Liquid Space Publishing

Digital ‘Photography’? 12/15/2009

Is the term ‘digital photography’ a misnomer? Maybe we should start calling it ‘digital imaging’ instead if we are to be technically correct. • We Americans are loathe to abandon our standard English system of measurement no matter how cumbersome and outdated it is. The only thing metric that ever caught on in America is the 2 liter Coke bottle. We retain some anachronisms out of habit, nostalgia, convenience or laziness.

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The term ‘photograph’ is defined by my Apple Macintosh desktop dictionary as: “a picture made using a camera, in which an image is focused onto film or other light-sensitive material and then made visible and permanent by chemical treatment.” • It goes on to define photography as: “the art or practice of taking and processing photographs. Modern photography is based on the property of silver compounds decomposing to metallic silver when exposed to light. The light-sensitive salts are held in an emulsion (in color film, layers of emulsion) usually mounted on transparent roll film.” • How much do those definitions apply to modern digital imaging? Very little. “Light-sensitive material” is the only similarity and that only applies to the electronic sensor in the digital camera that the image is focused on. The prints we make from our digital cameras come from printers that use jets to spray ink onto paper. Digital printmaking is actually spray painting and not photography at all. The definitions also do not apply to web images. Yet we still call all these images photographs.

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A few years ago I was preparing a gallery exhibit of my underwater photography. I needed to make large prints from my original photographic slides so I scanned them to digital images, used Photoshop to eliminate dust and scratches and adjust the contrast and printed them with high resolution ink jet printers. • In casual conversation we still refer to them as photographs but to artists, especially artists who sell their work, the printmaking must be described in more precise terms. So we described my prints as “pigment prints” instead of photographs.

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Technology has blurred the distinctions between media. Today we can shoot a picture with a digital camera, download it to a computer and Photoshop the hell out of it until it loses much of its original features. No darkroom, light sensitive materials or chemicals required and if it is skillfully done, no one will notice the fakery. • There was the case of a famous news photographer accused of electronically removing electrical power lines from his shots to improve the look of an outdoor scene. • There was another photographer who claimed he never cropped his photos because it destroyed the integrity of his vision and that a photograph should be able to be appreciated in its unaltered condition or it is not worth displaying and that’s what it takes before you can call yourself a photographer. He must have wasted a lot of film and diminished his output and income in his quest for such photographic purity.

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Several years ago I viewed an exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum of early twentieth century photographs of Native Americans. The photographer used a gigantic box camera and glass plate negatives to make 16 x 20-inch contact prints and they were quite remarkable. • As photographic portraiture they were fascinating but he made his subjects use props such as mirrored necklaces and costumes, poses and settings that were not part of Native American culture. The photographs were valid as art but meaningless as anthropology or historical documentation. • In this case, the photographer’s technique obscured his intent and I was left scratching my head wondering just what was he trying to do, capture a vanishing culture for posterity or create artistic portraits that spoke more about him than his subjects?

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There is the argument that in art, it’s the result that counts and not how you achieve it. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all art is valid. • So what are we shooting for? Art? Money? Journalism? Science? If keeping true to an original captured image makes it unmarketable, is it proper to alter the image to make the sale? • Even in the photographic darkroom, manipulation of the original image is routine and necessary. Would you really want to look at a photograph that was lacking in detail because the contrast was not improved or shadows and highlights not dodged and burned? • And would you really want to look at a print that had dust spots and scratches on it because the photographer did not spot them? ‘Print spotting’ is the term for using inks and paint brushes to paint over dust spots and scratches on a print and it has been done ever since photography was invented. Today it’s called Photoshop-ing and it's done on a computer.

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Print publishers such as magazines and books also have been airbrushing photographs since the beginning. I have a copy of a textbook from the early 1930s and the airbrushing is obvious even to the untrained eye. • And all those sensuous nudes from Playboy magazine have been retouched. Playboy’s photographers and art directors say that there is no such thing as a woman with perfect skin all over her body. Some kind of retouching has always been necessary. • So when does traditional photographic retouching cross the line into fakery?

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What we used to call contact proofs are gone now replaced by a thumbnail gallery on a computer screen. In print publishing, we still use the word ‘proof’ to describe the first iteration of a page before it goes to press. When corrections are made to it and the page proofed again it becomes the second proof, third proof, etc. • It’s easy to talk a good recipe but until you’ve dined on the meal, it’s only words. In photography, to borrow a phrase, the ‘proof ’ is in the pudding.

Copyright © 2009–2010 by Liquid Space Publishing and Donald W. Whitehead. All rights reserved.

Phoblography 11/28/2009

1 Comment(s)

I never would have imagined myself blogging photography or any other topic for that matter. Too much time on the computer is a bad thing. Life is a visual feast and there’s just too much to see and do in this world to spend it sitting in front of a screen. I am at odds with myself needing to spend more time underwater yet also needing to publish and keep a day job to stay alive. It’s a balancing act. •  So here I sit at my computer wondering if anybody would actually want to read this self-centered blather about how cool it is to shoot film underwater, it’s mostly ego stoking stuff. But here it comes!

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Most of my old dive partners have failed me in some very important ways over the years and I’ve had more than enough of the nonsense that goes on within some of the local dive clubs. Finding competent, reliable and available dive partners has always been difficult.  •  I’m not much into shore diving anymore, I don’t own a boat and charter diving is expensive so if you have a boat and would love to help support a struggling artist, take me along! I make an excellent tour guide and I can take you to some awesome locations.

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This is my first website since I took down my personal website in 2002. At that time I was still supporting a family, money was very tight as always and I didn’t have any products to sell so I decided not to spend money on a commercial website. • I had just settled a copyright infringement lawsuit against The North Shore Frogmen, a local scuba diving club that I alleged had published pages from my book, Diving Cape Ann, on their website without attribution to and permission from me. The terms of the settlement agreement prevent me from saying anything further but that much is a matter of public record. • It seemed to me then as it does now that there are a lot of people out there in cyberspace who think that the world wide web is a cosmic free for all, that all content is up for grabs and copyright laws don’t apply. • There also seems to be a growing level of anti-social behavior and attitudes among our society in general. Civility has taken a beating in a world where people can cowardly spew their vitriol at individuals without fear while hiding behind the anonymity of the internet. I digress.

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My photographic specialty is underwater. By far, I have devoted more film to the undersea world than the topside world. But I will be including galleries of all my best photographs in the months ahead both undersea and topside. • I am old enough to remember the great photographic journals of the fifties and sixties such as Life
magazine. Those marvelous photojournalists could capture an entire story in a single frame and in black and white, too. They were more than just journalistic photographers, they were artists, craftsmen and artisans and my inspiration with photography came from them. • Black and white is truly the photographic artist’s medium. Color photography is more eye catching simply because it has color. It doesn’t matter if the photograph is otherwise boring, our eyes, or rather, our brains, will naturally choose color over grayscale. • Without the benefit of colorful eye candy to get attention the photographer has to concentrate on the more fundamental aspects of photography: light and shade, texture, shape, perspective, depth of field, composition, focus, exposure and subject matter. Black and white is what separates the professional from the amateur and I’m not talking about shooting in color and converting the image to grayscale. I’m talking about shooting in original black and white. • I love the printed image. Each photograph is a moment frozen in time. After nearly 500 dives and counting, the fascinating marine life and moods of New England coastal waters never cease to amaze and inspire me. It always satisfies my soul, it never disappoints. Even when the diving is bad, it’s good.
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Copyright © 2009–2010 by Liquid Space Publishing and Donald W. Whitehead. All rights reserved.

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