civilized ku # 3075-76 / diptych # 211 ~ there and back again

view from hotel window ~ Concord, NH • click to embiggen
Apple Store ~ Montreal, QC, CA • click to embiggen
umbrellas ~ Manhattan, NYC, NY • click to embiggen

From 1 week ago Friday past to this past Sunday (10 days), I have spent 3 days in Concord, NH, 2 days in Manhattan , NYC and 2 days in Montreal, QC, CA. Needless to write, I haven't had much time for posting entries. However, I have had time to think.

Much of my thinking has been on topics, photography wise, instigated by 2 primary factors - 1) "...Many contemporary photographers lament the “lifelessness” of digital images. We look at the picture, admire its vibrant colors and sharp lines, and still can’t help but feel nostalgic for the photographs of the old, pre-digital age." (Pavel Kosenko, author, LIFELIKE:A Book on Color), and 2) my recent acquisition (in NYC) of the book, SAUL LEITER: Early Color. And, to my way of thinking, items 1 and 2 are very closely related inasmuch as one is nostalgic for pre-digital age color and the other is a tour de force of pre-digital age color.

Pavel Kosenko's nostalgic lament is somewhat understandable to me inasmuch as I still believe that some of the pre-digital C prints I made were indeed beautiful, color space / tonal wise. That standard / benchmark of representational color and tonal value is still the one I aim to replicate in today's digital era. In doing so, I am very much de-digitalizing my digital picture files and have been doing so since my early digital picture making days.

My issue with the current standard / benchmark (for so many) of tack sharp, noise (aka grain) free and somewhat over-vibrant color is, to my eye and sensibilities, rather plastic or not lifelike as in the sense of not real or sincere. While many who ascribe to that picturing M.O. would state that they are trying to make "realistic" pictures, in fact (again, to my eye and sensibilities) they are making pictures which appear to be hyperreal as in the sense of something fake and artificial which comes to be more definitive of the real than reality itself.

You know, like the Nexus 6 replicants manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation which were made to be more human than human.

Inasmuch as Kosenko seems to think that replicating the look of analog film is the answer to introducing "life" to color pictures - he advocates for a RAW developer that is at its heart an effect app-like program with many presets for various types of analog films - I would disagree with his rational / nostalgic longings for "photographs of the pre-digital age".

Are pre-digital photographs more real (or less real) than digital era photographs? I think not. Are they more pleasant to the eye than the current crop digital picturing 'perfection'? iMo, unquestionably so. They are, to my eye and sensibilities, 'softer' and more gentle to behold.

Perhaps that is what I am experimenting with adding 'grain' (monochromatic digital noise) to my pictures - like those in this entry's diptych.

Comments

[Jim Roelofs]

Mark, If I may take this train of thought of yours - without putting words into your mouth - a little further, it appears to me that many modern, digital photographers are mis-using their licence to publish?

[Markus Spring]

Mark, I do know all too well what you describe as a plasticky look, and it can be found all over, often stemming from out-of-the-cam jpegs mangled through some effects app for further disimprovement. This has its merits in converting images into instant-consumables, as quickly forgotten as seen.

Saul Leiter's images are in my eyes antipodes, made from a slower photographer for slower, more conscious viewers who are not paging through timelines without too much interest in the creations they see but more in the (self-)orchestration. I was lucky enough to see the Saul Leiter retrospective exhibition in Vienna some years ago, and the space in the Hundertwasser museum certainly added to the images.

[Markus]

Mark, for your kind attention: the first image cannot be enlarged - it opens just an empty window.

[gravitas et nugalis]

Markus - thanks for the headsup. More problems with Squarespace. I think it's fixed - the popup, not the the SS problem.

[Richard Conolly]

"Early Color" is a masterclass in colour photography. I also saw the Saul Leiter retrospective at The Photographers Gallery in London and it was a privilege to see the original pictures.

I can recommend the Todd Haynes film, "Carol". The cinematography deliberately captures the mood and colours of those Saul Leiter pictures, being shot on Super 16 film as opposed to digitally. The framing and composition (shots through glass and reflections) also echo his style.