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July 10, 2008 There is much debate about photography in the digital age among photographers and in the wider press about digital photography versus film photography. Many of these articles are by long time photographers bemoaning the ability of digital photographers to remove or add elements in an image or to alter color and/or exposure using editing software and that this leads to a distrust of the “truth” of photography in general. To me this debate seems like painters arguing that oils or pastels are not as good as charcoal sketches because the newer mediums offer more options for rendering the artist’s personal vision or long time writers knocking stories written with word processing software because it is possible to cut-and-paste words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs anywhere in the piece at will instead of having to do a manual rewrite. Another analogy would be old school sculptures panning a new work because it was created using power grinders and sandblasters instead of a hammer and chisel. When looked at from an artistic perspective, none of these arguments make any sense at all. Photography in the digital age simply offers new tools and new working methods for achieving the vision the photographer has in his head at the moment the shutter is tripped. Everything that can be done with digital editing software could be accomplished in the chemical darkroom, though often much more time, effort and material was needed when starting with film rather than with a digital image file. Photographs have never offered “truth”, an exact rendering of what was seen with the naked eyes. Photos are always an interpretation of reality by the photographer just as paintings, no matter how realistic, are an interpretation of reality by the painter. It is fine to try to make the finished image as close to what the artist remembers as possible, but it is also fine if the artist chooses to try to transcend “reality” and create a more universal image. That is what art is all about – interpreting reality. Black and white photography is often looked at nostalgically as the epitome of unaltered photographic reality. It does not seem to matter to those making this argument that the world is seen in color and that black and white photography is a simplified abstraction akin to a charcoal sketch. The very power of black and white photography to convey a mood and communicate emotion stems from this abstraction of reality. This is the reason that black and white photography is currently undergoing a resurgence of popularity in the digital age. Color photography is also an abstraction of reality. It is removing one very brief moment from the continuum of life, something that our eyes are just not capable of doing. That slice must then be filtered through the memory and perception of the photographer to produce the final image. How well does this process relate to the “reality” of what was really in front of the lens at the time? Ask any member of a jury how well the testimony of multiple eye-witnesses correlates to the “facts” of a case. Ask any family group to tell the story of opening presents on a particular Christmas morning when they were all present and you will get a variety of very different and often contradictory events. Memory is a fickle and variable thing and artists working in any medium should know this better than anyone else. Photography, whether film based or digital, is like all the other arts. And art is about communicating ideas and emotions and “facts” and stories through images, musical scores, dance choreography, sculpture and the written word. All art is filtered through each individual artist’s personal feelings, biases, prejudices and a thousand other factors. Every photograph will always be only one person’s representation of reality at one particular instant in the past. So let’s all move past this debate of whether photography using film and a chemical darkroom is more “true” than digital photography and get on with making more great images. If a photographer feels the need to radically alter the color balance or saturation or exposure of a digital image file, it has all been done with before with film and will be apparent to most viewers. If a tree branch is removed or a nicer sky is added to an image using editing software, it has been done before with film in order to better communicate the photographer’s message. And just as with film, the more skilled and accomplished the photographer and the more refined the message, the less obvious these changes will be in the final image. This, too, is as it should be. ------------ About the author John Rivard: I am a writer/photographer and former chef living in Clearwater, Florida with a wide range of interests centered around photography, food, communication and personal awareness. My main creative outlet is a web site focused on helping people take better photos while in Florida. My photography is also sold through a major on-line stock agency. See more of my writing and photography at my web site: Florida Image Tools, and my stock photography at: BigStockPhoto Email: maxxpax9@hotmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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