I suppose where my thoughts were going was how revolutionary "digital" methods of recording really are. And I don't want to go off the purpose of an Anolog Forum.
Analog photography was I believe truly revolutionary due to the nature of the image itself. Prior to this images were man-made recreations of the world and this was possibly how people viewed paintings and drawings. (However maybe with Icons, people's perception was that there was life in the image itself). When photographic images started appearing I think people saw something totally new. For them they were seeing a window on a real world. For example, when I look at a photograph of a person, I perceive that I am seeing through a window, a living breathing person, or tangible place, not just different tones on a flat piece of paper. When taking and printing an image I am often trying to produce some reconstruction of, or creation of a live world. Or that at least is my aim.
Maybe the next great image revolution was the cinema. People would feel that they were looking at breathing moving life, when in fact all they were really seeing was a play of light on a screen. This all relates to the psychology of how we look at images.
I wondered whether digital capture had the potential to be as revolutionary as the advent of photography and the only new thing I could think it had to offer, was the ability to record tone on a micro level. Could this lead to something we cannot currently do with silver photography? Currently it seems to me that so far digital capture of images is little more a revolution than say, the move from glass plates to film or monochrome to colour (which happened a very long time ago).
If not, then I can quite happily sit in the dark-room, knowing I still have the best chance of creating magical places that I can see through that window bounded by the edge of the picture. Almost believing I can pass into that world and interact with it. |