Digital BW, The Print

Alan Zinn wrote:

>
>I am not suggesting that some sort of disclaimer attached to the picture is 
>an ethical choice.  I want MY images to be understood to be the same as 
>what the camera recorded, excepting the customary adjustments of tone, 
>etc. 
>
HMMMMmmmm....  Ok, well there are at least three major issues here:

1) Why this arbitrary rule based upon old tools?

To analogize, imagine early photographers saying they would only make 
prints that looked like traditional painted portraiture..  IT may have 
been the case, but in retrospect from today's vantage point it's pretty 
senseless and narrow-minded..

Better yet, imagine when presented with EARLY Kodachromes, photographers 
refusing to shoot or print anything but monotones b/c B&W was the 
prevailing standard heretofore..


2)    We already know that B&W imagery is automatically an abstraction...

If I use a red, orange, green or yellow,  filter etc. when shooting I am 
altering the image "unnaturally."  The image recorded is NOT accurate in 
accord with the film's inherent recording abilities..

So, does your standard NOT allow such filtration.. If it does, how can 
you hope to justify it?


3)     You cannot reliably represent a transmissive image (a negative) 
as a reflective one (print).  Add in dodging and burning to compress or 
accentuate tonalities and you are not rendering faithfully your 
in-camera image.. Instead, you are altering that image to be more 
aesthetically pleasing (hopefully).

When PhotoShop and digital made their way onto the scene in the early 
90's I was a wire service photog.   I abhorred the use of PhotoShop for 
anything but the most traditional of printing prep tasks (dodging, 
burning, etc..)  However, I've come to a new position over the years.. 
 I did a lot of creative lighting and on-camera filtration and still do, 
HOWEVER I see little difference between that and accomplishing the very 
same thing in PhotoShop... except the fact that irreconcilable 
old-timers see it somehow as "cheating"..  (I'm sure there  were those 
who saw color prints as a cheat around hand colored B&W methods as well.)

The line between straight photography and manipulated imagery has never 
been clear..  Sure we can agree that Jerry Uehlsmann's imagery is 
manipulated, but we thought Eugene Smith was a purist, we thought Bourke 
White didn't pose her subjects either,  and if you believe Ansel Adams 
never manipulated imagery.. well, I suggest a stiff drink...

Fact is, still photography coverts 3 or four dimensions into two..  B&W 
still photography goes even further, removing color from the equation.. 
 It's inherently therefore an  abstraction, therefore unless you see the 
world in two dimensions and in black & white (not to mention in frozen 
time) to think otherwise is to be delusional.

One other point..  I'd question whether a 100% faithful reproduction of 
a scene , say a full color 360 degree hologram, would qualify as "art" 
if it could be truly representational.  It would be utilitarian and 
representational; an essential part of the artistic process is the 
change the artist's hand brings to reality..  We focus a viewer's 
attention and ply our own emotional chords..  Fully faithful 
representations would simply be copies of reality .. The original 
juxtapositions might be art or artistic, but representations would 
simply be copies - no different than Xeroxes of documents..
Keith

 

"Just some guy," and caretaker 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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