Your video reminded me of an Ansel Adams documentary I saw some time ago. Before seeing it, I hadn't realized how much time Adams spent in the darkroom perfecting his images, using the techniques of the day and developing his own. If we can believe his Wikipedia entry, he made over 1,300 unique prints of his famous "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" over a 40 year period.
When it comes to highly edited images, maybe we're talking about the difference between photography and graphic art. I've seen some wonderful images that have been created with Photoshop and the like. I wouldn't want to be deprived of those. On the other hand I hear what you're saying. I think you're arguing for both integrity and mastery when it comes to taking photographs; for the discipline of working within certain constraints. Worthy ideals in my view though I think, if pressed, I could probably come up with an argument about the fundamental artificiality of photography itself: how the lens changes things, how neither film nor chip has the dynamic range of the human eye, how even something as benign as cropping alters the impact, even the basic nature, of a scene. I certainly feel I've experienced something of this even with my own modest photographs in which a familiar scene or object becomes transformed by the alchemy of the lens.
Your video reminded me of an Ansel Adams documentary I saw some time ago. Before seeing it, I hadn't realized how much time Adams spent in the darkroom perfecting his images, using the techniques of the day and developing his own. If we can believe his Wikipedia entry, he made over 1,300 unique prints of his famous "Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico" over a 40 year period.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to highly edited images, maybe we're talking about the difference between photography and graphic art. I've seen some wonderful images that have been created with Photoshop and the like. I wouldn't want to be deprived of those. On the other hand I hear what you're saying. I think you're arguing for both integrity and mastery when it comes to taking photographs; for the discipline of working within certain constraints. Worthy ideals in my view though I think, if pressed, I could probably come up with an argument about the fundamental artificiality of photography itself: how the lens changes things, how neither film nor chip has the dynamic range of the human eye, how even something as benign as cropping alters the impact, even the basic nature, of a scene. I certainly feel I've experienced something of this even with my own modest photographs in which a familiar scene or object becomes transformed by the alchemy of the lens.
Enjoyed hearing your take on things.
Doug