Figure 13-1: Striations and Reflections
The complex interplay of striping of the near and far sandstone walls, plus the additional interplay between their reflections in the pool and the stripes of dry sand and sandstone dividing the pool into segments, creates multiple visual rhythms. There is no true center of interest, but the eye stays within the image. The rich tonalities sparkle in the traditional gelatin silver print.
CHAPTER 13
Traditional, Digital, Art and Technique
THE PREVIOUS FIVE CHAPTERS have included a rather thorough discussion about the technical means that can and should be employed to produce well-crafted photographs via traditional means and digital means. This, apparently, leads to a discussion (often a debate or argument) about “digital versus traditional.” It seems that many photographers see these two approaches as enemies of each other. They aren’t. In fact, these are two different approaches to the same end: making a photographic statement. While you may prefer one over the other, these two approaches are not enemies.
I’ve made it abundantly clear prior to this that I do all of my black-and-white photography with film and traditional darkroom techniques. I do all of my color work digitally: I shoot all color digitally, and I’ve scanned all of my transparencies accumulated over decades to digital files. Hence, I’m in both worlds.
Why? Because I employ the processes and techniques that I feel yield the best results. It’s that simple. I started in the late 1960s with traditional means in both color and black-and-white, when there was no digital on the horizon. I watched as digital was introduced in the early 1990s, and observed decidedly inferior results while hearing the early digital practitioners singing its praises. I remained unimpressed for years.
But my mind changed concerning color photography because of two obvious changes. First, digital processes improved to a level that appeared to surpass the possibilities available through traditional means, and second, traditional methods were not only static (i.e., not improving), but contracting, with fewer films available (for me, in particular, the widespread loss of color indoor transparency films, which had a significantly wider brightness range than the outdoor films, whether used indoors or outdoors), and fewer printing options available, particularly the loss of Ilfochrome—initially known as Cibachrome—allowing direct printing from transparencies to prints. So, as digital color improved and traditional color imploded, it became apparent to make the switch to digital.
For black-and-white, I still see traditional means—film and traditional darkroom printing procedures—as yielding the finest black and white results. In fact, for those photographers who are still shooting with film, but then scanning their negatives for digital post-processing, I feel they are taking the wrong route because it’s still the traditional silver print that remains the clear champion of black-and-white imagery. I’d even go so far as to suggest that the best hybrid approach would be shooting digitally, then converting to an enlargeable silver negative—if that process exists, though I have not researched it—to make the final print in the traditional darkroom. I am now a confirmed user of traditional methods for black-and-white and of digital methods for color.
I have not changed from traditional means in black-and-white for two obvious reasons. First, I enjoy the process involved immensely, and second (and more important) I still feel it yields the finest prints. Let’s face it, as a working photographer for more than 45 years, I’d be utterly stupid if a stayed with a procedure that yielded second-rate results, no matter how much I loved the process. Today’s traditional gelatin-silver prints are still considered the gold standard of fine photography (figure 13-1). And the darkroom is my private sanctuary, where I can get lost in printing for hours at a time, totally immersed in my art.
Another aspect that appeals to me is the vast difference in longevity between a properly processed traditional silver-gelatin print and any digital inkjet print available with current technology. Even in bright sunlight, a silver-gelatin print will last forever with no visible degradation. The lifespan of inkjet prints has improved greatly over the past decade, but still falls short of that of a silver-gelatin print. How long they can last under bright light is not clear. Displayed behind appropriate glass or stored in darkness, the lifetime may be measured in decades, perhaps even longer, but only time can confirm today’s best tests. Thus, while a traditional silver-gelatin photograph is a lasting treasure, it’s still not clear how long an inkjet print can last under a variety of viewing or storage conditions.
Will I always stay with traditional black-and-white procedures? Maybe. Maybe not. But I’d only jump to digital if I saw clear benefits for image quality. Today, I do not find sufficient reason, although I certainly do see some advantages. For example, I work with a large format 4×5 camera. It’s heavy (by comparison to even the finest digital cameras, and certainly as compared to the point-and-shoot and ubiquitous iPhone cameras) and it takes time to set up. Digital is lighter (and therefore much easier to haul around) and can be much more spontaneous in response to changing situations. I recognize these advantages, and they certainly are alluring attributes. But I love the contemplative, thoughtful approach that large format necessitates. I don’t feel that art is generally created in an instant, so I value thought over speed by a wide margin. Yet I should note that I often scramble as quickly as possible to take advantage of changing, unfolding conditions even with my 4×5, where I can generally set up to shoot within a minute, while all the time observing the changing conditions and preparing for what is coming next.
But rather than get into a long, useless comparison of digital versus traditional processes, I think it’s much more important to focus the discussion on art versus technique. This is where the conversation should be focused, but it rarely is focused on this.
Art, Technique, and Their Importance
I will draw on my 45 years in photography and my 40 years of teaching workshops that have molded my thinking about this issue. My basic premise is that too many photographers are concerned with their technique and too few are concerned with their art. This has always been a problem with photographers, where so many people have often equated a sharp photograph (i.e., one with razor-edged detail everywhere and nothing out of focus) with a great photograph. That’s a false equation. Again, let’s remember Ansel Adams’s insightful comment, “There’s nothing as useless as a sharp photograph of a fuzzy concept.” That is the perfect point of departure for the following discussion.
Figure 13-2: Amazon Cayman
On a tour of the Madre del Dios River in Peru we spied this 11-foot long cayman approaching the river’s edge and climbing up on the riverbank. There he stopped momentarily, just long enough for a portrait. This could have only been done with a handheld camera, for there was no place to set up a tripod and 4×5 camera on the gently rocking boat. The digital camera proved to be the ideal vehicle to show the wicked weirdness of this wonderful ghostlike creature.
Both digital and traditional procedures are a means to an end . . . and the end should be a fine photograph that says something to the viewer. It should make a point, create a mood, force a question, spark a recognition, or add a new insight. It should be something more than just a “pretty picture” (figure 13-2). (Please refer to the title of this book.)
This has to start with the photographer actually wanting to say something. The great photographers of the past each had their own specialties, whether it was Paul Strand, Brett Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, André Kertesz, Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus, Eugene Smith, August Sander, or any of a number of others you can name. This is true of today’s best photographers and will remain true for those of the future. Each has something to say and works incessantly to say it. Their primary concern is meaningful content, not high productivity.
Over the years I’ve taught hundreds workshops and I’ve worked with many thousands of people trying to improve their photography. They’re all serious about doing so. (I know this to be true because I’ve encountered almost none who have a nonchalant attitude about their own photography. This is overwhelmingly evident during student photo reviews, where it becomes abundantly clear that they’re often apprehensive and fearful of criticism, are looking for praise, and sometimes even fall apart if their work is not universally admired. This is clear proof that they’re deeply invested in, and emotionally tied to, their photography. This is as it should be.) Yet, despite their obviously strong feelings about their own work, few are interested in discussions of the “message” they’re trying to convey, and nearly all are drawn to new and better techniques to “enliven” their imagery. This tends to be the pervasive goal, even when their imagery is already too brilliant, too high in contrast, too neon, too overblown.
For years I watched 35mm film practitioners reel off one frame after another, one roll of film after another, without a lot of thought about any individual frame. Maybe they had an uncontrollable tic of the index finger. They appeared to be constantly tapping the shutter release, reeling off one shot after another. The problem was they were looking without seeing. They were shooting without thinking. They were looking and shooting, but rarely feeling. In the end, they were taking pictures simply to take pictures. And while they always liked what they were shooting, they had little insight into what they wanted to say about it.
In today’s digital world, the problem has been increased by magnitudes. In general, there is far too much shooting and far too little thinking. A digital photographer today can happily expose hundreds, perhaps even thousands of exposures in a single day, and just as happily delete ⅔ of them along the way. The phrase “pixels are free” promotes that useless shooting. The emphasis is tilted too much toward quantity, and too little toward quality or a meaningful message. (Note: “Free pixels” is a double-edged sword, offering some great benefits at times. See chapter 17 for more on this.)
But what percentage of today’s photographers have a strong understanding of light, and how different lighting can dramatically alter any scene? What percentage of today’s photographers have a strong understanding of composition, and the relationships of lines, forms, shapes, tonalities, and colors in an image? What percentage of today’s photographers have a deep understanding of their own passion and how they can express it through their photography?
It seems to me that the answer to all three questions is: a very low percentage. Instead, it’s the newest app that allows even greater micromanagement of the image, which has become the false focus of today’s photography teaching and today’s photography learning.
Once a photographer gets past an infatuation with “this is what I can do,” and gets to the issue of “this is what I can say,” things change dramatically.
In the days when film was the prime photographic vehicle, many students read books written by technicians about negative exposure and development, and about darkroom printing, including such useless things as test strips, but rarely, if ever, did they show any of their own photographs. These were sensitometrists and technicians who knew how to use densitometers to measure the exact density of any part of a negative or print. They were not photographers. They rarely had anything of substance to say photographically, but they often had a very strong—and usually adverse—impact on students of photography who got locked into thinking about densities of negatives and prints, of the differences between developers, of the effect of toners, but rarely locked into evocative imagery.
It’s the same with digital today. There are vast numbers of books on the market by people who know every trick possible using ACR, Lightroom, Photoshop, or any of the other digital applications, and they detail how to use those tricks . . . those tools and those applications. They talk incessantly about the extreme “control” you have. They know what they’re talking about. But they’re not photographers, and they’re not teaching photography. In fact, they know very little about photography, about art, about the overriding importance of light, about composition, about real communication. Often, they know the tools and how to use them, but rarely to any meaningful end. Hence we have a common problem with digital and traditional teaching: many teachers understand the technical aspects, but lack understanding of the artistic/expressive aspects. (In my book The Essence of Photography, I further detail the emphasis on shock value and “newness” at the expense of depth and real understanding.)
Once a photographer gets past an infatuation with “this is what I can do,” and gets to the issue of “this is what I can say,” things change dramatically. When it’s no longer a question of learning yet another technique, buying or downloading yet another application, knowing how to tweak every pixel in the image, but trying to say something meaningful that is recognized as something important by a viewer, then—and only then—is that photographer starting to make real progress as an artist (figure 13-3).
So, to my mind, the debate shouldn’t be “Digital versus Traditional” but “Art versus Technique.” That said, you cannot ignore technique because poor technique destroys whatever statement is being attempted. You cannot make an important artistic statement via poor technique (for example if your prints are unsharp where they should be sharp, too high or low in contrast, too garish or too lacking in color or saturation, etc.). But when technical concerns reign supreme, with no message or emotion behind the technically perfect image, the resulting image is meaningless. If you find yourself getting caught up in every new app, every new trick you can use, calibrating and re-calibrating, taking measurements of every part of your image, STOP . . . take a deep breath . . . try to remember why you got into photography in the first place. It surely wasn’t to learn new apps. It was to make good photographs. Get back on that track.
Please reread the first sentence of this book. (So you don’t have to turn the page, it reads, “Photography is a form of nonverbal communication.”) I recommend always keeping that in mind. Along the way, learn technique. Learn whichever approach appeals to you, traditional or digital. That choice is of little consequence in the long run, because they’re both valid means to an end. The important thing is to use the tools and techniques effectively to make your statement. To do so, you need to understand your interests—deeply understand your interests—and you have to employ the basic creative/communicative tools of photography—light and composition—to make your statement.
Figure 13-3: Norway Post-Modern Abstract
Standing at the dock as the ferry boat stopped to unload passengers on the island of Skrova, I saw reflections of the sky, the building behind me, and assorted other things in the surprisingly rough, wet side of the boat. I happened to be wearing a red shirt, a fortunate choice. The reflections off the wet hull of the boat display interactions of colors, tones, lines, and textures.
Choosing Digital or Traditional
Despite being a long-time user of traditional means, I strongly recommend the digital route today for color photography. I think it has now exceeded traditional film/printing methods in its flexibility and its ability to produce fine images. I do all my color imagery now via digital means. It’s simply a better platform today.
For those interested in black-and-white imagery, the issue is more nuanced. My prime recommendation is traditional means. I still see it as the best method to achieve the finest quality. As I’ve stated several times, the traditional silver-gelatin print is still the gold standard for fine imagery.
But there are other considerations that have to be weighed. Let’s use an example. Suppose you’re a doctor and you’re on call much of the time. You may want to be doing traditional darkroom printing, but what happens if you get an emergency call while in the darkroom. You have to leave, and you have to leave quickly. You may not get back for hours, or longer. Basically, if you were called away in the middle of processing, you’d have to start from scratch. It would be even worse if you just started to develop negatives. Dedicated doctors who were also dedicated to photography did this for decades, and it wasn’t easy. That same doctor working on a digital file can simply save her work at the point she’s at when the emergency call came in, do the necessary medical work, and reopen the file when she’s back at home, and continue working from that point on. It’s little more than an interruption in the digital workflow. It keeps you in the game. And let’s face it; today’s digital output is quite wonderful. While I don’t think it equals the quality of traditional black-and-white, it is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Figure 13-4: Mushroom Array, Burg Rabenstein
Nature and landscape have been my prime photographic interest since I first picked up a camera. Although other interests have grown with me over the years, nature, from smallest items to the grand landscape, still pulls at me like a strong magnet.
Another consideration may be the weight you can carry into the field. Most digital camera equipment is lighter, quicker to use, and therefore more flexible than the 4×5 camera and its lenses that I carry around. I still carry the weight required, and enjoy doing it. You may not be able to carry it; you may not enjoy lugging it around. These are considerations you have to think about. If you’re doing street photography, this may not be a serious consideration since you’d probably be using a 35mm camera, anyway . . . and digital offers only one possible benefit, that of the “free pixels,” where nothing is lost if you make a series of useless exposures. But if you do the type of landscape/architectural work that I do, a large format camera does it better. I don’t see the time required to set up my camera and tripod as wasted time, but if you do, digital may be the better choice for you. For me, even as I’m setting up my camera on a tripod, I’m thinking through the entire process toward the final image, so it’s not wasted time. Furthermore I like the contemplative aspect of art. Sometimes I lose a scene with transient lighting, but more often I can set up to wait for the “perfect” lighting to yield the image I want.
Digital imagery has been around since about 1990. In a sense, it’s still in its formative years. I can think of no digital photographers who have made a name equal to those of Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Edward and Brett Weston, Paul Caponigro, and so many of the iconic film photographers who used traditional methods for the past 100 years. Some outstanding names will emerge in the future. The point I’m getting to here is not that digital has failed, but that digital has not produced a bevy of new, great, well-known photographers whose names rank with the greats of the past. While digital has many wonderful qualities, it’s not the “key” to fine photography. Today, while in its formative years, I see most users too fixated on the latest app, the latest way of manipulation, but not fixated on the basic underpinnings of photographic expression: an understanding of light and composition along with a deep understanding of what means so much to you that you want to express your thoughts about it visually (figure 13-4).
Some Closing Thoughts
Before closing this short chapter, I think it’s important to note that while digital and traditional are both means to the same basic end, they differ in several respects. The biggest reason that so many people abide by the thinking of “traditional versus digital” is they are trying to make them the same, and in doing so, they try to justify the use of their chosen approach . . . turning it into a winner-loser game. It isn’t a competition, and it shouldn’t be.
Consider this: when photography first surfaced, processes known as the daguerreotype, cyanotype, tintype, and many other variations—none similar to the others—began to co-exist under the umbrella of “photography.” None were trying to emulate the others; each had its own look and its own adherents. Eventually, the fixed, enlargeable negative emerged along with the silver print (now generally referred to as the “silver-gelatin print”—probably because someone felt an additional word gave it greater legitimacy), which came to dominate photography. It was through this process that the most famous of all photographers, from Juliet Margaret Cameron, to Edward Weston, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Dorothea Lange, August Sander, Ansel Adams, André Kértez, Diane Arbus, Jan Sudek, and so many others made the silver-gelatin print virtually synonymous with photography. But nobody ever tried to make the silvergelatin print emulate a daguerreotype or any of the other early methods.
Once people realize that digital methods are not the same as traditional methods, things can calm down. People can then begin to view the two approaches for what they really are: two different approaches!
I suppose the fact that the silver-gelatin print became the gold standard for “real photography” is the motivating factor for Adobe and the smaller niche providers to try to make digital emulate that standard. To my mind, that’s fine, but largely unnecessary. I don’t care which approach is chosen—I’m happily into both of them—as long as each can produce the results I want (figure 13-5).
My advice to students in my workshops who are trying to decide whether to take the digital or traditional route today has always been: choose one. It doesn’t matter which one. Then learn the basics of your chosen medium that will allow you to create the imagery you want. If, along the way, you become disenchanted with either the process or the final product, switch to the other . . . and then do the best you can to produce the imagery you want. If neither works . . . switch to writing or something else!
Figure 13-5: Les Baux Quarry
The geometric patterns of the remains of this ancient French limestone quarry captivated me. The scale was immense—a hundred feet high, perhaps more. The surprise was the sculpted lions above the deepest reaches of the quarry, but I was unable to find any information about its history.
In order to do your best at any job you have to enjoy both the process and the final product. That’s what counts. In fact, those are the only things that matter. All the rest is posturing.