ChrisN
Striving
mugent
Well-known
I think to some buyers of photographs, the process is important, the craft is important. When I look at a sculpture, I like seeing the chisel marks, if it were carved perfectly by a computer controlled laser, it would not be the same.
Of course there is a skill and craft to photoshopping, but it's a different skill, and one that is not very interesting to me.
Like it or not, very few forms of art are pure artistic expression, there is usually an element of craft involved, this may or may not be important to some people, but it's important to me.
It would be a shame to see the traditional darkroom go away, but I don't think this is happening anytime soon.
Of course there is a skill and craft to photoshopping, but it's a different skill, and one that is not very interesting to me.
Like it or not, very few forms of art are pure artistic expression, there is usually an element of craft involved, this may or may not be important to some people, but it's important to me.
It would be a shame to see the traditional darkroom go away, but I don't think this is happening anytime soon.
telenous
Well-known
A couple of tangential thoughts upon reading this thread.
From a contemporary point of view art is rarely measured by the degree of manual dexterity manifested by the artifact. This has been so at least since Duchamp's urinal and has been cemented in theory by an academia of a definite post-modernist bent in this area. That's probably not how people/laymen respond personally to art, but it's the contemporary point of view nonetheless. However the question of manual dexterity and expert craftmaking in photography still arises in the context of artisanal creation, in the same way it would for pottery, calligraphy, or knife-making (knife-making having being mentioned in this thread already). Αrtisanal products have their own market and they may fetch a very high price but they usually lie outside the aesthetic value system of contemporary art, not because the two are mutually exclusive (they aren't) but as a matter of course in two worlds that are sometimes indifferent, sometimes hostile to each other. I think that's one thing worth saying in relation to photography, craft and art.
The other is more of an observation: When you look at the history of the photographic medium, especially the way photography was embraced and promoted by the surrealists, dadaists etc. one thing that immediately stands out was their commitment to the new/'modern' art precisely because of its automechanical nature. This goes back to something ChrisC. wrote earlier. No matter how much you try to induce traces of individuality and manual origin, the photographic product is essentially a mechanical reproduction. This was understood and taken to be a positive trait in the surrealist camp which was militating against existing aesthetic norms emphasizing craftmanship, authorship etc. (After all, "Épater la bourgeoisie" and their art establishment). But the selfsame process, taken once as automatic, mechanical, reproductive, is today held by some as a manual process. Obviously nothing has changed in the process itself. The only thing that has is the context of comparison. But then manual dexterity/craftsmanship and the ‘degree of involvement’ in crafting, are all relative, context-dependent concepts. What that means is that even though it can be used as a strictly personal measure for art it’s very difficult to see how it can be anything more than just that.
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From a contemporary point of view art is rarely measured by the degree of manual dexterity manifested by the artifact. This has been so at least since Duchamp's urinal and has been cemented in theory by an academia of a definite post-modernist bent in this area. That's probably not how people/laymen respond personally to art, but it's the contemporary point of view nonetheless. However the question of manual dexterity and expert craftmaking in photography still arises in the context of artisanal creation, in the same way it would for pottery, calligraphy, or knife-making (knife-making having being mentioned in this thread already). Αrtisanal products have their own market and they may fetch a very high price but they usually lie outside the aesthetic value system of contemporary art, not because the two are mutually exclusive (they aren't) but as a matter of course in two worlds that are sometimes indifferent, sometimes hostile to each other. I think that's one thing worth saying in relation to photography, craft and art.
The other is more of an observation: When you look at the history of the photographic medium, especially the way photography was embraced and promoted by the surrealists, dadaists etc. one thing that immediately stands out was their commitment to the new/'modern' art precisely because of its automechanical nature. This goes back to something ChrisC. wrote earlier. No matter how much you try to induce traces of individuality and manual origin, the photographic product is essentially a mechanical reproduction. This was understood and taken to be a positive trait in the surrealist camp which was militating against existing aesthetic norms emphasizing craftmanship, authorship etc. (After all, "Épater la bourgeoisie" and their art establishment). But the selfsame process, taken once as automatic, mechanical, reproductive, is today held by some as a manual process. Obviously nothing has changed in the process itself. The only thing that has is the context of comparison. But then manual dexterity/craftsmanship and the ‘degree of involvement’ in crafting, are all relative, context-dependent concepts. What that means is that even though it can be used as a strictly personal measure for art it’s very difficult to see how it can be anything more than just that.
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noisycheese
Normal(ish) Human
Hear, hear.
Reminds me of the words of David Vestal:
I look forward to the day in the near future when I am able to build my own darkroom at home. I miss printmaking...
68degrees
Well-known
well said. thats exactly what digital images are. Paintings.