Top photographers condemn digital age

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...p?story=565781
Top photographers condemn digital age
Experts are warning traditional photography could become a museum craft,
write Nicholas Pyke and Andrew Johnson, but some greats are up in arms
26 September 2004


Terry O'Neill, one of the world's most published photographers, has
condemned the rapid spread of digital cameras for wrecking the art of taking
pictures.

He believes digital cameras are only fit for "amateurs and paparazzi", and
that the technology is turning all pictures into "snapshots".

His criticisms follow a week in which Eastman Kodak admitted the film
business is declining at twice the speed of previous estimates, while Dixons
reported that four out of five camera sales are digital.

Ilford Imaging in Cheshire, the world's largest producer of black and white
photo materials, went into receivership in July, thanks to traditional
photography's decline.

Digital cameras take pictures in much the same way as traditional ones, but
the image is "captured" electronically and stored in the internal memory.
The images can be printed out and saved onto a computer or CD.

With prices falling rapidly - digital SLR cameras are available for less
than £1,000 and the cheapest costs £15 - the technology is now so popular
that Kodak will stop selling film cameras in most of the world by the end of
this year. But O'Neill, who rose to prominence with Vogue and Paris Match in
the 1960s, is one of many leading photographers resisting the change.

They say the quality of the new images remains inferior and traditional
negatives are a more reliable record of the past than electronic archives.
Millions of photographs have already been lost because most digital camera
ownersnever print their pictures out.

"You will always get better quality with film. You can talk to any darkroom
expert about that," O'Neill said. "I don't use digital, and I'll always use
film. Digital is for amateurs and paparazzi photographers. There is a great
skill in photography. Digital cameras reduce everything to a snapshot."

Lord Snowdon is another prominent fan of old-fashioned cameras, as are the
award-winning news photographers Tom Stoddart and Don McCullin. The leading
landscape photographer David Parker, currently exhibiting at the Michael
Hoppen Gallery in London, relies on film and described its decline as the
end of an era.

Film will account for less than half of Kodak's profits by next year, and
looks set to disappear from non-specialist stores. The digital revolution
has also left thousands with unusable "intermediate" technology on their
hands, as the APS format is now virtually redundant.

Lord Lichfield, the royal photographer who took the official portraits of
Prince Charles's wedding to Diana believes film cameras are disappearing so
fast that the art of taking pictures and developing them in a darkroom will
soon be regarded as a museum craft. He, though, has become a cheerleader for
the digital age. "Terry O'Neill is a dinosaur. I love him dearly and he's a
mate, but he's a dinosaur," he said. "I haven't shot a roll of film for five
years. I'm saving £80-90,000 a year.

"Digital technology does have phenomenal advantages and I really can't see
any disadvantages. I have no qualms in saying it produces the quality of
reproduction that all my clients require. The change will inevitably inspire
a new generation of 'art' photographers using traditional methods, like
craftsmen."

The celebrity photographer Dave Bennett also relies on the new technology.
"Film was always a bit of a mystery anyway. There was always the fear that
you'd open the back of the camera and ruin the lot," he said. "The romance
of film will be lost, but that's about all."

David Hockney, who made his name with both paintings and photographs,
described the rise of digital technology as the biggest change since the
invention of chemical printing more than 160 years ago. He said it would
abolish an old-fashioned - and often mistaken - belief that the camera does
not lie.

"The end of chemical photography is a more profound change than any
technical change there's been in photography," he said. In future people
will accept digital photographs, which can be electronically manipulated,
are no more objective than paintings. All images are made by something and
someone. Even with a surveillance camera the boundaries of the shot have
been fixed by someone." Mr Hockney, though, has lost interest in photography
and no longer bothers with cameras.

"The thing is that the camera is a bore in the way it looks at the world,"
he said. "Picasso and Matisse are far more exciting - and I'm all for
excitement."

LEADING PHOTOGRAPHERS CHOOSE THEIR FAVOURITE IMAGES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE

Family picture an iconic pre-war image

Sunday on the Banks of the River Marne was taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson in
1938. Following Cartier-Bresson's death this year, the simple photo of a
French family picnicking was described by the Economist as "almost a last
pre-war moment of stillness".

Nominated by Terry O'Neill, Patrick Lichfield and David Hockney

Seascape born out of trickery

Gustave Le Gray's 1857 print The Great Wave was captured near Montpellier on
the southern French coast. Considered the most important French photographer
of the 19th century, Le Gray used trickery to produce this image, combining
two separate negatives.

Nominated by David Parker

Story of corset creation is stuff of legend

The Mainbocher Corset (1939) remains the most famous photograph from Horst P
Horst's celebrated 60-year career. The story of its creation is the stuff of
fashion legends, as Horst himself had shouted abuse at his model until she
burst into tears. When the model then turned away, he shot the image. The
print has sold at auction for $17,000.

Nominated by Dave Bennett

Who cares. For me photography is about communicating with my audience,
whomever that happens to be at any given moment.
....
"DM" wrote in message
...
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...p?story=565781
Top photographers condemn digital age
Experts are warning traditional photography could become a museum craft,
write Nicholas Pyke and Andrew Johnson, but some greats are up in arms
26 September 2004

On Sat, 02 Oct 2004 20:29:54 GMT, "DM" wrote:

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...p?story=565781
Top photographers condemn digital age
Experts are warning traditional photography could become a museum craft,
write Nicholas Pyke and Andrew Johnson, but some greats are up in arms
26 September 2004

(SNIP, SNIP, , ,)

This is a VERY odd story -- it seems about ten years late. Are these
guys just NOW becomming aware of digital photography and it's impact
on traditional photography?

They complain that most pictures these days are "just snapshots?"
When was that NOT true -- before George Eastman invented the Kodak?

And Lord Snowdon is still alive?

Don't tell these guys that you can get camera-phones now.

DM wrote:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/thi...p?story=565781
Top photographers condemn digital age
Experts are warning traditional photography could become a museum craft,
write Nicholas Pyke and Andrew Johnson, but some greats are up in arms
26 September 2004


Terry O'Neill, one of the world's most published photographers, has
condemned the rapid spread of digital cameras for wrecking the art of taking
pictures.

He believes digital cameras are only fit for "amateurs and paparazzi", and
that the technology is turning all pictures into "snapshots".


Maybe Mr. O'Neill is simply stuck in the past, the difference between a
photograph on film and the same photograph taken on digital is the
method of capture. This however is nothing new, every time new
technology has come out, the same argument has taken place. It occured
when AgBr replaced Dugariotypes, the new style wasn't considered "real"
photography either. Then when colour film came around, same thing, and
now the same deal with digital.

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.

W

Isn't it illuminating when contemporary news media makes the same kind of
screw-up that goes on all the time here in Usenet? Somebody lamenting the
past makes a case, someone else (the media interviewer in this case) makes a
quote and all goes to hell and nobody, but nobody has a feel for what the
interviewee really meant?

Leave it be. He's a photographer. He's living. Got life?

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.

regards,
--le
________________________________
Lloyd Erlick Portraits, Toronto.
voice: 416-686-0326
email:
net: www.heylloyd.com
________________________________


-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

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

"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

The Wogster wrote:

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.

Minor detail -- mercury vapor was used with Daguerreotypes, not wet
plates. And this is, in fact, the most likely source of the "fume room"
epithet; part of the process of making a Dag is to sensitize the
burnished metallic silver on the plate by exposing it to iodine,
bromine, and sometimes chlorine vapors. Once the exposure is made (a
few seconds to a minute or two in diffuse sunlight), the plate is
(originally, at least) developed by exposure to the vapor over heated
mercury. Daguerreotypists were at somewhat less risk than hatters in
the mid-19th century, because they used only small quantities of mercury
and kept it confined (for economics, not safety) but not a great deal
less...

Wet plates, though, had their own fumes -- ether was the only solvent
common in the wet plate era that would dissolve collodion, which made
the wet plate photographer's darkroom (and that of tintypists and
ambrotypists, who used the same process) both highly intoxicating, and
extremely flammable. Beyond that, storage of ether has its own hazards
(a peroxide that forms spontaneously in storage is a high explosive).
It's *good* to live in the gelatin emulsion era, when (for most people)
the biggest hazard in the darkroom is cutting yourself on the edge of an
open 35 mm cassette.

I personally enjoy the smells of a modern B&W darkroom -- hot dust from
the enlarger lamp house, the gentle bite of hydroquinone in developer,
acid stop bath, fixer (a mix of the thiosulfate and more acetic acid,
usually), the slightly sweetish, almost alcoholic aroma of PhotoFlo, the
hot-glue sharpness of dry mounting, even film and paper themselves (or
their emulsions) have subtle scents. It's one of my favorite olfactory
environments.

--
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.