Best Comment Ever

All in, I believe we're approaching 270,000 comments on two different sites since I became a blogger in 2005. This might be the #1 best one ever. It's a bit dense, but be patient with yourself. Relax and read it over a few times.

"The problem is that photography has always been a technical pursuit and the mediating technology required to make a photograph has always threatened to overwhelm it. To quote Donald Kuspit, 'Technology is the last valiant attempt to discredit and devalue the unconscious.... The unconscious is the bête noire in a scientifically and technologically managed world, which is why it must be killed or at least ostracized.' The endless upgrade cycle, the more and more laborious and tedious mastery of imaging software, the solid belief in technical improvement and control as a means to achieve success, all of this leads one further and further away from any possibility of making original or authentic work. This is the bind of the technology treadmill. What it gives, it also takes away. So in digital photography we have an inherent pitfall in the photographic process married to the culturally dominant fixation with technology and control which are themselves obstacles to the unconscious, the very source of creativity itself."

Written by David Comdico (with, of course, a little help from Donald Kuspit).

I couldn't have said this. But I've certainly sensed it. As we get further into the age of digital imaging, there seems something a little more serious going on than mere fanboyism and gearheadism. It used to be that tech and gear geekery was a sort of lighthearted sideline to the main project of photography—something to be indulged in, or "the work behind the work"—but everyone understood that you got it settled and then got past it, and, when faced with photographs of emotion and power, you backed down on questions of mere technical fussiness. No more. Culturally, we do seem to be involved in a project—the project of asserting that there's actually some sort of pot of gold at the end of the "technical image quality" rainbow.

What's the point of more detail in photographs when we already have too much detail? A photograph today highlights detail, forefronts it, spotlights it—detail at an almost microscopic level dominates so many pictures. I call the look "CAF"—clinical analytical forensic. It's when you see the crusty mascara on a model's eyelashes instead of a girl with thick eyelashes. I'm sure it's why people have become so passionate about big sensors, fast lenses and maximal bokeh—that's the only relief permissible from the relentless CAF.

In 2008 I had a minor epiphany and came to what I called my "theory of überkameras"—we had reached the point where the Sony A900 saw more detail in the distance than my eyes can see, and the Nikon D3 saw in the dark better than my eyes can.

I wondered at the time if I really need a camera that sees better than I do. That's my definition of an überkamera—one that sees better than your ratty inferior biological self.

The disappearance of the unconscious is a thornier thicket, but I know what Donald Kuspit means. Page through Charles Harbutt's Travelog from 1974—one of the subversive underground masterpieces in the history of American photography—and then trawl around on any Internet picture site for as long as you like. It's not just that the pictures are different. It's that the project is: glimmer of the subconscious vs. the detritus of "the scientifically and technologically managed world." Culturally, are we lost in what should have been a mere digression? We sense something is missing, but to supply the shortcoming, we just double down, determinedly, on the project. Fixate, as David put it. The bind of the technology treadmill indeed.

Mike
(Thanks to David)

P.S. As I was thinking about David's comment, I happened to hear a comedian on the radio. Health club owner: "Hey, you'll love this. It's called a Stairmaster. You know how you hate having to walk up too many stairs? Well, I've got one that's different. Mine never ends. It just keeps going and going. I've got a bike that goes nowhere too! You can ride and ride and never move. It's great. Instead of just doing real things for free, you can come pay me to pretend to do them."

Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Sampson: "I studied with Charles Harbutt for a week when I was 20 years old. Some of the lessons from that time have stuck with me for the 42 years of photography since.... I bought, enjoyed, and still have his book. I never knew that it was a 'subversive underground masterpiece' until now, though you may very well be right about that."

Yiorgos: "Yes, an excellent and much needed comment. I'd like to add a couple of other observations. Consumerism, not just technology, seems to be part of the force that has taken us down this cultural wrong turn. The artists I know disdain gear, which always makes me feel judged for finding it alluring (and not having the balls to call myself an artist). A new (to me) camera seems to reinvigorate my photography every couple of years."

Jeff: "I’ll repeat my comment to another recent post: the most important tools remain between the ears. That part hasn’t changed."

Andrew Molitor: "Regarding your postscript. When I lived in San Francisco, on Ninth Avenue there was a gym something like 100 yards from the entrance to Golden Gate Park. You could see people in the storefront on stationary bikes sweating away indoors, less than a stone's throw away from one of the most agreeable outdoor locations on the entire planet to take some exercise."

Rob de Loe: "Excellent comment and nice follow-up thoughts in the post. This all resonates very strongly. Some areas of human endeavour seem to attract people who are all about the technology and have no space for, or capacity for, emotion and the unconscious. Photography is definitely one of those areas. I think it goes beyond just different tastes. Extreme sharpness and detail are the end goal in many peoples’ photography, so upgrading to the newest lenses and sensors is essential for them. The result is often your 'clinical analytical forensic' pictures: incredibly sharp, but incredibly dull.

"For some people, the answer is to reverse course technologically: old lenses, old processes, Lomography, etc. Personally I don’t think that’s the answer. A crappy plastic lens can’t turn your dull photo into a thoughtful, engaging photo.

"I personally think the only way out is to focus completely on expressing ideas, emotions, and story in your pictures. We don’t all have to make photo essays, but if we’re deliberately and mindfully trying to say something in our pictures, for me that’s the only track that goes anywhere. Ironically, with those goals in the forefront, maybe you do need extreme detail to carry your ideas, or maybe you need 19th century photographic technologies. The key is that the technology is now serving the idea rather than being the end goal."

alan: "Tech takes us further away from original and authentic work? I couldn't disagree more. All extra technology does is give us more choices to take pictures and different pictures in more situations some of which would have been impossible before. How can that possibly lead to less originality or authenticity? It doesn't; it gives us more scope to be original if we have the vision and the imagination to use the tech to our advantage. Blaming photo tech is as daft as saying that after the invention of word processors no one would be able to write a good novel or that after we started making paper and paint in factories no one could possibly paint a picture worth looking at again. I can't agree. I think tech gives us the chance to do more and to do things we couldn't do before, at all. That's all. I disagree with the idea that tech removes creativity or originality. I think it enables more of it."

Dennis: "The bind is a terrible thing. I've attended PhotoPlus Expo many times over the last 10+ years. It's common to see prints on display in the 40x60" range from 24-MP FF cameras, a handful of much bigger prints from the higher-res models, big prints from Olympus and Fuji, even prints around 20x30" (if I remember correctly) from Fuji's little 2/3" point-and-shoots. Lately, I've been shooting less and less with my Sony E system and more and more with my RX10 III. I dislike the E-system for a variety of reasons and will probably sell it. I'm sorely tempted to make the RX10 my primary camera for the foreseeable future, at least until I have a real need for something else. And at the same time, I find myself inexplicably thinking maybe it's time to finally move to full frame...."

Charles Rozier: "I think you are very much on target. One little note—perhaps one element of 'CAF' is color itself, not just super resolution. For example, street photography now seems to be a different animal when in color, containing more 'data' but less psychological power, even when displayed at the same resolution."

hugh crawford: "Reminds me of how pop music became obsessed with perfection and clarity just before punk rock. Also umpteen art movements where as soon as a generation of artists figure one thing out everybody abandoned that goes onto the next thing to figure out. The real question is where to go now that photography looks more real than ever at the same time that the technology exists to make more convincing fakes than ever before."

Guiie: "Amazing Friday blogpost. Though I agree with the comment and your opinion I disagree with the general technology approach. Through the ages there has always been people mastering techniques and crafts, technology. But our time has been transformed by one 'simple' technology and its effect: Internet. The amount of information one can reach today is insurmountable and that exposure is what allows the 'technology treadmill' to exist.

"I'm from a little town in Patagonia and if it wasn't for the Internet I wouldn't have learned anything about digital photography. I like to think that my first year doing photography included the digital technology treadmill and later the argument 'the best camera is the one you have with you' and my lack of budget pushed me to not bother with the treadmill and try to exercise my vision...."

John Krumm: "To me half or more than half of the fun in art is when we experience it communally. That includes both art I create and art I enjoy. Those opportunities are indeed disappearing. Facebook and the rest of the internet is not a strong communal experience, despite us all being so 'connected.' Our 'unconscious' needs the room of real life to breath, and the experience of real community to grow. I never quite bought the 'I make my art for myself' line. Sounds like BS. I make art to share. On whether or not technology moves us farther away from making art because of the 'unconscious'-stifling nature of technology, I don't know. There are many other factors at play, like our economy's way of turning everything into a commodity, for instance."

Christopher May: "I think there's a very large part of photography involves cameras that see better than we do. Much of it has some scientific or otherwise prosaic purpose (infrared photography, for instance) but so many of these tools and techniques have later gone on to have artistic careers, too (Richard Mosse's work in Africa with the aforementioned infrared, for example).

"At it's very heart, all still photography is about seeing better than we can. When we perceive the world in our biologically limited way, we're forced to interpret significant moments at the speed in which they happen. No matter how perceptual we are, there are going to be some bits of missing information thanks to our human condition. On the other hand, as photographers, we can take a single moment and preserve it for as long as we wish to contemplate and free ourselves from the constraints of life in real time.

"The still photograph has been with us for around two centuries now. In that time, we've been able to utilize it to see the world around us in new ways. Muybridge proved that a horse could hover, if only for a moment that our limited faculties couldn't perceive. Macro photography has shown over and over again that the very small can still be very exciting. Fast apertures can make most of the world go away so that we're forced to contemplate the subject of a photo. And on and on.

"Ctein's TOP article on 'Stochastic Photography' is a great example of utilizing the camera's ability to see better than we can for artistic purposes. Photographers always seem to go ga-ga over cotton candy water (another form of the camera seeing in ways we can't) but that article made me realize how incredibly beautiful moving water can be when photographed at the other extreme of superhuman camera abilities.

"So I'll take whatever additional abilities the camera makers want to make available to me. The better the cameras can see, the more I'll be allowed to see. That fascinates me."

Comments

[Jim Lewis]

I do think you may have missed part of the point of the original comment. He said, "photography has *always been* a technical pursuit", emphasis mine, but history his. It was true for Muybridge, for Matthew Brady, for Ansel Adams, for William Eggleston: how to get the sharpest print, the richest colors, the fastest lens, the most grain-free film. Albumen prints, dye-transfer prints, high dpi digital prints.

There was a period, there, let's say roughly from the end of WWII to 1970 or so, when the existence of little Leicas and fast b+w film seemed to have rendered most of these questions otiose, but that was the exception more than rule.

So I think Kuspit is wrong: the history of photography is the history of the *melding* of technology and the unconscious -- or, since I dislike Freudian concepts -- of technology and creativity. That's the field you chose: get used to it.

[David Paterson]

"The endless upgrade cycle, the more and more laborious and tedious mastery of imaging software, the solid belief in technical improvement and control as a means to achieve success, all of this leads one further and further away from any possibility of making original or authentic work."

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with a single word of that. The "endless upgrade cycle" is entered on an entirely optional basis; if you have a camera which does what you want, where is the pressure to upgrade?

The software, far from becoming more laborious and tedious actually gets quicker and easier to use; in part because of the user becoming more practised. And said software gives the user unheard of, undreamed of control compared to the time when we all shot film. Or does that not matter?

If anyone actually believes that buying a new camera (the solid belief in technical improvement and control as a means to achieve success") will automatically make them better photographers, then I am sorry for them; they are delusional.

As for to much detail - how much is too much? And who decides? The day I hear a serious photographer, or a client, saying "the trouble with this camera/lens is - it resolves too much detail”, I'll give the whole game up.

Crusty mascara is not a camera problem; it is badly-done make-up.

Resolving detail at a distance is why people use binoculars; or telephoto lenses

And does anyone think that 10x8" film cannot out-resolve the human eye? or 5x4" ? or good medium format? Perhaps even - yes, even humble old 35mm film can very probably do it.

For all those who are upset by what digital cameras can do, there is a very simple remedy - go back to shooting film.

[psu]

I don't think the technology hamster wheel is *that* different now than it used to be. It's concentrated in different places, and the product cycles are faster, but the sales pitch and the relationship between the technology and how good your pictures will be is about the same.

The young Internet overlapped with the end of the film/darkroom era, and there was certainly no shortage of forum/USENET/whatever traffic about the seemingly endless possible combinations of materials and workflows that one could use to make your own prints in your own darkroom. How many hours have been spent by how many people testing films and developers and whatnot to find "just the right" combination for your particular vision? How much time did people waste with Zone system, obsessing over Zone V vs. Zone VI tones?

This tool and workflow neurosis is also similar to what we have now but the computer tools are arguably more transparent for some (hi!) and less for others.

Anyway, the truth has always been in the content of the quote: technology, workflow, tools, technique and all the rest don't amount to anything if you don't have a creative endpoint in your head and an intuition about how to get there.

All of this also reminds me of those video lectures on printing given by Richard Benson from a few years back. There is a *great* sequence near the end where he talks about the digital "controls" around color management, and the (futile) idea that you could build a calibrated machine that automatically and mechanistically gets the color "right" just by having those controls in place. In the end he proclaims that this is a horrible way to work, and that the real way to make art is to build an intuitive connection between your eye and your mind and the tools, and in his words "F**K the controls". I think this is exactly right.

[psu]

... hit Post too soon ...

So obviously I agree with the quote where it talks about the unconscious nature of the creative act, and also that *some* would try and make you remove this part of the pipeline through abusive use of technology ... but I disagree that the technology is inherently anti-creative. You just have be in control of it rather than the other way around.

[Gerald Bayles]

I hope it is a phase that will soon die out. It is not too long ago that pixel resolutions doubled every one or two years, and what they doubled to significantly enhanced quality.

I don't think it'll be too long before we get in a groove where newer technology isn't that enticing. I could easily enjoy my remaining days with the equipment I have today.

[Wayne]

The ever present pursuit, through technology, of betterment and, ultimately, satisfaction in photographic images.....It brings to mind a description Tolstoy used to describe a character in his War and Peace:.."He was a clever but stupid man."

[Clay Olmstead]

I would modify Kuspit's statement to say, "[The love of] Technology is the last valiant attempt to discredit and devalue the unconscious." Kind of like, "The love of money is the root of all evil."

[Earl Dunbar]

"All extra technology does is give us more choices" - which, given the way the human mind works in most, works against creativity. It's about the mind/eye. My Rolleiflex, Leica CL, Olympus OMs and Chamonix are tools that have allowed my best work. Not that I haven't shot some "good" stuff with the XPro, but I find myself spending more time with all those options that supposedly give me ... more choices.

[JH]

Coincidentally, in 2005 I wrote my June monthly column for a magazine aimed at electrical/electronic distributors about how all technology eventually becomes free. Of course that is because it's value declines as technology moves ahead and better products become available, obsoleting the prior generation and devaluing it. And that is exactly how the tech industry stays in business - getting you to upgrade.

They did not invent the idea, however. A half-century ago, the auto industry was chided for "planned obsolescence" by annual model changes.

The camera industry has done a marvelous job of marketing products using the same techniques. Except now, like many other facets of technology, people realize that what they have is "good enough" and are harder to sell. It appears that what is happening now is the writing is on the wall for DSLRs and now the companies are trying to get demand rekindled for mirrorless - bigger sensors, more powerful focusing, more options, etc...

Now we all have "free cameras" - that one in your cell phone. Everybody expects to have it in the phone and while they do pay more for it, the package makes it appear free.

Having lost the point and shoot market to phones, the camera companies have to change focus and now the target is mirrorless. Wish them luck - and buy cameras - because they need help to survive this vicious cycle of technology.

[Jason Melancon]

I love Comdico's post. I've been going through an acquisition/upgrade cycle and at first I was DXOing it up and pixel critiquing but I noticed that, despite some pleasure in having become a minor expert in these little wonderful image-making devices, this process was leaving me feeling flat and uninspired so I instead started looking at my favorite images, by myself and by other photographers (including Mike's levitating canoe).

I began noticing things like I would pay great attention to a review's description of the corner resolution performance of a lens while at the same time most of my personal keepers are square images or are enhanced by some resolution fall off in the corners.

Or I would be carefully studying how a particular combination of equipment could stretch out an amazing dynamic range in an image while at the same time noticing that most images I like actually have a compressed dynamic range with black blacks.

I can think of several other examples but I'm sure you get the idea. I was captivated by the technical wizardry without really tying it back to my photography desires and needs.

And I've realized that, although I own every post-processing tool on the planet I really really want to spend minimal time on the computer with an image - just a quick crop maybe and some 15-second tweaks.

I should be clear that I'm talking about work for myself. I'll do all the necessary fiddling for a client. Just did a professional bodybuilder shoot and spent a fair amount of time tweaking backgrounds and everything else one can manipulate to give the client what they wanted. But that is just a job.

And for any given professional job I would usually be better off renting any extreme equipment needed rather than purchasing and housing it.

So now I'm looking for what cameras feel great in my hand and produce good color out of the box and get out of my way when I'm taking pictures, what lenses feel great on that camera and have good center resolution and contrast (easy, since that is just about any of them). I'll probably still end up with an expensive contemporary camera but the decision path has changed. And now the whole thing has life again.

[Speed]

This discussion of the relationship between technology and art is interesting and has been going on since the early advances in formulating oil paints … or perhaps since the first cave dweller found the best rocks for making art on cave walls. My first thought was of the technology that allowed astronaut Bill Anders to make the photograph "Earthrise". Rockets and all that.

Earthrise is a photograph of Earth and parts of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut Bill Anders in 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell declared it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise

AI may be able to make interesting pictures but it takes a human to advance the art.

[Jim Arthur]

Kirk made me LOL in an empty house. :-)

[Tom K.]

Hedonic adaptation. Plain and simple.

[Jan Kwarnmark]

I love that your readers make so many comments when you really touch the heart of the art. It kind of contradicts that we are so obsessed with the gear.