Top photographers condemn digital age

Tom Phillips wrote:


Tom Phillips wrote:

Donald Qualls wrote:

But, just as an interested amateur, much less a professional scientist
or engineer, could easily create an optical system to view or project a
photograph even if the very idea of photography has been lost to time,

It's called a pinhole and has been a scientific phenomenon
known since about 300 BC when Aristotle first described it.
About 400 years ago some smart people added optical glass
(lenses) and before we knew Kodak did it in reverse and created
the slide projector. BTW, the "very idea of photography" is
just as basic a phenomenon of science as the pinhole. Digital,
OTOH, is a phenomenon of technology.


I'm being somewhat facetious of course, so before anyone
points it out yes I know slides were invented and projected
prior to Kodak carrousels :-)

In fact, "magic lanterns" predated transparent photographic medium (such
as glass plates) by a few years; there were hand painted and even
animated (puppets between glass) lantern slides that date back to the
Daguerreotype era, when the only way to copy a photograph was to
rephotograph it...

--
I may be a scwewy wabbit, but I'm not going to Alcatwaz!
-- E. J. Fudd, 1954

Donald Qualls, aka The Silent Observer
Lathe Building Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/HomebuiltLathe.htm
Speedway 7x12 Lathe Pages http://silent1.home.netcom.com/my7x12.htm

Opinions expressed are my own -- take them for what they're worth
and don't expect them to be perfect.

A recent experience will illustrate my point about photos as historical
records. While on a vacation in San Miguel de Allende recently, I
visited a photo gallery where one of the exhibits was a display of about
25 16X20 silver prints made from 19th-century glass-plate negatives.

These plates were discovered in an attic in California when the
photographer died and his heirs were cleaning out his stuff.
Recognizing them as potentially important because they were made in the
area around San Miguel (Guanajuato state) at the time of Mexican
independence and the execution of Maximilian, they eventually had them
restored for printing. Digital technology was very useful in the
restoration.

Since the gallery has been exhibiting these prints, according to the
owner, thousands of Mexicans from the surrounding region, from all
socio-economic classes and walks of life have flocked to see this rare
and heretofore unknown record of the places, landscape, and events from
an important time in their history. The value of those photos as part
of the country's patrimony was immediately recognized.

The young gallery assistant, a Mexican woman, laughingly told me that
she had always thought that old Hollywood western movies that depicted
Mexican banditos wearing those ludicrously high-pointed sombreros had
been a typical gringo "put-down" of Mexicans, until she saw these photos
in which most of the Mexican farmers were wearing exactly that sort of
(to her) extremely ridiculous hats. "They really did wear those
things!" she exclaimed.

Were the photos great art? They were well-crafted and well-seen, but
their essential value was and is documentary, not unlike the photographs
of Timothy Sullivan of the old West. Point is, useful as digital
technology was in cleaning up the old glass plate negs, had the
originals been digital images, I doubt whether anyone would now even
know about them, much less have the satisfaction of the knowledge of the
past that those silver prints represent.

Lloyd Usenet-Erlick wrote:
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 21:46:06 -0400, The Wogster
wrote:

...

For me, I don't care, it's easier to download a photo, then to soup
films, and it's easier to balance it, and post process in PhotoShop, and
print on inkjet, then it is to spend the day in the fume room, making
test prints. One issue, if you know the fume room, it's easier to learn
about digital. Same process, different methodology.

...

oct604 from Lloyd Erlick,

If it's 'the fume room', there is something wrong.

A regular old darkroom need not smell, let alone have
'fumes'. Probably people who use digital printers
operate them correctly. That type of image making
should be compared to a correctly operated darkroom, if
comparisons are to be made.


As far as I know, it's been called that for years, probably since the
early days of photography, when noxious materials like mercury vapours
were used with wet plates. Some of the chemicals actually smell okay,
except stop bath, I can't stand the smell of vinegar. But did recently
see that Ilford has an odourless stop bath, so things are looking up.

Once you have a monitor and printer balanced to the same colour, there
is much less testing that needs to be done, then with AgBr prints. I do
understand there are enlarger exposure meters, but have never tried one.

W

Lloyd Usenet-Erlick wrote:
On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 21:46:06 -0400, The Wogster
wrote:

...

For me, I don't care, it's easier to download a photo, then to soup
films, and it's easier to balance it, and post process in PhotoShop, and
print on inkjet, then it is to spend the day in the fume room, making
test prints. One issue, if you know the fume room, it's easier to learn
about digital. Same process, different methodology.

...

oct604 from Lloyd Erlick,

If it's 'the fume room', there is something wrong.

A regular old darkroom need not smell, let alone have
'fumes'. Probably people who use digital printers
operate them correctly. That type of image making
should be compared to a correctly operated darkroom, if
comparisons are to be made.


As far as I know, it's been called that for years, probably since the
early days of photography, when noxious materials like mercury vapours
were used with wet plates. Some of the chemicals actually smell okay,
except stop bath, I can't stand the smell of vinegar. But did recently
see that Ilford has an odourless stop bath, so things are looking up.

Once you have a monitor and printer balanced to the same colour, there
is much less testing that needs to be done, then with AgBr prints. I do
understand there are enlarger exposure meters, but have never tried one.

W

Donald Qualls wrote:
The Wogster wrote:


Fact is, nobody knows how long it takes nature to break down the
molecules in polyester or acetate. It may be 100 years it may be
100,000,000 the key is that it does start to break down at some point,
and that point is so far an unknown. They thought plastic buttons
from the 1900's would last forever too, until museums had to replace
them because the buttons were deteriorating, and affecting the
garments they were attached to.


If the buttons were "plastic" from the 1900s, they're celluloid, the
same unstable stuff that ate so many of the early Hollywood films as it
decomposed in storage. Completely different from acetate and polyester.

Yes, I agree, no one is certain of the breakdown time of polyester and
acetate film bases (other than that polyester is likely longer); these
materials are both so durable that other than a few bad batches and in
cases of long-term solar UV exposure, they haven't broken down
significantly in the 30-40 years they've been available. However, based
on the earliest examples known, they look to be competitive with paper
for longevity (and likely better in some environments, since they aren't
food for bacteria or fungi as cellulose is). We have many-many examples
of paper up to 5000 years old.


Suppose they invented a new memory next week, that allowed you to
store 500 exabytes (87 262 827 images from a Canon digital rebel in
Raw format) would last as long as the planet does, and never become
corrupted, even when at ground zero under a Hydrogen bomb. You
probably still not be satisfied.


I doubt anyone could prove the ground zero claim or the longevity (they
said something similar about CDs when they came out, remember? "Won't
skip like a record, and will last centuries!" and then they found out
the aluminum coating oxidizes between the plastic layers and the things
can become unreadable in a matter of 10-20 years in normal storage; I
heard one skipping on radio within a few months of the stations starting
to play them). The capacity would be wonderful, but it's still not
human readable.

I think the big resistance to digital in photography, is precisely that
the analog format is, to some degree human readable. Other media, like
audio, which always was encoded (either magnetically or as a long line
of vibrations on a disk), hasn't had the same degree of issue.

During this whole thread, I have been playing devils advocate, I still
shoot film. Currently I shoot, then get the film processed and scanned,
then process digitally from that point. I see no real reason to go
completely digital other then you can see the results immediately. Heck
a box of film chemistries and a film scanner, and I can see my results
in an hour as well.

IMO, and we might just have to agree to disagree, the box of old
pictures is much better off, in the hands of someone cleaning the attic,
than the box of old computer media. And if the pictures are B&W on
silver gelatin, either prints or negatives, they're likely to still be
in reasonably good shape even 200 or 300 years down the line (at least
as long as they weren't on celluloid base).


Actually I tend to agree with you, at least for now, where technology
will go in 5, 10, 25, 100, 300, 500 years is anyones guess. For all we
know in 20 years the digital photography thing will have run it's
course, and we will all be shooting film again. Just it will be
processed and scanned.

W

John wrote:
On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 22:16:45 -0400, The Wogster
wrote:


So because prior methods have failed to last, then new ones will be
condemned to the same failure?


Yep. It's called "commerce". "New and improved" sells new
equipment. Old equipment and methods are replaced and rapidly become
extinct. All in the name of Big Bizness. In two years your 32 bit OS
will be extinct. Ready for that ?

Actually it will not be, behind me, is a machine running Windows95, and
this one runs WindowsME, both will run as long as they are still
serviceable, as they are doing the job right now (although the Win95
machine needs a new mouse, too much cat hair). The machine under the
desk is from the DOS era, but it runs Linux as a gateway, perfect use
since the power switch froze, and it can't be turned off.

W

Tom Phillips wrote:

The Wogster wrote:

Tom Phillips wrote:

In article ,
Gregory Blank wrote:



Ok what do you need a darkroom for then?

In article ,
Helge Buddenborg wrote:



That's my opinion and I'm sticking with it, "Digital Photography is
"GREAT".

What he misses (completely) is that digital imaging,
though an imaging medium, is not a *photographic* medium.
The physics simply don't support this.

And when people begin to see through the marketing hype
and in 20 years lose all those non-existent image files
on their hard drives they will realize film is the better
medium. There simply is no permanent archival storage
for digital and never will be, since as mere data
it's dependent on 100% on electronics rather than
concrete materials.

There is no permanent archival storage for data, yet.


Read my lips: it's electronic. It can _never_ be permanent. It's
ones and zeros, mere data, representational, not a real image,
1000% dependent on electronics and the storage mediums that can
actually read it, which changes constantly. Shall I go on?

It comes down to standards, if governments, were to legislate that,
these file formats, stored on this media type, will be readable by all
players made from this date forward. You would have, effectively, a
permanent digital storage medium, providing the media would last
indefinitely, under adverse conditions. However it means that future
storage methods would not be developed, nor would new file formats.


However
photographs are not the only data that need this kind of storage, so
active work is being done in this area all the time.


Guess I need to go on: There's no such thing as a digital
"photograph." A photograph is a real, tangible image actually
created by the action of light on a light sensitized material.
It's chemical and permanent. Even if the emulsion degrades due
to exceptionally horrendous care and storage, the silver metal
compounds it's composed of lasts forever. Digital disappears the
moment your hard drive, CD-R, DVD, etc., fails. Not to mention
silicon doesn't record anything (it can't, the physics don't
allow it) and the regenerated voltage/image data stored on your
computer is, all together now -- mere data that represents an
image.

So I suppose, that that digital representation, when printed by a laser
onto a piece of paper covered with AgBr and then processed, is still
simply a representation?


This makes zero sense; reminds me of king dubya
talking about foreign policy...


and longer then film will last,


Ignorance abounds. Film (according to Dr. James Reilly of the
Image Permanence Institute) begs to differ. If properly stored,
his Storage Guide for Acetate Film states film can theoretically
be preserved for thousands of years. Regarding film on polyester
base (b&w sheet films like Tmax), these are stated matter of
factly to have an estimated life of 500 years even when stored
under normal "room" conditions. If the images on film or paper
are toned or otherwise protected from oxidation, the emulsions
should also last.


would need to last
under less then ideal conditions. The problem is that you would need to
wait 500 years to see if it lasts 500 years.

W


W/dubya? hmmm...must be related.


Nope, no relation, I just get tired of typing Wogster all thr time, and
shortened it to W.

W

"The Wogster" wrote in message
. ..

Once you have a monitor and printer balanced to the same colour, there is
much less testing that needs to be done, then with AgBr prints. I do
understand there are enlarger exposure meters, but have never tried one.



Surely, you have to balance the monitor for each lighting condition that you
work in (eg daylight and then darkness with indoor lighting), then you have
to balance all the printer / ink / paper combinations that you use.

I imagine achieving ones required colour balance (or toning on b&w) is
easier in the traditional darkroom. Perhaps it's more wysiwyg than digital
printing from a computer :-)


Cheers

Phil Hobgen, Southampton, UK
-------------------------------------------

for email please delete the dash
and take out the trash

"The Wogster" wrote in message
. ..

Once you have a monitor and printer balanced to the same colour, there is
much less testing that needs to be done, then with AgBr prints. I do
understand there are enlarger exposure meters, but have never tried one.



Surely, you have to balance the monitor for each lighting condition that you
work in (eg daylight and then darkness with indoor lighting), then you have
to balance all the printer / ink / paper combinations that you use.

I imagine achieving ones required colour balance (or toning on b&w) is
easier in the traditional darkroom. Perhaps it's more wysiwyg than digital
printing from a computer :-)


Cheers

Phil Hobgen, Southampton, UK
-------------------------------------------

for email please delete the dash
and take out the trash

In article ,
"Phil Hobgen" wrote:

Surely, you have to balance the monitor for each lighting condition that you
work in (eg daylight and then darkness with indoor lighting), then you have
to balance all the printer / ink / paper combinations that you use.

I imagine achieving ones required colour balance (or toning on b&w) is
easier in the traditional darkroom. Perhaps it's more wysiwyg than digital
printing from a computer :-)


Either my understanding has gotten better over time
or the color matching systems have,...possibly both.

--
LF Website @ http://members.verizon.net/~gregoryblank

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President,
or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."--Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918