Blue Planet Photography

With the advent of Orphan Works legislation there will be questions that will arise regarding who owns the copyright to a particular work (photograph, painting, sketch, music, etc.) if the creator cannot be located to confirm ownership. If the owner can’t be located then a company or individual could feasibly use that work without compensation, or until the original owner claims it (then a negotiation process happens to determine a “reasonable” usage fee).

One of the side effects of Orphan Works is the cropping up of “third party” copyright registrars, in addition to the US Copyright Office. Keep your eyes peeled for fly-by-night operations.

Over at John Harrington’s blog, John has detailed what appears to be if not a scam a very nefarious and dangerous enterprise for photographers to engage in. The company is c-registry.us and he details a lot about the company’s policies and information that are downright false and misleading.

I encourage photographers and other artists to check this out, read it carefully, and take this information with you when you come across similar sites (which you no doubt will in your travels). Be aware, very aware. It’s going to be a nasty world out there for those who wish to maintain control over their work. Good luck and stay safe!

Last week I was discussing the state of digital photography with one of my new students. When I first started teaching in 1998 all my students used film cameras. I was shooting film. In 2002, when I entered the digital realm, the student digital:film ratio was 1-3:10. By the time 2006 rolled around the ratio had flipped to 10:2. In 2007, it was 10:0 and has remained that way since. It is becoming more common to engage students who have never shot film.

Why do I bring up this very obvious fact? If you simply look around during your daily wanderings you can plainly see all the various digital devices individuals use to capture images; cameras, cell phones, video cameras, web cams, etc. It’s a sign of our times, the irreverent march of technology, the machine gobbling everyone up to conform to the new paradigm. I think we’ve come to accept it, to accept the inevitability that our options are dictated by the products offered to us. We succumb to increasing demands for individual and client instant gratification, lightning fast turnaround times, the ability to do more in less time and with less effort. Even we are beginning to accept as artists the designs, methodologies, techniques, formulations, workflows, and aesthetics of others; the engineers and programmers compiling the code driving the results of our digital photographs. The technology is such, now, that it is difficult or impossible for the individual to affect the outcome of digital artwork without this assistance.

But, how many of us truly desire to become programmers, to learn the mathematical manipulation of pixels, ones and zeros? Visual artists are engaged with the visual world, with visual artifacts of existence, with the manipulation of visual and tactile materials. It’s easy for us to see and feel the physical properties of an object and predict the performance of its manipulation; wood, paint, stone, light, emulsion on photographic paper. It’s difficult to visualize and predict the performance of manipulating the intangible, invisible entity of a digital file until that manipulation has been translated by one device and shown to us by another (either one which could be providing false information if we don’t understand how to ensure they are telling the “truth”). Yet to create individual, unique works in the digital world, artists will need to change their tools from manual to intellectual manipulation, understand the properties of the “invisible medium”, and learn to create the programming necessary to cause and control the manipulation of pixels. If not, we have to rely on the creativity of others to make copies of their creations rather than work from our own soul.

The society, culture, and art of digital photography is becoming a process of button-pushing; one-button pushing to be exact. The process of creating a photograph has become a one-button operation. Everything is becoming automated for us. Set your camera on Auto, press the button to take the picture. Plug your camera into the computer, press the button to upload. Open your processing software, press the button to apply the corrections necessary to create a standardized image. Press the button to print or email.

The process of creating a photograph can now be accomplished in 4 button presses. I’m sure one day it will be reduced to 2, maybe even 1. Actually, in some instances it is possible to print directly from the camera, resulting in a 2 or even 1-button process. Perhaps eventually, no buttons will need to be pressed, no thought on our part required to make a very nice, even excellent, photographic reproduction of the scene before us. Let me set things straight, however. I enjoy, for the most part, the advances digital technology offers, the range and opportunity digital photography affords, the freedom to explore and experiment digital technology provides. What I’m not happy about is the capacity of digital technology, through automation and pre-packaged, commercial applications, to sap the soul from the art and individual creative experience inherent in the act of creating a photograph.

In his Daybooks, Edward Weston walks the market of Mexico City on the last Sunday in October, 1923. He stops for an hour to observe and listen to the activities of children and adults around a merry-go-round. He makes note of the arts and crafts displayed in the booths, “…much utter rubbish made for the tourist, but some lovely things.” He’s in Mexico City for the first exhibition of some of his prints there. Three days later, he revisits the market and the vendor booths. He’s despondent and writes again about the craftsmanship

To the puestos again last evening, strolling by booths filled with both atrocities and work of the finest craftsmanship; it is evident that the Indian’s work is becoming corrupt, and with another generation of overproduction and commercialization will be quite valueless.

I understand from this that Weston (as I and I suspect most artists) truly appreciated the special character cultures and societies inherently possess and was sad to see those characteristics diluted by the need to pander to the probable stereotypical and uneducated beliefs, expectations and lack of understanding of the predominantly American tourists of the time. The Mexican artists were adapting their art to the criteria of others; losing their individuality, creativity, skill, uniqueness, and the character and essence of their culture. I feel photographers are in a similar situation, adapting their art to the criteria and demands of others. As Weston observed in the market of Mexico City 86 years ago, there are both “atrocities and works of the finest craftsmanship” in digital photography, but it is evident the work is “becoming corrupt” with “overproduction and commercialization” and we’ve already experienced a period when digital art was perceived to be “valueless” and in some markets, it still is.

I will be the first to admit I’ve fallen prey to the wonderment of the enormous variety and power programs such as Photoshop and the many third party plug-ins and associated software available on the market today. It’s an overwhelming cascade of unending variations that create at the touch of a button or scootch of a slider an apparent masterpiece. Even Ansel Adams, “king of analog photography”, looked forward to the day of the “electronic image”, although he was careful to point out “such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them” (intro. The Negative, 1981).

There’s nothing wrong with being enamored of technology or using it to create your masterpiece works. I’m not going to be giving it up. But, software and software filter plug-ins, hardware, monitors, projectors, cameras, strobes, lenses, and all the gadgets, “rules” and guidelines associated with photography are merely tools the photographer and artist use to engage in the 3-way dialogue between themselves, the subject, and the light. This 3-way dialogue is critical to the creation of the final product and if too many things intrude into that dialogue, the flow of the process is interrupted and the results are less than satisfying.

My point to all this is to suggest stepping back from the technology, at least for a time. To re-discover the roots of the art of photography, reacquaint ourselves with the process of exploration and discovery, the patience of waiting, the experience and observance of our surroundings, return to the slow pace of deliberate action, refill yourself with the reason you took up and enjoy photography.

To return to Edward Weston for a final word, written in Vol 37, No 7, 1930, of Camera Craft, from an essay titled Photography - Not Pictorial

[The] very richness of control facilities often acts as a barrier to creative work. The fact is that relatively few photographers ever master their medium. Instead, they allow the medium to master them and go on an endless squirrel cage chase from new lens to new paper to new developer to new gadget, never staying with one piece of equipment long enough to learn its full capacities, becoming lost in a maze of technical information that is of little or no use since they don’t know what to do with it.

I’ve made a commitment to myself to back off from the technology a bit, in the sense that I concentrate on the processes prior to, and at the moment of, creating the photographic image. A re-establishment of my “roots”, the foundation of my photography, my vision, my exploration and discovery, my enjoyment, and my practice of the art of photography. I think that will allow me to continue to grow as a photographer and make better use of the tools that continue to become available. I’m looking forward to it.

Here it is in all its glory. “The Electronic Afterlife: Digital Immortality?” This is the first Ignite Boise event. It was a lot of fun and a challenge. You’re on a timer (5 minutes, 20 slides) and if you get behind….well, you’ll see.