Sanding An Oil Painting

Film simulations, Lightroom/Photoshop plugins, in-camera RAW processing... Whatever you want to call it, whatever approach you want to take, this is a popular topic in the online photography community these days. Seems like it to me anyway. Don't get me wrong, I do absolutely get the attraction of these tools, techniques, filters, etc. In general, I like the aesthetic and I've gotten some results I am legit pleased with. But the thing is, if I'm being honest, the results don't really look all that much like film to my eyes. All these filters, skins, and presets are basically doing one main thing: taking the edge off of the rather clinical output produced by digital image sensors. Kind of like sanding your oil painting...

It's Not Complicated

I find that folks tend to assume that artistic decisions are logical and make sense. That it all fits together like a theory of everything in Physics. But sometimes choices are merely practical, like with this image. You see, my camera messed up the white balance of this scene (or perhaps I pressed the wrong button by mistake) and the lovely golden hour light I experienced was neither lovely nor golden in the photograph I captured. I liked the complicated and busy composition, so I went ahead and converted the image to black and white. Simple as that.
 

What Nice Bokeh Looks Like...

... to me anyway. Like so many other aesthetic concepts, ideas and opinions about lens blur abound, proliferate, grow exponentially. They've been turned up to eleven, Bob Ross-ified, the whole nine yards. Artificial Intelligence, connoisseurs, and 'philes have gotten involved. What the hell is a simple person with a camera gonna do? Moi, I've come up with my own ideas over the years. And, I've learned to keep my dumb thoughts to myself and instead try to let my lenses guide me to a good answer as I shoot. 

 
Works sometimes.

Digital Noise Is A Solved Problem

Over the past year or so, I have been piecemeal reading Kim Biel's 'Good Pictures'. It is a book that lends itself well to such an approach. Fortunately, because that's the way I read these days, alas... 

But anyway, one of the concepts that keeps coming up for me as I read this book is the notion that as technical barriers to capturing photographs are overcome, what were once 'challenges' become aesthetic choices. As modern film emulsions were developed, for example, older technologies, now collectively described as 'alternative processes', became aesthetic possibilities in the image maker's toolkit. These days, between hardware and software, I would argue that digital sensor noise is a solved problem. So, is it surprising then that using old digicams, with their noisy sensors and funky color rendition, is kind of a thing now? Today's image, smooth as a baby's bum, was taken at ISO 8000. Digital 'grain' or computational perfection? A choice I made as I processed the image.

A Thin Black Line

Back when there was no alternative to printing in the darkroom, I remember opening up a photography magazine and reading about how certain photographers would take a file to their negative carriers in order to remove a few fractions of a millimeter of metal from each side. This would allow them to print a thin black frame around their images, and was intended to be a sign that the photographer had 'gotten things right in camera'. Which of course, is kind of silly, since a post-visualizer and darkroom master like Jerry Uelsmann could have easily worked around such a simple constraint. But the thing is, sometimes a thin black line around an image just looks good, and these days such an effect can be achieved in software with a few 'button presses' even on a heavily cropped image. And with absolutely no chance of scratched negatives.

Do The Work That Only You Can Do

Based on my very limited observations, I'd say that every gardener has their style. This individual would appear to be pretty fastidious, to my eye at least. Even though this little shed looks to be constructed from materials at hand, it is all very tidy indeed. I can't even imagine what wobbly little disaster I would have cobbled together from the same pile of stuff. 

The World Does Not Share Your Impeccable Taste

This week my trip to the Publix was rewarded with a very nice bouquet of flowers, a grouping we'll be able to enjoy for many days, I think. But, you never know what you'll be presented with when you enter the store. In general, the world does not share your taste - a sometimes bitter truth we must learn to endure. But anyway, I don't know for certain how the sometimes fluorescent colors available are created, a case of better living through chemistry, I suppose. We'll leave it at that for now.

Tasting notes: Fujifilm X30 digicam, shot in jpg using the black and white 'film' profile. I have to say, I continue to really enjoying shooting with this little guy.

Dreamscape

This image was shot on a roll of Washi film, and at first I had a hard time reading the negative. Once I inverted the negative scan, my initial reaction was, 'meh'. Over time, the image as well as the aesthetic have grown on me. All of the Washi stocks give interesting looks, though they are not always repeatable. In addition, the trouble with exploring so many stocks is that you don't spend enough time with one to really get to know it. On the other hand, particular film stocks do work well for certain projects so it is worthwhile being familiar with the available choices. In terms of defining the parameters of an aesthetic, I mean. Everything is a compromise. Just gotta shoot more, I guess.

Revisiting the aesthetic of the CCD imaging sensor

To my eye, there is something rather appealing about the aesthetic produced by older digital imaging sensors -- qualities that have held up well over the years. The lower pixel count, the presence of noise at even the base ISO, the greater overall depth of field, the colors produced by the CCD. With the perspective afforded by the passing of 20 years, it is perhaps now easier to overlook what we once viewed as technical limitations, since if we need greater technical perfection it is certainly available to us with more modern cameras. Another thing I had completely forgotten about is the fact that the sensors in these older point-and-shoot cameras were often in the 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the now more common 3:2 frame.