Digital BW, The Print

At 06:48 PM 5/1/03 -0400, you wrote:


>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"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>You have taken this way over the top, and made a lot of silly assumptions 
>about my point of view (that I've said or implied that photographs are 
>verifiable, optical, reality or some sort of truth, for example.)  Keeping 
>the viewer aware of the essential photographic idea is far more than some 
>stubborn concete.  It is an aspect of the photographic aesthetic just as 
>paint is an aspect of painting.
>
>Photography can be about photography - as I'm sure you are aware.  There 
>are those who examine this idea with engaging and fresh points of view 
>using primitive or antique methods as well as modern digital means. It's 
>not an either/or issue as you seem to insist but one part of a broader 
>aesthetic.


AZ



Build a Lookaround!
The Lookaround Book.
http://www.panoramacamera.us