Principles

Honoring the film photography heritage

Most dictionaries still define photography as a photochemical process (for instance, see here), though it has clearly evolved to an almost exclusively photoelectric process these days. Rather than capturing the light on a one-time piece of film (or glass plate!) in days of old, it is now captured with highly-reusable electronic sensors. Whereas images used to be born of a latent imprint in the grains of a gelatin emulsion, they are now created from the electric charge and voltage information generated within a dense array of light-sensitive capacitors and then fed through an A to D converter into a computer chip.

I am committed in my photographic work to recapturing, defending, and perpetuating the sublime quality and organic essence of venerated film photography.

Virtuous digital manipulation

Though I don’t have a rigid set of rules that I apply in producing the works that I like, here are some general guidelines that I try and follow in the processing of digital images:

• Not applying more than one interpolation. Note that the modern printing processing is already applying an interpolation in mapping the pixels to the printer resolution (somewhat akin to the enlargement processing in the printing of film images). Each interpolation performed during editing is an additional loss or adulteration of original light information.
• Not directly manipulating individual pixels (or close grouping of pixels). I will occasionally apply a filter to a gradient or to an area (or around an area) in photo editing. I consciously equate these operations in my mind to burning and dodging or other enlarger techniques used in film photography.
• No digital alchemy or dark arts. I try not to use plug-ins or advanced features in software that perform complex and/or incomprehensible processing of digital image or pixel information. I favor operations in editing that correspond to steps or techniques in film processing or darkroom work.

Note that certain projects (such as the prints in the Monochrome Gallery), are intended to take advantage of a specific digital technique, not possible in film photography. In those cases, the special nature of the project is indicated, and the “virtue” described above is compromised (with some guilt…honestly).

Photorealism

I never intend for a photograph to be an accurate portrayal of, or a stand-in for, the experience of a real time and place and subject matter. Rather, I see it is as just an impression, made by light captured inside a camera, and later rendered (with biases inherent in the process, whether digital or film), and presented to a viewer for his or her separate and individual experience.

But the camera and the photographer share an encounter: the same (or almost the same) light makes a private impression on the retina, and in the mind, of the photographer at the moment of the picture. Personally, I only choose to present works when I am able to produce an image that I feel mirrors my view and my emotions at the time of the picture, especially if the circumstance and (less importantly) the subject mean something to me. I then leave it up to you, the viewer, to interpret and respond to the work in its own right, and not as a projection of my inner feelings. It is then just my hope that the impression on you is somehow also meaningful.

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