zaterdag, februari 11, 2006
Bruno Stevens legt het nog één keer uit
This is my second digital revolution: I used to be a music recording engineer and producer in my former life and that industry changed drastically about 18 years ago when digital recording became the norm; I could elaborate on the similarities with photography, they are endless!, let us just say that a huge amount of knowledge and recording techniques are virtually lost and that recording quality is worse now than it was 25 years ago
I strongly believe that digital affects the way most photographers work in the field, the ability to shoot unlimited numbers of frames for free is a major disadvantage, I said that before somewhere, but if you shoot 120 film, you have TWELVE frames before you have to pause to reload, that means, you HAVE to be thinking how to 'fit' whatever you are documenting at that moment on ONE roll of film, this is an EDITING process, this means you have to STRUCTURE your work as you go, this is a fundamentally different approach, you have to THINK, it means that very often WHAT you are documenting stays (and rightly so!) at the center of your shooting process! When you are in the middle of a riot with 7 frames left, you COMPOSE, you FIGHT, you SEARCH for the MEANINGFUL moments and actions, this is a very CONSCIOUS, RESPONSABLE way of recording history!
With digital, I find photographers have a tendency to become more passive intellectually, to just aim for the elusive double-truck, rather than build up a narration, so often have I seen photogs spending half their time 'chimping' every 2-3 frames, instead of staying focused on the event they are supposed to document. I NEVER think about double-trucks when I shoot film, I think ONLY about the story developing in front of my eyes...
Bruno Stevens
I strongly believe that digital affects the way most photographers work in the field, the ability to shoot unlimited numbers of frames for free is a major disadvantage, I said that before somewhere, but if you shoot 120 film, you have TWELVE frames before you have to pause to reload, that means, you HAVE to be thinking how to 'fit' whatever you are documenting at that moment on ONE roll of film, this is an EDITING process, this means you have to STRUCTURE your work as you go, this is a fundamentally different approach, you have to THINK, it means that very often WHAT you are documenting stays (and rightly so!) at the center of your shooting process! When you are in the middle of a riot with 7 frames left, you COMPOSE, you FIGHT, you SEARCH for the MEANINGFUL moments and actions, this is a very CONSCIOUS, RESPONSABLE way of recording history!
With digital, I find photographers have a tendency to become more passive intellectually, to just aim for the elusive double-truck, rather than build up a narration, so often have I seen photogs spending half their time 'chimping' every 2-3 frames, instead of staying focused on the event they are supposed to document. I NEVER think about double-trucks when I shoot film, I think ONLY about the story developing in front of my eyes...
Bruno Stevens
# posted by Jan-Edward : 11:05
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