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Twenties Superstar posted:haha sorry to bring up something from like 5 months ago but scrolling down this one caught my eye right away. I thought it was interesting how it caught the most flak. some work that struck me last year along the same vibe:  by Melissa Catanese
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May 9, 2010 04:43
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Zlatan Imhobitch posted:I don't think those tree ones would be any good if they weren't shot with a MF/LF camera. It's cool that you don't like them but this type of reductionist approach to art I've found over the years doesn't make sense. I used to break down music I liked and think "well, maybe it wouldn't be any good if it wasn't enveloped in warm tape hiss and hadn't been made on analogue gear." Would this same track be good if it was made on digital equipment and was crystal clear having been mixed in FL Studio? I understand your point of "the strength of the work should shine through any sort of seemingly superficial characteristics it has", but sometimes those characteristics are vital to the work's success. And if you take this thinking far enough it just gets absurd. What if your favorite album had all of its instruments replaced with a midi version of itself? The timbre and tone of them would make you like it a lot less. Sometimes just how a song is COMPRESSED can make it a million times better. It's not just the notes being played in a song that makes you like it. At what point do you accept that a straight ahead digital version of the same scene composed identically is an unfair basis on which to judge and compare against the finished product? In certain aesthetics color and tonality are more important than in others for pulling the approach off. A lot of lomography and holga work wouldn't be as compelling without the strong contrast and warped colors. Then you take it further with people who scratch and alter their negatives or do a poo poo load of post work digitally. While the look you get from shooting in a medium that grants you a greater tonality and maybe a more lush color palette might not be as extreme as super contrasty crossed processed holga pictures, it's still an arbitrary line to draw. This makes me think of photographers I know who have said things along the lines of "if I had to shoot digital my work would die." Another said something like "the end of portra is the end of me" when Portra NC got discontinued. This is cutting literally right to what you were talking about but these people make ridiculously great work. Would Eggleston's stuff have been as good if he didn't use the dye transfer printing process? Would "the red ceiling" be as powerful if the room didn't look like it was bleeding? Certainly wouldn't have looked the same shot with a Rebel XT. Anyway that's a lot of  but you just touched on something that I tend to think about a lot. To stay on topic here are some pictures in a similar style but shot digitally:   I don't even really think MF and LF have a unique enough look to really spot 100% of the time over digital anyway so you really just don't like the sensibility of those compositions which is perfectly fine. They could basically be digital. I just disgaree that you can criticize something on the basis of "it wouldn't be good if it was done in a different medium but was basically the same otherwise".
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Feb 28, 2013 08:04
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