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Why Is the Next Century So Far Away?
By Pedro Meyer If
digital
photography is supposed to be so great, why don't we see a lot more
interesting work? Is a frequent question I hear.
A good friend of
mine recently sent me a note with the following commentary: "Some
sage or other made the observation to the effect that it is interesting
how art changes without improving. I have in my library a book of
drawings by Rodin. The only thing he used was a pencil and the dirt
on his hands, which was considerable since he was a sculptor. No technology
can really improve on that. I also have a book of drawings by Egon
Schiele about which I would say the same thing. Is a digital image
by your favorite artist really better than a painting by Massacio?
Does anybody out there beat Picasso, Mattisse, Braque, or for that
matter Weston, Sommer, Strand?"
My response was
that these comparisons, at best, were unfair. If you review the biographies
of any of the artists mentioned above, you will discover that in their
own time, not one of them had anything close to the prestige or recognition
that time has bestowed upon their work. So why are we supposed to
come up with equivalents in the digital era after only a decade of
production. Compare this to painting or sculpture which has enjoyed
centuries of previous historical perspectives. How can anyone compare
such art forms and their artistic development with that of digital
art. Just think how long it took for films just to move from being
silent black and white presentations, to those of sound and full color.
The second objection
I had to my friend's statement referenced earlier, was with regard
to the part about "art only changing without improving".
Of course the validity of new digital technologies, can not hinge
solely on the fact that you can make "new" things. These "things"
have yet to pass the test of time, don't they? However, I am not concerned
at all that over time digital photography will pass such tests of
maturation. The only question is when will that happen? And for that
I am afraid there is no reasonable answer. In the meantime however
one would have to make sure not to go on comparing apples and pears?
If you see a great film, and then compare it with the work of Mattisse
for instance, what would we end up comparing anyway?
Most probably
the reason that the development stage we are in is so slow in producing
substantial new work has to do with the learning curve related to
all that concerns new technologies. It used to be that artists would
complain that the cost of equipment was their main stumbling block
for not entering the digital era. In reality they had never given
much thought to making the transition, because they felt, and rightly
so, that they had to continue what they were doing in order to ascertain
their livelihood.
The most important
costs are in fact not the tools, but the time investment needed to
learn how to use them. Which by the way, is turning into a never ending
proposition, no sooner have you learned how to use one set of tools
that these are rendered obsolete, and you have to continue "upgrading"
everything, including obviously your own knowledge about it all. As
a good friend reminded me tonight, painting and other arts have seen
much less radical activity in tool design and materials evolution.
For example the watercolor brushes used today are not that dissimilar
to those used 100 years ago. Tempera paints are mixed today as they
have been for centuries and still utilize the same pigments, and fixer
has been fixer for quite a while.
There is a steep
cost of transition (analog to digital), at least for the generation
that was brought up in the pre-digital era skills. One has to learn
and unlearn a great number of assumptions of how to work. One has
to also learn about fields usually unrelated to still photography.
Sound, video, animation, new printing methods, the Internet. Even
drawing and writing. Future photographers, will need to be more like
a Renaissance person than anyone thought possible or required!
It is no longer
viable to become a professional photographer, without historical awareness
related to this art form. "Clicking the shutter" is no longer the
main ingredient in this evolving pie. You also have to have more sophisticated
ideas of what you are doing, and in which direction you are heading
both conceptually as well as technologically.
Having said that,
it becomes obvious that the range of knowledge today has to be wider
than at any previous time. No longer is photography just associated
to the production of straight pictures, such as Weston or Strand might
have produced with their 8 x 10 cameras, or Cartier-Bresson with his
Leica. Even the extremes of "straight" style , pictorialist to photo
secessionist, are not so extreme when compared to the range of modern
style. From tools to print techniques to capture devices, the variants
themselves are enough to slow evolution and confound comparative efforts.
What has to be
learned as we enter the next century is enormous, that in turn delays
the entry point at which the field becomes rich with all sorts of
new works from which to choose and creatively explore the varied production
options. Productions that will actually take advantage of all the
new expressive possibilities that can be created with the new tools
that we have, and thus offer new directions for photography. Something
I see already happening with cinema/video more than in still photography.
Maybe we all
just have to wait for the four year olds to make their mark in the
digital era.
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 To learn about the story behind the image, click on the picture and get a 2 1/2 min Quicktime audio file.
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