"...an age of cospicuous documentation."

Can you post a link to the Globe & Mail article?

Without reading the article, I can't judge much, but I'd suggest that the 'conspicuous documentation' in a digital era might be hopelessly transient.

Couldn't get to the essay in the other link either, but The Old Guard greets every technical innovation with the standard reaction that It's All Too Easy Nowadays: dry plates, roll film, 35mm, colour... All of these mean that No Good Pictures Will Ever Be Taken Again.

Cheers,

R.
 
"..an age of conspicuous documentation". Is it about George Eastman introducing the Kodak?

Roger,
Agreed, but how could you not add "Digital" ?

I read (most of) "The Dilution Effort". Have to wonder when he says "The sorting process was simple".

Cheers,
Gary
 
An excellent read. Thank you for posting it.

I might try the author's suggestion of self-imposed limitation. However, I doubt the necessity of the crutch of leaving only one frame left on a roll in order to force myself to take only one shot.
 
And it remains an unanswerable question whether, given the choice, Jackson would have chosen a large format camera and difficult process over a Nikon D3 and 16 gig memory card, given the potential image quality of the D3.

We'll never know whether he was slow and precise because he wanted to be or because he simply had no real choice.
 
Good point Ray. Jackson had no choice. He used what he had and he made some great photographs. I am a big fan of his work. As well as that of his contemporaries, Watkins and Muybridge.

Jump forward several decades and you have Cartier-Bresson choosing his tools/methods and about the same time, you have Weston choosing quite another. Both making some great work of course. Different materials & methods for different temperaments. The right way is any way that leads to good pictures.

Cheers,
Gary
 
Excellent! I agree whole heartedly with that essay. How many times is a photograph taken without the photographer looking at the background or the edges of the frame? Repairing an image in photoshop is not good photography but good computer skills. A question that should always be asked is: What are you trying to convey to me with this image?
 
There are so many times, though, when any image is better than no image. I think it really depends on the type of photography you do.
 
Steve,

One problem with the essay is that it seems to equate working fast and/or making a lot of exposures with a lack of concern for things like, as you say, "the background or edges of the frame".

Winogrand for one, was known to be extremely fast and to have shot as much film as anyone, but to think that he was not aware of and concerned with the edges of the frame would be missing the meaning of his work entirely.

Cheers,
Gary
 
Interesting reads, Victor. Roger, the Globe article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080829.WEB29/TPStory/?query=Ivor+Tossell

Ray Nalley said:
snip

We'll never know whether he was slow and precise because he wanted to be or because he simply had no real choice.
Click to expand...

Seems he did have one other choice, according to the article: “What if Jackson gave in to what was modern technology of his day (cellulose nitrate roll film was invented in 1881)?” Whatever the shortcomings of cellulose nitrate roll film, the point stands.
 
Grainhound,

Thanks for the link to the other article. Will check it out later.
I believe film based materials were first introduced in the late 1880's. Jackson made his first USGS trip in the early 1870's. It's not really important whether there were other options open to him. He used what he used and he found a way to make great images.
Later, (just as an example) Bresson and others (Kertesz) took a new tool, saw its potential, and found a way to make another kind of image.

This article just seems so dogmatic in its tone. Working fast will yield nothing but garbage while working slow is bound to improve your pictures. I wouldn't disagree that this advice might help someone, but so might telling someone to loosen up, experiment, and see where that leads you, no?

Cheers,
Gary
 
Thanks Guy, for posting the G&M link. I didn't have time, what with work and all that distracting stuff.
 
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Some of you who automatically oppose Mr Wilson's thesis probably haven't read the article c a r e f u l l y.

His thesis is right there in the title: the Dilution of Effort. The more images one produces, he suggests, the less effort is spent on each one. This is patently true. And this MAY, as a result, produce inferior results. How hard is that to digest? There are instances, as he suggests, where speed is important: "...there are times when you need to take a lot of images in a very short amount of time. Fires, parades, and weddings come to mind. But good shots are created." His thesis is sound. You may not like it. That's OK.
 
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Visiondr,

I don't think his thesis is sound. Well it doesn't make sense to me anyway. Here is what I think is wrong with it...

"The more images one produces, he suggests, the less effort is spent on each one. This is patently true."

What you are saying is effort per EXPOSURE made and that might be. But what if instead, we consider each FINAL, SUCCESSFUL image. 2 photographers may spend a day out shooting. One might spend all day exposing just 3 sheets of film. While another may shoot 5 rolls of 35mm. They go home, and one picks the best neg from his 3 sheets and spends all day getting the perfect contact print from it. The other guy makes some contact sheets, evaluates them for hours and then makes 20 work prints or enlarged proofs to study them further. After noodling around with these for a long while, he selects the one image that really works and makes a final print of that. They each have spent a lot of effort in getting to that one image. Just a different kind of effort.

It's very obvious and simple if he just looked around at all the great work that exists, done by very different methods. Either he hasn't looked or he is just ignoring it.

Cheers,
Gary
 
Gary, I suggest he's correct insofar as he's really talking about the act of choosing a subject, composing the image and adjusting focus and exposure.

sonofdanang, Thank you for your kind words about my images. I essentially agree with you. One can be careful about making images with a DSLR. Wilson suggests - wrongly in my opinion - that faster camera operation technology makes this dilution of effort a foregone conclusion. But, he does have a point that this, however, has been the result among the vast majority of photographers, i.e. "I can now shoot as many exposures as I want because it is essentially free".

I haven't heard anyone argue that more contemplation before tripping the shutter (where time permits) is a bad thing.
 
quote: "Gary, I suggest he's correct insofar as he's really talking about the act of choosing a subject, composing the image and adjusting focus and exposure."

Well, there are different ways to approach those things. One, inherently no more valid than the next. That's what I'm saying.

quote: "I haven't heard anyone argue that more contemplation before tripping the shutter (where time permits) is a bad thing."

Well, some do. You just haven't heard them.

The thing is, he has already been proven wrong in practice by many.

Cheers,
Gary
 
I read an old photography book by Andreas Feininger who said, "any photographer who takes a few photo and leaves by saying 'got it' is a fool".

He also said, "a photographer must know what his doing." this is what HCB also said about a photographer arriving to an exact understating of what his doing.


The problem with the article above and many other rules and myths which are unfortunately quite prevalent in the world of photography is that they stem from the preferences/prejudices of photographers themselves and have nothing to do whatsoever with the craft of photography or art of it (to please the artists).

When people cannot define what makes a good picture, they should never attempt to reason that so and so factors causes people to take 'bad pictures'.

... Its also not easy to take a lot of pictures, I'm not talking about an amateur who stands in one position and shoots in bursts, I'm talking about moving around, trying different perspectives, f-stops etc... it takes inspiration and an understanding of what the photographer is trying to achieve for him to move around and shoot a lot.

What might look like an ugly background to an amateur might be the subject in-itself for a creative photographer.
 
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