Larry Bolch
Well-Known Member
This thread was created from this one
Close enough.
I have yet another story, that I think explains this question with full clarity.
In 2002, I was invited as keynote speaker at a new media conference. While there were content creators there, it was primarily content buyers—art directors, editors, producers and the like. Since I was fairly newly back to Canada, I thought it might be wise to do a fairly comprehensive slide-show of my work. It was running as people arrived, shut off during my talk, and resumed immediately after.
While there were a smattering of digital cameras dating back the the mid-1990s, it was not until the beginning of the millennium that digital photography began to find traction in a big way. I focused my talk on the current state of the art, problems with the transition and as much insight as I had about where it was going. At this point, I had been shooting digitally for about two years, but I had begun image processing when it first became possible in the late 1980s, so for me the transition was very smooth.
After my talk, I opened the floor to discussion and questions. The art director of one of the leading ad agencies stood up and practically exploded "I hate the look of digital!!!" I gestured toward the screen and asked her to point out what it was she hated. As each of a dozen slides passed she looked more and more confused and agitated. Finally she exclaimed "Some of those are digital??" It was indeed, a random mix and many were digital.
She was accustomed to the work of top shooters who may have had a quarter of a century with shooting and processing film but were completely new to digital and had yet to learn the tools. I had enough experience that I made my images my way, whether digital or film. The method may differ, but the end product was the same. The only way to know for sure if one of my shots is digital, would be if it would have been impossible with film.
Making a print in the fume-room is simple and most anyone could become good enough to get a job in a custom lab with only a couple of years practice. There were only two controls—exposure and colour balance. Exposure was modified by dodging and burning. Colour analyzers were good enough to get you pretty close for the first test print.
In 2002, I was practically the senior statesman of digital. Image processing is not simple and a couple of years will just let you scratch the surface.
There is still exposure, but now there is also brightness which acts quite differently. Colour balance is now divided into temperature and tint. However, in ACR on the HSL tab, you can lighten or darken, saturate or de-saturate and actually shift the hue of eight bands of the spectrum, where the colour head of the enlarger just was cyan, yellow and magenta.
Back to the main ACR tab, you have Recovery, which adjusts mainly the values above mid-tones, Fill that impacts those below. Black, to set the black point of the image, Contrast that expands or contracts the whole dynamic range, Clarity for local contrast control, Vibrance which leaves skin tones intact, but increases local saturation elsewhere. And of course overall Saturation. And this is before the image is even opened!
Oh, and there is a tab for Curves and another for Sharpness and Noise control. Yet another accesses a database, which corrects for specific lenses on specific cameras at specific focal lengths.
Once open, you have access to all the tools in Photoshop's big toolbox, including the incredible flexibility of layers and layer masks. In 2002, almost no one had more than a couple of years experience—simply not enough to meet the demands of a big-time ad agency. I was fluent both with the camera and with image processing, so my work looked the same whether it was film or digital.
Henry Fox Talbot made the first negative/positive print with a bit of permanence in 1836. That was really the milestone at the beginning of practical photography. It has had a century and three quarters to evolve both as a medium and a form of art and communication.
Digital has barely had a decade. Not only have photographers had to learn a new and vastly more complex medium from scratch, manufacturers who were very comfortable with a new flag-ship camera that would sell for eight to ten years, had to also learn to make digital cameras. Quite a number failed and are now history.
In that 175 years, nothing has had the impact upon the industry or the medium that digital has. In the year 2000 Adobe shipped Photoshop 6.0 with layers—certainly the biggest breakthrough ever in image processing. Version 12.0—CS5—was also such a breakthrough version. It has advanced so much that version 6.0 would feel like a basement hack in comparison.
Remember too, that as colour film became viable, the home darkroom faded. People got used to the bland homogenized photofinisher print. At the conference above, someone said that when shooting 35mm film, results out of the camera were perfect, while digital was all over the place. I asked if he did his own printing, and he said no. What he did not realize is that colour negatives are hugely forgiving and the bored technicians at the big machine are fixing every one—just as if they were using Photoshop. To see how consistent shooting 35mm is, just have a contact sheet printed!
It is constantly stated that it is the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture. It was like photography was reborn around 2000. Those who shot film pretty much had to start all over. While they were still superb photographers, the new medium had to be learned from scratch. Luckily everything learned in the darkroom has an analogue in image processing. A large percentage of today's photo enthusiasts have only taken up the hobby in the past few years—little experience behind the camera or in the digital darkroom. Facebook is littered with horrible cell-phone and P&S shots uploaded with no processing at all—as horrid as a 35mm contact sheet.
On the other hand, with care an actual photographer can go way beyond the limits of film and there are thousands out there who do. The tools not only exist now, but are constantly improving. A photographer never quits studying, and the demand on time and dedication is far greater now than with film. I have a sharp print beside me, shot in a parking lot by distant streetlights at ISO12,800. Noise equals the grain of an ISO400-800 35mm shot—visible but not distracting. It is not film vs digital, but film experience versus the much greater demands and possibilities of digital. Good shot, but I would never have even thought to attempt it with film.
Decades back, I use to joke that my ideal camera was an 8×10 that handled like a 35. Not quite there yet, but the D700 is making impressive inroads. Easily the equal or better than my medium format equipment ISO for ISO. Understand that there really is little or no film for medium format beyond ISO800. From ISO1600 to 25,600 the D700 owns the world.
No matter which medium you use, you still need to be able to conceptualize the photograph you are about to create. On location, you need to gather the highest quality raw material, exposure, lighting, focus, and above all, content. Whether interpreting it in Photoshop or the fume-room skill, taste and artistic ability will draw a line in the sand between photographers and camera buffs. Too often overlooked is the presentation, which can draw the multitudes to the image, or see then walking past without noticing.
The medium is not the message, the photograph is, and the photographer is the messenger who both creates and delivers it—not the camera, not the film and not the sensor.
And how amusing it is that it happens to say below the image on that site ... Larry, the balls in your court on that one
Close enough.
I have yet another story, that I think explains this question with full clarity.
In 2002, I was invited as keynote speaker at a new media conference. While there were content creators there, it was primarily content buyers—art directors, editors, producers and the like. Since I was fairly newly back to Canada, I thought it might be wise to do a fairly comprehensive slide-show of my work. It was running as people arrived, shut off during my talk, and resumed immediately after.
While there were a smattering of digital cameras dating back the the mid-1990s, it was not until the beginning of the millennium that digital photography began to find traction in a big way. I focused my talk on the current state of the art, problems with the transition and as much insight as I had about where it was going. At this point, I had been shooting digitally for about two years, but I had begun image processing when it first became possible in the late 1980s, so for me the transition was very smooth.
After my talk, I opened the floor to discussion and questions. The art director of one of the leading ad agencies stood up and practically exploded "I hate the look of digital!!!" I gestured toward the screen and asked her to point out what it was she hated. As each of a dozen slides passed she looked more and more confused and agitated. Finally she exclaimed "Some of those are digital??" It was indeed, a random mix and many were digital.
She was accustomed to the work of top shooters who may have had a quarter of a century with shooting and processing film but were completely new to digital and had yet to learn the tools. I had enough experience that I made my images my way, whether digital or film. The method may differ, but the end product was the same. The only way to know for sure if one of my shots is digital, would be if it would have been impossible with film.
Making a print in the fume-room is simple and most anyone could become good enough to get a job in a custom lab with only a couple of years practice. There were only two controls—exposure and colour balance. Exposure was modified by dodging and burning. Colour analyzers were good enough to get you pretty close for the first test print.
In 2002, I was practically the senior statesman of digital. Image processing is not simple and a couple of years will just let you scratch the surface.
There is still exposure, but now there is also brightness which acts quite differently. Colour balance is now divided into temperature and tint. However, in ACR on the HSL tab, you can lighten or darken, saturate or de-saturate and actually shift the hue of eight bands of the spectrum, where the colour head of the enlarger just was cyan, yellow and magenta.
Back to the main ACR tab, you have Recovery, which adjusts mainly the values above mid-tones, Fill that impacts those below. Black, to set the black point of the image, Contrast that expands or contracts the whole dynamic range, Clarity for local contrast control, Vibrance which leaves skin tones intact, but increases local saturation elsewhere. And of course overall Saturation. And this is before the image is even opened!
Oh, and there is a tab for Curves and another for Sharpness and Noise control. Yet another accesses a database, which corrects for specific lenses on specific cameras at specific focal lengths.
Once open, you have access to all the tools in Photoshop's big toolbox, including the incredible flexibility of layers and layer masks. In 2002, almost no one had more than a couple of years experience—simply not enough to meet the demands of a big-time ad agency. I was fluent both with the camera and with image processing, so my work looked the same whether it was film or digital.
Henry Fox Talbot made the first negative/positive print with a bit of permanence in 1836. That was really the milestone at the beginning of practical photography. It has had a century and three quarters to evolve both as a medium and a form of art and communication.
Digital has barely had a decade. Not only have photographers had to learn a new and vastly more complex medium from scratch, manufacturers who were very comfortable with a new flag-ship camera that would sell for eight to ten years, had to also learn to make digital cameras. Quite a number failed and are now history.
In that 175 years, nothing has had the impact upon the industry or the medium that digital has. In the year 2000 Adobe shipped Photoshop 6.0 with layers—certainly the biggest breakthrough ever in image processing. Version 12.0—CS5—was also such a breakthrough version. It has advanced so much that version 6.0 would feel like a basement hack in comparison.
Remember too, that as colour film became viable, the home darkroom faded. People got used to the bland homogenized photofinisher print. At the conference above, someone said that when shooting 35mm film, results out of the camera were perfect, while digital was all over the place. I asked if he did his own printing, and he said no. What he did not realize is that colour negatives are hugely forgiving and the bored technicians at the big machine are fixing every one—just as if they were using Photoshop. To see how consistent shooting 35mm is, just have a contact sheet printed!
It is constantly stated that it is the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture. It was like photography was reborn around 2000. Those who shot film pretty much had to start all over. While they were still superb photographers, the new medium had to be learned from scratch. Luckily everything learned in the darkroom has an analogue in image processing. A large percentage of today's photo enthusiasts have only taken up the hobby in the past few years—little experience behind the camera or in the digital darkroom. Facebook is littered with horrible cell-phone and P&S shots uploaded with no processing at all—as horrid as a 35mm contact sheet.
On the other hand, with care an actual photographer can go way beyond the limits of film and there are thousands out there who do. The tools not only exist now, but are constantly improving. A photographer never quits studying, and the demand on time and dedication is far greater now than with film. I have a sharp print beside me, shot in a parking lot by distant streetlights at ISO12,800. Noise equals the grain of an ISO400-800 35mm shot—visible but not distracting. It is not film vs digital, but film experience versus the much greater demands and possibilities of digital. Good shot, but I would never have even thought to attempt it with film.
Decades back, I use to joke that my ideal camera was an 8×10 that handled like a 35. Not quite there yet, but the D700 is making impressive inroads. Easily the equal or better than my medium format equipment ISO for ISO. Understand that there really is little or no film for medium format beyond ISO800. From ISO1600 to 25,600 the D700 owns the world.
No matter which medium you use, you still need to be able to conceptualize the photograph you are about to create. On location, you need to gather the highest quality raw material, exposure, lighting, focus, and above all, content. Whether interpreting it in Photoshop or the fume-room skill, taste and artistic ability will draw a line in the sand between photographers and camera buffs. Too often overlooked is the presentation, which can draw the multitudes to the image, or see then walking past without noticing.
The medium is not the message, the photograph is, and the photographer is the messenger who both creates and delivers it—not the camera, not the film and not the sensor.
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