p 16, originally uploaded by crumplestiltskin.
There’s something odd about using a digital camera to photograph nature. It’s so man-made, so black and static and hard: everything that nature isn’t. The image isn’t even real in the way that film images are. Instead of light and molecules, everything depends on pixels and sensors, and the finished product often doesn’t even make it into existence like negatives and prints; all you see is more pixels on a screen.
Put a pixel under a microscope and all you see is a pixel. But put a leaf or a strip of film under there and you’ll see elements, molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, energy. In this sense digital photography is a simplification of reality. How permissible is it to reduce the physical world we inhabit to a single dimension; to create something virtual from something so real; to condense all the richness of the world into blocks of light? Isn’t that doing it a disservice?
Hi, Gaby. I left a response to the comment you left on my blog. But it occurred to me you might not see it. Thanks for the comment. Well said, by the way. I mean, I usually don’t find my car keys until I stop looking for them. Also, I dig your photographs, and more importantly, I dig your writing about them and photography in general. Best, Chris.
Love the picture and your perspective!