Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.rec.photo Subject: Art vs. Technique Message-ID: <1471@peora.UUCP> Date: Sun, 11-Aug-85 23:19:55 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.1471 Posted: Sun Aug 11 23:19:55 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 05:49:19 EDT References: <54600009@trsvax> <4088@alice.UUCP> <1418@peora.UUCP> <286@harvard.ARPA> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 68 > If manipulation of a print is important to acheive the previsualized > effect, then you should do it. Burning in, dodging, using hot > developer, bleaching, etc., these are all important tools in realizing > the final image. This is true; and ever since writing my long essay last weekend on the evils of darkroom manipulation, I have been feeling guilty that my tendency for hyperbole would lead some ingenuous learning-photographer astray. Obviously, Adams did use burning-in and dodging; he grumbles often about it in his notes on his photographs. Nevertheless, it is my intuitive feeling that he didn't particularly like this. (On the other hand, he did do some considerable manipulation of the negative on his most famous photograph of all, _Moonrise,_Hernandez,_NM_, the bottom half of which he bleached, redeveloped, and intensified.) Many people who read this newsgroup I suppose have gotten used to my dogmatic expression of philosophies of art, and probably even ignore it. I forget that other people read it besides those who so regularly write here (e.g., Marty Sasaki and Howard Moskovitz), until I write something semi-metaphorical, and someone sends me mail which ends with "I can only conclude that this must have been a joke." However, I am not Adams, and I really do believe in the ideas I expressed last week, mentioned in the posting above. Working almost exclusively now with color materials has led me more and more to believe in the merits of exacting realism. I do have several negatives which I am often tempted to manipulate in these ways; yet, when I look at the unmanipulated print, compared with any manipulated image, I almost always come to the conclusion that the unmanipulated print is best. This has indeed led to some strange images, which, to interpret them as I do, requires you to study them until you are truly in the mood of the picture. I look at some of them at other times and wonder why I made a print like that. On the other hand, I have only a handful that I like; only one that I feel captures any essence of the spirit of the particular school of Realism in which I spent my formative years. Nevertheless, I think that even unconventional dogma is a good thing. If art does not inspire feeling, it doesn't have much to recommend it to the world. (This is, of course, an essentially "Romantic" philosophy, and I realize that there is some art -- T. S. Eliot's poems are an example -- that don't inspire much feeling, yet are nevertheless very good.) This is why I often tend, in here, to attack with a certain hyperbole many absolutist technical statements, such as, "don't roll your film all the way into the 35mm cartridge, or light will leak in;" "Only Kodachrome is the True Way," and statements about the Zone System that are made in a constraining tone. Or, "automatic cameras are not good for the Real Photographer." I tend to feel these are diversions, like the detailed notes under the photographs in Modern Photography.* If you are to accomplish photographs that are the essence of something you are trying to express, the camera and the equipment and the techniques should all disappear. Thus, I would like to see more inspired photography, and less technical photography; but I hope that no one is misled by my comments like the ones on darkroom manipulation mentioned above. ---- *I will admit, though, that I am always interested in the type of camera used, and for color, the type of film, though it's often possible to guess both, because sometimes there are true surprises. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Lbh xabj... jura lbh pybpx gur uhzna enpr jvgu gur fgbcjngpu bs uvfgbel, vg'f n arj erpbeq, rirel gvzr."