Ralph Gibson article in WIRED about 'going digital'

Peter Wijninga said:
I admire this man. At age 83 he is still putting out his work.
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Exactly. It is very easy to be critical, but has anyone else here had the career he has had in photography? He`s earned the right to make whatever he wants, but you are also free to not look. Leica has enabled this for him and I think it is wonderful. We should be so lucky. Many of us will be very lucky to be able to be making photos outside of our house or our beds by the time we are his age.
 
From:
http://us.leica-camera.com/Leica-Galleries/Leica-Gallery-Los-Angeles/News-Program/%22Digital-Color%22-by-Ralph-Gibson

"Digital Color" Exhibition
January 17 - February 24, 2019
Celebrate the milestone 80th birthday of renowned photographer Ralph Gibson with Leica, featuring his new exhibition "Digital Color" at Leica Gallery Los Angeles on January 17.

Obviously the guy his still interested in taking photographs and he is bold enough to think that they are worth publishing. If I reach that age and still take photos, I'll be glad, not talking about publishing any of them😱.
He takes pictures to have new work up at his studio wall, to prove himself that he can still produce work that he is satisfied with after a couple of weeks looking at them. Obviously he has found a certain camera type to work best for his vision. And yes, there is some mutual benefit for him and Leica out of this fondness for the Leica M. Once you have found your vision, you CAN work with any camera, still you will have a preference. And it doesn't make any difference if you use a digital or film camera to capture your vision. If you use grainy film or Pan F, a 10 year old 12mp camera or the latest and greatest 240mp digital back, it doesn't produce a great picture if you don't have a vision.

Ralph has taken a zillion pictures over the course of his creative life. And he found a personal way of keeping it up. Creating challenges for himself e.g. by using the odd 135 Apo Telyt on a RF camera to find a new angle.

He is a great guy who shares his knowledge and if you are open to grab what is relevant to you, you will greatly improve your photography. Worked for me.😎
 
ptpdprinter said:
I am thinking of calling my next show Digital Images. At least it would give me something to talk about. No one ask me if my images were film or digital the last time around.
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Or go crazy and call them 'Digital/AI'.
The press, Canon, Nikon and Leica will be beating down your door 😉
 
intheviewfinder said:
“I’m not interested in making my images look like analog silver gelatin. Right off the bat I didn't care for that. If I had wanted an analog look, I would've stayed with my film.”

At this particular moment in the photography continuum I think this is an important point, if you go digital don't try to make it look analog. Make the medium work for you.
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Agreed.

About a year into transitioning to digital imaging I made this mistake. I discovered this recently when I started to edit (select) and organize images that spanned a three year period when I shot both film and digital for personal projects. Soon after receiving an X-100 in 2011 I stopped using film.

So, I had to re-render many color negative film scans I had attempted to render with a digital image look.

One exception were some B&W digital renderings. In low light levels the noise in digital camera images rendered in monochrome seems aesthetically similar to ISO 400 and B&W film, especially B&W film pushed to 800. I don't try to simulate film rendering, it just seems to turn out that way. In well-lit circumstances I don't add simulated grain and monochrome renderings don't have an analog look.
 
Peter Wijninga said:
I admire this man. At age 83 he is still putting out his work.
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You realize you said this on his 80th birthday, right?

Snark aside, I'm with you; I have admired his work for 30 years. I liked his older work better, but he's still making some good images. It's worth remembering that the 54,000 instagramers some posters above have compared him work to were all influenced by Gibson, directly or indirectly. Their work exists because Gibson and a few other artists started that movement.

Anyway, I'm not particularly impressed by this article/infomercial/fluff piece, and I think Gibson peaked a while ago and is now sliding into old age doing the same thing he's done, but what's wrong with that? He made his mark, and he's living his life and still making his art. His new stuff may not be as ground breaking as his work of 40 years ago, but that's ok with me.
 
I loved Gibson's early work and his tryptic books. I had the opportunity to attend two lectures on his work. In the last presentation he gave, at New York's Midtown Y back in 1980, Gibson cried a little and said he never became the photographer he wanted to be. No one understood what he was talking about and he didn't elaborate. Maybe he was after money....? I always thought it was interesting that he was Dorothea Lange's assistant back in the 1960s.
I haven't cared for Gibson's work since he started doing those Avenue magazine covers years ago. Now that was money....
 
kbg32 said:
I loved Gibson's early work and his tryptic books. I had the opportunity to attend two lectures on his work. In the last presentation he gave, at New York's Midtown Y back in 1980, Gibson cried a little and said he never became the photographer he wanted to be. No one understood what he was talking about and he didn't elaborate. Maybe he was after money....?
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No, I doubt that. My guess would be that he was comparing himself to the photographers he admired “growing up,” or remembering the ideals he had, and felt he fell short (even if he objectively may not have).
 
I think most artists peak and consensus seems to form around their best period.

With photography because it's a technical art, the medium the photographer was using at the time of that peak become inextricably tied up with their art.

So Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places can't really be separated from the look of the film he was using at the time. The 70's emulsion and colors of auto paint then and the other elements of the time meld into that art. Same with Gibson and his super sharp pushed Tri-X in Rodinal or William Egglestons dye transfer prints of Kodachrome.

I don't think it's a digital vs analog per se but the look of the art is just bound up with the medium. Few artists are able to transcend this and keep producing great work.

There will probably be great Instagram artists whose later work with 100 megapixel iPhone 20s won't be good as their work with their iPhone 5s and people will be scavenging the junk piles for them.
 
Timmyjoe said:
"Gibson took the camera outside, pointed it at a manhole cover and snapped a photo. Just as he did, a bicycle zipped by, casting dramatic, spoked shadows across the pavement within the frame."

When pigs fly.

There's no way a photographer who has mastered the art of seeing as Ralph Gibson has, would be caught with an image of a manhole cover that just happen to have this bicycle shadow appearing in it. He saw what the image would be and waited for the moment where the bicycle shadow would be where he wanted it.

After reading that ridiculous statement, I lost total interest in the article.

Best,
-Tim
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You gotta sell it. Any which way will do. 😀
 
There is another thread currently here about using a tripod and landscapes. Ralph Gibson on the other hand has and likely will continue to inspire many from his hand-held shooting, with his eye and his vision and seeming spontaneity.

There is a poignant aspect in Gibson's ability to communicate visually that comes through for me in most of the images from this article. The strong lines and shapes make me think of Franz Kline at the same time creating a sense of wonder about what may lie outside the frame. And particularly the diptychs point to his strong sense of narrative.

Thanks Richard for sharing the article here!

David
 
gavinlg said:
I always get the strong sense that most of these film era masters of the art made stronger work on film. There are exceptions - David Alan Harvey and Christopher Anderson who both seem to be able to mould whatever medium they're using perfectly around their content.
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But I vastly prefer David Alan Harvey's film work to his recent digital...I did see the Ralph Gibson article the other day, and I suspect I would feel the same about his digital work. Either way, he did pave the path for his style, that I really like. I'll look at anything he's done.

helenhill said:
Always enjoyed Gibson.
His work rouses my Imagination
Pushing the scales of Shadow & Light, Contour & Shapes
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Exactly
 
kbg32 said:
I loved Gibson's early work and his tryptic books. I had the opportunity to attend two lectures on his work. In the last presentation he gave, at New York's Midtown Y back in 1980, Gibson cried a little and said he never became the photographer he wanted to be. No one understood what he was talking about and he didn't elaborate. Maybe he was after money....? I always thought it was interesting that he was Dorothea Lange's assistant back in the 1960s.
I haven't cared for Gibson's work since he started doing those Avenue magazine covers years ago. Now that was money....
Click to expand...

Perhaps the fact he strayed from work that inspired him to begin with explains this. He rates Walker Evans, Atget, Cartier-Bresson, Frank as influences, yet they were all documentarians with an artistic bend, not the other way round.

Anyway, kudos to him for still doing the work.
 
Ralph printed for years on a Leitz enlarger given to him by Robert Frank that Frank had used to make the prints for his book The Americans. If he doesn't need it anymore I would be happy to put it to use


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Mr Gibson has changed his mind regarding using digital cameras in these last 11 years.

Back then he said he was not interested in using a digital camera (5:14 in the video), but things have move so far in the digital world since then that it is hard to blame him for doing so.

BTW, lots of wise advice and commentary on photography in that video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzMQcE2E-1o
 
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