11/14 Lecture

I really enjoyed the discussion we were having in class on Tuesday, and was actually kind of disappointed we had to stop it to watch the movie (which ended up not even working lol). The point I was trying to make had to do more with popular art and what was the most popular form of the art at the moment. Obviously when photography came about, people didn’t completely stop painting realistically, but because photography could produce the same type of image as a realistic painting but much more quickly, impressionism became a lot more popular. I think that today “contemporary” painting leans much more towards the abstract side because hyperrealistic paintings can’t offer us anything that photography cannot except for the pure awe that a viewer has when he/she realizes that the image was painted and not a photograph.

 

I think that a similar thing might happen to film photography soon in the sense that much of the produced art will shift over to something that can’t be easily replicated through digital photography methods. Dorothea Lange produced one of the most iconic photographs ever of the Great Depression in America using film photography (see below), but I wonder if she would have used digital photography had the technology been as accessible as it is today. In the case of her photography, the notable parts of her photos aren’t specific to darkroom techniques, so I would see no reason for her to continue to shoot in film if it were easier and faster to shoot in digital. Of course, there is the argument that it is simply fun to spend time in the darkroom and not know exactly how a photo is going to turn out until it is developed, but I think that it’s important to have a purpose for the method and techniques used to produce a piece of art. For example, nobody really makes their own paints anymore (like they used to do hundreds of years ago) unless it added a significant layer to how you would perceive the painting.

With all that being said, looking at my own final project, I had to ask myself why I should/would continue shooting in film. Over the course of the semester, I have actually come to really enjoy spending time in the darkroom from developing rolls to actually making prints, but is that enough of a reason to keep shooting in film? My current vision for my project is a series of candid shots and portraits of people in various places and exploring how race could make you read a situation or photograph differently. For this, I’m not sure if any darkroom techniques are really relevant to the project and so, I wouldn’t see why it would be better to keep shooting in film when I could get more shots, possibly better quality shots (in terms of focus), and easier editablility with digital photography.