[Leica] Mastery of any technique

["Erwin Puts" <imxputs@knoware.nl>]

A photographer who deploys the fully chemical imaging chain to produce
his/her endresult, is using a long string of techniques and even
technologies. To master any of these techniques, from exposure and
development matching, choosing film and paper, selecting chemicals, and
employing expert knowlegde for detail rendition, range of tonal scale,
he/she needs to know basic theory and a number of hard won rukes, based on
practical experience. That is what we call the craft and even theory of
photography. Whatever the result in comparison to another technology,
mastering this chain is gratifying in itself and up till now the results are
yet unsurpassed and even when the moment arrives that a different technique
will produce equal or better results, this specific result is a unique
interpretation of or expression about reality. In music analogy: a
synthesizer may well emulate a flute or a violin within the range of
auditory recognition, making the sounds indistinguishable for the listener,
does that mean that the craft or art of plying the violin is obsolete or no
longer worth pursuing?
So whatever the perceiced, interpreted or measured image quality of a
digital print and a chemical print and whatever the means by which this
result has been generated, any mix of imaging technologies has its own
unique value.
It would be nice if the proponents of the digital print would try to
discuss the digital-chemical print technology as two different, but valid
ways of recording and representing an image, trying to find the specific
qualities of both and the pros and cons of both techniques in a series of
applications.
Now that they prefer to define the comparison as an old (obsolete) versus
new technology and see the users of the chemical technology as backward
people who cling desperately to hopelessly outdated technology and who
refuse to see the light of the future, they have cast the discussion in a
fruitless mold.
The technique of  scanning of negatives, manipulating the digital file with
Photoshop and printing the files is a craft in itself, that asks for far
more expertise and experience that most even dare to hope. As far as mastery
of any technique goes, (and the few really good books about the employment
of Photoshop stress the fact that it is a very steep and long learning
curve), the digital one is as exacting and precise as the chemical one.
The best books I know about Photoshop (I am teaching Photoshop courses for 5
years now, so I feel entitled to have an opinion), all imply that to learn
Photoshop is as exacting and time consuming as any difficult technique and
ask for skills that relate to the printing industry that many photographers
and other users of Photoshop cannot dream of.
These writers feel that using Photoshop in its image manipulation
possibilities directed to digital output,  is closely related to the crafts
required in the printing industry.
These crafts are not easily acquired and demand a different approach and
mindset that when making a print in the wet darkroom.
I truly would hope that we can lift the discussion of this in itself
exciting topic,to a level where we can appreciate the relative merits of the
results and the different skill sets required.


Erwin