The Devil's Work

I think after having read this entire thread, I see the solution of my problem. Go digital. Then I can excuse my lack of abilities. :p

Since I don't do digital other than with a P&S and with a flatbed scanner, I don't think I can comment with any real experience. I like film, but I do see some very good digital, and some very bad film (stop by my house :D) I have to guess it is with the practioner. See the link by Vince Lupo.
 
I myself am never clear that there is always a direct connection be time spent / difficulty encountered and quality.
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...that seems to me the essence of this question.

For some people, it's the journey; for others, it's the destination.

I started out in the second group, became part of the first group when I stopped selling pictures and later rejoined the second group, as digital got better and better. I keep thinking I'd like to embrace both but I don't know if I have the mental agility to switch between them without tripping over both my paradigms and landing in the slough of confusion.
 
RichC said:
And as I said before - why is that bad?
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Why do you want to place yourself in an elite that looks down on the "less than good work", that labels only as "good" that photography which meets your prerequisites of craft and skill?
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I don't think it is bad that there is an increasing number of "less than good" photos. Simply not my problem. I was only commenting that the percentage of those photos were increasing dramatically.

I certainly do not consider myself an elite that "looks down" on some photos. Now many have no interest to me but I realize that they fill someone else's need. I am not one who dwells on labels, especially "good" vs. "not good". I only worry about what appeals to me. I let others worry about what appeals to them. I would hope that others do the same.
 
Bill Pierce said:
I have a friend who is both a major gallery owner and a major collector. He thinks that digital has been a relatively negative influence on photography.
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I wholeheartedly agree. For a few reasons.

• Commitment. When you had to lug around a Mamiya RZ67 (or larger) to consider yourself a professional, you were making a commitment. Nowadays (my old man word), you read blog posts by well-known Interweb Picture Gods where they trumpet their ability to do 'professional' assignments with a m 4/3 camera... or smaller sensor. They feel 'enabled' to do their business with gear that fits in a fanny pack, and emit wails of oppression if anyone asserts they should be using larger formats.

• Singularity. re: Fashion Photography.... Up through the 90s, you could pick up an issue of Vogue or Bazaar, point to a ad or an editorial image, and easily recognize even a single photograph as having come from a certain photographer. Each of them had a very distinctive signature, resulting from an individual combination of lens, film, and lighting. Nowadays, they all shoot with a Hasselblad H-something, and files are processed by some guy in a dark room — and that guy probably works on files from a bunch of different high-end shooters. There's a sameness, and a decided lack of character.

• "Volume" is not the problem. Fashion/Commercial photographers have always shot a LOT of film. And, people your friend might be exhibiting are not likely to be amateurs who just spray and hope to get lucky. It's a technical issue — digital is bland, inherently, and attempts to 'liven it up' too often result in tackiness, because not enough people really have 'good taste.' In fact, outside of fashion photographers, you rarely find a photographer with good taste, and if you're asking him to concoct a 'signature,' from scratch, from a base digital file, you're asking for trouble.

• Digital is disposable. Even when we use and 'love' digital, we don't cling to its products like we do to 'physical' media. I still have casual snapshot Kodachromes that i shot in 1980 as a 13 year old that i value more than files from the 5DMkII i used to have. Not because the 'photography' was better, but because they're real and tangible and sorta magical in the way with which they interact with light. What's a better experience? Opening one of those old plastic boxes of a stack of Ektachromes, or opening a folder of JPGs? The latter is easier. The former is more compelling.

• "Snobbery." If i visit a gallery with the intent of buying photographs, i will have almost no interest in purchasing anything other than a traditional print. I have only the beginnings of a collection at this point, but going forward, that's almost a criteria for the endeavor. I'm not concerned with claims that digital prints can be/are better than analog. I started in photograph pre-digital, so that's the standard. A bias, for sure. If analog had come about after digital, as an alternative way of making images, i might have a different viewpoint. But, ALL of the photographers i admire/worship have been FILM photographers, and i have not found any digital photographers that interest me. Even the classic guys who used to shoot film and have transitioned to digital seem to have 'lost' their appeal. McCurry, Harvey, Gibson, etc.... I haven't liked anything they now do, and not just because i'm disinclined to. The character of their previous imagery is what i loved, and i don't see it now.

• Numbers. Digital makes the process democratic. It enables a lot of people to turn out a lot of work, and so we have to sort through a lot more chaff than before. That's both frustrating and lends the impression that there is so much more bad work now. Percentage-wise, maybe not - i dunno. But, perceptually so, for sure.
 
THE scenario you describe already exists. The raw file metadata contains this and more about the camera. DNG files (and other formats as well I guess) can be saved to include all the post-processing history. However as far as I know moving files outside of PS or LR (to Silver Efex or whatever) is not capture in the DNG supplemental meta data.


JoeV said:
Following this logic, we'd have to include all the post-production software and individualized settings in the image description, such as "Photo by Leica Monochrom, Lightroom version whatever and Silver Efex Pro Tri-X setting with S-curve and localized burn/dodge via Photoshop version whatever." Which gets back to the photographer, who had to choose amongst a myriad of software choices, settings and combinations.

I don't think the problem with contemporary photography is digital workflow, but rather that we haven't sufficiently raised the bar on our expectations. Think of cinema: I can shoot the technical equivalent of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" using an iPhone and iMovie. But that doesn't make me an auteur. With access to increased technical capability should come higher expectations.

~Joe
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RichC said:
I personally value a certain type of photograph, and strive to apply craft and skill to my photography. But I also believe that photography is a broad church, and that most people take photographs for entirely different reasons, preferring automated cameras that capture images with the minimum of fuss and forethought. And who am I to judge which kind of photograph is "better"? They're just different.
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Very much agree with this point. There are many non photographers who use cameras (P&S) as a medium to record their thoughts/emotions. and to me they offer exciting views into their worlds.
 
Very much agree with this point. There are many non photographers who use cameras (P&S) as a medium to record their thoughts/emotions. and to me they offer exciting views into their worlds.
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+1.

Moreover, I really wish that some people would stop using words like "mediocre" and "bad" to describe images they don't like.

:bang:
 
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