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"Tools vs. Content"
By Pedro Meyer "It does not matter what the tools are, the important issue is what are the ideas."
You
will probably have come across such a statement here or there, made
by people fending off any effort to discuss the tools of their trade.
They even suggest that a writer wouldn’t be discussing if a fountain
pen or a typewriter was used to create a novel or a poem, so why, they
ask, would a photographer waste time having the equivalent of such a
discussion?
At first glance, the argument looks very strongly in favor of that point
of view. The only problem is that neither the fountain pen nor the typewriter
can alter the possible outcome of either the poem or a novel while a
digital camera can indeed modify the content of the photograph.
There
is no doubt that there are photographers who, in absence of content in
their images, sustain an endless dialogue around their obsession with
gadgets. Their relationship to photography is essentially as consumers,
not as creators.
Nevertheless, we should not dismiss such an approach to photography;
these photographers contribute, through their consumption, in bringing
to the market place, products that might not otherwise exist. This would
be to the possible detriment of those who then use them solely for creative
reasons. Think about it.
When I first started working with digital images, a good number
of photographers would tell me that they did not need to waste their
time learning anything about computers and software, as they could hire
people to help, if and when they needed to
do “such stuff.” At other times it was photography teachers,
or even heads of departments at universities, who would dismiss such
discussions about technology. They considered such issues to be beneath
their academic status. Finally, we had the art critics; they seem to
be the ones to have held out the longest. It seems many critics live
in a rarefied world of their own. In the end, the critics have been
those who know the very least about any technical issue leading to the
production of digital work. A very easy way out to justify their
limitations, has been to be dismissive of the entire media.
I
believe it is a false dilemma – this dichotomy of “tools vs. content”
because it remains anchored in a pre-digital reality. Unless you have
been living in a cave, you will know that the influence of digital technology
is an all-encompassing one, and on a global scale. The technological
changes we are living through, of course affects everything, not only
photography. It touches the entire fiber of culture, as in entertainment,
education, commerce, industry, science, health, communications and warfare,
just to name a few off the top of my head. Faced with this transformation
of modern civilization, the likes of which we have not known, at least
not in our generations, it would be unwise not to become highly engaged
in evaluating how all these new tools – in the case of photography –
will affect our work. Not only are there changes in the way we produce,
but also in how such content is affected by the emerging presence of
the available technologies with which we can do things that were not
possible before.
When
Marshall McLuhan stated in 1967, "The medium is the message," little did he know about the potential of a PowerBook connected to a
video camera or what can be produced on an iMac with iMovie. Recently CNN
announced that its reporters will be doing their work precisely with
such tools.
Understanding
such transformations requires that we deal with both technological issues
as well as the creative ideas. Adios to the dichotomy of tools vs. content.
The pen/typewriter metaphor for the writer has little connection to
the problems of the digital photographer. For the writer, neither tool
will alter the content. However, the work of the photographer is
going to be very much determined by the sort of digital instruments
and the software employed, and how the resulting product might in the
end be deployed.
Let
us explore a few examples of some of those changes that the digital
photographer will face:
1-
We can now put sound with still images and publish them. This
was not possible earlier when our means of distribution was solely
the printed page. Very few photographers have yet considered the
use of sound in combination with their pictures. We have been
living in the era of the silent still picture. The question is
when will that change for still pictures as it did in cinema?
2-
The new digital still cameras are equipped
to produce 30-second videos. Think of this time frame as the equivalent
of most commercial TV ads, so there is a lot of time to
be explored. The video produced by these new cameras obviously
includes its own sound track.
3-
Photo reporters very much accustomed and trained to work on their
own with still images, in a very individualistic manner, shied
away from working with video in the past. As a
reason for such a decision, they cited their lack of satisfaction of having
to work with a crew of people, rather than on their own, to get
their images. This is now changing. The momentum is moving precisely
in the direction of being able to produce video on your own, if
for no better reason than the stations who might buy their
work want to save money.
4-
The Internet is changing everything with regard to the distribution
and sale of images. This is true whether you are one of the
two giant agencies, Corbis or Getty Pictures, or an individual
photographer. So what happens when a photographer is not up to
date with all the potential opportunities to bring his or her
work to the attention of larger audiences?
5-
How does the photographer in the digital age deal with an archive?
The technologies are evolving, rendering obsolete
any vision for a longstanding set of standards. It could well
be that two generations from today, those archives cannot be read
anymore.
6- The photographer who does not evolve technologically with his
profession runs the risk of not knowing that his competitors (assuming
they work digitally) can produce a body of work at a fraction
of the cost of his or hers. Since costs always factor in
when considering content, you end up altering your creative possibilities
for the sake of costs, when in fact that may be unecessary.
7- How do the printing possibilities provided by ink jet technology
alter the standards of what can be produced and sold on the market?
Longevity of materials, for one (which is mostly in the process
of being dealt with successfully), but also the vast diversity
of papers that can be used today open considerable new
visual options. Therefore, the traditional standards of what constituted
a photograph certainly have been expanded.
8-
When you can alter a single pixel within a picture, you know that
the levels of control are way beyond anything that could have
been achieved in the traditional darkroom. Now it is up to us
to use successfully such newfound power to produce quality work
that offers new visual directions. That has yet to be fully realized.
9-
When the issue of "time" (as depicted or inferred) within
the still image is as dynamic as that which we see happening today,
where you can have a picture that represents diverse moments in
time and all occur visually in a synchronous way, then you
know that the decisive moment has taken on a new meaning altogether.
I
have chosen to refer to only a few of the untold number of changes that
are taking place in photography today. The point is not to make an
exhaustive inventory (for a closer approximation the book to read is
"Photography:
A Critical Introduction," second edition edited by Liz Wells) but
to make a point about the lack of critical thinking of those that choose
to ignore technical issues in lieu of content. In fact the two
topics are inseparable.
Pedro Meyer's photographs are found in the collections of more than 40 major museums throughout the world. He's also authored several books, including Los Cohetes Duraron Todo el Dia; Tempii di America; and Espejo de Espinas. His column appears each month in Camera Works.
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 ©Pedro Meyer 2001
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