Digital BW, The Print

Mark,

Thanks so much for the longish post on Eugene Smith's Schweitzer image...

One of the images of Smith's which struck me similarly was a famous 
image of a Pittsburgh Steelworker with a distinct reflection in his 
dark-glasses

http://www.icp.org/exhibitions/dream_street/press.html  ..

Until Smith's death and a full review of the negatives, it had always 
been assumed the reflection was inherent to the original image..

It wasn't.... ala Jerry Uelsmann, Smith had "inserted" the 
reflections... A sort of inverse use of the technique utilized in the 
Schweitzer image -- here he inserts a bright reflection instead..

For me, that makes the image no less amazing as a silver print, no less 
iconic, or inspiring... and certainly no less a photograph, nor any less 
"ART."

Just as knowing that Michelangelo, DaVinci, Rembrandt and others used 
tracings or optical tools/technology to enhance or more easily produce 
"accurate" images..  In a strange way, those who see photography as 
purely and accurately representational , saying that using digital to 
make something more subjective and less realistic to hearken back to a 
day when photography was not accepted as art. It hearkens to a time when 
because it was primarily based in realistic representation and used 
technology so intimately, it was not deemed art.  Today, some stand that 
paradigm on its head in an attack upon digital manipulation, saying that 
such manipulation makes something less a "photograph."  IMHO, That 
argument is just patently ludicrous. It is the pragmatic and 
rationalized refuge of conservatives against technology, just as earlier 
reactionary artists  and critics argued against the photograph as art 
for the aforementioned reasons...
Keith

 

"Just some guy," and founder of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSONx7x_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"

 




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