Is the obsession with analogue gearing an obstacle to art?

[Serge S]

There is very little that can be done digitally that wasn't done first analog. A couple of exceptions are highly undesirable as far as I am concerned: Over sharpening and over saturation of color.

Good point!
Too may are caught up in extreme capabilities that are generally unneeded.

[jnantz]

Good point!
Too may are caught up in extreme capabilities that are generally unneeded.

same sort of extremes are done by people who use that plastic stuff covered with light sensitive materials that is sometimes used as a stencil to create an image on paper stuff covered with light sensitive materials. there's really no difference.

[joelb]

How about putting it this way:

Obsession with analogue gearing can eventually help one to refine one's craft.
Like a carpenter or a cabinet maker, looking for the best Japanese chisel and mallet, plane and saw.. It takes time, and one may not always like the process of creating in its whole, but connecting with the right tool can help one move forward..

[Tin Can]

So sorry I logged into this today

Log outing OUT my tiny MEGA pixels

[Vaughn]

How about putting it this way:

Obsession with analogue gearing can eventually help one to refine one's craft.
...

Agreed...and tools shape us as well as our art.

It is getting easy for me to understand why the Greeks thought that the arts that did not involve making things with the hands were the higher forms of art.

The history of photography is filled with people making photographs with little skill and not much thought. Going digital did not change that.

[Bernice Loui]

Consider folks using a digital camera zipping off tens of thousands of images per day.. with the "hope" of some small percentage of those images being ..ok..?

What digital images via mobile fone or digital camera has done, reduce the monetary cost per image to essentially the cost of energy and cost of digital storage which can be low.. This also devaluates the images to varying degrees as the perceived cost of any given image is also perceived as low..

All this serves as a reminder of the well over 300 million digital images up loaded to the web daily... for better or worst, the interconnected digital image world is essentially saturated with digital images..


Bernice

The history of photography is filled with people making photographs with little skill and not much thought. Going digital did not change that.

[jnantz]

Consider folks using a digital camera zipping off tens of thousands of images per day.. with the "hope" of some small percentage of those images being ..ok..?

What digital images via mobile fone or digital camera has done, reduce the monetary cost per image to essentially the cost of energy and cost of digital storage which can be low.. This also devaluates the images to varying degrees as the perceived cost of any given image is also perceived as low..

All this serves as a reminder of the well over 300 million digital images up loaded to the web daily... for better or worst, the interconnected digital image world is essentially saturated with digital images..


Bernice

Hi Bernice,
1 person making 10s of thousands of images a day? really? Good for them! that takes effort and stamina!

I hate to say it but digital has nothing to do with the devaluations of photography, its because 1,000,000 images can be printed form a film negative, and probably have. The photography industry did it 175+ years ago. Heck, I hand-printed 500 portraits for a political campaign, souped 12 at a time in Dektol 1:2 for a couple of hours. The images were worth barely more than the paper they were printed on, and that was in the 1980s. It had nothing to do with your "digital outrage", actually your outrage should be directed towards George and Alfred. Misters Eastman and Harman kept the ball rolling in the 1880s.

[John Kasaian]

Who cares about the chisels used to carve the Venus de milo?
The Artist, Alexandros would have for sure.
Imagine the cost of steel to even make chisels in 150-125 BC?
Has anyone else during the past 2,000 years cared?
No.
Unless they were geeks, or maybe MFA candidates proposing a topic for their Masters Thesis.

When Caesar's Palace casino was built, Caesar apparently could punch out Venus de milos like Toyotas.
If a Venus is what you're after, go talk to Caesar.
The Louvre ain't selling their original.

Not an Artist, never claimed to be

[neil poulsen]

. . . They sheepishly respond, "Well, uh, digital" ... Then I reply back, "Never heard of it". They get it, as they slink off with a smartphone in hand.

More likely, they leave shaking their head.

I don't think it's an obstacle to black and white photographic art; but, it sure is for color, for multiple reasons.

Color film has gone sky high. Assuming one can afford film, we're lucky in Portland, Or. We have Citizens Photo that can process either E6 or color negative film in formats up the 11x14. (As I understand it.). But for the most part, the infrastructure for analogue, color photography is rapidly disappearing. Even Citizens has to scavenge parts that are no longer produced. What with the departure of Type 55 long ago, there's no way to analogue check exposure, in situ. And, can we really say that color is analogue, when our best option is to scan negatives or positives and print them digitally?

I think that a lot of photographers who do analogue black and white photography, employ digital for color photography.

[Pieter]

More likely, they leave shaking their head.

I don't think it's an obstacle to black and white photographic art; but, it sure is for color, for multiple reasons.

Color film has gone sky high. Assuming one can afford film, we're lucky in Portland, Or. We have Citizens Photo that can process either E6 or color negative film in formats up the 11x14. (As I understand it.). But for the most part, the infrastructure for analogue, color photography is rapidly disappearing. Even Citizens has to scavenge parts that are no longer produced. What with the departure of Type 55 long ago, there's no way to analogue check exposure, in situ. And, can we really say that color is analogue, when our best option is to scan negatives or positives and print them digitally?

I think that a lot of photographers who do analogue black and white photography, employ digital for color photography.

Yes.