Photography - The Limited Range of Our Memory
Friday, July 15, 2016
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| Bronwen Marsden |
In my current state of photographic isolation I have
found out that a lot of stuff stored in my head has some redeemable value. As
things disappear the concepts behind them vanish, too. My present obsession with Jorge Luís Borges
(magnified from an erstwhile interest that bordered on obsession) reminds me
that Borges often said that our memory is based on what’s left of all that we
have forgotten.
As an example I noticed a recent and very popular essay in
Medium.com (I write for that blog platform, too) about improving one’s art and
photographs by following rules. The most obvious one, which I used to teach at
least 30 years ago was that the centre of attention should not be in the
centre. Another is the so-called rule of thirds. Most very good painters and
photographers instinctively grasped the concept of composition.
The problem now is that with so much bad photography, a
newer generation has no memory for what may have been good.
As an example there is this striking photograph that was on
the front page of my NY Times (hard copy) today (I am writing this on Wednesday
July 13, 2016). It is a remarkable photograph that has no photo credit except
for NY Times.
The most major problem in photography until most recently is
that the human eye always exceeded film and videotape to discern information in
the shadow parts of a photograph. The shadow parts are magnified in high
contrast situations like a person’s eyes (and eye sockets) at noon with the sun
overhead. Between the light on the face and that of the black eye sockets the
difference is much too much for film. Our eyes can adjust and as we shift from
that person’s face to the eyes our eyes will adapt and show us the eyes in
enough detail. Photographers in the past used what was called fill flash. This
is the reason why you so often see wedding photographers using flash on
perfectly sunny days.
Photographers, cinematographers and painters know that sunny
days reduce the ability to recognize those middle tones. Those same
photographers, cinematographers and artists know that cloudy days will show the
most gradations of colour and shade.
Digital cameras have the same problems. Since
contemporary (and young) photographers are used to high definition, ultra
sharp, punchy and contrasty colour images they do not notice the detail lost in
the shadows of their pictures.
Which brings us to the picture in the NY Times that many
years ago would have been impossible to take. Film could have never rendered
the woman in the doorway, the shadows in the street and the darkening sky
behind well.
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| Cuba - NY Times |
Contrast has always been the enemy of photographer. A
good photographer will grasp the existing contrast situation before snapping a
shutter. Sometimes the scene can be lit to reduce contrast or camera settings
adjusted. In times past slide film was less generous with showing detail in
shadows. Colour negative was better. Fast film of any type was worse.
And worst of all the methods used in the past to print
colour slides and negatives on colour stock always added contrast and reduced
detail in the shadows. The modern combination of a good scanner and film with subsequent
printing on a quality ink jet printer has remedied the situation a lot and to a
certain point.
The photograph taken in Cuba at one time would have been
called extended range night photography. I was pretty good at it (the one below I took and the sky was pitch black. The film saw the clouds to my surprise) but I was
limited to only doing it in b+w. With the advent of digital cameras, photographers
could take separate photographs of the bright spots, the middle spots and the
dark spots and combine them in one image. This kind of photography is called High
Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.
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| Burrard Street Bridge - Vancouver |
A pioneer in night photography before digital, was photographer Arthur Ollman
who later became the head and curator of the excellent San Diego Museum of the Photographic
Arts. I remember seeing some haunting photographs that he took of Southern
California and Tijuana houses at sundown. I suspect that his technique was
either the double exposure or very long exposures at sun down.
You may wonder what the pictures of Bronwen Marsden here
have to do with it all. They are here because I am digressing to the concept of
forgotten memory. These pictures have a certain charm because the colours are
not accurate. I mixed too many kinds of light sources with a Fuji Superia 800
ISO colour negative film that simply could not adjust it all. There is a charm
to shooting a sequence that is planned not one where on is indiscriminately
shooting with a high-speed motor drive. And there is a charm, too of being a
voyeur with previous permission.
