12.11.08

phase 2: output postcard




progress

2 comments:

Greg Gentry said...

I really like this image and the way that it has been rendered in a way but maintains the same composition. I feel it brings up some issues about real film and digital photography. I feel that this has a negative feeling towards digital cameras for the wave and movement of this technology is literarily killing the knowledge about the traditional way of taking photos and the process that is required to get a photograph. From the dark room and negative strips, test prints and contact sheets. This is all lost when switching to digital which is so much faster reliable for you never have to worry about exposing the film in your camera because its all on a memory card. Moving from a dark room to a dry room the digital camera in this picture is physically destroying and eating up the negatives from a real film camera. I think it is scary thought that film may one day be completely lost because of photography but i feel it is up to photographers to still experience the dark room and processing film because it is the back bone of photography and i feel it gives the photographer the history and process of how photography works. This print is a great example of the "negative" side of the sophistication in photography that digital film has created.

gerg werk said...

You know, I'm glad you went such in depth about this. I didn't realize how much you'd read into it. My original intention was just to show film is a by product of a camera. The people viewing this image most likely wont know whether the camera you originally used is a 35 mm or digital. I never realized the effect of the film being 'eaten away' as digital is prevailing. The film is overlayed on top of the camera denoting the feeling of 'past'. Generally when we show the past or something from history it's with an overlay or transparent rendering.
I enjoy the direction you saw this as because you seem pretty excited about the outcome. Yes it is true i think everyone who wants to take photography needs to learn the process of making images through the wet process before they start with digital. There are certain aesthetic elements you can only experience in the dark, and people need to learn. Not only will they learn about the process of making a negative, but they will learn the necessary terms and hopefully realize that a camera is just a box with a hole. It really doesn't matter what camera you use, it matters how you use it. It is a tool. If you want a certain aesthetic feel, you will know what each film camera does that a digital doesn't. Some beautiful things about older cameras are the flaws they inherent. the light leaks, the dust, and in my belief the most important, grain. anyways yes this is negative. good analysis greg.