First off, we can agree that a digital print is a reproduction.
If I'm not miskaten, Adams spoke of the fact that all reproductions are relatively the same, whereas each photographic print is a different and unique piece of art.
First off, we can agree that a digital print is a reproduction.
If I'm not miskaten, Adams spoke of the fact that all reproductions are relatively the same, whereas each photographic print is a different and unique piece of art.
Adams also was very excited about the digital age coming to photography, and what print digital or traditional isn't a reproduction? one comes from a negative, and the other comes either from a negative/scan of a digital original.
The sameness of each print doesn't really hold water when it comes to Adams, since he tried his utmost to make every print within a session to look the same.
I can easily change how I print from session to session, depending on how my viewpoint of the image has changed. When I printed tradtionally, every print of the same negative looked "relatively the same".
Isn't it a bit egotistcal to say that the way I print is the only way to do it? Do you coat your own glass plates? which methods of exposing/printing are legitimate? and what gives anyone the authority to choose for everyone else?
As I have said before, what counts is what is on the wall.
Robert,
I started making B&W darkroom prints over 30 years ago. Over the years I became a pretty good printer, capable of producing a "museum quality" print. These days I enjoy just as much scanning a 4x5 neg and doing the same thing in Photo Shop. To me it takes just as much tweaking and test printing to get the print values just right so the print really "glows," which by the way cannot be reproduced on a computer screen! The process is really the same; its my brain and eye and experience that produce the end product, not the technology. The only difference is that I can more easily reproduce my initial efforts once the file is saved. I would have killed to do that in the darkroom. My digital prints are getting better and better, rivaling my darkroom prints. I am having much fun and I am again getting out and taking photos and making great prints.
I get just as much satisfaction doing it this way as I did in the darkroom, especially since the end result is great prints. Its no less creative, just less messy.
Cheers, Steve
"First off, we can agree that a digital print is a reproduction. If I'm not miskaten, Adams spoke of the fact that all reproductions are relatively the same, whereas each photographic print is a different and unique piece of art."
Every photographic print is also a reproduction. For one thing, photographers wouldn't have to go through the game of making limited edition series if this were not generally accepted, by both the "art world" and hte general public, as the case (each print WOULD be seen as a unqique piece of art and no numbering would be necessary). They are all reproductions from the same original negative (or positive).
"I suspect that most, if not all, artists & craftsmen enjoy the process of creation as much as the final product. The process for digital images is becoming too easy. If you were a furniture maker, would you enjoy the process of sketching a furniture design, digitizing it, having a CAD program convert it into a template for a robotic factory to produce a final product? The digital image process is becoming that easy. All you have to do is decide what is your subject & start clicking away... etc"
Interestingly, the same arguments that were made by the art world (especially painters) against photogpraphy at it's inception. An argument still made by some artists today. And to some extent it still holds true for photogpraphy. Millions of photographs are produced every day and most of them are the same.
Interestingly, the same arguments that were made by the art world (especially painters) against photogpraphy at it's inception. An argument still made by some artists today. And to some extent it still holds true for photogpraphy
The difference is that photography and painting are totally different art mediums in "feel" and emotional content. Not so with digital, a color digital print can look exactly the same as an in camera enlarged negative print. So while the argument might have been somewhat ridiculous for photography vs painting, it is not so for chemical vs digital.
OTOH the reproduction vs hand made issue was discussed to death on pn, so I have no dog in this fight, you all have fun with it.
Smiling,
George .... goes back farther than that. Has anyone read Plato's Republic and the Myth of the Cave specifically?
George .... goes back farther than that. Has anyone read Plato's Republic and the Myth of the Cave specifically?
More the reason to stay out of it IMO....:-))
"George .... goes back farther than that. Has anyone read Plato's Republic and the Myth of the Cave specifically?"
Among other things Plato, probably one of the roots of the fear of and failure to understand colour in western art, and it's forever (until recently) being labelled (like rhetoric) cosmetic, vulgar and trivial. From this springs the(mistaken) belief in the purity of line and form (and black and white) over colour.
Mark,
Adams also spoke that the negative is the score and the print is the performance. I'm sure that I read him talking about how each print is a UNIQUE piece of art, different from all others.
I have nothing wrong with others using digital, but personally I like traditional processes because of the uniqueness and originality of every print I turn out.
Mr. Gibson,
I'm sorry, but I don't buy that. To use the same quote again, the negative is just the score. My definition of reproduction is something which is intended to be exactly the same over a multitude of copies. This includes not only a digital print or a mechanical print from a plate but also a straight print from a negative. However, no two fine prints will ever be the same, and I do not consider them reproductions. Personally, I am against limited editions and against numbering. But then again, I don't sell prints, so that all could in theory change.
The "art world". What is that world of which you are talking? It is certainly not any world which I would want to be part of. Maybe it's just so powerful that I'm an amateur, I photograph for myself and nobody else. If I don't sell one print (and I don't, nor do I want to), I'm happy. If someone whom I know really wants a print of mine, I will give one to them. Or have them pay the cost of the materials. But Art should stand on its own, and I as well as many others whom I know, recognize the value of each and every fine print as being unique. They may look similar, but side-by-side, no two are ever the same.
Having said that - it is an individual issue.
I only state what I feel. If you feel that digital is fine and is art, then I respect that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and art in the mind of the artist. Only the artist himself can define what is and isn't art.
All I can do is share my definition of what, for me, is art.
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