The Ikea Effect, or why digital is dangerous for photography

[mfogiel]

I've written a short article in my blog, about the psychological mechanism that makes editing photographs difficult. I hope you will enjoy it, and I've no doubt there will be many different opinions about it:

http://mondoinbiancoenero.com/the-ikea-effect-or-why-digital-is-dangerous-for-photography/

 

[valdas]

I agree with most of the statements... but the title is misleading (at lest for me) because I never had any difficulties in assembling IKEA furniture... 🙂

 

[lawrence]

Interesting. You say learn to appreciate, that making good pictures is difficult. Train your eye on books of great photographers to understand what the art is about.

I so agree with this, it's not only difficult to make good pictures but it can also be difficult to appreciate them. In the early 1970s I spent three years at art college studying photography. When I joined the course I hadn't much of an idea about what a great photograph was let alone how to make one. Over the years I looked at lots of photographs but couldn't really relate to the work of Walker Evans and certainly there were few people on the course who did; we just thought of him as another FSA photographer in the photojournalist mould. However in 1976 the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford had a show of his work that I went to see and I was blown away. I realised that his vision went far beyond the work of the the other FSA photographers and that subconsciously I'd been influenced without even realising it. Pretty much the same applies to Winogrand and Eggleston; I was unimpressed to start with but later became a big fan. So yes, learning to appreciate what a great photograph is must surely be the starting point.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

I'm very much afraid that I disagree with pretty well everything you have written in your article.

I think you'll find that an enormous majority of people love the instant feedback of digital and are happy to do away with the wait, cost and inconvenience of film. Only a few of us oddballs actually enjoy the process for its own sake and it seems likely to me that there are fewer of us every day.

But hey! If it floats your boat, who am I to argue? :angel:

 

[Steve M.]

I think in order to appreciate any art you need to see the best of the best in person hanging on a wall. That was a learning experience for me, traveling to the major art cities in the US on a sort of pilgrimage to see what the good stuff is supposed to look like. When I say that, I mean walking around a corner in a gallery or museum and being stopped dead in your tracks by someone's work. Keeping an open mind is essential too. I love B&W photographs, but yesterday I saw some work on another site that was mostly hand colored photographs and the work blew me away. You just never know. You can look at pedestrian stuff for what seems like years and years (and make it too), and all of a sudden see work that is way above the rest. I remember being in a gallery in S.F. once, and when one of the staff asked if they could help someone that had just came in the door, the guy said "no thanks, I'm just stealing ideas". I liked that. When you look at work that is obviously outstanding it can give your own work a kick in the pants.

Myself, I don't like digital because it is generally an inferior medium. I could care less how something is made, but I fully expect the blackest of whites, the whitest of whites, and lots of shadow detail and tonal variation in prints. Digital is not there yet. For some types of work it is fine. But not as a rule. When you shoot film you have so many options to give the piece a distinctive look. Choice of film, choice of using a LF camera to give certain looks and scale to a print, maybe you don't even want to use film, you want to work w/ wet or dry plate photography to get those incredibly deep blacks.....so many ways to do it. Digital usually looks the same because it is nearly always just a digital capture that is printed on an inkjet machine. There is little variation between different sensors in the cameras, as they all work essentially the same. Why deny yourself so many options to work with? I have never understood that and never will. I could see using it for color as you can boost the saturation to get beyond its native flat colors, but looking at those hand colored pieces the other day, wow, it can't do that either. Layering oils over a B&W print can produce incredibly deep and complex hues. One should use the best mediums that exist in any field in order to get the best results. It isn't rocket science, and it's not a philosophy. But the best mediums are nearly always difficult to work with and sometimes require years to master. Therein is the problem I suppose.

 

[YYV_146]

I appreciate the art of post processing digital files, and regards working on digital files as a joy of its own. I can say that I've built a reputation not because I can take good photos (actually, I'm aware that I'm not an artistically inclined person), but because I have a good post processing workflow and can make good digital prints.

Working on digital files is complicated. One needs a very good display for critical results, and it has to be calibrated for a certain light. One must make proofs for a specific paper, and true mastery of Photoshop is not something one can achieve overnight. I've worked on thousands of images since the days of CS2, and still I find myself learning new tricks about the software, trying out new filters, and getting better at doing what I've done countless times. Would you say that this is a lesser joy compared to the darkroom?

To the person who understands digital processing, an image on the camera LCD means nothing. I check focus on the LCD, nothing more. The white balance, the tonality, saturation, contrast, brightness - all of that depends how I want the image to look like after I've worked on it. I do not get "results" from a digital file until I've printed it out on a 4x6 test sheet and am satisfied with what I see.

 

[YYV_146]

Myself, I don't like digital because it is generally an inferior medium. I could care less how something is made, but I fully expect the blackest of whites, the whitest of whites, and lots of shadow detail and tonal variation in prints. Digital is not there yet. For some types of work it is fine. But not as a rule. When you shoot film you have so many options to give the piece a distinctive look. Choice of film, choice of using a LF camera to give certain looks and scale to a print, maybe you don't even want to use film, you want to work w/ wet or dry plate photography to get those incredibly deep blacks.....so many ways to do it. Digital usually looks the same because it is nearly always just a digital capture that is printed on an inkjet machine. Why deny yourself so many options to work with? I have never understood that and never will. I could see using it for color as you can boost the saturation to get beyond its native flat colors, but looking at those hand colored pieces the other day, wow, it can't do that either. Layering oils over a B&W print can produce incredibly deep and complex hues. One should use the best medium there is in any field in order to get the best results. It isn't rocket science, and it's not a philosophy.

I'll agree that there are *some things film can do that digital cannot, or that the cost and time effort of simulating the effect in digital is simply too high. But for 99% of film work I see out there, I believe that I can replicate with the proper processing and printing technique. There are large format digital bodies, however expensive they may be...I can print digital files on many mediums such as wood or cloth, and even for inkjets there are good papers that can totally change how a picture looks.

So I don't there is a "best results" medium, but there may be a "most efficient" medium. If it takes me hours to fix something in the darkroom but a minute on a computer, digital is clearly the better medium for that specific photo. On the other hand, there are some results that may require extremely complex file tweaking and printing, but can come naturally from an emulsion...

 

[__jc]

Yes I think you have some very pertinent ideas in your piece, especially about taking time to get to know the pictures and spending time to understand what works and what doesn't, and of course this is just as true for digital and film photographers alike.

Most of all I liked the sentence toward the end of your piece: "In due course, you will eliminate the dudes."

Yeah, those darn dudes NEED eliminatin'.

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Yeah, those darn dudes NEED eliminatin'.

Errrrr.... {GULP!} 😱

 

[Joosep]

Digital smigital & film smilm. Whatever the case, I cant get a picture worth a buck from neither. Must be operator error. Oh well, there is always knitting...

Tho I like the idea of a linkage between time spent and value. That works for me. People call me a hipster now. Beats me...

 

[Sparrow]

Digital smigital & film smilm. Whatever the case, I cant get a picture worth a buck from neither. Must be operator error. Oh well, there is always knitting...

Tho I like the idea of a linkage between time spent and value. That works for me. People call me a hipster now. Beats me...

... perhaps more dude than hipster? ... go carefully 🙂

 

[Michael Markey]

"Its Deja vu all over again".

 

[Bike Tourist]

No one has ever been able to objectively evaluate his work. That is why we have contest judges and photo editors. We bring to our own work the real-time impressions at the time we made the image — not only sight but sound and even smell as well. None of those other senses carry over to the observer.

Difficulty in obtaining the image means a lot to the photographer, nothing to the observer.

The old criteria, especially judged as a print on the wall, are less and less relevant. Most images are used online. Not printed and framed. Not appearing in print media.

Ikea itself will soon be supplanted — by 3D printing!

 

[RichC]

I fail to see why many photographers feel so threatened by and fearful of digital. I think certain photographers are more concerned with loss of the elitism associated with the name "photographer". And that's what digital has brought to photography: it has made the medium democratic. Today, anyone can take a sharp photo instantly, and make it "better" at the press or a slide of a finger on phone screen. Most people who take photographs have no interest or need to "train their eye".

Those who desire to train their eye (presumably many of us on this forum) will continue to do so, as they've always done. And digital will make no difference to that process. Digital may give you an "instant" picture, but that doesn't mean instant acceptance, and this type of photographer will apply the same rigour of review and editing as for film images - which usually includes setting aside photographs awhile and returning to them.

 

[Keith]

I fail to see why many photographers feel so threatened by and fearful of digital. I think certain photographers are more concerned with loss of the elitism associated with the name "photographer". And that's what digital has brought to photography: it has made the medium democratic. Today, anyone can take a sharp photo instantly, and make it "better" at the press of a slide of a finger on phone screen. Most people who take photographs have no interest or need to "train their eye".

Those who desire to train their eye (presumably many of us on this forum) will continue to do so, as they've always done. And digital will make no difference to that process. Digital may give you an "instant" picture, but that doesn't mean instant acceptance, and this type of photographer will apply the same rigour of review and editing as to film images - which usually includes setting aside photographs awhile and returning to them.

This! ^ 🙂

The way I see it you can wander around with your M3 loaded with Tri-X your entire photgraphic life ... or you can embrace change and experiment with other mediums and see what really suits you.

Either is fine with me!

 

[hepcat]

I fail to see why many photographers feel so threatened by and fearful of digital. I think certain photographers are more concerned with loss of the elitism associated with the name "photographer". And that's what digital has brought to photography: it has made the medium democratic. Today, anyone can take a sharp photo instantly, and make it "better" at the press of a slide of a finger on phone screen. Most people who take photographs have no interest or need to "train their eye".

Those who desire to train their eye (presumably many of us on this forum) will continue to do so, as they've always done. And digital will make no difference to that process. Digital may give you an "instant" picture, but that doesn't mean instant acceptance, and this type of photographer will apply the same rigour of review and editing as to film images - which usually includes setting aside photographs awhile and returning to them.

There's room for all media in imaging. Watercolors didn't replace oils. Neither did acrylics. All of the photo processes are just as "good" as they've always been. Some are just less practiced than others as "easier and faster" is always in vogue. One phrase that I often repeat as a mantra is "image quality doesn't make a quality image."

Elitism isn't at risk. There are still lots of folks who are elitist in digital. What the democracy of digital has done has brought ALL imaging down to the lowest common denominator. There are still amazing people making amazing images, but as is the case with digital sensors, the signal is often lost among the noise. There's just so much imaging "out there" that merely finding something worth appreciating can be overwhelming.

And I think you can be critical of your own work, but putting work out for judging is an interesting dichotomy: Are you working for yourself, or are you working towards "standards" that someone else may find appealing? I have come full circle in my own approach. I shoot what I want to shoot, and if I like what I have, the I'm comfortable putting it "out there." If someone else likes it, that's great. If not, does it really matter?

So, does my approach make me elitist, or just demonstrate that I'm comfortable with my own work?

 

[jsrockit]

So, when editing digital you only edit right after making the photo? You can never possibly wait to edit it until a few months later?

 

[Sejanus.Aelianus]

Elitism isn't at risk.

Pity about that. 😎

 

[gns]

Photographers who espouse a waiting period before evaluating their pictures are talking about enough time to forget about when they took the photo and how they may have felt about it at the time. They are talking about many months, a year, even longer. Whether you can process your images in a few minutes (digital) or a couple of days (film) isn't relevant to that.

Re: the issue of effort/dificulty.... Photography never has been difficult. At least not technically. To suggest that the ease with which many more people can make a technically competent photo is hurting photography is kind of like saying that widespread literacy is hurting the novel.

Gary

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I read the article...

IKEA... Here in Toronto area we were trying to find sofa which isn't flimsy build. To replace one which was purchased at local store ten years ago. All big names stores have the same now.
"Made in Canada" sofas are now made as "wet" pine planks frame with thin cover on it. China made isn't any better. I was surprised to be able to find the sofa properly build to be only available in IKEA these days here.
Asked fellow Canadians about this situation and get same answer - want quality and non-IKEA, check antique stores.

Film is something similar comparing to digital here. Photography as profession is getting outsourced by students and housewives equipped with something obvious.

Showing your print to friends will gives you nothing. Friends are friends, not knowledgeable critics.

Looking at someone else photography ain't going to make you better photog, either.
Just a copycat.