anand@utastro.UUCP (Anand Sivaramakrishnan) (08/15/85)
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I am not quite sure of the message in J. Eric Roskos posting,
but surely all photographs are 'technical'. Even if it is a
snapshot of a kid's birthday party, it is technical. There are
various levels that one can approach photography, one extreme is
'Hey, that's a great shot! I bet you took it with a Leica! What
edge sharpness!'
.... on the other hand, one can appreciate the technical
aspect of the picture but treat it as purely secondary
to the message of the photographer.
I think 'realism' is a very badly defined word, at least in the context
of art in general. What is real about projecting three dimensions down
to two, and transforming swarms of photons into grains of silver or dye?
In defense of technique (or technical knowledge) .... the more you
know about your medium the better... you can visualize the final desired
image and even approximate it closely. I see little difference between
using the technical knowledge that
'pointing the camera at a child from low bets you a better picture' and
'pre-exposing the negative to a uniformly illuminated textureless
subject placed on zone III will cause a useful raising of density
in the toe of the exposure-density curve'.
The difference is only a matter of degree. The images produced in
photography are all equally real, and photographs are 'technical'
by nature, but photography is not meant primarily to exhibit the
technical ability of the photographer.
I feel very strongly about this topic, as I have seen people
who are potentially good photographers get trapped: one by
a technical-perfection-mania (he changes his equipment every
few months, and shoots the same pictures, comparing this lens
to that, exchanging them, generally walking around saying that
he has the best lenses around (likewise for papers, developers,
everything else), he hasn't taken an original picture for five
years! His earlier work, done on a more limited budget (both
time and money) was really good.
In contrast, the other, in reaction against technical
knowledge, handicaps himself to prove that one can take good
pictures using a child's toy camera (I think it is a reaction,
not a requirement dictated by the initial visualization).
So y'all out there, stay between the Scylla of technical
mania and the Charibdis of reaction agin it!