Digital BW, The Print

I hate to go back to Richard Kersteil - who I had for several courses at 
the MD Instutitute.  We were discussing creative control and how 
photography fits in to the larger world of art. What you say is true for 
most of the art world. The discussion centered around the art world in a 
larger society. The art world is very "fashionable." I seems to run in 
cycles were many people are in their "blue period" just because Picasso 
was.  There is a lot of copy cats out there - maybe good copycats but 
still lots. In photography how many "half domes" are there. Adams has 
already done that, why do we need it doen again unless there is 
something new to say by doing it.

The along comes a revolutionary - and the trend changes. He/she then 
become fashionable and many copy cats arise.  Kersteil commented that he 
hoped he was still active when the "digital revolution" hit and computer 
technology could be used to give the photographer more control of the 
process thus opening up new avenues for creative potential.  This was in 
the mid '70's.

It is only the "right wing" that demands that if you use anything that 
wasn't available to Adams then you are a heretic. I would expect Adams 
would have been one of the first to explore creative potential of 
digital photography if it were available in his prime.

Truman

Alan Zinn wrote:

>
>
> Rightly or not a photograph's authenticity is judged by how well it fits a
> formal prototype not how it came to be made. Why can't there be an 
> authentic
> style of digitally manipulated photographs (for the sake of argument, not
> montages which I consider a form of drawing) that will endure the same as
> traditional images? The highly manipulated style of A. Adams, Steichen, or
> Eugene Smith, for example, is unquestioned yet using a computer is thought
> to be somehow unfaithful to the craft.
>
> AZ