Comments on: Beating the Drum-take two

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 10:09:56 +0000

Some beautiful photos there. I’m so happy to be working in a digital medium now. It gives me much more of an opportunity to experiment without having to investing in developing costs. Thing is, I still sometimes miss the .. manualness (is that a word?) of my old AE-1.

By: sg

sg — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 09:29:07 +0000

Hi Tony,
It seems your post(s) hit on a heartstring. It comes as no surprise – digital, postproduction, massaging images has promoted much scepticism and criticism. I would agree with Eva, it’s about art and the medium used is technicality. Is pictorialism, which is a mix of the mechanical objectivity of the photo-camera and the artistic manipulation of the image any thing but photography. In any form of art it is to use the medium at liberty and create with freedom of mind one’s own world . “All thing are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails is a function of power and not truth” F. Nietzsche

Awaiting your return, SG

By: Tony Bridge

Tony Bridge — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 06:11:37 +0000

Hi Virginia:
I have just been testing Ektar 100, a colour negative emulsion, and now a film scanner of sufficient quality is in the country (many thanks, Ray Cho), i intend to scan and print. My first impressions are that it is incredibly fine-grained, exposes like Transparency( ie be fussy) and delivers really rich colour. P&V carry stocks.
I think film will be around for quite some time, although the range will no doubt shrink…

By: virginia gray

virginia gray — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:45:54 +0000

Hi Tony,

This post was of great interest, particularly as I have but five shots left of Sensia in my film camera and no more in the freezer. The Kodak information I am lamenting. Here’s hoping for at least one good landscape of my beloved hills of home so beautifully snow capped. Maybe Fuji will continue for some time with slide film. I have not researched this at all.

Wishes,
Virginia

By: eva

eva — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:24:40 +0000

After all “It’s not about moving pixels, it’s about pictures that move us.” – John Weiss

By: ian

ian — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:21:39 +0000

Thanks Tony,

Outstanding response.

Im delighted that I was able to provoke it!!!

I intended no implication that film users have, by implication of being film users, some sort of superiority complex. Im also sure that there are many digital snobs as well. I recently saw an excellent slide landscape image projected – it was spectacular and there was something special about it. It is understandable why someone might want to specialise in film. I simply feel that we are all part of the same photographic art and should be able to respect and learn from each other.

Your comments on the documantary pic were interesting. It seemed to me that you were informed by the history of the genre but not constrained by it. A good mix. Im with Colin though, what you did was pure digital.

Call yourself a digital artist if you want to but I will continue to be more interested in the story your images tell than in the techniques or tools that you use. Having said that I do like hearing the back story.

Im also of the view that one great gain we have achieved in the world of photoshop is the people no longer believe that a photograph is necessarily literal. It never has been of course. If Graeme Sydney is allowed to be expressive in his interpretations of the Maniototo then its about time photographers are allowed to be as well.

Cheers

Ian

By: Tony Bridge

Tony Bridge — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:00:36 +0000

Hi Colin:
i share your comments about jpeg snobs..I can think of two prominent ChCh photogs who read from the Gospel according to Saint Jpeg, maintaining that why would shoot RAW when the manufacturers have poured huge R&D into making their jpegs better (but that is another argument. Matthew 7:16.
I guess we will agree to differ. Thinking about it, I wonder if CSx allows us to step closer to Canaletto and Siddell, if that is what we want.
On the subject of 5×4 and Ektachrome, you might want to have a lok at this link
http://www.stillsgallery.com.au/artists/autio/
see you when I get back

By: ColinM

ColinM — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:26:30 +0000

Hi Tony,

It’s an interesting business, drawing that line between photography and graphic art (digital or analogue). I seem to place it further out from photography than you – you _can_ create from a blank canvas, but do you? If you are not actually adding significant visual content from sources other than your own photographs (including scans) I still see it as essentially photography.

I certainly don’t see Canaletto or Vermeer as anything like photographers! The camera lucida and its relatives don’t directly capture the light, which is what I see as the basis of photography. They assist an artist to make the image with conventional tools. Using a computer instead of charcoal to lay out a painting would have no relationship at all to photography.

All these divisions make no real difference, really. I am thoroughly glad that digital capture and processing have given us all these tools for fun and profit. I would hate to be doing food photography with a 5×4 and Ektachrome instead of a tethered EOS-5D. I love only having to spot negs once. And I shared your frustration with the limitations of the darkroom for serious manipulations. On the other hand, there were no IPTC metadata fields to fill in – which is what I should be doing now!

Glad you like the pics – yes, mostly classic B&W photos on that site – and it would be good to meet up when you’re back in Godzone. Must be about nine years!

Cheers, Colin

By: Tony Bridge

Tony Bridge — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:11:25 +0000

Hi Colin:
Many thanks for your comments. I really appreciate your taking the time to offer your thoughts, and the wonderful thing for me is that it allows me to retest my thesis.My thanks for that.
Firstly, had Air New Zealand allowed me to carry it, I could and would have shot the cafe with my EOS 1v and used film. I like working that way, and I suppose it makes me feel connected to (my own film-based) tradition. Since they wanted $NZ 300 for me to take it, I left it at home.In making that image, I was influenced by and tried to stay as close to the doco trad as I could. I take your point about the plugin, but to my mind it is still staying close and honouring that tradition. Again my thanks for calling me to task.
No, I disagree that the second image is Son of Darkroom. I spent 20 years attempting to master that, and many times, i ground my teeth in frustration, wishing I could adjust a single halide. In the end, whatever I did, IMHO, was traditionally-oriented, tweaking and adjusting what was essentially a photographic aesthetic.
Now I can move into a place beyond that, to live in a space beyond photography and before????
As we all can, if we so wish.
Now I can create from a blank canvas, if you like. The fact that I use a camera is peripheral, not central.
FYI, the great painter Canaletto used a camera to lay out the lines for his paintings of Venice, which he then filled in with paint. Did that make him a photographer? An interesting question. The NEw Zealand painter, Peter Siddell, uses Illustrator to do his preparation work, which he then fills in with paint. Is he working photographically, in the same tradition as Canaletto?
An interesting thought.
Again many thanks for weighing in. That you have taken a position is fantastic.
And that is what theses posts are really about. promoting discussion.
I took the time to look at your website. wow! you do lovely (photographic -hehehe) work! I hope we get to meet sometime soon.
Namaste

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 21:52:41 +0000

Thank you and Ian both for a very elucidating discussion – Ian’s wee gauntlet laid down has allowed us all to understand a lot more, much appreciate the further post.