Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Mark Rabiner
<mark@r...> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Vision and technology occupy different halves of the brain, and this
> > has implications for digital workflow Vs optical.
> > 
> > It's worth reading Daybook II to see what Weston was really
> > about...he's extremely clear about his work.
> > 
> > Djon
> > 
> 
> I disagree with what seems to be going on here about a simplistic
approach attributed to Weston.

Mark,

Weston's "workflow" and imagery were both sophisticated and simple, in
contrast to todays distracting technical complexity and the primative
aesthetics of current digital printing (calendar "art" seems sometimes
to dominate). 

Digital workflow is still in DOS mode...a crude analytic-thinking mode
that evidently appeals to certain brains. This is becoming history,
like DOS. 

The burden of technical thinking will diminish, as it did for Weston,
as is evident in the wonderful reports here, on Epson's 4800. 

Today's digital expertise will shortly seem like DOS expertise. 

Read Weston: He didn't talk much about technical expertise, he
employed it almost automatically, in the background, just as has
mastery of Ektachrome for others. It became "simple" for Weston:
"workflow" was habitual, it vanished into the background. Amazing
performance: seeming simplicity.

We'll know when digital photography is mature when there's less talk
of workflow and technical matters, more talk like Weston's about the
juicy human stuff, about which traditional photography has long been
more concerned (Avedon, Salgado, Capa, HCB etc etc etc).

Djon