Technologies impact on the visualisation and manipulation of the human form Reality vs Art
Recent media discussion about digital manipulation and reality of imagery in photography has prompted me to write a blog about the history of the role that technology plays in art and imagery. As a visual artist my interest in photography is in creating an illusion- this is what we do! We seek to create the ultimate beauty, the ideal, the striking, the compelling image, that engages the viewer and elicits a response. This is not an article about the rights and wrongs of the influence on self esteem, from trying to emulate unrealistic imagery. I will leave that one to the cosmetic surgery industry. But I will explore the concept of manipulation and illusion as art and how it can be used to tell a story, convey a concept and simplify reality. Technology and illusion has been symbiotic from the times of the old masters, hundreds of years before the invention of photography. I find it interesting that often many who criticise the use of current technology in the photographic world and visual arts do not consider that art and technology have worked in unison to allow the creative expression to find its voice. If we consider the work of Michelangelo and the fresco's of the Sistine Chapel we can see many examples of manipulation, illusion and technology of the day. Firstly the art of fresco is the application of pigment into wet plaster causing a chemical reaction bonding the paint into the surface and providing rich colours that characterise these beautiful paintings. What many do not know is that the artist first draws the image on paper ( Cartoon) and an assistant traces the drawings and puts pin pricks on the edges. The cartoon is places on the wet plaster and pigment was pushed through the pin holes to create the image on the plaster. The artist ( and often assistant) then painted the darks in the image working forward to the lights of the final image.
This work was unique for it's innovation, at that time, all of his competition was painting pictures in 2D. In other words, paintings were flat with no depth to them. Anyone who has ever seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel knows that Michelangelo, once again, redefined what art was by putting in amazing--even by today's standards--depth and 3D effects.
It is also important to understand that realism was not what was beautiful in his work. The move to realism came much later in the history of the visual arts. Michelangelo's figures often had distorted large hands, were larger than life and had unrealistic bodies with muscles and body shapes that were unrealistic for the normal person.
So we can see that the question of art and reality and the impact of the technology of the day is not a new question. The British artist Davis Hockney has goes further in his thesis that the masters used significant technology of the times and in doing so moved towards greater realism in their art.
The Hockney–Falco thesis is a theory of art history, advanced by artist David Hockney and physicist Charles M. Falco, suggesting that advances in realism and accuracy in the history of Western art since the Renaissance were primarily the result of optical aids such as the camera obscura, camera lucida, and curved mirrors, rather than solely due the development of artistic technique and skill. In a 2001 book, Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, Hockney analysed the work of the Old Masters and argued that the level of accuracy represented in their work is impossible to create by "eyeballing it". Since then, Hockney and Falco have produced a number of publications on positive evidence of the use of optical aids, and the historical plausibility of such methods.
If correct this thesis demonstrates the relationship between art, technology and perceived realism created through this use. But what about photography in it's pure form and its ability to capture the real world? The assumption is that photography in fact does capture the real world accurately without interpretation and that as the viewer we have not been given an interpretation of the world around us.
"But surely, manipulation and illusion in photography is a new creation of the digital age? " you ask.
Before computers, photo manipulation was achieved by retouching with ink, paint, double-exposure, piecing photos or negatives together in the darkroom, or scratching Polaroids. Airbrushes were also used, whence the term "airbrushing" for manipulation. Darkroom manipulations are sometimes regarded as traditional art rather than job related skill. In the early days of photography, the use of technology was not as advanced and efficient as it is now. Results are similar to digital manipulation but they are harder to create.
An early example of tampering was in the early 1860s, when a photo of Abraham Lincoln was altered using the body from a portrait of John C. Calhoun and the head of Lincoln from a famous seated portrait by Mathew Brady – the same portrait which was the basis for the original Lincoln Five-dollar bill.
I have included some images here from a recent exhibition from the metropolitan Museum of Art on New York as excellent examples of film manipulation. While our current technology has improved the end result is none the less the same. Images are created by the artist to create a composition, convey an idea or political statement.
How did they do it? Well dodging and burning were terms that stemmed from an actual darkroom, not from computer programs. In simple explanation using a film negative and photo paper, dodging decreases the exposure for areas of the print that the photographer wishes to be lighter, while burning increases the exposure to areas of the print that should be darker.
A camera, no matter how many automatic features it may have, is a lifeless piece of equipment until a person uses it. It then becomes a uniquely responsive tool--an extension of the photographer's eye and mind. A photographer creates a picture by a process of selection. Photographers looking through the camera's viewfinder must decide what to include and what to exclude from the scene. They select the distance from which to take the picture and the precise angle that best suits their purpose. They select the instant in which to trip the shutter. This decision may require hours of patient waiting until the light is exactly right or it may be a split-second decision, but the photographer's sense of timing is always crucial. Photographers can expand or flatten perspective by the use of certain lenses. They can freeze motion or record it as a blur, depending on their choice of shutter speed. They can create an infinite number of lighting effects with flashes or floodlights. They can alter the tonal values or colors in a picture by their choice of film and filters. These are only a few of the controls available to a photographer when taking a picture. Later, in the darkroom, many additional choices are available.
As a photographer I avoided the software I now use daily in my work believing that if I was good enough I could capture that image with the right exposure, perfect lighting and create images on camera.
What changed my mind was a talk one day with Darren Jew who asked me if I had ever dodged and burnt in the dark room, ever used multiple exposures or other manipulations on film. Of course the answer was yes and I soon after bought my first program Adobe Lightroom. Not too long after that Adobe photoshop which enables me to create the images as an artist I conceive.
As an artist/photographer I could not realise the concepts I create such as these from a recent shoot with Model Kelli Hewson.
As a photographer the camera or technology does not shoot itself, rather the photographer selects what goes into the image and what does not, the speed of the shot, the aperture or light in the image, the composition of the image and of course the colour management. The once in the digital darkroom, how the image is processed, filtered and developed. Then as an artist I add, paint composite and manipulate to realise the image I want to create. Technology has enabled us to create using more realistic imagery, the creative and fantasy images once the domain of the painter. Is it any less art then traditional photography? Should we not be using and progressing visual arts using the latest technologies? I would argue that the symbiotic nature of art and technology has given us iconic images of humanity; and without this direct relationship, we would stifle our creativity and potential.
I am considering writing my next post about beauty portraiture and digital retouching.
