Digital captures brought on the beginnings of artificial information back in the middle of the 1990s. I say this because, when I was in the business of making large photographs, I leapt into the digital realm by investing in equipment for my photo lab. We were already making very large (6’x10’) photographs in our large darkroom, but most of our work centered around making 40”x60” or smaller prints. Digital printers, that used a scan of a color transparency, were being invented that could onto 50” wide papers.
When we scanned a color slide and enlarged it up to 40”x 60” prints, we quickly learned that we needed to make large scans. If we were printing an image of a plate, or some similar object that was round, the edges of the plate would “step ladder.” That is, the roundness of the edge of the plate would break down and show, not the roundness of the original plate, but would “step down” to look like a curve only when viewed from afar. So, it became a regular practice for us to use our drum scanner to make 600 megabytes, or larger, files in order to get a decent print from the transparency. This made our workflow slow and troublesome because it would take 30 minutes or more just to open files and to save them.
Eventually, software was devised to “create” pixels in-between the “real data” obtained from the scan. This allowed for smaller scans that could still produce large prints. Soon, by my estimation, the prints we produced were comprised of over 80% of artificial data. This happened because within 2 or 3 years, film was no longer being used. Instead, digital cameras replaced film cameras, and we rarely used our drum scanner. Instead, we were provided files from digital cameras instead of color transparencies as the digital captures were deemed “good enough.”
Think of it this way. If a digital camera captured data from a 10” round plate, and we were asked to make a print where the plate was printed, indeed, 10” wide, then the photograph would look reasonably similar to a print made from film. But, if we made a print that was 20” wide, then artificial data would have to be created that would “fill in” those real data points with mathematical estimates in order to smooth out the edge of the plate. This, in essence, would result in much smaller “steps” and make a smoother transition from the real data captured.
When we made billboards the step laddering became more obvious because the billboard was meant to be viewed from afar so the steps would not be noticed. But when looked at up close, there were actually huge steps. But, again, it was “good enough.”
Now, this is something that most folks don’t know. If you make an image twice the size of an original capture (such as enlarging a 10” circle up to 20”), then the result is a file size that is 4 times as large. That means the artificial data created overwhelms the original data by 3 times. That’s 75% of artificial data being introduced into the image.
I am now 72 years old and I started working in the darkroom when I was 8. That was because my father was a professional photographer, and he had a darkroom in our basement. I was taught to help him process prints when I came home from school. As a result, my mother was always aware of the photographic process as well. She was a print re-toucher and also did hand coloring of prints. When I first purchased a Canon digital camera (which cost me $1,000 in 1999) I made some 4”x5” prints for her. The camera was advertised as able to make 4”x5” prints that were “equal” to images made from film. She took one look at them and said, “Tim, there’s something wrong with these prints.”
She noticed the absence of information right away. Most importantly, she felt the difference. As I have mentioned time and again, it is the feeling of a print that matters, not how it looks.
Money corrupts. That’s a simple statement, but it’s true. The basis behind what is “good enough” is money. As long as “it” makes you money, then it’s good enough. This is especially true if “it” takes less time and effort. In a way, the world has always been like this. What bothers me is that it has gone too far now. Money has infiltrated everything, and it has downgraded the feeling that is in art now. Just look at what is happening to music with the advent of artificial intelligence.
Rick Beato, the music expert, recently posted a video where he complains, not only of AI music, but how bad song lyrics has become. He compares the top Spotify songs’ lyrics to Bob Dylan and John Lennon songs. I posted in the comments section that I wrote song in the late 1970s. My lyrics in that song was “If you’ve ever seen the water ever held up by a dam. Well, that’s just how strong my love for you… am.” Tongue and cheek, I asked if those lyrics were any better than today’s.
Well, I decided to resurrect that song and to post it here on Substack. I was interested in the response it would get, if any. I decided to address my passion for real photographs from film. Also, I’ve made tests of my photographs. I’ve placed photographs I made back in the early 1980s on my walls, and they still look as good as the day I printed them. They were black and white silver gelatin prints. I’ve also placed color and black and white photographs in windows facing the sun and found that the black and white silver gelatin prints lasted for years, while still fading they remained acceptable as records of time passed. The color prints did not look good at all after the same number of years. Color prints are made up of a combination of cyan, yellow and magenta pigments. The three layers fade at a different rate and so the color print takes on a color shift, often resulting in a blue print. This is because the yellow fades first and the opposite of yellow, in color printing, is blue.
So, I made the resurrection of my song accompanied with black and white photographs, many of which are over 100 years old. They are from my family’s archive. And since Substack now allows for videos as well as text, I decided to post it here. Let me know what you think.