Kia ora tatou:

If you read my previous post about taking the digital out of photography, then you’ve probably read the comments attached to it. I’m looking forward to seeing more of days, as each of you ways in your own thoughts and opinions. It is, after all, through debate, discussion and disagreement that we are able to redefine our own thoughts on the matter.

Out of respect for Ian, who always gives his thoughts and opinions (highly valued, if I may say so, Ian, even though it may not appear that way to you), I’m going to reply publicly, rather than putting on the gloves down in the engine room at the bottom of the post. Yes, Ian, let us go up to the deck and duke it out there.

Ian wrote:

I think that perhaps I’m missing the starting point of this discussion but not where you are going with it.

Sorry but I have never felt constrained by what is “kosher” nor have I assumed every photograph to be a “document”. I distinctly remember, while using my Pentax Spotmatic at high school, thinking that whoever said “the camera never lies” had it completely wrong.

As you know I am interested in the documentary genre … but I also feel no reluctance to use digital tools making such images. I have no problem with cloning, dodging, scaling, merging or whatever to make my point. When I present an image I am saying “this is what I saw” not “this is what it looked like”.

There are a group of photographers I refer to as Slide Snobs. They will be lamenting the end of Kodachrome because I don’t think that they have gone past that. The viewpoint I do not agree with is that everything done “in camera” is somehow purer or better as a photographic vision. Creative post process work is viewed with suspicion and considered to be cheating in some way. Using Velvia is OK but pushing the vibrance slider is not really on.

Perhaps your post was intended to take such photographers in a bold new direction. Or perhaps underneath the expressive “digital artist” there lies an ex slide snob!!!

I also sometimes wonder about the art world’s insistence in spending a good part of the time looking backwards in time. Although I don’t have a fine arts background I can see the value in understanding the history of your medium. However I do think that there is a fine line between understanding traditions and being constrained by them.

Looking over what you have said, I would have to say I agree with most of that as well.

With a few exceptions.

I’m not sure I agree with the term slide snobs, or the implication that people who use film solely regard digital as inferior.Doc Ross is a case in point. He prefers to work in film because he, more than anybody I know, understands the archaeology of photography and is therefore able to place himself at a point within it. His medium is photography, his working approach derived from a profound and thorough knowledge of its traditions.

Some of us are happy to use either technology, but are aware that each offers us a different tradition-set. To say that one is better than the other really says more about the ignorance of the speaker than about the medium itself (ignoro=Latin: I do not know).

I do know this. Shooting with film requires a different mindset. For a start, there’s the terror factor; the slight uncertainty of whether it came out and the need to wait between the moment of capture and the time when you get the film back from the lab. When I shot film and processed it on my own darkroom, I would be in a hurry to get the film processed. For some irrational and inexplicable reason, I was worried that if I left it too long, and some intangible way the latent image on the film would is subtly alter. Silly, I know.

Then there’s the one dollar factor. When you shoot film, you know that every time you press the shutter it’s costing you money. I’m convinced that affects how you shoot. Take shooting the landscape as a case in point. As we all know, the landscape isn’t a single moment; it’s a series of progressively and infinitely-subtly shifting moments, each one of which has its own validity and value. If you are shooting a single image and you’re aiming to somehow defined that time and place, where is the point at which you make the decision? With film, we are always taking into account the cost factor. That is normal, and to be accepted. So we make a choice on the moments we will select, and make a judgement call. Working with digital technology, we can work through the time, shooting as much or as little as we wish, examining the moment and ever finer detail. Of course it makes a difference.

The film tradition means that we are conscious of the way the great masters have done it (or at least we should be), and the example can inform us in large part or small. That is up to us.

Silicon technology, on the other hand, has opened the door to a room with no walls and no perceivable end. We can go in whatever direction we choose, taking advantage of the example of those who have gone before us, or not, as we choose. Furthermore, we can see the capture as a thing complete in itself (well, mostly), and leave it there, or see it as a springboard for a very exciting dive into a bottomless pool. It’s up to us.

There are any number of examples out there of documentary photographers editing their images, and then being fired by the organisations for which they worked. It is still going on. And the reason they were fired? Because, in spite of the fallacy, one of the grounding philosophies of photography is its ability to represent. That is what gives its strength, and sets it apart from other arts technologies. Nobody expects a painting, even one painted by a hyper-realist like Grahame Sydney to be an act of veracity. His glorious Maniototo landscapes appear, on the surface, to be representations of reality, even though everybody knows they are anything but. But people are happy with the illusion, because they know that landscape painting is a selective process. Photography, on the other hand, having as fundamental bases an accurate representation, is not let off so lightly. Documentary photography in particular, although the youngest of the photographic genres, has its basis in the precise definition of a moment, and through that adherence to the importance of the moment, gains its strength from its ability to interpret. Innovate? No.

We could go on at some length (and I thank you for the opportunity to do so even though you may see it otherwise!), that we may have to agree to take a slightly different stance.

Kind put my money where my mouth is. As an example of what I’m talking about, here are two photographs of made in Africa, each one radically different from the other in intent and execution. Perhaps this may clarify what I’m talking about.

This image, of the facade of a winkel (shop) near Cape Agulhas, the southernmost part of Africa, where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, attracted my attention. I was fascinated by the rocking horse, the signage, and two dogs lazing outside in the sun. The lights, the shadows, and the distribution of the subject material seemed to me to be iconically Africa. I chose to make a photograph of it, to document a moment in time and space. In doing so, I was reminded of the traditions of the documentary medium, and particular the bold use of colour by photographers like Constantine Manos and Alex Webb, who might both admire. I was also well aware of Robin Morrison breathing over my shoulder. As a result, because I wanted to both say something about the subject, to make the statement that I was here: I stood here: I photographed that; I opted for a very rectilinear approach to the subject. I framed the picture quite carefully, keeping an eye on all the subject material near the edge of the frame and how it interacted with it (a strong aspect of the documentary tradition), and waited for the dogs to sort themselves out. Then the moment came, the one on the left lay down on the other side of the doorway and I had what I needed. I pressed the shutter, and made the photograph. Job done. Postproduction was a simple matter of cleaning it up, and making a few crops. But I still wasn’t happy. Then, I found out that Kodak had finally decided to discontinue Kodachrome, and I had the key I needed. I opted for a Kodachrome 64 look to the image, using one of the film look plug-ins I have, because I wanted to reference in some slight way the archaeology of film photography, of which Kodachrome has been a key part. Hence the slightly dark shadows and rather boosted reds, a characteristic of K64. It was photography, pure and simple.

The second image, which I captured an hour before the previous one, takes a completely different line of approach. When I captured the rock on the foreshore, I was looking for source material to develop at a later stage. In this case it was a question of selecting the material I wished to record (I will agree, it does have that in common with photography), ensured that all the usual stuff like depth of field and exposure were correct, and then walked away. The idea at this point was deep in my subconscious and inaccessible. But I knew it would come later. I wasn’t making the exposure for any of the reasons I did in the one above. I knew that this image was about to lead somewhere, but I didn’t know where. I was aware of the emotional pressure Africa was placing upon me, and I sensed that in making this exposure, some understanding would come at a later point. Much of the work I’ve been making lately is that personal; works which are allowing me to gain understanding.

In the same way that a sculptor takes a piece of stone and begins to release the latent shape inside, I explored the possibilities of what had spoken to me and urged me to make the exposure, looking to release the ghost in the machine. An hour and a half and a series of actions and adjustment layers later, I was finally able to look inside the moment. As I look at the file, with the advantage of 20:20 hindsight, I realise I was documenting something that would soon come to the surface and require my attention. Surfacing fears perhaps? Five days later I had some sort of answer to that. A lot of my picture making of late has revolved around this kind of fame, and often the images when they resolve are pointers to something coming up. It’s a process am beginning to trust.

So there you have it. Looking at the two pictures, to me they are different in every way. They are different in terms of approach, aesthetic, content, methodology and intention. The former required me to think was in the traditions of the medium, and I certainly did not feel constrained by that, rather empowered. The latter required me to step beyond the traditions of the medium, to see what I was doing as mark making, and to be open to an interaction with the material.

Quod erat demonstrandum (I hope).