| | | -
The Peoples Choice
I may be opening a rather large can of worms here , but what the hell, I am going to Silver Conference and will be away for 21days and not able or willing to axcess the computer.
Our entrys to Silver competition this year has been sent and they are going to be judged next week. I am hoping we will do well this year .
This year Kevin and I did something different and we had a Pre Judging of our submissions to Silver Competition The Peoples Choice Award.
We had over 90 prints in our gallery and we invited photographers and friends to judge the work. Each person was allowed three choices and basically they roamed the room and picked their favourite image by indicating its number. No photographer names were on the wall for possible biases.
Out of 90 images , at least 40% were digital output to the new Harmon Fiber paper off our Lambda.
The results were completely unpredictable and I was quite suprised.
1st, 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th place by vote were digital capture original.
then followed by equal voting on analogue and digital.
What suprised me was that the room was full of traditional photographers and there was not the immediate reaction of digital vs traditional. Basically the buzz was about the beautiful imagery in the room.
I am beginning to think that the debate is dead regarding digital vs analogue.
My choices were some of the hand lith prints and one of the digital prints. Other close friends who eyes I respect were also mixed in their choices.
I have also found an interesting trend
Those who use digital capture are much more critical regarding digital print artifacts than traditional purists. They also seem to gravitate towards the analoque prints and like them.
The analoque photographers seem to be more forgiving regarding the same artifacts.
The last 65 days I have been printing solid for the competition and also a Elevator portfolio. I have to admit that both methods of output excite me and have changed my opinion on the raging debate forever.
-
From similar experiences, I've come to similar conclusions. It's unfortunate that being afraid of worm cans even comes into an honest discussion of the history -past, present, and future - of photography. But it does. I've opened one or two myself. We all have.
Hybridphoto is my natural "home" because my new work is half contact prints from large format camera negatives and half contact prints from digitally enlarged medium format negs. My goal is to make the two indistinguishable - not because I'm ashamed of either process (and I defend my use of film far more often than I defend my use of digital) but because I long to make transcendentally beautiful images.
Most people are primarily interested in the image and how it strikes their soul, not how it was generated. Beyond that issue, though, is a deeper one. In my experience, people still expect 'truth' from a photo. As in: the unedited presentation of the facts that were in front of the camera when the shutter was released. A scenic panorama of the beach should not have that 'inconvenient' McMansion cloned out. Three geese in the air shouldn't magically become thirty.
Surprisingly (or maybe not so) even this simple statement is one of those wiggly cans.
-
Bob,
Interesting findings. I too am noticing the divide narrowing. I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing your lamda/fibre prints, but am very interested in doing so. After returning recently from a trip where I was putting a D200 though its paces for the first time, I have to admit that I am not yet terribly thrilled with digital capture for the type of images I do, (very often long exposures) however I am a babe in the woods with this and expect to work the bugs out where I can. Everything that was shot on medium format film was also done on digital and I will admit that in side by side comparrison, film still blew away the digital file.
Best of luck with your journey!
Bill
-
The only people that argue about the relative merits of analog and digital forms of photography are photographers. You asked the people to choose the best images. They did.
They chose images. Not processes. Most people in the world don't care about the way you made it, only that you did make it and it interests them.
-
[QUOTE]Most people are primarily interested in the image and how it strikes their soul, not how it was generated.
I think that this is the nub of the matter, certainly as far as many camera club competitions go. The amusing thing to my mind, is that with a number of prints put up, any corrections suggested by the assesor are usually accompanied by a comment that they could be made in P.......p. The fact that a darkroom print might be involved does not seem to come into the equasion !
-
 Originally Posted by Joe Lipka  ... people that argue about the relative merits of analog and digital forms of photography are photographers. Very true, but they aren't the only ones. There are certain collectors out there that concern themselves with these things as well. I do see the gap as closing somewhat lately which is very nice to see.
Bill
-
[quote=roy;2557]
I think that this is the nub of the matter, certainly as far as many camera club competitions go. The amusing thing to my mind, is that with a number of prints put up, any corrections suggested by the assesor are usually accompanied by a comment that they could be made in P.......p.
Ahh, Roy this is HybridPhoto.com. It's okay to say Photoshop or digital. 
Originally Posted by roy The fact that a darkroom print might be involved does not seem to come into the equasion ! Shame on them! Unfortunately it's a sign of the times.
-
Originally Posted by BillSchwab
film still blew away the digital file.
Bill Bill I'm curious to know what issues you had with the digitally created images that made it less desirable than film.
I'm thinking very seriously thinking about getting a high end DSLR like the D200 so I'm always all ears to hear opinions about digital capture especially from those that are very experienced film users such as yourself.
-
Don, I think Bill's problem is that he is doing looong exposures (10 min+) and wanting prints with very smooth tones. IMHO, this is an area where film is still winning due to noise issues in long exposures from digital. Nice thing with digital in this regard? No reciprocity failure!
-
Originally Posted by Jeremy Don, I think Bill's problem is that he is doing looong exposures (10 min+) and wanting prints with very smooth tones. IMHO, this is an area where film is still winning due to noise issues in long exposures from digital. Nice thing with digital in this regard? No reciprocity failure! I suspected this might be the case knowing of Bill's work but I thought I would ask to be sure.
As I understand the the operation of the D200 in regard to long exposures, a long exposure of the subject is followed by an equally long 'dark' exposure so that the digital noise from the original time exposure can be subtracted by the camera image processing software/hardware.
Don
| |
LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Adv Reply
