Pragmatic Art
Let’s be honest: the majority of people look at a picture or listen to a song and then either like it or not. Only a few will question the how it was made and based on that judge on said piece of art. I heard people going aw and oh over a photograph and when they found out about the used equipment not being textbook-conform they would frown their ugly faces. The biggest offender for a fair amount of photography veterans seems to be Photoshop. In every photography contest I must read the following: “Is Photoshop allowed? If yes, to what extent?”
Let me comment on that: what artistic difference does it make whether to screw a yellow warming filter in front of your lens or change the white balance afterwards digitally? Why would dodging and burning in the darkroom on film be okay but not tolerable when done digitally?
I had the pleasure to attend a presentation held by fine-art photographer Ron deVries. While I respect his photography I couldn’t help myself but develop an honest disgruntlement against his strong “contra Photoshop” bias.
He started off making some valid points about the advantages of film cameras over digital cameras. In his next sentence he was implying that anyone who uses digital only shoots in automatic (I shoot 100% manual and even if I weren’t who cares anyways). But then came the best worst part:
“Photoshop is a toy.” Well, those are not my words but his. To stress this, Ron showed us some prints each with a photoshop effect applied – and I must add that the way he applied the filters was quite poorly done. In fact I do not know why he would not stop talking about the filters in photoshop. It almost seemed as if he thinks that would be the only thing to do in Photoshop (and I never use those fancy effects – but even if I were, who would care?).
He says you can’t go wild with filters in Photoshop and just use them because they are there. There ought to be a concept behind it – and this time I fully agree. But that does not make Photoshop as bad as he wants it to be. From the sounds I thought I could sense a lot of bitterness.
So, in order to get a solarize effect in the darkroom, you got to flip the light switch. To get a similar effect in Photoshop you would be using the solarize filter. And then Mr deVries says the Photoshop way is not legit (because) it’s too easy (note to self: there has to be a physical effort, a labor if you will to make valid art, but then again flipping a light switch? I don’t know…)
I would agree that film has a quality to it (I can’t put my finger on it) that I’ve never in (my own) digital pictures (anyway). And I certainly prefer using my Olympus OM-1 (which forces me to do everything manually) to any digital camera I’ve used. It feels nicer, and I’m almost always happy with the results, although I can’t quantify how or why it is better, or even be certain that it is. (The one exception is that I’d like to have auto-focus on my OM-1. I’d like to have the camera focus, and then let me adjust it if it I want before taking the picture.)
This irrationality is not limited to Photoshop-bashing, however. I’ve seen contracting gigs for web development that said they wouldn’t take anyone who used Dreamweaver, as if everyone who uses Dreamweaver is a slave to the wysiwyg mode and can’t code HTML for themselves. Actually, Dreamweaver can be used as a pretty nice text editor with features particularly suited to web development. I personally use TextMate and Dreamweaver in tandem, and use the wysiwyg mode mainly to navigate to other parts of my code (especially with legacy table-based layouts, which can be a real pain otherwise). But if someone is able to get the right results with wysiwyg mode (that might not be possible in this case—I’m not sure, but for sake of argument let’s pretend it is) then who cares. It’s the results that matter, and any tool can be used in a multitude of ways. Just because a tool is used by uninspired hacks doesn’t make all of its users into uninspired hacks.
Brandon, I could not explain it better. I agree with what you say even though there was a time when I would judge people on the tools they are using. I used to spend a lot of time in Logic Audio recording and mixing tracks when one day some application from the Nether Hell called “Majix Music Maker” appeared and all at sudden every fourteen year old was dragging a two half-cut song-samples together, boasting they just created a song. It seemed frustrating at first thinking of it would devalue me as an artist. Eventually I figured that: yes, it is good that those who don’t have either the money, time or passion now have a really accessible option to become familiar with what i love – music. Also in the end only those with a passion and vision will stick to and be successful regardless of the tools.
PS: Textmate is very lovely indeed :)