Re: [Leica] Digital is not photography (was long - shorter but still off topic)

[Krechtz@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/30/00 12:01:08 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
austin@darkroom.com writes:

<< By your (what I believe to be) misguided evaluation, then CDs
 aren't really music...  It's the same 'bad' analogy.
  >>

    Hold your CD's up to your ear and enjoy yourself!  Seriously, to equate 
analog reproduction unqualifiedly with digitally processed material is to 
leap a yawning linguistic and intellectual chasm.  
    This is no mere question of semantics.  A Daguerrotype is not a tintype, 
which is not a wet plate, which is not a dry plate, which in turn is not 
digital.  Calling all of the diverse products of fundamentally and materially 
different operations and processes "photographs" obliterates what might well 
be critical distinctions in the way the images were captured and produced 
and, perhaps most importantly, to be understood, interpreted and appreciated 
by individuals capable of discriminating among them.       
    In saying this, I make no judgments and pointedly avoid expressing 
preferences among processes.  However, I would assert that they are no more 
or less similar, for  purposes of nomenclature, than oils, pastels or 
acrylics would be to studio artists and those who study and collect their 
works.  If this is too "artsy-fartsy" for your tastes, please move on to the 
next post.
    If digital imaging is to establish itself as anything other than the 
presently most technologically advanced means of capturing, processing and 
producing two-dimensional images on sheets of paper, its integrity as a 
separate and independently appreciated phenomenon must be preserved.  
Otherwise, we needlessly repeat history and engage in pointless debate over 
whether digital is destined to obsolete what some of us now call "analog" 
photography, as photography was once wrongly predicted to supplant all 
pre-existing forms of two-dimensional art.
    Returning to the compact disc analogy, I remember when quadriphonic was 
set to replace stereo, just as the LP had consigned the 78 to the archives.  
The CD has yet to replace the LP completely, as it was supposed to.  
    That is essentially because what we call digital processing is more than 
just processing, as that term has been traditionally understood.  It is a 
complete deconstruction and reconstitution of energy into a stream of data 
and back to energy.  As such, it is more of a transmogrification or 
translation than a process in the manner of analog recording.  As much as we 
would like it to be, and as excellent as it may be, the process is not, nor 
can it be, perfect.  It is still being steadily improved, however.  
    I am not a physicist, so feel free to pick apart or even ridicule my lack 
of technical acumen, provided that in so doing you do not attempt to"process" 
out the message.  I have yet to confuse a live performance with a recording 
or an oil painting with a photograph, and I would wager that most if not all 
of us would say the same.   The same terminology must not be applied to a 
live performance as to a recording, no matter how technically excellent the 
recording or how well it seems to simulate the live performance.  They are 
simply not the same thing, no matter how similar they may appear to be in 
what some may consider all pertinent respects.  The dynamics of the 
respective entities are too different in too many ways which are of critical 
importance to the participants, performers and audience alike.
    The inquiry should not be whether it is legitimate or permissible to 
apply the same terminology with reference to similar phenomena, rather to 
examine what is to be gained in so doing.  As we become increasingly engaged 
in the de-intellectualization process, a.ka. "dumbing down", we move ever 
more rapidly down the linguistic road to Newspeak.  
    If the answer to the question as to why language should not be stripped 
systematically of nuance, precision and descriptive power is not obvious, 
then there is no apparent reason why photography should have any purpose or 
reason for existence beyond serving the needs of mere commerce.  The bottom 
line is that compact discs are in fact *not* music.  As we all know, they are 
pieces of plastic.

Joe (wearing asbestos waders) Sobel