Digital BW, The Print

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Rem P Roberti <remegius@...> 
wrote:
>
> I like this discussion because I often find myself trying to "ruin" images by over 
manipulating focus, tone, and introducing grain and vignetting!

Maybe I should just look for a junked lens!!

Steve
> >
> > Thank you, well said.  It's so easy to get caught up in the numbers
> > and think that's all that counts.  There's a whole 'nother world of
> > perception out there that often defies explanation, especially when it
> > comes to art.  
> >
> > Take, for example, the recent work of Sally Mann, who is one of
> > today's most acclaimed photographic artists
> >
> > "Mann has won numerous awards, including Guggenheim and National
> > Endowment for the Arts fellowships. Her photographs are in the
> > permanent collections of many museums, including The Museum of Modern
> > Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the
> > Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C."
> >
> > Her current Deep South photos are bringing wide acclaim, yet they are
> > the very antithesis of everything we attribute to AA and the western
> > landscape school:  often underexposed, out of focus, extreme
> > vignetting, corner softness, light leak streaks, or any combination of
> > these.  Yet, they convey a powerful emotional intensity.  Here's a
> > quote of her answering a question about her equipment:
> >
> > "Well, you know I told you that none of my equipment has ever been any
> > good, I certainly could go out and buy a good, tack-sharp lens that
> > would take the perfect picture that's in focus from end to end. But
> > instead, I spend an awful lot of time at that antique mall looking
> > around for these lenses with just the right amount of decrepitude. The
> > glue has to be peeling off of the lens elements, it's great if its
> > mildewed and out of whack—a lens is made up of several different
> > pieces of glass which are supposed to stay glued in the right
> > relationship with each other—but my most prized lens has one of the
> > pieces of glass askew, so when the light comes in it it's refulgent.
> > It just bounces all around and does this great sort of luminescent
> > thing on the glass. You can tell a good ruined lens right from the
> > get-go....they are the ones you find in the trash cans of old photo
> > studios, in some ghost town in Iowa. I mean, that's the kind of lens
> > I'm looking for."
> >
> > Some incredibly beautiful landscapes are grainy, soft focus and low
> > dmax (often platinum).  There is more to this than numbers.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Clayton
> >
> >
> > Info on black and white digital printing at    
> > http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm
> >
> >
> >   
> 
> 
> A very good point, Clayton. I have often said that Cartier-Bresson, who 
> was known as Mr. Leica, could as well have been using a Brownie Hawkeye. 
> And in that world, in the context of those incredibly compelling 
> photographs, Photoshop is virtually meaningless. The power of the images 
> transcended the technique. Which, I think, leads to a very important 
> question that all of us who pursue fine art photography should ask: at 
> what point do we become trapped by the technology.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Rem
>