Ralph Gibson: Why would you ditch film in your 76th year?

Photo_Smith said:
I took that to mean that the difference between non destructive pushing of sliders seeing in real time the result and the time consuming density changes, test, reprint, test (and the colour shifts) are both not that hard. One is easy enough after a 30 second lesson the other takes time to learn, patience and some skill.
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I think digital is only a 30 second lesson if you have darkroom experience. Lightroom made sense to me because I had darkroom experience. If you have no experience in either, neither will be so simple to learn. Also, learning what to look for AND what a print should look like is not simple to learn in either.

I've already stated that the darkroom is more work. My point was that once you have a skill set down (for your needs), you just do it... and don't worry about how hard or easy it is to do. Ultimately, it comes down to the photograph and what you are looking to do. The hardest part still remains making something compelling in your frame at the time of exposure. Museums, galleries, magazines, books, etc. do not contain stats with regard to how many hours were spent in the darkroom in order to add value.
 
Where has it been stated by Ralph Gibson that he's never going to shoot another roll of film again? He's made a book using the Monochrom, doesn't mean the next one won't be film, black and white or colour. I'll await his announcement that he's abandoning film completely :p
 
Keith said:
The wheel Frank ... the wheel! :p
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You have to go back pretty far to find something as revolutionary, don't you.

I don't thing the wheel had a great impact on making art. The computer is a game changer.

It's like the difference between drawing and photography. Different tools and processes and its okay to prefer one over the other. Digital photography is very different from traditional photography in its tools and processes, even though the end product looks very similar.

To me, digital photography is as different an art form from traditional photography, as drawing is to traditional photography. Embrace the difference. Stop trying to say it's the same. It's not. It's different. That's okay.
 
jsrockit said:
I think digital is only a 30 second lesson if you have darkroom experience. Lightroom made sense to me because I had darkroom experience. If you have no experience in either, neither will be so simple to learn. Also, learning what to look for AND what a print should look like is not simple to learn in either.
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Well I teach both, it is massively easier to teach in real time on PS. The student pushes a slider that says brightness and it goes up and down, that doesn't happen with B&W there is no brightness and if you leave the bulb on for longer the print is darker-not obvious!.
Simple adjustments are easy students can see that Red and cyan are opposites how many people knew that in 1980?
My son got fairly good in the basics of PS in a few mins when the darkroom takes longer.
So printing through photoshop is a country mile easier even for a new user than a C type darkroom print.
 
Photo_Smith said:
So printing through photoshop is a country mile easier even for a new user than a C type darkroom print.
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Well, I can agree with that. Many of my friends who would never touch the color darkroom due to being scared will print digitally by themselves. It wasn't so scary to me... but now that I look back, I can see my color darkroom work wasn't exactly perfect.
 
It's not the wand but the magician...I'm confident that Ralph will continue to make marvelous magic from shadow and light.
 
Nice rant and film always has a special place in my heart. The switch is also good for Ralph's publicity for people who may not know him and are just now getting into photography.
 
A great digital print is hard work and often just as hard work as a darkroom print. It's easier to get middle of the run quality in digital but superb work is work in all medias
 
i'd say mr. gibson has earned the privilege of shooting/editing/printing with whatever he wants. and unless senility has set in, i'd say his work will be worth viewing. he IS ralph gibson ...
 
Hm. I really am not sure about darkroom prints being easier to do than digital. With digital printing methods that use ink (i.e. not digital C type or other kinds of printing that use photosensitive chemicals in a digital workflow) it's very hard to know what you're going to get with any accuracy. If there's one sure thing it's that what you see on screen is only a very very approximate estimate of what you'll actually get in print. You need to worry about viscosity, humidity, temperature, comparative drying rates between inks, paper absorbency and so on - plus not only that but results vary as the printer is used (ink reserve pressure, how warmed up the machine is etc). In my time as a designer I spent many hundreds of hours adjusting files to print - it was by far the most time consuming part of the job.

I've never done a colour C type from film (I'd like to) so I don't know how long it takes or how much experience is required, but I can definitely tell you that while photoshop might look or be easy, actually printing things well from digital files is a ****.
 
So what he went digital !

Maybe Rodinal is a bitch to get these days in some localities.

He still drives his 1956 Buick Roadmaster at least.
 
well his work with that camera is very good. not every frame, but many of them. certainly stronger than the overwhelming majority of even competent photographers to my taste.

also that monochrom Gibson edition is a very attractive camera.
 
I told my wife according to some people here I is a artisan.... she was not impressed

since I had a choice I have decided to shoot film and have a wet darkroom for the rest of my life (so what) but if for some reason Leica wanted to sponsor my switch to digital by throwing expensive cameras at me, sponsoring my book, paying me to put my name on one of their cameras and if the switch to digital caused enough publicity to fill ten pages on this forum I would be the first in line. Maybe some of us here would know but I would bet that most of us here could not name the last couple of books Ralph put out but by God after reading all this we sure know the name of this one.

Come to think of it I read a interview once where he mentioned that when he printed he had a assistant show up a hour earlier to set up all the chemistry and get everything ready and also stayed after he was done to clean up and seeing how I do all that stuff myself I think I must be a bigger artisan than he is.
 
Jeezus. 13 pages already?

I'm late to the discussion, but i agree with whoever wrote the article. Completely. Of course, artists are free to choose new tools and to evolve. But, i became a 'fan' of Gibson's work with Deus Ex Machina, and subsequently hunted down a few of his older books. And, that's the stuff from him that i love. The late work just has none of the character of the older stuff. And, that's what drew me to his photography. The character inherent in the finished pieces. To suggest that the work is the same because it was made with the same 'eye' and composition is to ignore (all of) the nuance that separates great work from pedestrian stuff.

I feel the same way about a lot (all?) of the photographers i loved from their film work, who have since moved on to digital. David Allan Harvey. Peter Lindbergh. Mario Testino. Bitesnich. Steve McCurry..... I guess i could just continue to list names. Point is, i can't name a single photographer that i like as much now as i did before, if analog>digital is the variable. Not a single one. And, i'm not anti-digital —*not entirely. I've owned and used Canon 5Ds and the like. I plan to buy a 5D3 shortly. But, I'll never leave an image in a state that maintains a 'digital aesthetic.' I'll cheat it, as far as possible, to emulate the 'old tones' and texture.

Yeah, everyone's free to use the tools he wants to use. But, as an audience, we're just as free to "dismiss" that artist if we don't like aesthetic characteristics of the new work. For the same reasons as we become 'fans' of those people.

I don't see it as wrong to be critical of the work. He's only being mentioned now because of his earlier popularity. If people are now 'off the bandwagon' because they don't find the new work to be nearly as compelling, it's just as fair as when those people anointed him. What are we supposed to do, ignore the differences? Were we supposed to swear lifelong fealty? When the work changed, so did our appreciation.

What makes this particular instance so much more illustrative of the digital/film 'war' is that Gibson was SOOOO known for grain and a very particular analog look. And, the switch is sorta like taking a Van Gogh painting, scanning it, and eliminating the brush strokes, then outputting an inkjet of it. Same subject matter. Same composition. Same design. Altogether different feeling.
 
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