Photoshot film fued: Weapon of Choice?
By Carlie Gentry / Staff
- Photo by Maria Yanovsky / Staff
From the beginning of the photographic age, the very creation of a still frame image has delivered heated debate. At the turn of the twentieth century when photography began to grab hold in a remarkable way, many artists viewed it as subpar in comparison to painting. It was not until much later that photographers such as Edward Steichen and Ansel Adams made way in the medium to secure a spot in the fine arts world. But with the arrival of the technological age and the introduction of digital photography, the medium has again found itself to be at the center of controversy in the artistic world; except, now the battle is between the photographers themselves.
Talon sought out two student opponents to defend the turf for both digital and film photography. On the digital side, weighing in as a junior at Kennesaw, meet Micah Entrekin. For film, Wes Lowrance ranks as a senior. Both of these Photography Majors are well acquainted with the opposing side and its techniques yet through a sifting of personal preferences are ready to fight on their chosen side of the ring.
The primary argument creating rifts between the two suggests the arrival of digital photography has “cheapened the craft,” as Wes puts it, “We’re on the outskirts of fine art as it is when it comes to our medium and I think that the further it gets digitized the more it becomes just written off as commercialism.” Micah, on the other side of the ring, argues he is less interested in the technical restraints of “fine art,” claiming, “Other than the fact that I can say it’s film, I can do something that I did with film faster with digital.”
It is true that the process of film photography is much more labor intensive than that of digital? For Wes, the creative process of obtaining the perfect photo is much more involved than one might imagine. Often, he begins by using his Minolta SRT101 35mm to brainstorm, ending up with all the negatives, 5×7 prints and digital copies to scrutinize. “If he were to use a digital camera,” he explains, “the result is so instantaneous, I don’t have time to develop what the photograph should be like after I take it because as soon as I take it, I see it.” The time used to develop the photos affords him the opportunity to create an idea of what he wants the photograph to mimic. All of this is preliminary work building toward using his Calumet 4×5 Rail camera, which he says he only uses “when I know exactly what I want to shoot because every time I hit the shutter on the Calumet it costs me ten dollars because of how expensive the negatives are.”
For many photographers, the battle between film and digital is all about the final product one wishes to create. A master of Adobe Photoshop, Micah is largely into photo editing, a much different aim than that of Wes’ film. He finds solace in combining and manipulating photos he takes into a nearly unrecognizable finished product. Numerous works are often abundantly colorful and even psychedelic in their overall feel. “I just have this giant database of probably 13,000 photos now and I’ll just get in the mood to edit,” Micah tells Talon. “I’ll just open up some photos and see what I can do.” Much of his work is texture based and the final version consists of seemingly endless photographs built up layer-by-layer. “I will find a photo I like, pop it up and I’ll mess with that photo. Then I’ll open up some other photos and throw those on there and see if I like it. I’ll usually go through putting maybe fifteen or twenty photos into it until I find one I like.” He spends hours experimenting with various combinations of photographs and tweaking settings until he is satisfied with the image. “For a while it seemed digital was really looked down on, especially how the school only focused on film,” Micah says, “but now I am proud of the fact that I prefer digital.”
All in all, the battle of film versus digital is a passionate civil war between photographers. The ins and outs, rights and wrongs, are based solely on the artist’s personal desires for their artwork. Nevertheless, there is one common cord the weaving photographers together: Wes notes, “It doesn’t take a long time to learn how to use a camera, but it does take a long time to produce an effective photograph.” And isn’t that essentially what every photographer is straining to achieve?
