What is "real" photography?
05/12/07
What is "real" photography? Can it only be film based? If so which format? The birth of photography is usually recognized as happening in 1839. Medium format was introduced in 1901. The first commercial colour process in 1907 - 35mm in 1925. Does this exclude anything non film based from being photography? Are daguerreotypes photography? Or tintypes? Rayographs?
The point I am trying to make is that photography, like anything involving chemistry and physics, is constantly changing & improving.
The word photography comes from the Latin "photo" meaning light and "graph"; to draw so literally means to draw or paint with light. It does not comment on what medium we are to draw on.
So what is real photography then? Devout film users argue that digital photography cannot be real as there is no physical end product - it is all noughts and ones, and that the user can manipulate the image as he see fit, whereas film captures the image as it was at the time.
But this of course shows no knowledge of how images are formed or what can be achieved with film and traditional photographic techniques, or what effects different film brands or printing techniques will have on an image.
No photograph can be a true "real" depiction of the world around us. We see a constantly moving, three dimensional image with our eyes. Our retinas have the most advanced exposure and white balance adjustment system. Our brain has clever siphoning "filters", deleting parts of the image we have no interest in. We do not see at 125th of a second at f8!
The first ever photograph was produced by Joseph Niephore Niepce of his courtyard in France using a camera obscura to project an image onto a plate coated with bitumen of Judea - a light sensitive emulsion that required an exposure time of more than 8 hours, in 1827. This certainly did not give a real looking image because of the exposure time involved giving shadows on both sides of the courtyard.
5 years later and two photographic processes were developed (no pun intended) almost simultaneously. Daguerre in France invented a process which produced an image chemically etched onto metal whilst in England Henry Fox Talbot was working on the precursor to modern photography - the paper negative. Unlike all the other early processes Fox Talbot's invention could produce endless facsimiles of the same image, simply by placing another sheet of his light sensitive paper in contact with the negative to produce a same size positive. This, even though Daguerre's process produced more detailed results is the reason why Fox Talbot's process won the race.
Now with digital we have the best of both worlds - better quality images combined with the extreme ease of duplicate copies but how does it differ from film based photographic techniques?
Film cameras are little more than the original camera obscura - a light tight box with a lens in which you place your choice of light sensitive material, whereas with digital your light sensitive material is already in place. And here lies the first major difference - film users choose a film that will manipulate the image to their intended purpose - Fuji Velvia to enhance contrast and saturate colours, or Portra to give warm skin tones for instance. Digital users have no choice in this matter - the image is captured in the same way regardless of the subject in hand. it is in post production the contrast and saturation are controlled.
The next stage is filtration. film users will use warm up filters, or cooling filters depending on desired effect or lighting conditions. Polarisers can be used to deepen blue skies and saturate colours. Gradient filters can be employed to lower contrast or introduce colour casts in skies. Here the process is similar to digital-filters are used, although in both film and digital contrast and colour corrections can be made in the post production stage.
Thirdly is the processing stage. The image on film is 'latent', and needs chemical stimulation before it can be seen. Here again another level of control and manipulation can be asserted. Different types of developer used at different temperatures for varying times can radically alter the colour, contrast and acutance of the final image.
A similar process exists for digital photographers shooting in 'raw' mode. The image is in a raw state (latent) and needs to be processed before it is of use. Software instead of chemical developers are used and again colour, contrast and acutance can be tweaked at this stage. The beauty of course with digital is that we can redevelop if we do not like the first effect.
Finally and most importantly is the printing stage. The vast majority of film images will need further manipulation to tease out the shadow detail in the negative or tone down excessive highlights. Paper choice can be as important as film here, with different papers having varying colour and contrast attributes. Further help can be provided with dodging and burning techniques - a way of controlling contrast in localized areas in the print, as well as tweaks in the final colour. And film users can scan their negatives into a computer, producing a digital file that can be manipulated in exactly the same way as one captured by a digital camera.
Digital printers have similar tools, the main difference being it is easier to correct mistakes and less costly!
To summarize digital photography is just as "real" as film photography, it is just an evolution of what started by Niepce in his courtyard some 180 years ago.