Interesting essay/comment

[pundit]

Comments?

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/comments/c006.html

 

[John Camp]

Most essays like this take points of view that are too extreme. Instead of one thing happening or being dominant, *everything* happens -- there are ideological fights, of course, but there's also a lot of information exchanged on internet forums. Much of the time, the quality of the forum is determined by the owner or moderators. In some places, like Digital Photography Review, it sometimes seems that trolls rule. In other places, like Luminous Landscape, there are few trolls and lots of good specific information. Other places are more of a mix -- this forum tends to be more conversational, rather than specifically technical or wildly ideological.

As for the proposal that software processing changes everything, I would also disagree: even the best software technique has a hard time saving a bad photograph. Extensive processing usually produces not a traditional photograph, but what newspapers now call "photo illustrations," which are obviously a hybrid. Really good photos are usually not touched up any more in post processing than film photos are touched up in a darkroom -- although the touch-up may be much quicker with digital.

JC

 

[pundit]

/agree John. I posted it due to a fallacy that I thought was in use ... Black and White thinking.

 

[erichard44]

But don't most of the posters here do black and white work?

Is it bad to think in black and white?

I find it helps in making the pictures. How can it be bad?

I remain confused. Trolls on DP review. I cannot believe you said that.

 

[RML]

But don't most of the posters here do black and white work?

I think you may be surprised about the number of people here who don't do B&W.

Is it bad to think in black and white?

If that works for you, it's not bad.

I, for one, don't think in B&W. I only see a shot. In developing my RAW files I sometimes get a hunch that a shot may work in B&W. I then try that out and when it works, it works. Many of my shots work both in colour and B&W, though they tend to have different characters then.

See my portfolio ( http://shardsofphotography2.blogspot.com/ ). All of the B&W shots started as colour RAW files. I doubt you would be able to tell that without my telling you just now.

 

[RML]

I was a bit surprised (tho not really that much) by the following statement:

An interview with Tomohisa Ikeno, the designer of the Nikon F6 caught my attention. He sees the principal difference between digital and analogue photography in the approach to the image. He notes that the essence of film's appeal can be summed up as 'the value of unique pictures'. Or in other words: respect for the image. Solid state pictures are recorded as binary files on a digital medium, as example an SD card. Taking pictures is free of charge: there is no cost involved: you can take thousands of pictures, view them and discard them without any cost involved. The power of the IMS allows you to become quite nonchalant about the inherent technical quality of the images: any defect (so it seems) can be corrected. Look at the threads in the newsgroups: people pride themselves in improving bad images. Operating proficiency with Photoshop is a basic requirement for creating digital imagery. There is nothing wrong with this shift from pre visualising an image and post processing an image file.
But it breeds nonchalance and carelessness and disrespect for the values of a unique picture.

Taking digital photos did not make shooting free, even though it may seem so. The average consumer never bothered much with poor shots. They got thrown away. Even negatives were often thrown away as soon as the prints were in from the 1-hr lab. Film was cheap and single-use cameras similarly so. With digital, people have simply continued what they've been practicing for decades with film: consume and discard, both camera and shot.

 

[pundit]

http://www.cuyamaca.edu/bruce.thompson/Fallacies/black&white.asp

and

http://www.rational.org.nz/public/BeliefsQuestionnaire/sup5.htm

I have been guilty of all of the above

 

[jody]

Regardless of what one belives one thing is a fact. Digital cameras have made photography more popular than it has ever been.

 

[erichard44]

More popular indeed: My wife has a 3+ MP digital camera in her Nokia phone, with a flash, and was able to take very nice shots of our New Years, in near darkness, and send the pictures to her family and friends within minutes. The pictures were very good.

As to my prior comment, apparently my attempts at humor were misguided, or mistaken.

But seriously, then, in this forum, commmenting that someone is thinking in Black & White has got to be just too obvious. Of course not everyone on the forum does black and white work, but many more do, even if not exclusively, and I am not surprised. Does thinking in Black & White work for me? No, I am an attorney, so I can only suggest that my views are rather nuanced in that regard.

Life is too important to be taken seriously, in any event.

 

[Richard Black]

I really don't think those of use who use b&w film, or convert color to b&w, think in black and white. I'm more a "shades of greyscale" than b&w. Unless there is compelling reason to use high contrast b&w, say a snow and tree scene, most want the full range of grey from black to white, if possible, think zone system. Then maybe I'm wrong!

 

[pundit]

My wife nixes all attempts by me to photograph with film now ... she insists that film does not provide her with enough immediate image control.

I have told her that her middle name is "Delete Delete Delete".