When you see a photo you don't like, do you dislike it more ....

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Vickko

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When you see a photo you don't like, do you dislike it more when you find out it is digital?

I went to a gallery opening tonight and was happy to see some photography, but something was just "off" with the images (both BW and colour, mostly landscapes).

Then I read the descriptions; they were "archival digital", and I took another look, and felt that they were worse than my first impressions.

I don't know how to quantify it, but, they "looked digital". They didn't look pixelated, but the "grain-equivalent" didn't look appealing.
 
Digital doesn't have to look digital. I've seen many fine digital prints I couldn't tell from film / C prints. Excuse me if I step on toes but IMO the mark of digital is over saturated and over sharpened. Striving for the perfect lens and pixel sharp overworked files has created this digital look. I'm talking color. B&W is harder to achieve a real film look. Darkroom fiber base prints have a depth that's hard to match in digital printing.

I've seen platinum prints made from digital files & negs and could not tell the difference from direct film printed platinum. I've made digital negs and made fiber based darkroom (B&W) that were on par with prints direct from negs. I believe the problem is in the inkjet printing mostly. Of course you must have a good file that's not over sharpened.
 
I have the opposite tendency. When I see a photo I like and I find out its digital, I always wonder how much of it is real and how much of it is photoshop. It may as well be the digital equivalent of a painting Im looking at for all I know.
 
I've never heard of such nonsense before.

A good photograph is a good photograph regardless of the technology used to record and render it. A crappy photograph is a crappy photograph ... same thing.

To even consider anything else shows that you're not really looking at photographs objectively.

G
 
A Rose is a Rose by any other name and this is another ******* film versus digital thread.

We don't need this!
 
Godfrey said:
I've never heard of such nonsense before.
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I have. That kind of prejudice is very common online. I agree with you that it is ignorant. In the real world, I have exhibited and sold both film and digital images and no one cared what gear or process I used. If they liked the photo, they liked it without regard to technical stuff.

Godfrey said:
A good photograph is a good photograph regardless of the technology used to record and render it. A crappy photograph is a crappy photograph ... same thing.

To even consider anything else shows that you're not really looking at photographs objectively.
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Agreed.
 
Perhaps a form of confirmation bias.
If I were to view a b&w print that I thought was a great photo, and if it aesthetically mimicked film, would I change my mind if I found out that it was shot with a digital camera? Personally, I'm biased towards film as well, but I'd like to think that my only response would be, those SOB's! Great photo! :D
 
DougFord said:
Perhaps a form of confirmation bias.
If I were to view a b&w print that I thought was a great photo, and if it aesthetically mimicked film, would I change my mind if I found out that it was shot with a digital camera? Personally, I'm biased towards film as well, but I'd like to think that my only response would be, those SOB's! Great photo! :D
Click to expand...


If you were out on a Friday night and saw a beautiful woman and began flirting with each other, feeling the attraction, imagining making love and taking her back to your room. If at that point she undresses and you realize that she is a man, would you stop liking the 'photograph'... uh.. i mean 'woman'?
 
Godfrey said:
I've never heard of such nonsense before.

A good photograph is a good photograph regardless of the technology used to record and render it. A crappy photograph is a crappy photograph ... same thing.

To even consider anything else shows that you're not really looking at photographs objectively.

G
Click to expand...
Do people look at art objectively?
 
MichaelW said:
Do people look at art objectively?
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The rub is in calling it a photograph if it has been photoshopped. Photographic Art would be accurate. To call it a photograph takes away from an actual photographic capture of light falling on a photosensitive surface. This doesnt invalidate the photographic art it only distinguishes it from actual photography. In my view digital captures are just as much photographs as film captures but photoshopping changes the photograph into phtographic art and when presented it should be presented as such.
 
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