picture window # 7 ~ then and now
Friday, May 16, 2008 at 10:36AM 
NYC window, East Village • click to embiggenPreviously, I mentioned John Pfahl's Picture Windows book from his 1978-1981 series of the same name.
One of the big differences between his picture windows pictures and mine is the nearly total lack of interior detail in his pictures. I am fairly certain that his "choice" of this approach was in fact a "Hobson's Choice" - the technology of the day simply did not allow him to capture the full range of light presented by such a scene. Consequently, he composed tightly to the window itself and the interior walls provided a mostly featureless "frame" to the exterior view. This was an effective visual device that lent emphasis to the outside view.
My picture windows occupy much smaller portion of the picture than Pfahl's do. There are number of reasons why I chose to picture this way, but, I was afforded an actual choice because of today's digital darkroom technologies - all of my picture window pictures are a blend (manual, not HDR) of at least 2 different exposures of the same scene - 1 exposure for the exterior scene and 1 for the interior scene.
I have chosen to picture in this manner because I am most interested in exploring the relationships between the inside and outside worlds - a task that was difficult but not impossible in the good 'ole analog days. A task that is much easier to pursue in the digital era.
IMO, one of the blessings and banes of the digital darkroom is the seemingly endless possibilities of image editing that are available. It seems to me that there is quite a bit of doing it because I can stuff being done that creates little more than technical showmanship and/or excesses. But perhaps that is to be expected when kids are given a new toy to play with.
Reader Comments (1)
I approach Photoshop as a trained chef approaches raw ingredients (thus the double irony of the RAW file for me). I gather raw ingredients with my camera and then prepare them according to my taste in Photoshop. Some people like it. Some don't. That's perfectly okay no matter how you swing.