I've been a landscape photographer for 20 years. For the last year, I have
not even been carrying film. I would never have imagined the technology
of digital photography could have evolved so quickly. I no longer think
in terms of going out to photograph as a distinctly separate process from
seeing the results, both ends of the process now occur together. I make
the photograph, and I see the result, in real time, on the spot. That is
a fundamental and welcome change.
The age of the digital landscape photograph has dawned, but it is still
early on. I'm seeing my current work as an exploration and confirmation
of what is possible, but it does exist in the rarefied air of a subsidized
art project, rather than the day to day life of a commercial studio or the
budget of most landscape photographers. But digital landscape photography
of very high quality is now possible.
After many years of using digital technology to scan, refine and reproduce
my silver-based photographs, I am going full circle and cutting the silver
out of the process with direct digital photography. Harking back to the
experience of mid-nineteenth century photographers, I am seeing my photographs
as I take them. I know what I've done. And I can make a new exposure if
I'm not pleased with the photograph.
I've been using the Dicomed Digital Camera Insert, invented by Michael Collette.
My use of the camera began when Michael and I went out in January of 1994
for a day of shooting in and around San Francisco. After shooting some comparisons
with film that first day, and being amazed at the higher quality of the
digital sensor, I soon considered embarking on my 18 month project exploring
the National Parks, "With a New Eye." In June of 1994, I arranged
a press conference with the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite to demonstrate
the technology and show the first digital view camera photographs of the
park, which I hadn't made yet. It put me on the spot to go up to the park
and see what I could do. After a day and of half of work, I was fairly happy
with what I was seeing. Much to my surprise, even during the press conference
the next weekend, I made an infrared photograph that I liked of Yosemite
Falls caught mid-air blowing west.
I've always worked rather slowly when I photograph, trying to be as deliberate
and careful as possible. The added options of digital technology seem to
fit in very well with that general approach. I can now not only compose
carefully, I can also examine a scan of the image, seeing the design and
shape relationships as a real image. When dealing with exposure and contrast
control, digital imaging really begins to shine. The camera software has
a built-in digital densitometer and more than eight-stop contrast range
control. I can measure highlights and shadows, change the contrast and measure
again. All with only 18 seconds invested in a pre-scan (in daylight using16
at 1/50 second per line). When satisfied, or tired of fooling with the process,
I can make the full resolution 130MB photograph. I have not even carried
a light meter for the last year.
Part of my enthusiasm for Mike's camera was that I could use existing view-camera
equipment. The Dicomed scanning back I am using with my 4x5 camera is a
scanning insert, essentially a battery powered scanner that fits into the
camera. It comes with a 1GIG hard drive which stores about 8 full resolution
photographs, many more if you choose a lower resolution. I've added a second
drive to double the exposure capacity. A typical exposure in bright sunlight
is f16 at 2:30. Image resolution is 6000 x 7520 pixels or about 300 dpi
at 20 x 25 inches. The sensor is a 6000 element Kodak tri-linear array making
red, green and blue scans simultaneously, true color separations on the
fly. Detail is astounding. I'm seeing things in my photographs I could never
see before. Disappointingly, some weaknesses in my lenses are also showing
up, particularly some chromatic aberration I couldn't see with film, but
is clearly revealed by the digital sensor. And that is a testimony to the
sheer seeing power of the sensor, I'm seeing weaknesses in my lenses that
film was never sharp enough to reveal.
But the images can take minutes to make, and I'm trying to take it into
the real world. Wind is probably the greatest challenge, and always has
been, even for traditional silver-based photography. Now the wind can be
a disaster for the image. Anything that moves transforms into some sort
of digital tri-color stick image. At times that can be interesting, mostly
it is not. In one instance, the first image I choose to make in Yosemite
was of the parking lot below Inspiration Point, a perfect place to start
a digital photography project of the national parks in 1994. Digital tri-color
stick people, buses and cars decorate the asphalt with Yosemite's famous
skyline behind. The distortion was purposeful, and I think, worked. But
in the Grand Canyon two months later, the gusty wind made it almost impossible
to photograph.
I spend much more time in the field on an individual photograph than I would
have in the recent past, working to record just what I have in mind. Much
of this time would have been spent in the darkroom with more traditional
methods. But now, most of the critical interpretive decisions can be made
on site, when I am making the photograph, in theory, when I care the most
about the image. Losing the disconnect between when the image is made, and
when it is seen, is one of the joys of this plunge into the digital recording
of light. This process clearly lowers the number of photographs I make in
the field, but dramatically raises my success rate.
I do worry that the technology will get in the way of inspiration. The more
technology I take with me into the landscape risks more distance I feel
from the land. But I still find that I spend most of my time looking, walking
and imagining how the scene before my eyes will translate into a photograph.
And although that process is essentially the same as it has always been,
I am now sensing a greater freedom to try photographs where the contrast
would have been unmanageable, or the color unrenderable. My sense is that
there is a net gain of tremendous value in my use of this digital camera.
The potential archival nature of these color images is also a long overdue
step forward. Perfect, exact copies can be made of these photographic files.
As long as we have technology and care to update the storage technology,
these images can be preserved and seen, a hundred, five hundred, or five
thousand years from now. To enhance this potential archival and historical
value of these images for the park project, I am carrying a Global Positioning
Receiver and recording the longitude and latitude of every photograph I
make.
With The Digital Pond, a fine arts IRIS printing house in San Francisco,
we have been making 30x40 prints on rag paper. Seeing my photographs on
rag paper has been one of the highlights of this entire experience for me.
It is also ironic that this digital process is taking me back onto a material
so basic and beautiful as rag paper. My proofs are 11x17 dye sublimation
prints made with the Radius ProofPositive printer.
When taken all together, the results on the spot, digital density readings
from the image, adjustable color balance, no film grain, color separation
color purity, exact duplicates, extraordinary resolution, the argument for
digital photography is quite convincing. At least it has been for me. That
is why I am spending a year and a half photographing "With a New Eye:
The Digital National Parks Project with Stephen Johnson." So far, the
project sponsors include Adobe, Apple Computer, Dicomed, Newer Technology,
Ricoh, Sinar-Bron, and The Digital Pond of San Francisco.