image quality was very limited. I had moved from roll film to 4x5 to 8x10 and was not comfortable with the images I was getting from 35mm. In the past I have done a few successful series with 35mm cameras, documentary in nature, that embodied an approach that only could be done with a small camera. My approach to the subject was as if I was using a large camera, and I was visualizing a quality of image that is possible only with a large camera. Only a large format camera can deliver control over perspective, sharpness, tonality and composition when required by the photographer when willing to sacrifice the spontaneity of a hand camera. As my vision matures as a photographer, fulfilling my purpose requires process over convenience and intention over randomness.
I sold all my analog gear in 2012 for many of the reasons you described. I thought my photography would get better. After 5 years and thousands of photos (that I never did anything with) I came back to analog. Digital was not fun. Yes, analog is expensive and time consuming but I enjoy it. I also like knowing where my negatives and prints are. There isn't a right or wrong technique. It's what works for you.
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