It is easy to say that we are “standing at the crossroads.” Occasionally it’s even true, but the expression sounds so important, it evokes such responsibility, that it’s hard for scientists, technologists, journalists, historians, economists, and futurists to hold back the urge, even if the decision to be made is minor, the outcome arbitrary.

So recognize that it is with a full understanding that I say to you, right now, we stand at the crossroads of creativity. We’ve stood here before, we will stand here again, but I can say categorically that we stand here now and it is an important and exciting time to be a photographer.

To our left lies the path toward a technological utopia, a world where anything can be achieved in post-processing, where your creative vision can be phoned in from the desktop. On October 19th, Lytro announced the release of the Lytro “light field” camera. A digital camera smaller than a TV remote that allows you to take a picture and choose a focal point later.

The Lytro camera adds “focal point” to the list of characteristics that can be changed through software long after the photo has been taken. Among those are now white balance, tone curve, color balance, overexposure (to a degree), lens distortion, and likely more that I’m having trouble coming up with right now.

To our right lies the path toward a simpler time, toward the nexus of art and craft where technology assists in some small fashion the mind and hands of the artist, whose vision is crisp and whose execution is informed by experience. In September of last year, Leica released their second digital camera, the M9, a camera with so few features it seems, at first glance, a cataclysmic engineering gaffe.

The M9 is an 18 megapixel digital camera with no auto-focus, no single-lens reflex or through-the-lens view, and a metering system that barely qualifies as a “system” at all. It essentially puts a NASA-quality full-frame 35mm sensor behind a camera from the 1950s.

Though these two events do not precisely coincide on the calendar, they are so perfectly juxtaposed as to appear planned. The Lytro asks a photographer to think less—about focus, at least—and provides the software tools to create images with perfect focus. The Leica M9 asks a photographer to take back the responsibilities that have been held firmly by technology for the past decade or more and gives the photographer nothing beyond exquisite glass and one of the best digital sensors on the market.

To accept the Lytro as the future of photography is to embrace an art practically devoid of error. Conversely, to accept the Leica M9 as the future of photography is to embrace human imperfection.

Creativity has never been, and surely will never be, stifled by progress. No tool, not even the Lytro, can extinguish the creative spirit. Light field technology joins the ranks of tools like RAW format and Photoshop, neither of which suffocated any artist that I know of. Quite to the contrary, precision has historically led to new frontiers of expression as Ansel Adams demonstrated by forming his f/64 group and defying the unfocused, painterly style prevalent at the time with his staggeringly sharp and detailed images.

Nevertheless, and at the risk of sounding unintentionally critical of Ansel Adams, there is always a human element in art and the less you can perceive of the craft, the further a work creeps from an embodiment of human spirit to a science of human mind. Surely an image of social gravity executed with infinite precision, lacking nearly any flaw, is nevertheless the vision of its creator. But is content, devoid of interpretation, the sole measure by which expression should be judged?

The Lytro camera is a tool that frees the artist from one more shackle, but does it also take away one more opportunity for the artist to express their humanity?

The Leica M9 is a tool that says to the artist, Realize your vision, control for yourself nearly every aspect of your work’s creation, and when you fail to perform at the level of a machine, burn the machine. It is a camera for those who see beauty in the flaws, and there is a purity and a nobility to that.

Descending from the clouds for a moment, I should also mention that the Lytro camera is now on sale for about $400 ($500 if you want it in bright red), and that the Leica M9 can be found for almost $7,000, without a lens. I mention this because I expect people to call me out for comparing apples to oranges. Believe me, I already know.

But you don’t have to take my word for it:

• The Lytro camera, from Lytro.com
• Lytro Launches, via The Online Photographer
• Leica M9 Hands-on Review, from dpreview
• An M9 in Paris, via Luminous Landscape, an in-depth review

Thanks to Aaron Johnson of What the Duck for this eloquent visual synopsis of what I’ve been thinking about lately. Too often we get so deeply embroiled in our craft that we forget why we do it.

A debate has been raging for days on Usenet over the question of whether photography is art and, if so, when it becomes art. Although the very discussion is futile and has no practical outcome, I do think it’s important to take a step back from what you’re doing and think about what it is you’re gaining from it. This is going to be a heady philosophical post so if that’s not your particular brand of vodka, read some photo news instead.

While reading related material in preparation for this post, I came across this quote by famed director and cinematographer Michelangelo Antonioni that seemed relevant:

We know that behind every image revealed there is another image more faithful to reality, and in the back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that no one will ever see.

If something more philosophical could be said about the visual arts, I would like to hear it. An essential characteristic of photography, and one that distinguishes it from other arts, is that you are forced to start with an image from superficial reality, whether that be candid, posed, documentary, still life, or something else; it must be placed before the lens and lit. A painter or a sculptor works within the limits of his or her materials, but the resulting form is summoned completely from their imagination, from their vision of the materials being configured in a certain way.

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Because of this “limitation”¹ of photography, many people are drawn to it—as an art form—with the intention of reproducing a scene for its beauty, emotion, or both (particularly in landscape work) that is perceived by their eyes and minds. The key word there is “reproducing.” Only secondarily do photographers seek to create aesthetic contrivances of texture, form, and color, due to their preoccupation with staying faithful to their experience of the scenes as they experienced them in Antonioni’s mysterious reality. In such realism, the value of the work as art certainly does not decline; Ansel Adams’ entire career was spent realizing such scenic experiences on paper and to suggest that his legacy of printmaking is not art would be like telling Leonardo DaVinci that he can’t draw. Still, Adams’ work is a prime example of what a concern for pure compositional characteristics can bring to “observational” or “representational” photography (I use those words to differentiate Adams’ work from “abstract,” “documentary,” and other types of photography, not as editorial terms).

As a photographer, I am almost completely unconcerned with subject matter for what it is, but rather for what it looks like, and almost never in the classic sense of observance as is typically the case with landscapes (“Oooh, pretty mountains!”). The idea that photographs, or works of art in general, must be imbued with some palpable theme or emotional message is a preposterous concept made popular by professors and scholars whose time is spent analyzing art rather than creating it. Visual art is a powerful method of communicating themes and ideas, but such ability is not one that need be wielded just for the sake of it. My work is not abstract, as it does communicate the presence of objects and places that are recognizable, but I find my interest piqued most by the geometry, contrast, and texture of my subjects.

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Part of my development as a photographer has involved moving slowly away from the urge to create images with some clear meaning simply for the emotional reaction they ilicit, and toward the creation of images for their pure compositional strengths. I went to school for graphic design and my love for it was never tied to the message but rather to its visual impact, pure and simple.

Each photographer I come in contact with has their own passion and their own preferred subject matter. Looking back through my own work I can see how my tastes have developed over time and, I like to think, my skills as well. Do you look back at your older work and see a change in preference toward your subject matter? Have you drastically changed directions as time went on? What are your favorite subjects to photograph, and what is it about them that makes photographing them exciting? What would you like to do more of in your work, or is there a genre you really want to break into?

These are great questions to ask yourself, but if you have a second, leave your answers in the comments as well so we all can have a chat about it.

1. Limiting only to the extent that a painter might be limited with paint.

There was a time, long ago, when photographs were conceived at the moment the shutter button was depressed. Darkroom techniques were limited at best (the idea that a photographic image could even be created was a modern miracle) and the photographer was required to make near-perfect exposures every time.

Things have changed a lot since then; it’s now possible to do amazing things long after the light has been captured by the camera. Today I’m going to explore some competing points of view and take a philosophical walk through the annals of photographic history to clear up some improper perceptions of digital post-processing.

First, Some History

The first commercially viable photographic technology was the Daguerrotype, a positive-only process (no negative is created and each image can only be made once) resulting in extremely fragile prints on copper plates.

Not only was the development and printing process inflexible and time consuming, but it also exposed photographers to chemicals such as mercury and iodine; not the kinds of things you want to be boiling and possibly inhaling!

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Over time, photographic technology evolved. The system of using silver halide-based negatives emerged, allowing photographers to make more than one print from each of their images; prints that could be handled without fear of destroying them. The printing process itself was transformed from a cumbersome operation using metal substrates and boiling chemicals to the more refined and less hazardous procedure we use today.

It was the invention of the glass negative (circa 1839, possibly by John Herschel, an astronomer by trade¹) that precipitated the institution of photographic post-processing. The negative expanded the photographic process into three steps, which should look very familiar:

1. Exposure
2. Development
3. Printing

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Post-processing, by definition, is altering the image after the light has been captured (hence, post-). Traditionally, these alterations were achieved by modifying the way the exposed film was developed into a negative and the way the negative was printed. For the first time, photographers had the ability to enhance their images beyond the capacity of the film materials of the day; dodging and burning, for example, can create images with a tonal range beyond what can be captured by the film at exposure time.

As photographic technology and techniques surge forward, the photographer is given a progressively more expansive collection of post-processing tools and abilities. Digital photography has completed the transformation of post-processing into an art form unto itself, based concretely on captured-light imagery but possessing all of the characteristics and nuances of a full-fledged medium. Regardless of its flexibility and capabilities, is it not still bound to photography?

“While I have always worked with fairly conventional means and techniques, I anticipate new departures which, if I cannot examine them in my lifetime, will assure the power of future vision and accomplishment.” —Ansel Adams, Carmel, 1976

Artistic Integrity

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Any debate over whether post-processing invalidates the artistic integrity of a photographic work is fundamentally academic. Even before chemical photography existed, artists used camera-like devices such as the camera obscura or optical contraptions like the camera lucida to trace a three-dimensional scene onto paper. Chemical photography and highly sensitive film materials simply permitted artists to capture their subjects faster and with greater accuracy, but never excused an artist from laying hands upon the entire process to reach their artistic goals. Never in the evolution of darkroom techniques was the final product’s status as a photograph questioned.

A perception exists that the medium of captured-light images is pure, not to be spoiled by the meddling of non-optical tools. It may be that the last few decades of photography, during which no paradigm shifts in traditional process have occurred², are responsible for this notion. Or, it may be that the digital world is so vastly different—not in essence, but in physicality—from the world of the darkroom that this discussion has arisen.

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Still, there are those who perceive an imaginary line in post-processing across which a photograph passes into a different state of being and loses its status as a photograph. To me, this distinction is purely semantic. We could debate the definition of “photograph” ad infinitum and never reach a consensus. What does this discussion do for any of us as artists?

Far be it from me to make sweeping generalizations about a field as personal and subjective as art, but I feel as though the detractors of post-processing are the antithesis of its very spirit. Let me explain.

The Question of Intent

You could say that a watercolor splattered with acrylic ceases to be a watercolor. Semantically, that’s true enough; I think that the world of art would classify such a painting as “mixed media.” Perhaps the stumbling block in digital photography is the inextricable relationship between its traditional light-capture methods and the digital “development” tools that make even its most modest creations possible.

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Because traditional darkroom development tools have always been part and parcel to the process we call “photography,” even since the earliest days of its existence, it’s hard to suggest that they are separate mediums or separate forms of art. I contend that digital photography is no different. A digital photographer may not use chemical developers or optical enlargers, but the process is fundamentally the same. Those who claim otherwise tend to draw the line at a subjective point in the editing process, one which marks no meaningful boundary.

Rather than introducing entirely new mechanics or technology, digital post-processing of any degree makes use of the same fundamental operations that produce simple and austere works. Because the tools are the same, it is the methods themselves, the intricacies of the artist’s process, that are called into question; something that has never happened in photography before, certainly not to this degree.

What do you think? Are there Photoshop filters or third-party software tools or certain editing techniques that transform a photograph into a photographically-derived work, not deserving of the name “photograph?” Where do you draw the line?

I think that it’s an artist’s duty to carefully examine each viewpoint in this discussion and then promptly ignore them all.

1. Edit: It was brought to my attention that Herschel wasn’t responsible for the “invention” of the negative, although he probably coined the term. For more information about this stage in photography’s early development, read about William Fox Talbot, John Herschel, and the wet plate collodion process
2. Digital photography is unquestionably a paradigm shift, but the idea of collecting light through a lens, capturing the resulting image, and reproducing that image on paper is exactly the same as it was when the term “photography” was first conceived in 1832.

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My opinion is that digital photography is, and should be treated as, entirely comparable and identical to traditional photography. Although the differences in process and technique bear investigation for the ambitious viewer and may play a role in serious competition and critique as parameters for comparison, they have no more bearing on the effect of the work as would the brand of pencils used by an illustrator.

In the field of art, competition and formal review should command the examination of an artist’s basic choice of media and execution. While even the casual viewer can deepen the experience of a piece of art with knowledge of its process, that information is only helpful insofar as it expands appreciation or increases understanding; all artwork is comparable given only the experience of it intended by its creator.

To give an example of what I mean, consider two paintings. Each painting was created with different types of paint and different brushes, one on canvas and the other on paper, one representational and the other abstract, one lacquered and the other not. Can these two works of art be compared objectively as paintings? My gut says they can. The majority of casual viewers would never seek out these differences because the two works can be compared and contrasted, fairly and completely, simply on the basis of their appearance.

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Similarly in photography, two photographs may appear very much the same but may have been created in vastly different ways. In traditional photography alone, a myriad of chemicals and materials are available to the artist. Comparing two photographs, one traditionally printed and the other digitally created, should pose no problem to the viewer; only in formal competition and critique should this piece of information carry any weight, and that is also true for the painting example given above.

Digital photographers find themselves, in many cases, having to defend their work on the basis of its production methods rather than its artistic integrity, and it saddens me. When, in the history of art, have its methods come under such scrutiny? Producing new work in new ways has always been a core value of the field of art as a whole.

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What is saddening is not that a photographer would spend time and energy defending his or her craft, for that seems to me a noble endeavor. What saddens me is that anyone would spend time and energy criticizing digital photography, in particular, on the basis of its process rather than its results. Few other fields of art come under such scrutiny; perhaps because many fields of art are less commercialized or because they occupy areas of the art world not very well traveled by the mainstream. Whatever the reasons may be, I hope that the future brings a greater acceptance of digital photography as a photographic methodology, not to be treated differently than the many ways in which light has been captured and reproduced in the past.

Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the “Pictorialist,” on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts.

Group f/64 was conceived in explicit opposition to the Pictorialist movement, which “subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time.”² Quite to the contrary, Group f/64 believed very strongly that photography “must always remain independent of ideological conventions of art and aesthetics that are reminiscent of a period and culture antedating the growth of the medium itself.”³ These are two very different viewpoints. One sees photography as a medium through which to create works representative of the predominant aesthetics and style of other types of art at the time, and the other sees photography as a new medium with its own aesthetics and style that should be preserved.

Purists almost by definition, the members of Group f/64 sought to stretch the boundaries of photography through strict adherence to its core methods. They used as few image-altering devices or techniques as possible; no lens filters, no exotic darkroom processes or equipment. Their images aspired to a crisp, infinitely-focused, tonally brilliant standard upon which many future photographers would base their own explorations.

It should be noted that although Ansel Adams used extensive, complicated darkroom techniques on many of his most famous prints, he was both an advocate of smart, precise post-processing as well as maintaining the integrity of the medium by minimizing distortion of the subject, and it was likely for the latter reason that he helped to form Group f/64.

But that was 1932. The “ideological conventions of art and aesthetics” of 1932 have been entirely replaced in the age of the computer. Almost in parallel to the 1932 Pictorialist/pure photography dichotomy, there are those who see digital photography as a mere convenience; a new, faster, and in some ways more inexpensive way to maintain similar aesthetics to photography of the past, and there are those who see digital photography as an entirely new medium.

I believe that both viewpoints are correct. However, digital photography certainly brings with it a veritable cavalcade of new capabilities and equipment, inheriting credibility and respect from its traditional, silver halide forebears, but independent from them in all other ways, both technical and aesthetic.

That being the case, what now embodies the “qualities of technique, composition or idea” specific to “digital photography?” If a new group came about with the same goals as Group f/64, but updated for digital photography, what would its major tenets be? With such extensive editing capabilities in the hands of even the beginner through Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, The Gimp, iPhoto, et. al., it goes without saying that manipulation of the image is going to play a role. Whether it is basic tonal adjustment and sharpening, or more drastic and potentially destructive edits, such changes fall comfortably under the umbrella of digital photography as a medium.

When Ansel Adams stood before the St. Hernandez valley on that day in 1941, he could see in his mind the process that would be used to bring the exposure to life, from development to printing. It is that mastery of craft that has perhaps been forgotten now that the capacity to make hundreds, if not thousands, of exposures is available. This is one impact of the digital revolution. Scarcity encourages innovation; when there is less to work with, more attention is paid to planning and execution to squeeze every drop of that creative juice out of the moment.

Likewise, abundance breeds laziness. It’s too easy to snap 100 exposures of a subject in the hopes that one is in focus when each exposure costs you nothing and with cameras capable of several exposures per second.

This article doesn’t mean to draw conclusions. The ratio between excellent photographers and poor photographers is likely to be much the same today as it was in Ansel’s time (counting only those who consider themselves serious hobbyists and amateur professionals; photography is no longer exclusive to the exceptionally passionate and the exceptionally wealthy.) Still, digital photography raises a lot of interesting questions and only time will tell how it will be treated by the art historians of the future.

1. Wikipedia, Group f/64
2. Wikipedia, Pictorialism
3. ibid.