When I made the transition to digital, I thought, oh, this is just another tool to make an image, it’s not going to change anything. Boy, was I wrong. There are a lot of details I could get sidetracked on here, but suffice to say that, 2 years on, I am still in the readjustment phase that this technology is having on both my commercial work and my personal sensibility.
Digital is a big watershed shift in how photographic images come to be. But there are less portentous choices. The issue at hand is, how do you tell the difference between a tool that meaningfully adds a voice, and one that’s a fad? Photography is full of examples of process overtaking content, and it’s a common problem in advertising work. Remember how dreadful all those composited images looked when that first became possible? In the commercial realm, there are always the “instant art” solutions that one practitioner raises to a high level, then everyone copies it. Anyone remember the Hosemaster Lighting System that was so cool looking in 1988, and so overdone by 1992? The current craze is the “Lensbaby” aesthetic, which is, at last, raising a backlash: read this great rant that I came across the other day. In the fine art photography field, infrared seems to raise its grainy, overexposed head every few years, and everyone seems to be perpetually rediscovering the Holga (nee Diana) camera look.
This is why it is really useful to restrict one’s palette. I have a fair bit of equipment, because I’ve been a pro for awhile, but I don’t buy gear very often. And when I hit on a system that works, I’m loathe to change it. When I shot film I shot one kind for color, and one kind for black and white. Now 90% of my photos I take with one camera body and one lens (well, it’s a zoom, but still), and I rarely play around with alternate ways of processing my images. It’s hard in the digital realm though, because you barely get to learn how to do what you do before someone rewrites the software on you.
I am hard pressed to think of a memorable body of work that doesn’t have a consistency in execution, but that doesn’t also have a meaning that transcends those tools. Their marks have meaning. Ansel Adams applied his technical precision at the service of what, at the time, was a revolutionary way of seeing the American landscape. Cartier-Bresson used a the handheld camera, making work meant to be experienced on the printed page and eschewing a finished print aesthetic (Ever see his original prints? They’re dreadful! They weren’t the point.). Early in his career Emmit Gowin used a lens that didn’t cover the field of his 8×10 back for his inimitable family imagery. Richard Avedon took the white backdrop to a height that has yet to be matched.
Beware of copying the tricks of a master. It may be a good pedagogical exercise, but it’s unlikely to lead you to your unique voice, the mark you make your own. More likely, you’ve come across your latest reiteration of the Lensbaby.
Doug,
One of the issues here is, I think, when to stop experimenting. Doing gear is partly about learning the craft, but also leads to the seductive call of the new, or fashionable – the Lensbaby effect.
By ‘stop experimenting’ I don’t mean stop for ever, which would be silly advice, but to stop for long enough to see if there is a voice there.
Reading yesterday on Colin’s website about printing monochrome picture made me afraid to even try it. It sounds too frustrating.
Having done plenty of darkroom work, I remember how exciting it was watching images appear in their magically way.
Doug,
90% of my photos I take with one camera body and one lens
What lens do you use?
Doug,
Ouch! You hit a sore spot. Among people who do quilted work, anything new, glitzy, faddish, or expensive seems to roll through the artists and wannabees, until you can almost tell the year of production by the techniques and tools.
I have succumbed, myself, to some of the fads — I have an Epson 7600 printer to print on fabric that I love; sometimes I use fancy threads. But the trick (or the art) is in integrating the new with your own visual style and ideas. I think that can only be done over time and generally with lots of poor or ultimately banal stuff in the intervening spaces.
The quilt tool world exploded in the last 10 –20 years; it’s both fun and annoying to see what comes of the latest fads.
And thanks for introducing me to the Lensbaby. Gee, to think that a whole era of start-up and passe went by without my knowing anything about it….<snort>
The same thing happens in the psychotherapy field. Fads come and go. The good therapists make it work. The good techniques stick around, because they work. Old timers of many stripes call anything new a “fad” and then discount it, even the good stuff. The true artists facilitate transformation by integrating the new into the old. And the politics and arguments will never stop.
Though fads there have always been, I wonder whether we are seeing one consequence of the digital “revolution”: a huge increase in the number of people that have essentially pro-level equipment, a willingness to spend money on more, and a lack of direction artistically.
Perhaps, for some, a sense of direction will emerge out of experimentation. I do think the ability to control focus is a special aspect of photography that has great aesthetic potential, but my poorly informed impression is that Lensbabies, as commonly used, promote greater uniformity of treatment, rather than greater diversity. I don’t feel I have time to find out; are there decently filtered collections anywhere?
As an amateur in photography, it is nice to hear a professional saying, limit your equipment. With a limited choice of tools, it is nice to feel that I can make a virtue of necessity.
Doug,
your comments on tool use remind me of my experience with historical artist pigments. It is impossible to understand the painting techniques of old masters like Jan van Eyck using modern synthetic ultramarine blue, for example, or using synthetic alizarine crimson.
Robin,
You wrote “The true artists facilitate transformation by integrating the new into the old.” That is a provocative and inspirational statement. I’ll be thinking about that one . . .
Doug,
It is interesting to think about how much of the photographer’s art is out of his/her control. It is interesting to think about how to change that. For example, why don’t you build your own camera, if the body is so important to your work?
As to experimenting, that is the basis of both art and science. Art without experimentation is art without risk, and to me that means “craft” rather than “art.” But that is not to say that a person needs to experiment with every aspect of their art at one time. To the contrary, constraints are an artist’s friends, I believe. I think Doug’s advice could be exactly the right advice for many photographers; I’ll need to learn more about this art form before I can decide for myself.