More on Digital...
From yesterday:
Enlargement requires absolute darkness, open trays of chemistry, and tons of patience. Digital requires tons of money, and tons of patience.
I'll write more about these ideas tomorrow.
Actually, digital requires tons of money, tons of patience, and tons of learning. Re-learning in most cases - because while digital is bringing many new photographers into the fold, it's also challenging a much larger group - existing photographers - to relearn everything about how images are captured and made into prints.
Let me say something about printing, first. Printing, used to refer to digital images, is not the physical act of choosing the "Print..." command and letting your printer make a hard copy - it is the process of making adjustments to the image to get the tonality, color, and mood that you're looking for. In the darkroom, these adjustments were made irrevocably every time you made a test print on paper - on the computer, you're not using paper, but the process is analogous.Hence, what I call "Capitol P Printing".
This relearning process is proving to pretty painful, if the past six years have been any guide. As a technical writer, I normally don't make any assumptions about what people know before I write for (or speak in front of) them. Still, my first couple of workshop experiences were eye-openers. Some people knew what dodging was, but not how to do it on the computer. Some people knew hoe to selectively lighten a section of an image, but were lost on the word "dodging".
I can provide many more examples - but it's clear that digital has opened a rift between those who knew before, and those who know how now. Sadly, this ends up making a lot of people frustrated, and it creates a lot of colorful trash that doesn't rise to the level of a drugstore photo printer, much less fine art.
More in another entry. Post some comments for chrissake.
Enlargement requires absolute darkness, open trays of chemistry, and tons of patience. Digital requires tons of money, and tons of patience.
I'll write more about these ideas tomorrow.
Actually, digital requires tons of money, tons of patience, and tons of learning. Re-learning in most cases - because while digital is bringing many new photographers into the fold, it's also challenging a much larger group - existing photographers - to relearn everything about how images are captured and made into prints.
Let me say something about printing, first. Printing, used to refer to digital images, is not the physical act of choosing the "Print..." command and letting your printer make a hard copy - it is the process of making adjustments to the image to get the tonality, color, and mood that you're looking for. In the darkroom, these adjustments were made irrevocably every time you made a test print on paper - on the computer, you're not using paper, but the process is analogous.Hence, what I call "Capitol P Printing".
This relearning process is proving to pretty painful, if the past six years have been any guide. As a technical writer, I normally don't make any assumptions about what people know before I write for (or speak in front of) them. Still, my first couple of workshop experiences were eye-openers. Some people knew what dodging was, but not how to do it on the computer. Some people knew hoe to selectively lighten a section of an image, but were lost on the word "dodging".
I can provide many more examples - but it's clear that digital has opened a rift between those who knew before, and those who know how now. Sadly, this ends up making a lot of people frustrated, and it creates a lot of colorful trash that doesn't rise to the level of a drugstore photo printer, much less fine art.
More in another entry. Post some comments for chrissake.
Labels: Archived
posted by Doug at 12:24 PM
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