The New Norm

The New Norm

There's no great revelation in the following comment, but during my recent trip to China I reviewed seven portfolios, six of which were shown to me in a digital format using one device or another — iPad, laptop, and even a Samsung Galaxy phone. The one portfolio in which I saw prints consisted of a behemoth two-volume book set measuring 28 x 32", each volume containing forty 20 x 24" platinum palladium prints dry mounted into these giant handmade artists books. 

What's fascinating about these seven portfolios was the difference in focus of the conversation about each. With the six digital presentations, the comments from the photographer were entirely about the image content and the project. In the one presentation involving physical prints, the entire conversation was about the process of making the platinum/palladium prints, the giant artist's book, and the physicality of the presentation. There were no comments about the content. In fact, when I tried to bring up the topic of the image content the presenter quickly refocused the conversation back to the physicality of the books themselves.

I was both surprised and amused that the wiz-bang, cutting edge technology for viewing images was so transparent in our conversations, and the old-fashioned paper and molecules was the only focus of conversation with that portfolio. I would have expected just the opposite. I took this as an indication how far we've come in the acceptance of digital image viewing that it wasn't worth a single moment of attention.

Comments

[Braden Walters]

That is interesting ... makes me wonder if the ephemeral nature of digital images--the relative ease at which they can be produced, and the relative ease at which they can vanish--means that content is all we really have left?

That might not be such a bad thing ...

[Alan Berkson]

My guess is that for you, Brooks, the content always supersedes the presentation. If the p/p prints were in your eyes [and maybe mine] filled with the content that you [or I] can appreciate, then content wins! If not, then, of course, dismiss the presentation. Why would anyone want to focus on presentation? Maybe because it sells at galleries and auction houses? And, if content is supreme, then where is the new content to behold? Just look to LensWork as a source [and many other sources], but mostly look to the book publishers where the content must meet some standard for the large investment it takes to create a publication of 500 or 1000 or more.

[Godfrey DiGiorgi]

The Magic Glass of an iPad is always the same, no matter what fills it. So what's there to talk about? Content, and content alone.

My workshop group is fascinating this way. So much of the conversation is about papers, production techniques, materials, processes. But when things turn to a projected presentation or a presentation on an iPad, all of that is gone and the conversation really digs into the meat of the matter ... the content of the images.

I don't think this is a bad thing, unless what you're hooked on aesthetically is the materials and presentation.

[Frank Kolwicz]

It sounds to me like the photographer bragging about how hard he/she worked to get to the place where the image was taken: the effort supposed to heighten the value of the image. So it is with alternative processes - how time-consuming, how expensive, how rare! You need some justification for producing mundane images.

[Beau]

I agree with frank, process folks have always been in love with the process

[Beau]

Actually brooks, now that i think about it more, it reminds me of a short essay of yours titled "What is left when you can print at ease"

Not sure if i got the title precisely right, but i'm sure you know what i mean