Is a scanned bw neg really art

Andrew Nichols
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Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Andrew Nichols » 20 Dec 2012, 08:46

It seems many people are just scanning
And using ps
I am wondering if its z cop out
And more digital than analog

To my reasoning the point of bw film is the process from neg to print
The reason being that it is a cohesive whole relying more than a century of knowledge.

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Alastair Moore
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Alastair Moore » 20 Dec 2012, 09:35

Currently, it's my only option (scanning). I simply don't have the room for a 4x5 enlarger. As it stands, my "dark room" is put up and broken down every time I want to develop some negatives. I'd be wet printing tomorrow if I could.

But our shared dark room is in progress so things shall change!

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Alastair Moore
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Alastair Moore » 20 Dec 2012, 09:36

Ps. Yes, scanned negatives are still art!

Ray Heath
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Ray Heath » 20 Dec 2012, 09:54

G'day Andrew

Scanned negs can still be art, creative and expressive though I wonder if something of the subtle beauty of film is lost.
Ray

Frank Meadow Sutcliffe's photographs are "a bridge that spans the widening gulf of time" (Michael Hiley 1979, 5).

Walter Glover
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Walter Glover » 20 Dec 2012, 10:43

Ray Heath wrote:I wonder if something of the subtle beauty of film is lost.


Perhaps it is the subtle beauty of the projected or contact print that is lost.

That said; I believe that photography may be an artistic endeavour but 'ART' is an epithet bestowed by the world upon works that are found worthy. Up to thatr point a photo is a photo is a photo.

I also believe that there are 'artists working in the vehicle of photography' but it does not follow that photographers are artists.
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant

smbooth
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby smbooth » 20 Dec 2012, 11:19

Its still "art" weather it turns photography into something else is another question. Who are we to judge what people do to get a image on their wall.

Lachlan717
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Lachlan717 » 20 Dec 2012, 12:30

What about someone making digital negatives to use for contact printing? Is that an art/not art/art scenario?

Don't forget that, before negatives as we know them, there were dry plates. Before that, myriad ways to do wet plates.

Even with film, there was ortho before pan. Does than mean that we dismiss pan as it didn't rely on previous knowledge? And, wide spread colour was only available after WWII. Does that make colour any less of an art?

Or, can we just get over this sh#t and make some shots?

Andrew Nichols
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Andrew Nichols » 20 Dec 2012, 14:29

Yeah I guess it's a lame argument

I think there is a random element to all things analogue that is missed in digital

Something of the emotional is missing in my perception and becomes somewhat clinical in just scanned images
Digital negs are optically produced
So end up on silver paper/texture

Just scanning relies on mechanical printing

You can do 45 contact prints with no room

Does digital printing last longer than silver

Would you sell a print with a replacement every 70 years due to fading.

Any way I'm having fun dodging and burning contact prints.

Cutting out shapes from prints that didn't work to get accurate masks.

Digital is nice and easy and therefore productive.

Might have to set up my 108 saltsman
In marrikvill
As not much room here.
It does need new power as I left 110 power in u.s as was old and heavy
New "digital" power more efficient lighter Etc

Know any one good with power?

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Maris
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Maris » 20 Dec 2012, 15:14

Lachlan717 wrote:What about someone making digital negatives to use for contact printing? Is that an art/not art/art scenario?

Don't forget that, before negatives as we know them, there were dry plates. Before that, myriad ways to do wet plates.

Even with film, there was ortho before pan. Does than mean that we dismiss pan as it didn't rely on previous knowledge? And, wide spread colour was only available after WWII. Does that make colour any less of an art?

Or, can we just get over this sh#t and make some shots?

The single crucial, decisive, absolutely unambiguous, and unifying characteristic of all photographs is that they are pictures generated in a light sensitive surface by light acting on that surface. Film negatives, paper negatives, gelatin-silver positives, dry plates, wet plates, ortho emulsions, pan emulsions, and colour films, despite their varied characteristics share the common property of being light sensitive and being capable of transformation into photographs by virtue of that light sensitivity.

Very often pictures are called photographs because untutored people don't know the actual names for them. Open any glossy magazine and you will see colour pictures. Most folks point and say "photograph". The pictures are actually "four colour web-offset prints", not photographs. The same applies to duotones, xerox copies, halftone press prints, gravures, woodburytypes, dye transfer prints, inkjets, and monitor images. None of these things come into existence because they have light sensitive properties invoked by the arrival of light.

Another recurrent misconception is that any picture derived from a photograph, however indirect or distant the relationship, becomes by virtue of that ancestry a photograph in its own right. A photograph of a photograph is a photograph but everything else is something else. Example: I take a paper negative of a film negative. Result: a positive picture on paper I call a gelatin-silver photograph. Counter-example: I scan a photograph and generate an electronic file that I display as a picture on a monitor. Result: monitor image or "screen looker"; not a photograph.

Even sillier is the prevalent idea that a photograph is any picture that starts off from the act of light hitting a sensitive surface. The howler here lies in the fact that ALL realist pictures start off that way. Remember, realist paintings and drawings all require light to strike the sensitive retina of the artist's eye to get the process going. And (forgive the bleeding obvious) the artist's retina does not become the picture; does not become a photograph.

A popular notion equates any camera use whatsoever with photography. 'Taint so! Johannes Vermeer and Giovanni Canaletto used cameras and produced paintings. CCTV cameras deliver surveillance footage. Gamma cameras map radionuclide concentrations. Digital cameras generate displayable electronic files. TV studio cameras output broadcast television. Only in that very small corner of the camera universe in which you place labile light sensitive surfaces at the focal plane of a camera are you liable to get photographs.

It's a matter of practicality that Large Format Photography Australia traffics in monitor images accessed via the internet. My personal bias is that those images should depict the photographs that members actually make. I dislike electronic files of scanned negatives being recalculated and displayed as fictitious positives. The English site "Film and Darkroom User" bans the process outright. By all means show me negatives. I like negatives. I've seen thousands of negatives. Negatives are my good and familiar friends.

The history of photography records a salient example of the power of negatives. When Ansel Adams was granted his first audience with the famous Paul Strand there was an initial shock of disappointment. Strand had no positives to show only negatives. But Adams notes in his autobiography it was the magnificence of those negatives that finally swerved him to the path of photography instead of a career as a concert pianist.

Large Format Photography Australia is a special place for special photography. There are plenty of other sites to go for intellect-free picture sharing.

Andrew Nichols
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Re: Is a scanned bw neg really art

Postby Andrew Nichols » 20 Dec 2012, 16:48

Maris your a genius
The only thing I will say is that we all call pictures photographs in stead of their technical sub category is for convenience
And because language is plastic.
And generality Is needed

And because their is an element of truth that they are actually photographs.
Of some synthesis regardless of capture.

But to me scanning verges on digital
Especially in bw landscapes portraits etc

Which to me is all about craft and soul and the elements so an earthy thing
Not a mental digital abstract thing

I think colour is fine scanned as it actually benefits from digital manipulation to make the colours right
Lest the image and effort be wasted

Gordon undy reckons large colour prints are best drum scanned and printed.
I have never printed large optically but would like to.

Are there any large optical printers out there?


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