Is it possible to create art with digital?

Do you ever print your digital pictures? Make a print from one and suddenly it will feel both more "real" and "authentic". A lot of digital photographers never transfer their pictures into print form and I think it results in the malaise that you are experiencing.
 
MarkoKovacevic said:
The medium has a distinct effect on the final content though.
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But it's generally a technical concern. Good art is more in the concept.

So, what this really comes down to is grain right? Lack of grain turns many off. However, grain isn't everything and generally speaking grain does not make a bad photo great.
 
Keith said:
Too many people are assuming digital needs to follow in the footsteps of analog photography to have any artistic credibility.

Digital is it's own master and needs to bow to no other medium IMO!
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I feel that digital lacks a certain authenticity because it copies film. I think you are 100% on the money in saying digital needs to bow to no other medium, the problem is that practically everyone tries to make it emulate film. The camera makers add film modes, people use Silver Efex Pro to make it look like film, they want "grain like" noise at high ISO.

I like the Lytro for one reason, and that's that it is doing something which is very "digital", and not in any way a copy of film.
 
Don't ask me. Ask Robert Mapplethorpe. (Though you may need to use a different, um, type of medium to do so.) I recall that he was well known for the use of digits in art.

...Mike
 
kanzlr said:
interesting. I feel that digital records authentically, while film already filters the image through all the defects and imperfections it imposes.
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I think you're right, but hardly anyone simply records digitally and shows the result. People will mess with it PhotoShop, try to make it look like film etc. But my main point (if indeed I have one at all), is that the physical nature of film will *feel* more like art than an SD card with files on will.

I'm certainly not stating that digital cannot make art, but I certainly understand why people feel like it can't.
 
Even though I am a near 100% photochemical photographer I believe that art can be created in any medium be it digital, photochemical or horse ****. Digital can be a great tool to create art used under the right conditions that is. If you want to create a hyper modern world devoid of emotions digital is surely the better medium. I agree with the poster that says that digital as to find its own voice and stop emulating other medias. Digital as opposed to analogue photography can create worlds, dreams and things that have not parallel in the real world, that what I believe is digital strong point the creations of new things that have never been seen.

Dominik
 
thegman said:
I feel that digital lacks a certain authenticity because it copies film.
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It doesn't copy film. People try to make it copy film. I'm completely comfortable with digital being clean and clinical. The photos matter, not artifacts.

That said, I always wonder if William Klein's New York stuff would look just as good in digital? Probably not. It's hard to reimagine past work though... better to let it be.
 
I blame Duchamp. Art is anything I say is art. Regardless of medium.
Funnily enough, if you delve deeply into it, you could argue that film photography is actually digital in nature (a silver halide crystal is either transformed or not when struck by a photon, effectively a 1 or 0 result) and digital is analog (that's why digital cameras contain an analog-to-digital converter, to convert the analog voltage to a digital value http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Camera_System/ad_converter_01.htm).
I compare film to digital as I would compare using oil to acrylic or watercolour paints - they're just different, that's all. Every one has their own preference, and you can make good or bad art with either.
 
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hipsterdufus said:
Do you ever print your digital pictures? Make a print from one and suddenly it will feel both more "real" and "authentic". A lot of digital photographers never transfer their pictures into print form and I think it results in the malaise that you are experiencing.
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For me, it's not a photograph until it's been printed and kept and used (not thrown away or hidden from view). Film or digital.

I'm not saying anyone else should feel the same way.

Since the advent of digital I have more images but roughly the same number of photographs per unit time (and a far smaller percentage of prints hiden in shoeboxes).

Art? That's a different subject. But some photographs are art. Including some digital photographs. I wish more (any?) of mine were both art and good art. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

...Mike
 
thegman said:
I feel that digital lacks a certain authenticity because it copies film. I think you are 100% on the money in saying digital needs to bow to no other medium, the problem is that practically everyone tries to make it emulate film. The camera makers add film modes, people use Silver Efex Pro to make it look like film, they want "grain like" noise at high ISO.

I like the Lytro for one reason, and that's that it is doing something which is very "digital", and not in any way a copy of film.
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True but that's up to the users surely ... manufacturers offer these film emulations to sell cameras. A serious artist will create a raw file and do what they wish with it!
 
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