"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
- Ansel Adams
This is a post for all the
technicians out there. As
photographers we strive for control.
We “pre-visualize,” use the zone-system when we expose film, have our
own top secret development formulas for pushing and pulling exposure and, more
recently, cling to calibrated monitors, printers, papers, cameras etc. to bring
a “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) sense of comfort to our image making. But we do not live in a static world,
and just as wet plates gave way to film and zone systems so too does the
digital workflow to updated software and new tools.
At the same time, we lust after
gear; new cameras, computers, filters, and software. Photoshop and Lightroom are the standard-bearers of our
trade. We learn to live and work
between updates as what took hours in CS4 can be accomplished in minutes in CS
6. The natural extensions of the
software we use, ICC profiles, calibrated monitors, and print drivers are all
dialed in to serve the aesthetic of the images we are trying to make. It takes work and it’ s a pain in the
ass update, just as I can only imagine film photographers having to re-calibrate
their film as more and more of it disappears from the market. Our initial excitement when new pieces
of software come out is soon met with the reality of redefining ones workflow.
I am friends with a wonderful
photographer named Huntington Witherill.
He has deemed the update obsessed pace of the digital workflow the
“hamster wheel of progress.” He’s
written about such ideas in publications like Lens Work. His analogy is spot on. Often times, the updates in gear,
software, etc., serve as a source of frustration and can get in the way of
doing and making our work.
I get caught up in this all too
often. Photoshop CS5 worked just
fine for what I was doing and I had a process I had been using for years with
no problems. Somehow I became
convinced that with the newest software (CS6) the quality of my images would
improve, so I decided to install it.
Upon doing so I also had to update my print drivers and a variety of
plug-ins I use which took the better part of a day. After doing so I went to make a print in order to full-fill
a web purchase and what do you know, the new print driver menu has completely
changed and I can no longer print using my dedicated printer profile for the
paper I use. Further, I lost all
of my saved printer pre-sets and could not print in advanced black and white
mode.
It took the better part of an
entire day, a complete box of Ilford Galerie Silk paper, multiple phone calls
and emails, and a pounding headache to finally resolve this issue and realize a
new truth (with this update).
Control of color management in the new Epson print driver is f’d (in my
opinion) and I have to completely re-work my “digital workflow” to accommodate
this truth. I lost two whole days,
time that I could have been out shooting, printing, hiking, whatever, in order
to upgrade to new software that I did not really need.
It reminds me of an Ansel Adams
quote, shown at the top of this post.
Often times, we are so obsessed about the background minutia of the
photographic process (the tools, the gear, etc) that we begin to believe that
having the latest and greatest can make boring or flawed images beautiful. I’m ashamed to admit it, but like I
said, I really had no reason to upgrade my software other than a desire to be
able to use a few new tools that simplified my process a tad. But at what expense? New technology and new equipment cannot
make bad photography good. It can
enhance what an artist is striving for (resolution, sharpness, tonal range,
etc) but it cannot make flat lighting interesting or a lack of personal vision
translate into a deeper frame. It
just can’t, and all my time wasted on the phone, in front of my monitor sending
emails, surfing chat rooms etc. yesterday confirmed this.
Get out and make images, the other
stuff will fall into place.
