Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Originally, photography provided a medium to record scenes with detail and lighting far beyond the capabilities of most traditional painters - and then at a fraction of the cost.
Now digital photography has spawned a new generation of inventions - art filters based on studying the methods of working and kinds of decisions made by classical painters.
Only digital "watercolors" printed on genuine watercolor papers approaches so close to the "real thing" that we can say they are a pretty perfect substitution. Oce and Fuji can now print 3D ink layers, reproducing the exact texture of the original 3D scanned paintings. What's missing is connection to new art painting programs and the translucent "presence" of the actual original brush stroke. The built up, printed reproduction is too perfectly even microscopically. The actual brush stroke retains the internal dynamics of the things happening to it during the extended drying process. A ross section of an old brush stroke would show that. The printed 3D reproduction will look identical at first, but on closer inspection, light played on it from different angles would reveal a difference in presence, due to differences in the underlying archaic structure. Still, in a short time, these issues will be solved too. But for new works - transforming a classical photographic portrait shot today to a painting - can we accept that as a variant of modern choices in art photography or is it too radical a departure?
So how can we, steeped in classical photography and respect for Adams, Bresson and Avedon as well as Van Gogh, Matisse and Gaugin, accept and integrate these new processes?
I challenge everyone to think about this impending new print and expression system for photography. Or is it only acceptable in pictures from an iPhone?
Asher
Now digital photography has spawned a new generation of inventions - art filters based on studying the methods of working and kinds of decisions made by classical painters.
Only digital "watercolors" printed on genuine watercolor papers approaches so close to the "real thing" that we can say they are a pretty perfect substitution. Oce and Fuji can now print 3D ink layers, reproducing the exact texture of the original 3D scanned paintings. What's missing is connection to new art painting programs and the translucent "presence" of the actual original brush stroke. The built up, printed reproduction is too perfectly even microscopically. The actual brush stroke retains the internal dynamics of the things happening to it during the extended drying process. A ross section of an old brush stroke would show that. The printed 3D reproduction will look identical at first, but on closer inspection, light played on it from different angles would reveal a difference in presence, due to differences in the underlying archaic structure. Still, in a short time, these issues will be solved too. But for new works - transforming a classical photographic portrait shot today to a painting - can we accept that as a variant of modern choices in art photography or is it too radical a departure?
So how can we, steeped in classical photography and respect for Adams, Bresson and Avedon as well as Van Gogh, Matisse and Gaugin, accept and integrate these new processes?
I challenge everyone to think about this impending new print and expression system for photography. Or is it only acceptable in pictures from an iPhone?
Asher