Website Argument

[Bill Pierce]

The other day I saw the following website argument to show that film was superior to digital. Great photographers like Kertesz, Bresson, Friedlander, Winogrand, Adams and Atget shot film. There’s nothing like them today.

(Let me also add that there is no one like Gene Smith, Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon. Let me also add the obvious that there was no mainstream digital cameras around when most of them were working. There was no digital.)

The exception is Lee Friedlander who simply says he has too many pictures to take to give up that time to learn a new medium. Let me also add that he is a superb silver printer.

That seems to me to be an excellent reason for sticking with film.

Any others?

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Bill,

Well, quill pens are better than typewriters or word processors: there's no Shakespeare, Goethe or Cervantes today either. In other words, it's a complete non-argument.

Cheers,

R.

[gns]

All of those photographers (with the exception maybe of Atget) simply used the common materials/processes of their time.

Cheers,
Gary

[tlitody]

The point is that the person making the argument is saying that photographers today aren't as good the old masters. Is that true? I doubt it very much. They just haven't reached the point where they are put on a pedastal to be worshipped. Whether they use film or digital is irrelevant.

[charjohncarter]

I don't mean this to be a polemic, it is just a question, nothing more. Who are some great digital photographers?

[Nikon Bob]

Just another specious argument.

Bob

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Digital hasn't been accessible to working photographers (those not born into wealth) for very long. Ten years maybe? Any great photographer today started out with film, because no one with so little experience that they could have started with digital has practiced enough to be great. That said, some great photographers, like Salgado, are now shooting digital. In 15 or 20 years, we'll see greats who never shot film. Digital itself does not keep a photograph or a photographer from being great, as so many of these luddites try to claim. Its simple blind prejudice with no basis in fact.

[tlitody]

Originally Posted by charjohncarter

I don't mean this to be a polemic, it is just a question, nothing more. Who are some great digital photographers?

Who is making the distinction?

[emraphoto]

Originally Posted by charjohncarter

I don't mean this to be a polemic, it is just a question, nothing more. Who are some great digital photographers?

donald weber
paolo pellegrin
bruce davidson
alex majoli
adam ferguson
mr nachtwey
etc.
etc.
etc.

[scottwallick]

Originally Posted by Bill Pierce

Great photographers like Kertesz, Bresson, Friedlander, Winogrand, Adams and Atget shot film. There’s nothing like them today. [...] That seems to me to be an excellent reason for sticking with film.

This appears a causation logical fallacy, cum hoc ergo propter hoc. You are correlating two events that are independent of one another.

Film existed in the time of said great photographers; therefore, film allowed these photographers to be great. [False.]

"Correlation is not causation." — Edward Tufte

[charjohncarter]

Originally Posted by tlitody

Who is making the distinction?

Bill Pierce

[Bill Pierce]

[quote=scottwallick;1649006]This appears a causation logical fallacy, cum hoc ergo propter hoc. You are correlating two events that are independent of one another.

Film existed in the time of said great photographers; therefore, film allowed these photographers to be great. [False.]

I'm not the "correlater." I was quoting something from another website. I consider the person who said it to be an xxx (shouldn't use naughty words on the forum).

[_larky]

Nachtwey now shoots digital, and in my eyes (and many others) is the top shooter of his generation. In fact I'd happily put him as the all time number 1.

[Bike Tourist]

Personally, back when I was shooting film, no one ever called me a great photographer. Now that I'm digitized the same holds true.

It makes no difference.

[sonofdanang]

Bill,

I wish people would read your posts carefully before responding. Not doing so has engendered, at the best, misunderstanding, and at the worst, presumption of the most neurotic stripe.

To your question, my reply is: "Simply because one chooses to." But my answer is only valid in the context of my own experience because I cannot say what is an appropriate medium for anyone else simply because I am not them.

I learned on and worked in film until digital came along. But I only enjoy taking the picture and looking at the final print.

All of the in-between process is something that I tolerate. I know how to do it. I know how to get what I want in the final print, but there is no pleasure, for me, in the intermediary process of film processing or wet printing.

I was quite happy to give up film (in 135 - I still shoot 4x5 in one or two types of stock) because of my perception of the limitations of film on many levels (everything from ISOs to the variation between labs in addition to the sufferance of the intermediary process referred to above) as compared to the limitations of digital. All media have limitations. One gets to choose.

But, as I said, that's me.

[Brian Sweeney]

For me, the more relevant question is: of the successful photographers today, those most published, those most in demand- how many prefer and use film? How many are so good that can state- "if you want me, you get me and my film cameras."

[DougFord]

In general, people were considerably more talented back in the days of film.
As mentioned, there are many worthy present day photographers using the digital medium.
Perhaps it's sentimentality that influences this perception for some?

[Dr Gaspar]

Gear doesn't make you a better or worse photographer, at least that's what I think.

[shadowfox]

Okay, let's make the discussion more interesting.

Is it fair to say:
James Nachtwey is the modern Robert Capa/Tony Vacarro
Sebastio Salgado is the modern Eugene Smith

Who do you think is the modern Henri Cartier-Bresson?
How about Gary Winograd?
Margaret Bourke-White?
Man-Ray?
Diane Arbus?
Jacques Latrigue?
others?

[Ken Smith]

Some prefer film, others prefer digital, and yet still some prefer a combination of both. In the great scheme of things - does it really matter? I do find it interesting that Ansel Adams himself was waiting for the electronic image camera with great enthusiasm and antecipation - yet another medium for him to work with. Personally, I think what keeps some photographers from switching is peer pressure, what their groupies will think, and more over - what will the world think.

What I do respect is a photographer of either genre who can produce an image that is breathtaking, powerful, and/or evokes a moment of wondering silence - without digital manipulation. What you see is what the photographer captured at the time the shutter release was pressed and the resulting image being just that. Computers now allow poorly taken photos to be incredibly tweeked far from what they started out as. Yes, I know hoodo-voodo magic was accomplished in the darkroom, but that required skill gleamed from years of standing in a dimly red-lit room and learning the magic - there was no "undo' key other than wadding up the results and starting again.

"

Never ever confuse sharp with good, or you will end up shaving with an ice cream cone and licking a razor blade."

This kinda reminds me of "Never confuse Bokeh with a poorly focus photograph"

[kxl]

Originally Posted by shadowfox

Okay, let's make the discussion more interesting.

Is it fair to say:
James Nachtwey is the modern Robert Capa/Tony Vacarro
Sebastio Salgado is the modern Eugene Smith

No - not to Nachtwey, Capa, Vacarro, Salgado or Smith

What IS fair to say is:

James Nachtwey is the modern James Nachtwey.
Sebastio Salgado is the modern Sebastio Salgado.

[PatrickONeill]

http://xkcd.com/386/

[d_ross]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

Digital hasn't been accessible to working photographers (those not born into wealth) for very long. Ten years maybe? Any great photographer today started out with film, because no one with so little experience that they could have started with digital has practiced enough to be great. That said, some great photographers, like Salgado, are now shooting digital. In 15 or 20 years, we'll see greats who never shot film. Digital itself does not keep a photograph or a photographer from being great, as so many of these luddites try to claim. Its simple blind prejudice with no basis in fact.

Absolutely agree with this.

I'd also add that the Leica of the Cartier bresson etc era was the digital of today!

[sonofdanang]

Maybe it comes down to this, Bill:

One plays to one's strengths. And one chooses the media for a myriad of reasons that range from the aesthetic to the technical to the practical.

The folks caught up in the film vs. digital debate (it doesn't exist) need to go and study visual imagery from the last 2500 years with perhaps a real focus on the last 500 years.

If you really take in Michelangelo, Bernini, Caravaggio, Braque, Picasso, van Gogh, et al, you will see rather clearly that media is far less important than some people (usually those whose sole reference to visual imagery is the work of other photographers) seem to think.

People who talk about aesthetics of a particular media without this awareness of painting, sculpture and photography are functionally mute. Or are at the very least simply putting their version of understanding at the bottom of a lot of other interpretations, without original thought, derivative, and without clarity.

Painted on wet plaster, canvas, wood panels, sculpted in clay, marble, cast in bronze, concrete, hammered of iron, etc... How the hell, outside of practical/technical terms (we don't use papier maché outdoors if we want a piece to sustain the elements), can it matter? Content trumps form. Always. Choose form based on whether it can support your oeuvre. Assuming you meet the technical requirements, only you will know if the chosen medium is suitable. Perhaps your more informed critics may have an inkling.

People, as individuals, are just as talented in this time as the great "masters" were in theirs. Many are more so due to the relentless nature of human development. One may simply not be aware of them. As a culture, we are not quite as well versed in the visual literature - we live in shabby times, in an environment polluted by dumbed-down-celebrity-gossip-culture masquerading as journalism and art but that doesn't mean that the good stuff isn't out there. Keep looking. The "man" doesn't want you looking at great art because it is often subversive. And much of the great work that is out there we don't recognize because we've destroyed the school systems on both sides of the Atlantic, churning out drones instead of thinkers. Stop talking about things and start talking about ideas! As James Lee Burke once said, the academy is in ruins. But we can fix it.

I don't think that "you'll have to take me and my film" really comes up as often as one thinks. From people like Ralph Gibson to Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, the list is long and is (usually) not based on whether they use film or digital. It is about their work, the content as they chose to present it - in whatever medium.

There may not be Shakespeare or Cervantes et al, but there is Schlink, Böll, Camus, Koestler, Faulkner Garcia-Marquez (okay, some of them are dead too, but they are more recently so), DeLillo, Roth, McCarthy, Robbins, Burke and a host of more-where-that-came-from.

Nobody will take a quill over a decent fountain, or a typewriter over a word-processor, unless they simply want to work with that particular medium. It is quite apart from "better" or "not as good as", and, ultimately refers to process/form rather than content. I have no idea what instrument Blood Meridian was written with, nor do I care.

Though, as I have said, I don't use film in smaller than 4x5 anymore, I support anybody who does use film if they do it because they "feel like it", or "I like the way it works for me" or some such. I don't feel the same way about work that is purported to be better because it is presented on film, wet, printed, digital, x-ray, blood from sacrificed chickens blessed by the goddess of the inner Gulf Islands or jelly-bellies f@rted out the @ss of a retired stripper onto kraft paper.

But if you've got something to show me that absolutely rocks and it happened to be produced using the last of the strategies referred to above, the first part, the content, is relevant, and I'm interested. The second part is of no consequence except if it is in the context of performance art. In which case, in a completely separate discussion, I may, or may not, find it relevant and interesting.

All the best,

Shane

[CK Dexter Haven]

"The other day I saw the following website argument to show that film was superior to digital. Great photographers like Kertesz, Bresson, Friedlander, Winogrand, Adams and Atget shot film. There’s nothing like them today."

There's no one like them today only because no one today can shoot in those time periods. In fifty years, they will say the same about a group of contemporaries.

The argument, though, is silly for many reasons. Among them is that many photographers have straddled the eras. First working in film and now with digital. They are the same people doing the same kinds of work. I could name a heap of people who have made that transition, but it seems the people making these kinds of arguments are typically only concerned with the photojournalism side of things. And, of course, you cannot compare TIME. There will always be a romanticism over images made in bygone eras, and THAT is what cannot be matched today.

I kinda think people like HC-B and Winogrand are tremendously overrated. More 'talent' than that is easy to find.

Now, i'm going to argue against myself.... There are instances where i looooved the work of certain photographers when they shot film, and now that they're using digital? Not so much. But, again, it's the same dude. The aesthetics of the medium are a subjective matter.