The Online Photographer (a.k.a. “TOP”) is one of the blogs I follow regularly – lots of great thought-provoking posts show up there on a regular basis, frequently written by folks who know what they are talking about. Take a look if you don’t already follow TOP.
I enjoyed a recent article (“From Film Holder to Memory Card”) by photographer Charles Cramer in which he describes his transition from large format film gear to using medium format digital systems. My favorite example of Charlie’s ironic humor in the post is his “apology” to those who haven’t made the switch: “Note to my large format friends: O.K., I sold out—but I get to use zoom lenses!!!”
In any case, this post is another data point to consider if you happen to be one of those folks who is certain that great photography must be created using traditional film gear and processes. While there is absolutely no question that great work can still be done that way, it is equally possible to do wonderful photography with newer technologies… and, as Charlie illustrates, there are some things that can simply be done more effectively, less expensively, and with better results.
G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.
I like that quote and in many fundamental and important ways think it is largely true.
Dan
Dan:
I found the following quote, which summarizes my view of photography (at least for right now…who knows it may change in the future when I sell the house and get that 80MP Phase One digital back).
“Photography has not changed since its origin except in its technical aspects, which for me are not important.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
Thanks for the post Greg, and interesting and important observations.
I like your painting/photography analogy, and think it would be crazy to try to convince a painter that photography would be a better medium than paint. It is actually a very different thing, which is not to say that there are not some obvious and not so obvious points of connection. However, I think that the the film/digital comparison is a pretty different thing, at least in terms of the degree of difference. For the most part, while painting does very different things than (most) photography, both digital and film photography are working towards more or less the same goal. In other words while painting and photography do fundamentally quite (though not totally) different things, digital and film photography technologies and techniques are more like different paths to roughly (though not exactly) the same goal.
There are quite a few good reasons for one to choose to work with film rather than digital photographic technologies. In a few cases they are related to technical differences between the two media – for example, it isn’t realistic to replace an 8 x 10 view camera with current digital camera technology. Also, and perhaps more important, if a photographer has developed and perfected a workflow based on film that lets him/her produce precisely the sort of work that is intended, there are few reasons to give up that hard won expertise and switch to a medium that might not be perceived to offer any benefits.
One thing that I notice is that those who use one or the other method (let’s call it method A) all too often seem to assume that those who use some other method (method B?) must give up something that is core to the use of method A. My favorite, to use one that isn’t relevant to the film/digital question, is the assertion by some prime lens aficionados that those who use zooms don’t pay attention to composition as much. As a person who uses both, I find that argument odd – backwards, to be more precise. Just because I could theoretically stand in one place and use a zoom “rather than think about composition” it doesn’t follow that i actually work that way. In fact, when I use a zoom it requires more thought and time to get the composition I have in mind because I have one additional variable to work with.
I sometimes see this when people speak in favor of, for example, a slow and methodical process that is almost necessary when shooting large format. With LF you can’t really fire off 500 exposures in a few hours. But just because you can do this with many digital cameras, it doesn’t follow that a) you always work that way or b) that speed is always a bad thing. Sometimes I’m sure I work just as slowly and methodically as a LF shooter… but other times I work much faster to respond to ephemeral opportunities or to investigate many ways of working with a subject.
While it is most certainly true that following the “rules and procedures” will not guarantee finding (much less producing) a great image, it does not necessarily follow that understand and using “rules and procedures” doesn’t have a place in producing good images. From my perspective, at least for the kinds of photography I like to do, it is a fusion of both the seeing and the execution that has the potential to produce fine images. Since I’m a musician by training (hmmm… so is Charlie…) this makes complete sense to me. You cannot produce a great performance without mastering the technical stuff, nor can you produce a great performance simply by mastering the technical stuff. You cannot produce a great performance simply by feeling deeply, but you cannot produce one without that either. A great musical performance and, I would argue, a great photograph comes from some fusion of the two.
There are many ways a photograph can fail – it is scary to think about them all! Heck, I could probably find examples in my own photography to demonstrate most of the possibilities! :-) I certainly agree that a “sharp picture of a fuzzy concept” is not worth much, but I’m not so sure that a poorly executed photograph of a wonderful concept is necessarily much better. Again, it may be my bias from my musical background… but I want both!
Thanks again for having this dialog.
Dan
Dan:
Thanks for the link to that article. Charlie certainly makes a good case for digital capture methods.
Digital without a doubt is much, much more convenient than film. However what is a better process technically, and what is a better process for the artist (even if it may be technically inferior in some way), are two different stories.
When I’m at some lovely natural scene sometimes I run across landscape painters creating their works of art, but for me, I’m sure glad I have my camera (whether digital or film) rather than watercolors or acrylics and a brush (but I do admire what they produce). However, I think I would have a poor time trying to convince these painters to give up their paint, brushes, and canvas, for a digital/film camera.
I for myself primarily shoot film (with digital sprinkled in here and there), however whether I shoot film or digital, my thoughts while I’m in the field are not on the processes that capture the image, but rather seeing the image in the first place. If I can see the image first, everything else is downhill from there!
The digital or film capture methods are all predictable because they follow the rules of physics and mathematics, and hence can be written down, learned, and can eventually be replicated. I’m not so sure there are rules and procedures to follow which if employed faithfully will guarantee finding a great image.
What I see in other photographer’s work (as well as my own), when I look through websites such as Flickr, etc., is the problem isn’t the technical aspects, it’s with everything before the camera shutter is released. What did Charlie mention at his Palo Alto lecture that “Saint Ansel” said, something like “sharp pictures of fuzzy concepts”?