Bonus Material
musings, thoughts, and anti-thoughts by the artist
Bright Visions and Darkrooms:Cameras, Computers and Conceptual Creativity
How to view this site.?
The more astute among you
may have noticed that most of the images here are rollovers;
one image that begins a story and a second image that embellishes it.
You need to see both to get the entire concept.
Those of you who zipped by quickly,
might consider going back an reviewing.
Those of you using dial up will need to be very, very patient.
Why I am an Artist
Confessions of a Picture Taker
What is art?
Art is a catalytic device created by an artist
to transfer experience to the viewer.
Therefore the first step of the artist is to experience.
The second step is to transmit these experiences to others
and the third is to have something worth transmitting.
These are the great joys and the great frustrations of being an artist.
Joys, because there is a recurring rapture of intense experience
rarely known outside of the arts.
There is a wonderful pride of accomplishment
when we are able to transmit what we have felt,
and wondrous warm feeling of fulfillment
in knowing that our art has made a difference.
Frustrations occur because the experiences can be quite demanding,
because we can only transmit a tiny fraction of what we want,
and because rejection or indifference to our labors
is a personal insult and a denial of our worth.
Nonetheless, for many of us, we do this not because we choose to make art,
but because we are compelled to do so.
We are called creatives
and for us ideas are not solid concepts,
they are a fluid river that we can dip into,
refresh ourselves,
and be swept into ports unknown.
There are both additive and subtractive poles to creativity.
The additive pole is creative construction.
This is used by painters.
They start with a blank canvas, then add pigments.
They keep adding and adjusting the pigments until the work is complete.
The first line can go anywhere, the last line can only go in one place.
The subtractive pole is creative discovery.
This is used by field photographers.
They filter out unwanted noise,
place a frame around a small section of the universe and say,
“Look! Look at what I’ve found.
Let me share with you the wonders I have seen.”
The vision of the photographer becomes an extension of our own perception.
The discovered images become a part of our our own memory bank.
We pay homage to the craft
for allowing us to remember things we would have forgotten,
and for showing us sights that our own eyes have never seen.
Well crafted photographs often seem effortless.
The uninitiated assume that no effort was really involved,
that photography is simply a matter of clicking a button.
They do not realize that the surity of capturing an image
requires a mastery of the craft.
This includes the arcane secrets of the quality of light;
the limits of tone and contrast;
the variables of focus and time;
the knowledge what one’s particular film and camera can and cannot do;
and the exactness of positioning, of framing, and of perspective
that all becomes second nature over time.
People just consider the photographer fortuitous.
“Aren’t you lucky you brought your camera along.”
Yes, lucky indeed.
Studio photographers work with the constructed approach to creativity
as deftly as any painter.
They start with an empty room, then arrange elements until the image is complete.
Here, the photographers use their skills
to carefully arrange everything in the camera’s line of sight,
capture an image of this vision,
and say, “Behold! Look at what I have designed.
Marvel at the sights I have conjured before your very eyes.”
The distinction between the discovered and constructed is important
because it makes a very real difference in how photography is perceived.
Discovered photographic works are taken as truth,
perhaps more so than any other media.
Tampering with this truth is considered unethical or downright fraud
and betrayal is taken very hard.
The constructed images are works of fiction.
We know these are illusions,
but the fact that they are done photographically makes them seem more real.
News, editorial, and straight landscape photography deal with discovery.
Advertising and glamor with construction.
Portrait photography sometimes pretends to be a record of truth,
but is often a highly edited version.
In my own work the discovered and constructed become intertwined.
For me, there are few greater pleasures than discovering a photograph-to-be
emerging from the visual background noise.
There is wonder in the simple framing of an image;
“Here.
The view from this angle, in this light,
containing this exact rectangle of information.
This. This is what I want to say.”
Light falling upon three dimensional objects
has been compressed into two dimensional tones.
A moment in time, a place in the universe,
a segment of history, a visual poem,
has now been preserved.
When working with the human figure,
the model is now added into the conspiracy.
I plan and imagine scenarios.
Sometimes (rarely) the scenario looks just as I envisioned it,
sometimes it all seems so awkward and unnatural,
then other times an image that I had never pre-imagined unfolds before my lens.
At times, my directions are exacting and precise,
at other times, the best instructions I can offer are, “Please hold that pose.”
My usual procedure is to choose a location,
find a model whom I think might be compatible with my work,
gather some props, picture some poses to get started,
then see what the model and I can create during the shoot.
Sometimes, I admit, this is a very chancy procedure,
but when it does work, it works wondrously,
and we end up with images
that neither the model nor I could have designed in advance.
I call this planned spontaneity.
When I am in the process of shooting I enter an almost trance-like state,
the view before me, the light, the camera, and I are one,
a paradox of rapture and total concentration.
Click! The image is captured.
I pause for a moment and feel very, very fortunate.
Then I move on.
There are new experiences to behold, new images to create.
Photography has become reciprocal,
seeing has taught me how to photograph,
photography has taught me how to see.
Bright Visions and Darkrooms
Cameras, Computers and Conceptual Creativity
Making photographs is much like making music,
the photographic negative can be compared to a musical melody
and the print to scoring it for a performance.
Just as the same tune can be arranged to fit jazz, folk or classical music,
the same negative can be printed to a variety of different arrangements.
And just as the musical performer strives to get the full effect of the composition,
the photographic printer works to get the full impact from the negative.
For some photographers the image capture is the end of the process.
They shoot on positive transparency film (slides),
or direct positive Polaroid paper.
The composition, arrangement, and performance are all done at a single setting.
For me, this is squandering an opportunity to express the full measure of the media.
Image capture with the camera is critical,
but the image enhancement stage can be just as important.
I feel that if I am going to call a print fine art,
it should be fine and it should be art.
Everything I put on the paper should be absolutely, precisely as I want it.
Every piece of information, every tone, color, contrast, texture, and edge
should work to enhance the final image.
There are no excuses,
the final image should be as complete as I can make it.
The traditional means of image enhancement
was the photographic darkroom laboratory.
This was a light controlled room
utilizing enlargers, chemicals, and photo sensitive materials.
The darkroom yields its own secrets to those who practice its craft.
With over twenty five years of academic, professional, and personal experience
I studied the skills of darkroom image control.
I learned how to enhance specific areas of the print
through the art of burning and dodging.
I learned how to define the contrast and tonal range of the image
through the choice of emulsions, chemistry, filters and lenses.
Each change required another test print
and another wait for it to emerge from the chemistry.
With some images good results could be made within twenty minutes.
Others required many hours and dozens of waste prints.
But the results were satisfying and almost alchemical.
I still marvel at seeing images emerge from a blank piece of paper,
and still love the immediate visual and tactile process
of creating photographs in my very own darkroom.
Most of my work was done in black and white.
When I began to experiment with color images
I found that the chemicals were more noxious;
the lag time between test prints was longer;
the materials more expensive;
the variations between various films, emulsions, and chemistry much more erratic;
and most perturbingly that I had far less control over the final image.
As new innovations were made,
I began to consider using a computer for my color work,
thinking that it would be cleaner, faster, and cheaper
than using a chemical darkroom.
I was right about the cleaner part.
At first it was not easy to accept the new media.
I experienced the sense of loss that comes with any change in technology.
Photographic darkroom printers learn how to use their hands and scraps of cardboard
to brighten or darken specific parts of the image.
We intercept the light as it transverses from the enlarger to the photo paper,
blocking, fluttering, and moving as deftly as a shadow puppet master.
Now, with the computer,
the same effect is done by hitting some keys
and moving an electronic mouse over a pad.
My practiced skills were now useless,
and I had to learn new skills,
a lot of new skills.
Then with a bit of practice,
I realized that the computer techniques were different,
but the concepts were the same.
I was pleased to discover that my darkroom knowledge was transferable
and that the computer could duplicate all of the tools of the darkroom.
I knew what I wanted to achieve,
I just had to re-learn how to accomplish it.
But more importantly I was astonished
at what a marvelous instrument the computer is for photographic control.
It was now possible to change minute areas for tone or contrast.
Tiny defects could be eliminated,
and spotting could be precisely controlled.
I was freer to make subtle changes directly on the computer monitor screen
with no chemicals and fewer waste prints.
Changes could be done far quickly than could be done in the darkroom.
But any gains in time that I made though this new electronic medium
were reclaimed through its potential for exact control.
Images that I had been satisfied with in the darkroom
could now be fine tuned to an even greater degree.
The computer allows a pixel by pixel control.
Now every pixel must be in its proper place before I am satisfied.
I consider the computer the greatest revolution in photography since the negative.
I love darkroom work,
but I now think of it as an antique process.
I started photography as a purist,
specializing in the discovery aspect of the art.
I used a view camera with a four by five inch negative.
I wanted to show the world as I saw it;
I wanted to show the world as it really was.
But a part of me was also fascinated with the constructed approach to images.
I experimented with tone reversals,
multiple images, high grain, and hand coloring.
I began to see the image as more important than the process;
the story more important than the facts.
I loved the reality of photography,
but my vision went beyond what can be captured directly on film.
I was ready for the computer revolution in photography.
I first limited myself to using only the photographic tools of the computer.
But the computer not only emulates the darkroom,
it has a vast packet of tools that imitate painting, sketching, and airbrushing.
It can also create effects that can only be done through the computer,
and these various effects can be combined,
modified, and re-controlled.
This opens up entire new vistas for creativity.
I was seduced by the digital side of the force.
The computer brought control,
but it also opened up a whole new toy chest.
Multiple exposures and the recombining of images
was vastly simpler than it had been using the camera and darkroom.
My “hand coloring “ was now done with computer tools rather than pencils and oils.
I could now do spot color swapping that was impossible through any other medium.
My vision as to what an image should be has been modified and re-defined.
I capture the images with a camera,
then use the computer to bring them to fruition.
Is what I do photography or is it computer art?
The answer is “Yes”.
I am an artist,
the camera and the computer are the tools of my craft.
The definitions do not matter.
It is the final work that is important.
I use whatever tools I need to make that image.
Some pictures look like straight photographs,
in other images the reality has been obviously altered,
and in others the viewer is never quite sure.
It is the borderline between photographic truth and manipulated fiction
that I am striving to achieve.
All images and text © copyright by James Stanley Daugherty.